Dicite, Pierides 1527502880, 9781527502888

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Dicite, Pierides

Dicite, Pierides: Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis

Edited by

Andreas N. Michalopoulos, Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos

Dicite, Pierides: Classical Studies in Honour of Stratis Kyriakidis Edited by Andreas N. Michalopoulos, Sophia Papaioannou and Andrew Zissos This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Andreas N. Michalopoulos, Sophia Papaioannou, Andrew Zissos and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0288-0 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0288-8

CONTENTS Notes on Contributors............................................................................... viii Abbreviations ........................................................................................... xiv Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Part I. Greek Literature Chapter One ............................................................................................... 26 Image versus Narrative: Ecphrasis in the Classical Tradition David Konstan Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 49 Etymologising Helen Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 68 IJઁȞ ʌȐȞIJĮ įȠȣȜİȪıȦ ȤȡȩȞȠȞ: Barbarians in Menander Reconsidered Antonis K. Petrides Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 91 The Strymon Vying with the Nile: Literary Implications in T. Geminus’ Anth. Pal. 9.707 Maria Plastira-Valkanou Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 107 Personal Names in Antonius Diogenes’ Incredible Things Beyond Thule Consuelo Ruiz-Montero Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 124 Agonistic Perspectives in the Orphic Argonautica Andromache Karanika

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Part II. Latin Literature Chapter Seven.......................................................................................... 138 Disease, Closure and Lucretius’ Sense of Ending George Kazantzidis Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 170 The Happiness of Love in Roman Comedy and Elegy Robert Maltby Chapter Nine............................................................................................ 188 The Chronology of Ovid’s Career Stephen J. Harrison Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 202 Ovid and Catullus: The Silence of Time Ioannis Ziogas Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 220 Boreads and Boar Hunters: Cataloguing Argonauts in Metamorphoses 6-8 Ingo Gildenhard and Andrew Zissos Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 247 Revisiting the Composition of the Calydonian Catalogue: Ovid, Met. 8.298-328 Sophia Papaioannou Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 266 The Advent of Maiestas (Ovid, Fasti 5.11-52) Myrto Garani Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 298 Exploring the Boundaries between Human and Monstrous in Seneca’s Phaedra Andreas N. Michalopoulos Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 320 Catalogues in the Corpus Priapeorum Charilaos N. Michalopoulos

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Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 347 English Translations of Virgil’s Aeneid, Chaucer to Wordsworth Philip R. Hardie Bibliography ............................................................................................ 363 General Index .......................................................................................... 408 Index Locorum ........................................................................................ 417

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Myrto Garani is Assistant Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She is the author of Empedocles Redivivus: Poetry and Analogy in Lucretius (Routledge, 2007). Other publications include a book (co-edited with David Konstan) entitled The Philosophizing Muse: The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry (3rd Cent. BC – 1st Cent. AD) (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). She is particularly interested in the reception of Empedocles in Latin literature and the presence of (Neo)pythagorianism and Orphism at Rome. Current research activity includes the investigation of philosophical elements in Ovid’s poetry. Ingo Gildenhard is Reader in Classics and the Classical Tradition at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of King’s College. He has published Paideia Romana: Cicero’s Tusculan Disputations (CUP, 2007) and Creative Eloquence: The Construction of Reality in Cicero’s Speeches (OUP, 2011) and enjoys a long-standing collaboration with Andrew Zissos on Ovid and all matters Ovidian. Recent ventures include the co-edited volume Transformative Change in Western Thought: A History of Metamorphosis from Homer to Hollywood (Legenda, 2013) and a text book on Ovid’s Pentheus episode: Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.511-733: Latin Text with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary of Terms, Vocabulary Aid and Study Questions (Open Book Publishers, 2016). Philip R. Hardie is a Senior Research Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Honorary Professor of Latin Literature in the University of Cambridge. Ǿe is also a Fellow of the British Academy. He is the author of Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium (OUP, 1986); The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition (CUP, 1993); Virgil: Aeneid Book IX (CUP, 1994); Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion (CUP, 2002); Lucretian Receptions: History, The Sublime, Knowledge, CUP, 2009); Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature (CUP, 2012); The Last Trojan Hero: A Cultural History of Virgil’s Aeneid (I. B. Tauris, 2014); and Ovidio Metamorfosi, vol. vi, libri xiii-xv (Mondadori, 2015). Hardie is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Ovid (CUP, 2002); Paradox and the Marvellous in

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Augustan Literature and Culture (OUP, 2009); Augustan Poetry and the Irrational (OUP, 2016). He is also co-editor of several volumes including (with Alessandro Barchiesi and Stephen Hinds) of Ovidian Transformations: Essays on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and its Reception (Cambridge Philological Society, 1999); and (with Helen Moore) of Classical Literary Careers and their Reception (CUP, 2010). He is a General Editor of Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. Stephen J. Harrison is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Corpus Christi College. His major publications include: A Commentary on Vergil, Aeneid 10 (OUP, 1991), Apuleius: A Latin Sophist (OUP, 2000), Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (OUP, 2007), Framing the Ass: Literary Form in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (OUP, 2013) and Horace (CUP, 2014), coauthor of Apuleius: Rhetorical Works (OUP, 2001) [jointly with John Hilton and Vincent Hunink], A Commentary on Apuleius Metamorphoses IV.28-VI.24 (Egbert Forsten, 2004) [jointly with the seven other members of the Groningen Apuleius Group], and A Commentary on Apuleius Metamorphoses XI: The Isis-Book (Brill, 2015) [jointly with the seven other members of the Groningen Apuleius Group]. He also has edited and co-edited nine volumes on Virgil, Horace, Apuleius and Latin Intertextuality, including more recently: The Cambridge Companion to Horace (CUP, 2007); The Greek and the Roman Novel: Parallel Readings (Barkhuis, 2007), joint ed. with M. Paschalis, S. Frangoulidis, and M. Zimmerman; Classics in the Modern World: A ‘Democratic Turn’? (OUP, 2013), joint ed. with Lorna Hardwick; Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature. Encounters, Interactions and Transformations (De Gruyter, 2013), joint ed. with Theodoros Papanghelis and Stavros Frangoulidis. Andromache Karanika is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of California, Irvine and the current editor of Transactions of the American Philological Association (TAPhA). She received her PhD at Princeton University and has published articles on Homer, women’s oral genres, lament, and pastoral poetry. She is the author of Voices at Work: Women, Performance and Labor (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014), and has also co-authored a textbook on Modern Greek. Her current projects include articles on Homeric reception in Late Antiquity and Byzantium and a book on wedding songs and poetics.

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Notes on Contributors

George Kazantzidis is Assistant Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Patras. He has also been working as an Adjunct Lecturer in Latin at the Open University of Cyprus; and he is a Senior Research Associate at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, SA (Department of Greek and Latin Studies). He obtained his PhD from Oxford University (2011) with a thesis on melancholia in Hellenistic and Latin poetry. His research interests lie primarily in the intersections between ancient medicine and poetry, and the history of mental illness. Forthcoming articles include a discussion of medical language in the comedies of Menander and Plautus and a reassessment of Callimachus’ Acontius and Cydippe (Aetia fr.75), considered through the lens of Hippocratic gynaecology. David Konstan is Professor of Classics at New York University and Professor Emeritus of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University. Among his books are Roman Comedy (Cornell UP, 1983); Sexual Symmetry: Love in the Ancient Novel and Related Genres (PUP, 1994); Greek Comedy and Ideology (OUP, 1995); Friendship in the Classical World (CUP, 1997); Pity Transformed (Duckworth, 2001); The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Univ. of Toronto Press, 2006); “A Life Worthy of the Gods”: The Materialist Psychology of Epicurus (Parmenides Publishing, 2008); Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (CUP, 2010); and Beauty: The Fortunes of an Ancient Greek Idea (OUP, 2014). He is a past president of the American Philological Association, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Robert Maltby is, since 2010, Emeritus Professor of Latin Philology at the University of Leeds, where he served as Professor of Latin Philology for ten years (2000-2010). He holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Classics from Cambridge. His main publications include A Selection of Latin Love Elegy (Bristol Classical Press, 1980), A Lexicon of Ancient Latin Etymologies (Francis Cairns, 1991), Tibullus Elegies: Text, Introduction and Commentary (Francis Cairns, 2002), Terence: Phormio (Aris and Phillips, 2012) and most recently, in collaboration with Kenneth Belcher, a course-book entitled Wiley’s Real Latin: Learning Latin from the Source (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013). Currently he is preparing [Tibullus] Elegies III: Text, Introduction and Commentary for the Pierides series, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Andreas N. Michalopoulos is Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is the author of Ancient Etymologies in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A Commented Lexicon (Francis Cairns, 2001), Ovid, Heroides 16 and 17: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Francis Cairns, 2006), and (in Greek) Ovid, Heroides 20 and 21: Introduction, Text and Commentary (Papadimas, 2013). His research interests include Augustan poetry, ancient etymology, Roman drama, the Roman novel, and the modern reception of classical literature. Charilaos N. Michalopoulos is Assistant Professor of Latin at the Department of Greek Philology of the Democritus University of Thrace. His research interests include Augustan poetry, gender studies and classics, and the modern reception of Latin literature. His recent publications include articles on Ovid, Seneca and Martial. He is the author of a monograph (in Greek) entitled Myth, Language and Gender in the Corpus Priapeorum (Pedio, 2014). Sophia Papaioannou is Professor of Latin Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her main research interests are the literature of the Age of Augustus, Ancient Epic and Roman Comedy. She is the author of two books on Ovid: Epic Succession and Dissension: Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.623-14.582, and the Reinvention of the Aeneid (De Gruyter, 2005); and of Redesigning Achilles: The 'Recycling' of the Epic Cycle in Ovid, Metamorphoses 12.1-13.620 (De Gruyter, 2007). She is also editor of the volume Terence and Interpretation (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). Antonis Petrides is Associate Professor of Greek Literature at the Open University of Cyprus. He studied Classics at the Universities of Thessaloniki and Cambridge (Trinity College). His research focuses principally on Greek and Latin theatre and its modern reception. His publications include the monograph Menander, New Comedy, and the Visual (CUP, 2014), the volumes New Perspectives on Postclassical Comedy (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2010, co-edited with Sophia Papaioannou) and Greek Tragedy after the Fifth Century (CUP, forthcoming, co-edited with Vayos Liapis), as well as an Introduction to the History of Cyprus (Open University of Cyprus, 2013, co-edited with George Kazamias and Emmanouil Koumas).

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Maria Plastira-Valkanou is Assistant Professor of Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. The title of her PhD thesis was Antipater of Thessalonica. Select Epigrams. A Linguistic and Stylistic Commentary, Ghent 1987. Her publications are principally on Hellenistic Poetry, the Greek Epigram (especially by poets of Macedonian origin) and the Ancient Greek Novel. She is currently preparing a monograph on the epigrams of Geminus. Consuelo Ruiz-Montero is Professor of Greek Philology at the University of Murcia (Spain). She is active in three main areas of research: Greek narrative, Greek rhetoric, and the history of the Greek Language (late Greek). She has published three books: La estructura de la novela griega. Análisis funcional (Universidad de Salamanca, 1988); Hermógenes, Sobre las formas de estilo, introd, trad., y notas (Gredos, 1993); La novela griega (Sinthesis, 2006). She is author of more than fifty papers on different aspects of the Greek novels. Currently she is editing a book, Orality and Greek Literature in the Roman Empire, for Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and has a number of forthcoming papers on papyri of the Greek novel. Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos was, until her retirement in August 2016, Associate Professor of Ancient Greek Literature at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She holds a BA in Classical Philology from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are ancient epic and lyric poetry, particularly Stesichorus (her PhD thesis was entitled Stesichorus and his Poetry), Alcman and Pindar. She is the author of Ancient Poetic Etymology. The Pelopids: Fathers and Sons (Franz Steiner, 2007), and numerous articles on the above authors. Ioannis Ziogas is presently Lecturer of Latin at the University of Durham; he was previously a lecturer of Classics at the Australian National University. He is the author of Ovid and Hesiod: The Metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women (CUP, 2013) and co-editor (with Marios Skempis) of Geography, Topography, Landscape: Configurations of Space in Greek and Roman Epic (De Gruyter, 2013). Andrew Zissos is Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of numerous articles on imperial Roman literature and its reception, along with a commentary on Book 1 of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica (OUP, 2008); he is also editor of A

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Companion to the Flavian Age of Imperial Rome (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016). He has a long-standing Ovidian collaboration with Ingo Gildenhard, which runs to many articles (including their joint contribution to this volume), the co-edited volume Transformative Change in Western Thought: a History of Metamorphosis from Homer to Hollywood (Legenda, 2013), and most recently a textbook on Ovid’s Pentheus episode: Ovid, Metamorphoses, 3.511-733: Latin Text with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary of Terms, Vocabulary Aid and Study Questions (Open Book Publishers, 2016).

ABBREVIATIONS

1. Ancient Literature Abbreviations for Greek and Roman literature follow the conventions of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 4th edition, with the following additions: CP Dsc. Hsch. Luc. Lex. Tox. Lucr. DRN OA Val. Fl.

Corpus Priapeorum Dioscorides (Medicus) Hesychius (Lexicographus) Lucian Lexiphanes Toxaris Lucretius De Rerum Natura Orphic Argonautica Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica

2. Modern Reference Works DNP FGrHist HPNG LGPN 1, 3A, 3B, 4

LGPN 2

LGPN5A

Der Neue Pauly F. Jacoby, ed., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 15 vols. (Berlin, 1923-58) F. Bechtel, Die historischen Personnennamen der Griechen bis zur Kaiserzeit (Halle, 1917) P. M. Fraser and E. Matthews, eds., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (Oxford, 1987) 3A (Oxford, 1997), 3B (Oxford, 2000), 4 (Oxford, 2005) M. Osborne and S. Byrne, eds., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names 2  (Oxford, 1994) T. Corsten, ed., A Lexicon of Greek Personal Names5A (Oxford, 2010)

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LIMC

LSJ

OLD PMG PMGF RE

TLG TrGF

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Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, 8 vols. (Zurich and Munich, 19812009) H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th edition (with Supplement, Oxford, 1968) P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1968-82) D. L. Page, ed., Poetae melici Graeci (Oxford, 1962) M. Davies, ed. Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. I (Oxford, 1991) A.E. von Pauly, rev. G. Wissova et al., RealEncyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1893-1980) Thesaurus Linguae Graecae B. Snell, R. Kannicht, S. Radt, eds., Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 6 vols. (Göttingen, 1971–2004)

INTRODUCTION ANDREAS N. MICHALOPOULOS, SOPHIA PAPAIOANNOU AND ANDREW ZISSOS

1. Stratis Kyriakidis Stratis Kyriakidis was born in Athens in 1944. After he finished elementary school his family moved to England, where he completed his secondary education at St Peter’s Grammar School in Bournemouth. He spent the next six years in Melbourne, Australia, and during that period developed an intense interest in the ancient world. The award of a Greek state scholarship provided him with the opportunity to pursue that interest: he returned to Greece in 1970 and shortly thereafter began his studies as a mature student in the School of History and Archaeology at the University of Athens. The early seventies were a turbulent time for the Greek capital in more than one respect. Under the military junta, freedom of speech, including cultural expression of many kinds, was vigorously suppressed. Like many others, Kyriakidis found his own way to overcome the cultural barrenness imposed by the colonels. He formed a close friendship with two fellow students—Theodosis Pylarinos, later Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Ionian University, and the poet Manos Loukakis, who passed away in 2011. The three of them created their own cultural haven, with poetry readings and intellectual discussion. Their all-night gatherings had a profound effect on Kyriakidis, opening new horizons and paving the way for his study of classical literature. It was during his studies that Kyriakidis met his future wife and lifelong collaborator, fellow classicist Eleni Peraki. After a few years teaching in secondary education (Campion School, Scuola Italiana d’Atene), Kyriakidis left for Thessaloniki with his wife and young son to take up a teaching post at the Classics Department of the Aristotle University and to write his doctoral thesis, under the supervision of Nikos Petrochilos, who was Professor of Latin there. Petrochilos’ innovative approach to classical texts had a formative and enduring impact on Kyriakidis, who defended his thesis in 1986. The 1980s were turbulent years for the teaching of classical

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Introduction

languages and literature in Greece, as classical education came under attack from many quarters. Turmoil notwithstanding, Kyriakidis found a home amidst the community of scholars of the Department of Classics of the Aristotle University: the mentorship of Petrochilos, and, more broadly, the rich intellectual environment of the Department, helped Kyriakidis to flourish as both teacher and scholar. He retired in 2011, after a productive career of 30 years. Kyriakidis’ commitment to pedagogy, particularly at the graduate level, has been a hallmark of his career. When asked to identify his single most worthwhile accomplishment, he points without hesitation to a graduate seminar he organised and taught during the academic year 20023. In this course a number of distinguished scholars were invited to give lectures, including Alessandro Barchiesi, Marco Fantuzzi, Philip Hardie, Richard Hunter, and Alessandro Schiesaro. Kyriakidis served for nearly two decades as departmental coordinator of the Erasmus exchange programme between the Thessaloniki Classics Department and the Leeds School of Classics. In recognition of his tireless service in this role, which extended well beyond administrative tasks, the University of Leeds honoured him with the title of Visiting Professor in 2008. Following his retirement in 2011 Kyriakidis returned to settle in Athens, where his scholarly activity continues unabated. Together with Philip Hardie (one of the contributors to this volume), he is editor of the book series Pierides, Studies in Greek and Latin literature, published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. As is usually the case, particular mentors and situations played a crucial role in the development of Kyriakidis’ scholarly profile. The influence of Nikos Petrochilos during the dissertation stage in Thessaloniki has already been mentioned. As an undergraduate student at Athens, Kyriakidis drew inspiration from the lessons and seminars of the late Spyros Iakovidis, Professor of Archaeology and Member of the Academy of Athens. No less formative was the training he received during three consecutive summers at the Numismatic Museum of Athens under Manto Oeconomidou, Director and Curator of the Numismatic Collection, from whom Kyriakidis acquired a keen appreciation for minutiae. The insight that the essence of a matter can lie hidden in a seemingly insignificant detail is one that Kyriakidis has fruitfully applied to the study of Latin literature in a variety of contexts. The tendency to focus on the visual and the iconic aspect of literary texts is perhaps another aspect of

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Kyriakidis’ work that reflects, whether consciously or unconsciously, his early training as an archaeologist. In what follows an attempt will be made to outline the principal accomplishments of Kyriakidis’ scholarship, while identifying critical tendencies that characterise his distinctive approach to Latin literature. This approach has often led him to challenge entrenched scholarly positions, and establish new parameters for critical discussion. An early research interest of Kyriakidis’ professional career was the Christian poetess Faltonia Betitia Proba and her Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi. In an initial pair of papers, “Eve and Mary: Proba’s technique in the creation of two different figures” (A-5) and “Pulchro pectore virgo: Transformations of the Virgilian verses” (A-7, in Greek),1 Kyriakidis analysed how Proba expresses her religious conception of the life of Christ through the ingenious redeployment of words, phrases and hemistichs drawn from the Virgilian oeuvre. In the first article, Kyriakidis examined the characterisation of Eve and Mary, starting from the observation that Proba allots only 36 verses to Mary compared to 152 to Eve. Rather more subtly, Kyriakidis noted that Proba’s description of Mary draws upon a series of Virgilian similes—passages that lie ‘outside’ the narrative of the source text—so that she is, intertextually speaking, held aloof from contact with specific Virgilian female characters. As a consequence, Proba’s Mary remains relatively unindividuated and becomes, as it were, a transcendental figure. Kyriakidis continued his examination of Proba in a third article (“Faltonia Betitia Proba”, A-10), published in the first volume of the Italian journal Kleos. Kyriakidis’ alertness to the subtleties of Latin textuality is evident in an early article offering a study of syntactic elements in Cicero’s Pro Archia (“Stylistic Remarks on Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta”, A-2). By virtue of a careful examination of main and subordinate clauses, this article was able to identify a curious tendency of the speech to reverse the apportioning of semantic weight: it is frequently the subordinate clause that bears primary meaning, with the main clause conveying secondary content. Kyriakidis went on to suggest that this tendency might arise from the advantages it offered Cicero in dealing with anticipated objections on the part of his audience.

1 Numbers preceded by ‘A-‘ refer to individual articles as enumerated in the following section of the Introduction.

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In his 1998 monograph Narrative Structure and Poetics in the Aeneid: The Frame of Book 6 (B-2),2 Kyriakidis offered a new reading of the closing lines of Book 6 and the opening verses of Book 7 of Virgil’s epic. At first blush, these passages seem to offer little of significance for the enclosing narrative. But as Kyriakidis demonstrated, they take on programmatic significance through the combination of their medial position and their deployment of a series of metaliterary indices drawn from both Callimachean and subsequent Roman literature. Through this metapoetical sequence Virgil marks his own position in the epic tradition, while simultaneously signalling the transition to a new Roman discourse for his maius opus in the second half of the Aeneid. A particularly provocative chapter of the monograph examines the significance of Erato, Muse of love poetry, who is invoked by the poet in the delayed medial proem at Aen. 7.37-41. Prior to Kyriakidis, the established view was that the invocation of this figure near the beginning of Book 7, which corresponds structurally to her invocation by Apollonius Rhodius at the opening of the third book of his epic,3 had to do with the eventual union of Aeneas with Lavinia. Kyriakidis took an altogether different approach. First, he pointed to Diodorus Siculus’ interpretation of Erato’s name as denoting the love, eros, of culture and education, paideia (4.7.4 ਫȡĮIJઅ įૃਕʌઁ IJȠ૨ IJȠઃȢ ʌĮȚįİȣș੼ȞIJĮȢ ʌȠșİȚȞȠઃȢ țĮ੿ ਥʌİȡ੺ıIJȠȣȢ ਕʌȠIJİȜİ૙Ȟ, ‘because Erato renders the educated men desirable and lovable’), and noted that Plutarch too accepts this etymology and associates the Muse with a way of life “fit for a cultured person” (Mor. 746F). He then strengthened this association by pointing to the testimony of the Stoic Lucius Annaeus Cornutus, who identifies Erato with love of philosophy or, alternatively, argues for an etymology of her name from the verb ਩ȡİıșĮȚ, ‘to question’ (and ਕʌȠțȡ઀ȞİıșĮȚ, ‘to answer’), which raises an alternative interpretative possibility via the philosophical sub-field of dialectics.4 Finally, Kyriakidis noted that the etymological derivation of ‘Erato’ from the verb ਩ȡİıșĮȚ (and ਕʌȠțȡ઀ȞİıșĮȚ) is already clearly 2

Numbers preceded by ‘B-‘ refer to individual books as enumerated in the following section of the Introduction. 3 Erato is invoked at Ap. Rhod. 3.1-5, that is, at the midpoint of the Hellenistic epic. 4 ਲį੻ ਫȡĮIJઅ ʌંIJİȡȠȞ ਕʌઁ IJȠ૨ ਩ȡȦIJȠȢ ȜĮȕȠ૨ıĮ IJ੽Ȟ ੑȞȠȝĮı઀ĮȞ IJ੽Ȟ ʌİȡ੿ ʌ઼Ȟ İੇįȠȢ ijȚȜȠıȠij઀ĮȢ ਥʌȚıIJȡȠij੽Ȟ ʌĮȡ઀ıIJȘıȚȞ ਲ਼ IJોȢ ʌİȡ੿ IJઁ ਩ȡİıșĮȚ țĮ੿ ਕʌȠțȡ઀ȞİıșĮȚ įȣȞ੺ȝİȦȢ ਥʌ઀ ıțȠʌંȢ ਥıIJȚȞ, ੪Ȣ į੽ įȚĮȜİțIJȚț૵Ȟ ੕ȞIJȦȞ IJ૵Ȟ ıʌȠȣįĮ઀ȦȞ (“Erato after receiving her name from love either represents the attention paid to any kind of philosophy or she is the guardian of the power of asking and answering, since all important issues belong to dialectics”, Cornutus, Theol. Graec. 2.14 Lang).

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implied in a fragment from Callimachus’ Aetia,5 a work that employs a question-and-answer form of dialogue between poet and the Muses in its first two books. Given the density of Callimachean signs at the start of Aeneid 7, clearly intended to signal a relationship to the Hellenistic tradition, Kyriakidis deemed it inherently likely that Virgil featured the Muse Erato in his proem in the middle as an oppositio in imitando of Apollonius’ Argonautica, in order to claim a prominent place in this tradition and to mark his own innovation within it. “In the proem of the seventh book of the Aeneid there are two things that the poet wishes to make clear: first, that he takes full control of his maius opus and second, that the themes of this maius opus have nothing to do with traditional Greek epic and the subjects he is going to treat are novel” (p. 175). This monograph garnered broadly positive critical reactions, well represented by Christine Perkell’s summation in Bryn Mawr Classical Review: “this is an earnest study, in which K. presents his arguments with modesty and care; he aims to be clear and forthright. His reading of the ‘frame’ of Aeneid 6, in which he draws readers’ attention to features of the text that do merit thoughtful consideration, is plausible in its overall argument, if not in all its component parts. It is likely that Aeneid readers, when they next encounter Aen. 7, will find themselves recalling and considering K.’s arguments”.6 Kyriakidis’ work on the middle of the Aeneid marked the beginning of a broad critical engagement with the question of the middle in Latin poetry. Like others working in this area, he drew inspiration from the work of Gian Biagio Conte, the justly acclaimed article “Proems in the Middle” in particular.7 In collaboration with Francesco De Martino, Kyriakidis undertook the edited collection Middles in Latin Poetry (B-3), recruiting a team of distinguished contributors to provide chapters on Roman poets from Lucretius to the Flavian epicists. This volume, which appeared in 2004, was dedicated to the memory of Don Fowler, the first scholar invited to participate in the project, but who sadly passed away before he could complete his contribution. Kyriakidis’ own contribution to the volume was “Ȃiddles in Lucretius’ DRN. The poet and his work” (A-23). In this chapter, Kyriakidis examined the relationship between the structural components of the DRN and their contents, proceeding on the basis of the principle of analogy, the cornerstone of Lucretian theory. For Lucretius, although the universe itself

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ਫȡĮIJઅ į’ ਕȞIJĮʌȐȝİȚʌIJȠ IJȐ[įİ, “Erato gave the following answers”, SH 328.8. BMCR 1999.11.10. 7 Conte 1992. 6

Introduction

6

has no middle (DRN 1.1070-1071, 1081-1082), each individual cosmos possesses a middle of its own and in our cosmos that position is occupied by the earth (DRN 5.534). By analogy to this geocentric theory, the middle of the human body is held by the animus/mens (DRN 3.139-140). Kyriakidis applied the same principle to the construction of the poetic work itself, investigating the function of the middle proem, that of Book 4, within the poem as a whole, as well as its relationship to the proems of the other books. Kyriakidis construed this proem as a privileged locus of authorial declaration, in which Lucretius asserts his own originality, while signalling his intention to take over, as it were, from his master Epicurus. The central position of the proem makes it the appropriate textual space for the poet to declare himself ‘master’ of his own work. In the proems to Books 3 and 5, which flank Book 4, prominence is given to Epicurus. Likewise, the proems to Books 2 and 6, which encompass those of Books 3 and 5, have many themes in common, while the proem-hymn to Venus in the first book is left to function as an introduction to the whole work. Schematically, therefore, leaving aside the initial proem as serving the work as a whole, the thematic arrangement of the proems follows a concentric pattern around the proem to Book 4, the proem in the middle. In this way, Kyriakidis argued, Lucretius dedicates the central poem to his own poetic self-fashioning. In this proem the Muses no longer inspire the poet but serve rather as auditors and judges, a reversal of their traditional role. An important feature of this essay is Kyriakidis’ conception of the text as a quasi-architectural construct, an approach that was destined to resurface in subsequent publications. Shortly thereafter, Kyriakidis examined the proem to Book 4 of the DRN from a different angle in the paper “Lucretius’ DRN 1.926-950 and the Proem to Book 4” (A-24). Previous scholars had frequently dismissed this proem (DRN 4.1-25) as little more than a transposition and repetition of 1.926-950. Kyriakidis challenged this reading by taking into consideration the Philodemean principle of ਕȝİIJȐșİIJȠȞ and arguing that this is not an instance of ȝİIJȐșİıȚȢ8 (a transposition that is, of verses, often attributed to the unrevised form of the text), but rather a deliberate and subtle device on the part of the poet to highlight his own role in creating the text. In Kyriakidis’ view, the category of ȝİIJȐșİıȚȢ is not strictly applicable inasmuch as the two passages have different openings and conclusions. Lines 1.921-925—the opening section of the unit (DRN 1.921-950)—are omitted from the proem to Book 4, while the closing lines at 1.949-950 are not identical to their supposed counterparts at DRN 8

Cf. D. Armstrong 1995.

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4.24-25. Besides, Kyriakidis pointed out, the ਕȝİIJȐșİIJȠȞ is also a Lucretian tenet (DRN 1.800-801, 823-827) so that, for the poet, even slight changes in words and verses can affect both meaning and sound. This intervention, by raising anew the problem of this modified repetition of verses, has reopened the critical discussion, as Joseph Farrell has noted.9 A noteworthy omission from Middles in Latin Poetry was Manilius. This is perhaps unsurprising, as the Astronomica has suffered decades of scholarly neglect, from which it has only recently begun to reemerge. Kyriakidis, who continues to play a prominent role in Manilius’ critical rehabilitation, undertook belatedly to make good this lacuna in the Middles volume, first, and most explicitly, in the paper “Manilian Middles” (A-29) and subsequently in “The universe as audience: Manilius’ Poetic Ambitions” (A-37). In the earlier piece Kyriakidis showed how profoundly Manilius’ work is influenced by his major literary predecessors, to whom he repeatedly alludes, and on whose poetic techniques he often relies. Much like Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid in the Fasti, Manilius treats the medial position as a particularly fertile poetic locus for (meta)literary discourse. In more cosmological terms, Kyriakidis analysed the Manilian description of the universe, in which the earth holds the central position (Astr. 1.202-205), noting common ground between Manilius, Lucretius (DRN 5.534), and Ovid (Fast. 6.273-276). In the later piece, his own contribution to the edited volume Libera Fama: an endless journey (B-5, on which more below), Kyriakidis argued that the proem in the middle, namely that of Book 3, constitutes a privileged locus in which Manilius— like Lucretius in the DRN and Virgil in the Georgics and the Aeneid— signals his relationship to the tradition and looks to the future of his work and his own literary prospects. Kyriakidis noted the closeness of Manilius and Lucretius here: bȠth poets, in highlighting the originality of their didactic epics, present the tradition as abounding in topics that are best left untreated. Unlike Lucretius, though, Manilius advocates an austere didactic approach that steers clear of ornamenta and speciosae res (Astr. 3.29). He prescribes simple instruction that eschews figures of speech— notwithstanding that he, like Lucretius before him, makes free use of them—and cautions the didactic poet against the pursuit of selfaggrandisement and eternal fame, on the grounds that only natura has a claim to eternity. Kyriakidis also examined glory and its personification (Astr. 2.808-819) noting that Manilian Gloria has traits in common with Ovidian Fama (Met. 12.39-46), but also draws upon the Callimachean 9

Farrell 2008, n. 36: “The problem of this repetition has been considered anew from the point of view of Epicurean poetics by Kyriakidis 2006”.

8

Introduction

Zeus and, more significantly, the Zeus of Cleanthes. Like the Zeus in Cleanthes’ Hymn, Gloria has a reciprocal role to play: 2.808-819 underscores the human need to come in contact with the divine and identifies the poet’s supreme purpose as the pursuit of deeper knowledge of the universe. Finally, Kyriakidis adduced dense allusions to Ovid’s Pythagoras episode and Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, and argued that these intertextual engagements in particular reveal that, precepts to the contrary notwithstanding, Manilius manifests a certain preoccupation with his own literary reputation. Kyriakidis’ critical focus on Manilius gave rise to another essay, “Rome and the fata Asiae (Manilius, Astr. 1.512)” (A-35), which investigated the concept of ‘Troy’ and its relationship to the idea of ‘Rome’. In this paper Kyriakidis observed that Manilius’ first reference to Rome comes via the metonymy fatis Asiae; likewise the final mention of the City, towards the end of the poem, once again eschews mention of the urbs by name. Kyriakidis first discussed the initial phrase, fatis Asiae iam Graecia pressa est (“Already Greece has been weighed down by the fate of Asia”, 1.512). As both Virgil and Ovid were engaged with the question of the fate of Rome, interpretation of 1.512 of the Astronomica needs to consider the intertextual dialogue between Manilius and his immediate epic predecessors, as well as the contextualisation of this dialogue within an astrological framework. Although Asia is often freighted with negative connotations in Roman literature, Manilius ‘absolves’ it from these and instead attributes additional, positive qualities. With regard to the zodiac cycle, Asia is under the sign of Taurus (4.753); Italy, on the other hand, is under Libra, a sign representing those belonging to a better organised society and enjoying a more advanced stage of civilisation than those under Taurus. According to Kyriakidis, Asia, the place of origin of Rome’s forefathers, represents for Manilius a cultural phase that predates both the culture of Europe and the foundation of Rome. The rise of Rome is a consequence of the dire fate of Asian Troy. In Manilius’ day Rome was the ruler of the world: her illustrious future seemed guaranteed by her glorious past. But Manilius has reservations as to Rome’s eternity, and he discloses these at the end of the work in the well-known simile whereby the firmament is compared to the social structure of Rome (Astr. 5.734745): whereas a cognatio naturalis and a cosmic concordia are established in the sky above with natura playing its unifying and cohesive role, determining, shaping and controlling everything, in the vehicle of the simile the corresponding unifying force is missing. This is the great difference between Rome and the broader cosmos and it is through this difference that Manilius offers his view on the future of Rome. For the

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poet, as Kyriakidis noted, the notion of the urbs aeterna is “unrealistic”. “The capital of the world empire flourishes like other cities flourished in the past and it too will follow their fate in time to come” (p. 284). In addition to the visual aspect of Latin textuality, Kyriakidis has often explored manifestations of vision and visuality in Latin literature. This line of enquiry started with his first book, Roman Sensitivity: A Contribution to the Study of the Artistic Receptiveness and Creativity of the Romans (14631 BC) (B-1). A significant portion of this monograph, a revised version of the doctoral thesis, is devoted to the study of Roman artistic creativity and the influence of Greek culture thereon. The volume includes dedicated chapters on architecture and the visual arts. A critical preoccupation with the visual is also evident in Kyriakidis’ Catalogues of Proper Names in Latin Epic Poetry: Lucretius-Virgil-Ovid (B-4, discussed more fully below), though now approached from a very different angle. A recurring focus of this study is the ability of the text to imitate extra-textual reality. More specifically, Kyriakidis observed that in numerous instances the placement of the proper names in the verses of a catalogue mirrors, as it were, the position or order of things in physical or topographical space. This tendency, Kyriakidis argued, reflects in part the influence of what the poets in question had before their eyes. This includes a number of suggestive works in which the text was so arranged as to form the shape of an object. The Hellenistic technopaignia, for instance, such as the Wings of Eros or The Axe and The Egg by Simmias, or even Theocritus’ Pipe were certainly known to Virgil and Ovid. In the paper “From Delos to Latium: Wandering in the Unknown” (A31), Kyriakidis identified and analysed an intriguing instance of literary visualisation at Aeneid 3.124-127. In these lines, the Trojans are said to leave the island of Delos (Ortygiae portus) heading southward for Crete. But the enumeration of four Cycladic islands passed en route (125-126) indicates an erratic course: linquimus Ortygiae portus pelagoque volamus bacchatamque iugis Naxon viridemque Donusam, Olearon niveamque Paron sparsasque per aequor Cycladas, et crebris legimus freta concita terris.

125

We are leaving the port of Ortygia and fly over the sea past Naxos with its bacchic ridges, green Donusa, Olearos, gleaming white Paros, the Cyclades scattered across the sea we pass and over the waves stirred up by the frequent shores of the islands.

10

Introduction

A glance at a map suffices to reveal that the placement of the island names in the verses corresponds to their position in the Aegean Sea. All of this, Kyriakidis argued, neatly reinforces Anchises’ erroneous interpretation of Apollo’s instructions as to the Trojan’s fated destination; error and errores are the principal matter of Aeneid 3. A similarly ‘topographical’ analysis was proferred by Kyriakidis in a slightly earlier article, “Heroides 20 and 21: Motion and Emotions” (A28), in which Kyriakidis read Ov. Her. 21.81-82 as a map: Et iam transieram Myconon, iam Tenon et Andron, inque meis oculis candida Delos erat. And now I had passed Myconos, now Tenos and Andros and shining Delos was before my eyes.

In this passage, Kyriakidis argued, the technique of Aen. 3.124-127 was picked up by Ovid, arguably Virgil’s best reader in antiquity. Ovid responded with his own play on the topography of Cycladic islands, choosing to ‘map out’ three immediately to the north of those mentioned by Virgil.10 Until very recently, the structure and function of epic catalogues garnered scant critical attention. Kyriakidis’ scholarship has done much to change this: his impact is neatly encapsulated in Alastair Fowler’s observation that “Kyriakidis has laid the foundation for a history of name catalogues in classical epic”.11 The pioneering character of Kyriakidis’ Catalogues monograph (B-4) justifies a detailed presentation of its argumentation. The study is divided into two major sections. In Part I (Structure and Contents) Kyriakidis considered the form of catalogues in terms of the frequency of names per verse, producing the following classification: a) density in the middle, b) spacing in the middle, c) ascending/descending mode, d) internal balance, e) erratic patterning. Kyriakidis showed that these patterns affect the reading process in a number of ways. For instance, a sense of narrative acceleration or deceleration may be imparted; the structure may convey balance or, at the other end of the spectrum, a sense of the erratic (in time or space). Of the Latin poets, Virgil turns out to be regular and consistent in his development of these patterns; Ovid in his Metamorphoses tends to

10

On extra-textual mirroring see also Kyriakidis’ subsequent article “The text before and after” (A-33). 11 Fowler 2012, 198.

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more disruptive and irregular usage.12 In Part II (Catalogues in Context) Kyriakidis investigated the relationship of the catalogue to, first, its immediate narrative frame, and then to the broader context. A catalogue sometimes ends with a pause, with closural lines, or with the addition of a simile which in a sense extends the effect of the catalogue by virtue of being closely related to it (p. 108). Quite often the framing passage includes broader aesthetic reflections. Ovid has always ranked high among Kyriakidis’ research interests and a number of his most recent papers are devoted to this poet. One of these studies, “Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The text before and after” (A-33), addressed the familiar issue of the poet’s anxiety over the future of his name and his work, exploring the implications of Ovid’s own characterisation of his maius opus as ‘unfinished’: Inspice maius opus, quod adhuc sine fine reliqui (Ov. Tr. 2.63) Look into my more important work which till now I have left incomplete.

The phrase sine fine calls to mind Jupiter’s prophecy in the opening book of the Aeneid, which refers to the eternity of Rome (Aen. 1.279). The Virgilian echo thus imparts a sense of permanence to Ovid’s own epic. Kyriakidis explored closely related issues in an article published the same year, “The poet’s afterlife: Ovid between epic and elegy” (A-30). This study focused on Tristia 1.7, considering line 22 (vel quod adhuc crescens et rude carmen erat, “… or because my work was still growing and remained unpolished”) in relation to the closural declaration of the Metamorphoses (iamque opus exegi, “now my work is complete”, Met. 15.871), and Hor. C. 3.30.6-8 (non omnis moriar… usque ego postera crescam laude recens, “I shall not wholly die… I shall always grow everrenewed because of future praise), Kyriakidis observed that every interpretation “is in fact an attempt at providing closure, to give, that is, a work its final form. It is an attempt to carry the work from the process of making (poesis) to a ‘final’ form (poema), from crescens to opus exactum, as declared in the sphragis of the Metamorphoses. For every interpreter—like the Ovid of the exile poetry reading his earlier work— the Metamorphoses is still an opus rude, an opus sine fine (Tr. 2.63), without finezza” (p. 364). 12

A very useful tool, empowering readers to reach their own conclusions, is the Appendix, in which Kyriakidis lists catalogues included in Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, according to pattern.

12

Introduction

In 2012 Kyriakidis made the publication of Philip Hardie’s Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature (Cambridge University Press) the occasion for a one-day conference at the Department of Classics of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, to discuss the complexity of fama as presented in this landmark study. Hardie himself was the guest of honour, invited to present aspects of his work and comment on the conference participants’ reactions to his discussion of fama and gloria. Kyriakidis undertook to edit the proceedings of the conference, producing the edited volume Libera fama: an endless journey (B-5). In the volume introduction, subtitled “Speech, Fame and Glory: Connecting Past and Future” (A-36), Kyriakidis offered his own thoughts on fama. Taking as his point of departure the well-established view that fama in literary texts largely functions as a metonymy for the tradition (as Hardie and other contributors to the volume also discuss), he pointed out that the word ijȒȝȘ, ijȐȝĮ / fama with its ending -ȝĮ, -ȝȘ, -ma, designates, as grammarians would put it, “the result of an action”. Fama, therefore, may have less to do with the spreading of the word than with the word itself. This line of thought prompted Kyriakidis to draw a distinction between the Virgilian and Ovidian personifications of Fama: “The mobility of the Virgilian creature… represented the continuously repeated reception of the report. Ovid, on the other hand, does quite the opposite: he shapes Fama as something static and abstract, without any special features or facial characteristics and without denoting her movement… Ovid’s Fama has the quality of finality, as a creation of the past…; it is an acknowledgment that the report of the past has the power to draw to itself all the new voices which will then be filtered through the House of Fama”. Kyriakidis’ interest in the epic catalogue remains as keen as ever. In a forthcoming paper “Looking Backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of Ancestry from Homer to Ovid” (A-38) he turned to the structure of genealogical catalogues, in order to generalise conclusions regarding catalogue structure in Latin epic, namely, that structural and narrative elements may converge in highlighting the central ideologies of each epic narrative. In the Iliad, for example, a hero typically emphasises his sociocultural eminence, and justifies it through a genealogy that is often traced back to divine origins. To this end he places his name (or a related personal pronoun) at the beginning of the catalogue, close to the name of the founder (a god or another character of divine origin, such as a river) and traces a catalogue down to himself. The ring composition thus formed ‘seals’ the catalogue and invests the hero with prestige and glory. Other epics opt for different schemes and some, notably the Odyssey and Ovid’s

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Metamorphoses, seem to spurn the clarity of this prototypical Iliadic pattern in their striving for alternative effects. Finally, in the article, “The patronymics Pelides and Aenides: Past, present and future in Homeric and Virgilian genealogical catalogues”, (A40), Kyriakidis examined elements of epic catalogues and their spatiotemporal impact. The patronymic, for example, shortens the textual space and reading time of a catalogue while extending its temporal reach by connecting past and present. The article makes an in-depth examination of the function of the patronymics Pelides and Aenides in the epic catalogues of Homer and Virgil.

14

Introduction

2. Stratis Kyriakidis’ Publications Books (B) 1. (1986), Roman Sensitivity: A Contribution to the Study of the Artistic Receptiveness and Creativity of the Romans (146-31 BC), Thessaloniki. 2. (1998), Narrative Structure and Poetics in the Aeneid: The frame of Book 6, Bari: Levante. 3. (2004), (ed. with F. De Martino), Middles in Latin Poetry, Bari: Levante. 4. (2007), Catalogues of Proper Names in Latin Epic Poetry: Lucretius, Virgil, Ovid. Pierides I. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 5. (2016), (ed.) Libera Fama: an endless journey. Pierides VI. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Articles (A) 1. (1984), “Ǿ ʌȡȠȕȠȜȒ IJȘȢ ȇȫȝȘȢ țĮȚ Ș ȤȡȠȞȚțȒ IJȘȢ įȚȐıIJĮıȘ ıIJȘȞ ǹȚȞİȚȐįĮ” (“The image of Rome across time as recorded in the Aeneid”) in Literature and Politics in Augustan times. Proceedings of the First Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies, 29-39, Ioannina. 2. (1987), “ȊijȠȜȠȖȚțȑȢ ȆĮȡĮIJȘȡȒıİȚȢ ıIJȠȞ Pro Archia Poeta ȜȩȖȠ IJȠȣ ȀȚțȑȡȦȞĮ” (“Stylistic Remarks on Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta”) in The Art of Rhetoric in Latin Literature, Proceedings of the Third Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies, 66-74, Thessaloniki. 3. (1988), “Quintus Lutatius Catulus: The quest of glory”, in Proceedings of the Second Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies, Ariadne 4, 6170. 4. (1992), “Aeneas’ narrative and the epic reality developed during the night”, ǼǼĭȈȆĬ [Transactions of the School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki] 2, 19-37. 5. (1992), “Eve and Mary: Proba’s technique in the creation of two different figures”, MD 29, 121-153. 6. (1993), “Aeneid 6.268: ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram”, PLLS 7, 97-100. 7. (1994), “Pulchro pectore virgo: ȂİIJĮȝȠȡijȫıİȚȢ ıİ ıIJȓȤȠȣȢ IJȠȣ ǺİȡȖȚȜȓȠȣ” [“Pulchro pectore virgo: Transformations of Virgil’s verses”], in The Woman in Latin Literature, Proceedings of the Fourth Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies, 119-130. Rethymno. 8. (1994), “Invocatio ad Musam (Aen. 7.37)”, MD 33, 197-206.

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9. (1994), “Art as a Link in Graeco-Roman Cultural Relations”, in K. Burazelis, ed., European Cultural Centre of Delphi Conference, 199206, Athens. 10. (1994), “Faltonia Betitia Proba”, Kleos 1, 185-200. 11. (1997), “Greek bibliography on classics (1993-1995)”, Kleos 7, 439450. 12. (1997), “The episode of Caieta (Aen. 6.900-7.6)”, Studies in Honour of Professor A.G. Tsopanakis. ĭȚȜİȡȒ ȝȠȣ ܻȖȐʌȘıȚȢ, 282-293, Rhodes. 13. (1998), “Mount Olympus in Augustan Literature” ǼǼĭȈȆĬ 8, ȃȑĮ ȆȠȡİȓĮ, 105-113. 14. (2000), “Aeneid 5.822-826: ǹ Vergilian Catalogue”, Eikasmos 11, 269-276. 15. (2001), “fractasque ad litora voces: Aen. 3.556”, REA 103, 481-484. 16. (2001-2002), “Women and Love in Vergil”, Archaeognosia 11, 233247. 17. (2002), “Ǿ įȚĮȖȜȦııȚțȒ ȑȞIJĮȟȘ ĮʌȠıʌȐıȝĮIJȠȢ ıİ ȞȑȠ țİȚȝİȞȚțȩ ʌİȡȚȕȐȜȜȠȞ” [“The inter-language inclusion of a fragment in a new textual environment”], in Proceedings of the Seventh Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies = ǼǼĭȈȆĬ 10, 175-186, Thessaloniki. 18. (2002), “Georgics 4.559-556. The Vergilian Sphragis”, Kleos 7, 275286. 19. (2002), “The Alban Kings in the Metamorphoses: An Ovidian Catalogue and its Historiographical Models”, in D.S. Levene and D.P. Nelis, eds., Clio and the Poets. Augustan Poetry and the Traditions of Ancient Historiography (Mnemosyne Supplements 224), 211-229, Leiden; Boston; Köln. 20. (2002), “ȅȚ ĮȡȤȑȢ IJȘȢ ĭȚȜȠȜȠȖȓĮȢ ıIJȘ ȇȫȝȘ” [“The Beginnings of Philology in Rome”], in ǹ. Rengakos, ed., Dead Letters? The classical studies in the 21th century [Greek title: ȃİțȡȐ īȡȐȝȝĮIJĮ; ȅȚ țȜĮıȚțȑȢ ıʌȠȣįȑȢ ıIJȠȞ 21Ƞ ĮȚȫȞĮ], 35-47, Athens. 21. (2004), “ȅȚ țĮIJȐȜȠȖȠȚ ıIJȠȞ ǺİȡȖȓȜȚȠ: ǻȠȝȒ țĮȚ ĮijȒȖȘıȘ” [“Catalogues in Vergil: Structure and Narrative”], in A. Vassileiadis, P. Kotzia, A. Mavroudis and D. Christidis, eds., ǻȘȝȘIJȡȓ࠙ ıIJȑijĮȞȠȢ, Studies in Honour of Professor D. Lipourlis, 305-322, Thessaloniki. 22. (2004), “Introduction” (with F. De Martino), in S. Kyriakidis and F. De Martino, eds., Middles in Latin Poetry, 9-26. Bari. 23. (2004), “Ȃiddles in Lucretius’ DRN. The poet and his work”, in S. Kyriakidis and F. De Martino, eds., Middles in Latin Poetry, 27-49, Bari. 24. (2006), “Lucretius’ DRN 1.926-50 and the Proem to Book 4”, CQ 56, 606-610.

16

Introduction

25. (2006), “From the Metamorphoses to the Fasti: Catalogues of Proper names”, in J. Booth and R. Maltby, eds., What’s in a Name? The Significance of Proper Names in Classical Latin Literature, 101-119, Swansea. 26. (2008), “I ‘vecchi’ classici: un cambio di modelli”, in M.A. Petretto and M. Gavina Vallebella, eds., Quale Futuro per gli Studi Classici in Europa?, 21-31, Sassari. 27. (2010), “ȉȠ İʌİȚıȩįȚȠ IJȠȣ ȀȐįȝȠȣ ıIJȚȢ ȂİIJĮȝȠȡijȫıİȚȢ IJȠȣ ȅȕȚįȓȠȣ: ĮijȘȖȘȝĮIJȚțȒ IJİȤȞȚțȒ țĮȚ șİĮIJȡȚțȒ ʌĮȡȐįȠıȘ” [“The Kadmos episode in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: narrative techniques and the theatrical tradition”], in S. Tsitsiridis, ed., ȆĮȡĮȤȠȡȒȖȘȝĮ. ȂİȜİIJȒȝĮIJĮ ȖȚĮ IJȠ ĮȡȤĮȓȠ șȑĮIJȡȠ ʌȡȠȢ IJȚȝȒȞ IJȠȣ țĮșȘȖȘIJȒ īȡȘȖȩȡȘ Ȃ. ȈȘijȐțȘ [= Parachoregema: Studies on Ancient Theater in Honour of Professor Gregory M. Sifakis], 583-604, Herakleion. 28. (2010), “Heroides 20 and 21: Motion and Emotions”, LICS 9.2, 1-13. 29. (2012), “Manilian Middles”, in D. Nikitas, ed., Laus et Gratia. In Memoriam ȀȦȞıIJĮȞIJȓȞȠȣ īȡȩȜȜȚȠȣ, 39-60, Thessaloniki. 30. (2013), “The poet’s afterlife: Ovid between epic and elegy”, in ȉ. Papanghelis, S. Harrison, and S. Frangoulidis, eds., Generic Interfaces in Latin Literature. Encounters, Interactions and Transformations (Trends in Classics Supplementary Volume 20), 355-371, Berlin. 31. (2013), “From Delos to Latium: Wandering in the Unknown”, in M. Skempis and I. Ziogas, eds., Geography, Topography, Landscape: Configurations of Space in Greek and Roman Epic (Trends in Classics Supplementary Volumes 22), 253-277, Berlin. 32. (2013), “ȅȕȚįȓȠȣ ȂİIJĮȝȠȡijȫıİȚȢ: țĮIJȐȜȠȖȠȚ țĮȚ ʌȠȜȚIJȚıȝȚțȑȢ ĮȞĮijȠȡȑȢ” [“Ovid’s Metamorphoses: catalogues and cultural references”], in A.N. Michalopoulos and Chr. Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, eds., Multiculturalism in Rome. Social and Intellectual Life, Proceedings of the Eight Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies, 269-277, Athens. 33. (2013), “Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The text before and after”, LICS 11.1. 34. (2014), “Musa iocosa: ȉȠ ʌĮȚȤȞȓįȚ ȝİ IJȚȢ ȜȑȟİȚȢ ıIJĮ Tristia IJȠȣ ȅȕȚįȓȠȣ” [“Musa iocosa: Playing with the words in Ovid’s Tristia”], in M. Voutsinou-Kikilia, A.N. Michalopoulos, and S. Papaioannou, eds., Rideamus igitur: The humour in Latin literature, Proceedings of the Ninth Panhellenic Symposium of Latin Studies: Rideamus Igitur. Laughter in Roman Literature, 170-177, Athens. 35. (2015), “Rome and the fata Asiae (Manilius Astr. 1.512)”, in M. Tziatzi, M. Billerbeck, F. Montanari, and K. Tsantsanoglou, eds.,

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Lemmata: Beitrَge zum Gedenken an Christos Theodoridis, 265-285. Berlin. 36. (2016), “Introduction: Speech, Fame and Glory, Connecting Past and Future”, in S. Kyriakidis, ed., Libera Fama: an endless journey, 1-27. Newcastle. 37. (2016), “The universe as audience: Manilius’ Poetic Ambitions”, in S. Kyriakidis, ed., Libera Fama: an endless journey, 111-143, Newcastle. 38. (2017, forthcoming) “Looking backwards to Posterity: Catalogues of ancestry from Homer to Virgil”, in R. Lämmle, C. ScheideggerLämmle, and K. Wesselmann, eds., Lists and Catalogues in Ancient Literature and Beyond. Towards a Poetics of Enumeration. Berlin. 39. (2017), “ȉȠ ʌȑȡĮıȝĮ ıIJȘ ǻȪıȘ țĮȚ Ƞ ȡȩȜȠȢ IJȠȣ ȠįȣııİȚĮțȠȪ ȝȠȞIJȑȜȠȣ”, in D. Konidaris, ed., Proceedings of the Tenth International Panionian Conference, 471-484. Corfu. 40. (2017), “The patronymics Pelides and Aenides: Past, Present and Future in Homeric and Virgilian Genealogical Catalogues”, in A. Bierl, M. Christopoulos and A. Papachrysostomou, eds., Time and Space in Myth, Religion and Culture, 79-97. Berlin.

Translations 1. (1984), Translation into Greek, jointly with E. Peraki-Kyriakidou, of N. Petrochilos, Roman Attitudes to the Greeks, under the title ȇȦȝĮȓȠȚ țĮȚ ǼȜȜȘȞȚıȝȩȢ: ȂȚĮ įȚĮȜİțIJȚțȒ ıȤȑıȘ, ǹșȒȞĮ. 2. (1991), Translation into Greek of S.J. Harrison’s article, “Some Views of the Aeneid in the Twentieth Century” [Oxford Readings in Vergil’s Aeneid, Oxford 1990], Palimpseston 11, 59-78.

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Introduction

3. The Present Volume A number of the papers in this collection draw inspiration from or engage with Stratis Kyriakidis’ scholarship. But to those who know him it will come as no surprise that the volume is more than just a celebration of its honorand’s research. It is a testament to the impact Kyriakidis has had not only as a scholar and teacher, but also as a colleague and friend. Over the course of an academic career spanning four decades, Kyriakidis has inspired dozens of students, helping them to discover and pursue their particular interests. Seven of the contributors to this volume received their undergraduate degrees from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Five of these students went on to graduate studies in Latin, inspired by Kyriakidis’ teaching and scholarship, as well as his infectious enthusiasm for Latin literature. At the same time, Kyriakidis has established rich and productive professional relationships with leading Classical scholars around the world. These colleagues and friends are also well represented in the chapters of this volume. The sixteen chapters that follow the Introduction are divided into two sections, the first on Greek literature, the second on Latin literature. This division is, of course, schematic: many of the chapters, starting with the first, discuss texts in both ancient languages and traditions; in such cases, the essays have been assigned to one section or the other according to the preponderance of focus. Within each section, the order of the essays is determined by the chronology of the principal works discussed. In Chapter 1, “Image versus Narrative: Ecphrasis in the Classical Tradition”, David Konstan offers a magisterial survey of ecphrasis (defined in the restricted sense of a description of a visual work of art) in ancient literature from Homer to Lucian. Self-referentiality, Konstan demonstrates in a subtle analysis, is already present in the first ecphrasis of the tradition, that of the shield of Achilles in Iliad 18. Konstan’s sensitive reading of this passage lays the foundation for the analysis of subsequent ecphrases: the same markers of self-referentiality (and others underscoring the materiality of the artifact) are identified in Hesiod’s Shield of Hercules and in the descriptions of the heroes’ shields in Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. By the time we reach Moschus’ Europa, Catullus 64 and Lucian’s Zeuxis, the three works discussed in the second half of this chapter, ecphrasis is a fully evolved, albeit never complete and definitive, literary system. In Chapter 2, “Etymologising Helen”, Evanthia Tsitsibakou-Vasalos tackles the thorny question of the etymology of Helen, as formulated explicitly in scholarship, both ancient and modern, and implicitly in

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ancient literature. The picture that emerges is murky and complex, as a result of the many competing conceptions of Helen and the plethora of plausible etymologies for her name. The chapter is divided into three sections. The first focuses on etymological interpretations of Helen’s name in ancient scholarship and lexicography; the second catalogues the scientific etymologies of Helen put forward by modern linguists and historians of religion, identifying common roots and mythical tales that have survived in various Indo-European languages and folklore; the third examines the ‘poetic’ etymologies of Helen found in the Homeric poems. The wide range of poetic etymologies for Helen attests to the elusiveness of her identity: she emerges as “an emblem of multiformity, irresistible beauty, death, volatility and scheming”. In Chapter 3, “ȉާȞ ʌȐȞIJĮ įȠȣȜİȪıȦ ȤȡȩȞȠȞ: Barbarians in Menander Reconsidered”, Antonis Petrides examines the figure of the barbarian slave in Menandrian comedy, aiming to complement and, at times, to refine the findings of earlier scholars. Menander’s barbarian slaves are completely Hellenised, conditioned in the manners and values of their Greek masters with whom they operate in full solidarity—to such an extent that, oddly enough, it is often the slaves rather than the masters who guarantee the perpetuation of the ȠੇțȠȢ. Petrides argues that the Hellenisation of the barbarian slave serves to naturalise the Greek polis, its social structures and hierarchies. Menandrian comedy constructs its social universe according to a scala naturae that positions barbarian slaves inexorably at the bottom, so that, though they absorb the values of the polis, they remain perpetual outsiders to it. Menander exhibits an ironic awareness of such contradictions: the naturalisation of civic structures and values in his plays is not meant to feel seamless. In Chapter 4, “The Strymon Vying with the Nile: Literary Implications in T. Geminus’ Anth. Pal. 9.707”, Maria Plastira-Valkanou offers a careful study of the last of the nine epigrams attributed to Tullius Geminus, one of the thirteen epigrammatists named by Philip of Thessalonica as contributing to his Garland. Plastira-Valkanou undertakes a new reading of Geminus’ epigram, which takes as its subject the river Strymon. The chapter consists of two parts: the first offers a close analysis of the epigram, tracing out verbal echoes of earlier poetry; the second offers a metapoetic reading of the poem. The poem’s favourable comparison of the Strymon with the Nile is understood as a coded programmatic response to Callimachus. The employment of words such as ȖȜȣțİȡȩȢ, ਲįȪIJİȡȠȞ, the phrase ੑȝʌȞȚĮț૵Ȟ ȤĮȡȓIJȦȞ, the verb ਥȖİȓȡȦ, and above all, the theme of water and the motif of the river, serve as markers of Callimachean poetics,

20

Introduction

enabling Geminus to give expression to regional poetic rivalries and contemporary aesthetic debates. In Chapter 5, “Personal names in Antonius Diogenes’ Incredible Things beyond Thule”, Consuelo Ruiz-Montero undertakes a rigorous study of personal names in the titular novel. The analysis includes consideration of real-life usage, particularly as attested in inscriptions, and the regional distribution of those inscriptions. In a more literary vein, Ruiz-Montero detects an overarching strategy in the use of ‘speaking names’, namely, Diogenes’ desire to engage in intertextual play with the literary tradition, and the comic genre in particular. A number of the names are found in comic texts or fragments, thereby attesting to Diogenes’ desire to provide his characters with names that suited his work as a ‘comedy’, as well as an erudite travel narrative. In Chapter 6, “Agonistic Perspectives in the Orphic Argonautica”, Andromache Karanika discusses the poetics of the titular work, a late antique epic composed in Greek in which Orpheus himself serves as internal narrator. The chapter examines Orpheus’ competitive ‘performances’ in the epic, while focusing on the intertextual effects that fashion Orpheus as an inherently agonistic figure representing the poetic authorial voice. As Karanika argues, it is largely through narratives of contests that the poem engages with and stands against its models, thereby establishing its unique position within the literary tradition. The second, somewhat larger section of the volume consists of ten essays on Latin literature. In Chapter 7, “Disease, Closure, and Lucretius’ Sense of Ending”, George Kazantzidis examines the use of disease (morbus) as a closural device in Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura, with particular focus on the endings of Books 3, 4 and 6. Kazantzidis observes that the movement towards the poem’s end parallels the progression of a disease which becomes increasingly severe and eventually leads to death. Long before the plague in Book 6 (1138-1286), Lucretius offers indications of the impending end in the closing section of Book 3 (10531075), which then return and take on significance at the end of Book 4 (1030-1287). Kazantzidis argues that in the movement from one closing section to the next, disease loses its metaphorical value and acquires a literal meaning. In Chapter 8, “The Happiness of Love in Roman Comedy and Elegy”, Robert Maltby looks at expressions of happiness and exultation by successful lovers in Roman elegy and compares them with the way this theme is treated in the comedies of Plautus and Terence. He examines differences between the individual elegists and between the individual comedians, and adduces arguments to support the view that, despite the

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elegists’ consistent failure to acknowledge the influence of Plautus and Terence, Roman comedy, and in particular the comedy of Terence, had an important role to play in the development of Roman love elegy. In Chapter 9, “The Chronology of Ovid’s Career”, Stephen Harrison looks at issues of dating in Ovid’s long and prolific literary career. Harrison’s point of departure is Syme’s monograph History in Ovid (1978), which considered a range of issues of dating in Ovid’s poetry from the perspective of prosopography and potential historical allusions, and plotted out a provisional chronology of his works. Harrison reconsiders Ovidian chronology from a more literary angle, taking up the results of the many developments in Ovidian scholarship since Syme wrote, and proffers a number of considerations for the dating of Ovid’s poetry which add to Syme’s substantial achievement. In Chapter 10, “Ovid and Catullus: The Silence of Time”, Ioannis Ziogas examines Ovid’s intertextual engagement with Catullus, a topic that, as the author notes, has yet to receive the scholarly attention it deserves. Ziogas discusses three aspects of this intertextual engagement. Firstly, Ovid often evokes Catullus in order to challenge Neoteric poetics. Second, Ovid’s allusions to Catullus sometimes point to an intriguing interaction between personal and mythological poetry in the Catullan corpus, bringing to the fore the verbal and thematic unity between Catullus’ personal poetry and his mythological poems. Finally, Ovid’s Catullan appropriations serve to underscore the political shift from the Republic to the Principate and, above all, the attendant erosion of the Republican ideal of libertas. In Chapter 11, “Boreads and Boar Hunters: Cataloguing Argonauts in Metamorphoses 6-8”, Ingo Gildenhard and Andrew Zissos examine the curious treatment of the Argonauts in Ovid’s magnum opus. These heroes are largely excluded from the lengthy account of their own myth, the quest for the Golden Fleece, in Book 7, but many of them appear with striking prominence in the Calydonian Boar Hunt episode of Book 8. The authors argue for an arch interplay between the two episodes, with the Calydonian Boar Hunt making good ‘absences’ and generic ‘deficits’ in the earlier Argonautic narrative. In Chapter 12, “Revisiting the Composition of the Calydonian Catalogue in Ovid, Met. 8.298-328”, Sophia Papaioannou offers a systematic study of the Ovidian catalogue of Calydonian hunters. Papaioannou begins by looking at other extant enumerations, and then goes on to consider the surprising array of non-Calydonian catalogues that have also left their mark on the Ovidian catalogue. The interfusion of so many different epic catalogues, Papaioannou argues, amounts to a

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Introduction

microcosmic expression of the interfusion of the epics from which they are drawn. In Chapter 13, “The Advent of Maiestas (Ovid, Fasti 5.11-52)”, Myrto Garani takes as her point of departure the disagreement of the Muses at the opening of Fasti 5 as to the derivation of the name of the month of May. The Muses’ disagreement, Garani argues, alerts the reader to an intertextual dialogue with Empedocles and Lucretius in the verses that follow. The chapter focuses on Ovid’s first etymological explanation, delivered by the Muse Polyhymnia, which derives ‘May’ from the goddess Maiestas and describes her life since birth (5.9-54). It explores the ways in which Ovid conflates previous accounts of the Golden Age and injects them with specific Empedoclean echoes mediated through earlier literature (particularly that of Aratus, Ennius, Lucretius and Virgil) that is likewise charged with Empedoclean allusions. In Chapter 14, “Exploring the boundaries between human and monstrous in Seneca’s Phaedra”, Andreas N. Michalopoulos examines the role and the importance of monsters in Seneca’s Phaedra, focusing on the Minotaur and the sea-monster that eventually causes Hippolytus’ death, and exploring the interaction between the human and the monstrous. A. Michalopoulos also considers the importance of ‘wild’ humans in the play, especially Hippolytus himself, and the philosophical implications of the ‘wild’ in the context of Senecan tragedy. In Chapter 15, “Catalogues in the Corpus Priapeorum”, Charilaos N. Michalopoulos offers a detailed examination of the nature and function of catalogues in the Corpus Priapeorum (CP). The chapter is specifically concerned with six catalogues that compare Priapus with various Olympian gods (CP 9, 20, 36, 39, 53, 75), and two enumerating fruits considered to be erotic (CP 16, 51). Following Kyriakidis’ 2007 study of catalogues of proper names in Latin Epic poetry (B-4 in section 2, above), C. Michalopoulos discusses issues of ordering, density and pace in catalogue arrangement. He demonstrates that the poet of the CP employs impressive variety in the employment of structural patterns and, in addition, discusses the significance of structural differentiation in poems belonging to the same thematic group. In Chapter 16, “English Translations of Virgil’s Aeneid, Chaucer to Wordsworth”, Philip Hardie offers a survey of the translations of the Aeneid for the indicated period, examining the close link between translation and creative imitation, given that “a translator is an interpreter in two senses, both one who goes between two languages, and one who provides an interpretation or commentary on the meanings of a text”. Among the texts explored by Hardie are Chaucer’s House of Fame and

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Marlowe’s dramatic Dido, Queen of Carthage, both of which adapt the Aeneid closely in places while allowing themselves liberal “divagations” elsewhere. Hardie then turns to straightforward translations of the Aeneid, and some of the formal experiments (blank metre, rhyming couplets, etc.) undertaken, starting in the 16th-century, and including the well-known 17th-century translations by Dryden and Pope, as well as the 18th-century Aeneid translations by Christopher Pitt, Joseph Trapp, and finally Wordsworth.

PART I. GREEK LITERATURE

CHAPTER ONE IMAGE VERSUS NARRATIVE: ECPHRASIS IN THE CLASSICAL TRADITION DAVID KONSTAN

For over a century, scholars and to some extent people generally have used the term “ecphrasis” to refer to a verbal description of a pictorial work of art, whether painting, sculpture, or relief, and in this sense the word has become part of the standard critical vocabulary. Recently, however, Ruth Webb, in an important and influential book, reminded readers that this usage is modern, not ancient; though the word ekphrasis existed in ancient Greek, its significance was much wider than the modern technical term would suggest, and was applied to any vivid description, whether of landscape, people, animals, cities—a whole range of things, in which the crucial element was not the subject matter but rather what we might call the graphic quality of the words, their ability to make the scene come alive as though it were actually visible to the eye.1 This is what the Greeks called enargeia or brilliance. As Webb puts it, “at no point in antiquity (or Byzantium) was ekphrasis confined to a single category of subject matter, nor can every text about images be claimed as ekphrasis in the ancient sense” (p. 2). In its original sense, ecphrasis was a rhetorical category, independent of subject matter. Webb’s objective was not to discourage investigation of classical accounts of works of art, but to help us to understand the larger context in which the ancient writers perceived such compositions, “to create a space for the ancient definition and to underline quite how different it and its underlying concepts are to our own ideas about texts and literature” (p. 5).2 Nevertheless, scholars have 1

See Webb 1999; and in more detail, Webb 2009; page numbers in the text refer to the latter publication. 2 Webb herself has recently remarked that ecphrases of works of art are especially interesting as a “cas limite qui attire notre attention sur les rapports entre narration et description”, noting that painting in particular is “à la fois objet et action”; see

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recently paid less attention to descriptions of artworks as a distinct literary tradition in classical antiquity and have even questioned whether such a tradition existed in a coherent or self-conscious way. It is this sense of ecphrasis as a distinct sub-genre which takes visual works of art as its subject matter that I hope to reinstate here. I begin at the beginning, with the description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad. Toward the end of the passage, we read: ਥȞ į੻ ȤȠȡઁȞ ʌȠȓțȚȜȜİ ʌİȡȚțȜȣIJઁȢ ਕȝijȚȖȣȒİȚȢ, IJ૶ ੅țİȜȠȞ ȠੈȩȞ ʌȠIJૃਥȞ੿ ȀȞȦı૶ İ੝ȡİȓૉ ǻĮȓįĮȜȠȢ ਵıțȘıİȞ țĮȜȜȚʌȜȠțȐȝ૳ ਝȡȚȐįȞૉ. ਩ȞșĮ ȝ੻Ȟ ਱ǸșİȠȚ țĮ੿ ʌĮȡșȑȞȠȚ ਕȜijİıȓȕȠȚĮȚ ੑȡȤİ૨ȞIJૃ ਕȜȜȒȜȦȞ ਥʌ੿ țĮȡʌ૶ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ ਩ȤȠȞIJİȢ. IJ૵Ȟ įૃ Į੄ ȝ੻Ȟ ȜİʌIJ੹Ȣ ੑșȩȞĮȢ ਩ȤȠȞ, Ƞ੄ į੻ ȤȚIJ૵ȞĮȢ İ੆ĮIJૃ ਥȨȞȞȒIJȠȣȢ, ਷țĮ ıIJȓȜȕȠȞIJĮȢ ਥȜĮȓ૳: țĮȓ ૧ૃ Į੄ ȝ੻Ȟ țĮȜ੹Ȣ ıIJİijȐȞĮȢ ਩ȤȠȞ, Ƞ੄ į੻ ȝĮȤĮȓȡĮȢ İੇȤȠȞ ȤȡȣıİȓĮȢ ਥȟ ਕȡȖȣȡȑȦȞ IJİȜĮȝȫȞȦȞ. Ƞ੄ įૃ ੒IJ੻ ȝ੻Ȟ șȡȑȟĮıțȠȞ ਥʌȚıIJĮȝȑȞȠȚıȚ ʌȩįİııȚ ૧İ૙Į ȝȐȜૃ, ੪Ȣ ੖IJİ IJȚȢ IJȡȠȤઁȞ ਙȡȝİȞȠȞ ਥȞ ʌĮȜȐȝૉıȚȞ ਦȗȩȝİȞȠȢ țİȡĮȝİઃȢ ʌİȚȡȒıİIJĮȚ, Į੅ țİ șȑૉıȚȞ: ਙȜȜȠIJİ įૃ Į੣ șȡȑȟĮıțȠȞ ਥʌ੿ ıIJȓȤĮȢ ਕȜȜȒȜȠȚıȚ. ʌȠȜȜઁȢ įૃ ੂȝİȡȩİȞIJĮ ȤȠȡઁȞ ʌİȡȚȓıIJĮșૃ ੖ȝȚȜȠȢ IJİȡʌȩȝİȞȠȚ: įȠȚઅ į੻ țȣȕȚıIJȘIJોȡİ țĮIJૃ Į੝IJȠઃȢ ȝȠȜʌોȢ ਥȟȐȡȤȠȞIJİȢ ਥįȓȞİȣȠȞ țĮIJ੹ ȝȑııȠȣȢ. (Hom. Il. 18.590-606) And the renowned smith of the strong arms made elaborate on it a dancing floor, like that which once in the wide spaces of Knossos Daidalos built for Ariadne of the lovely tresses. And there were young men on it and young girls, sought for their beauty with gifts of oxen, dancing, and holding hands at the wrist. These wore, the maidens long light robes, but the men wore tunics of finespun work and shining softly, touched with olive oil. And the girls wore fair garlands on their heads, while the young men carried golden knives that hung from sword-belts of silver. At whiles on their understanding feet they would run very lightly, Webb 2013; quotation from p. 19. Cf. Guez 2013: “Au coeur des rapports problématiques entre narration et description, réside l’idée selon laquelle le visuel et le verbal s’opposent comme l’espace et le temps” (quotation from p. 35). Squire 2011 approves of Webb’s definition of ecphrasis to a point (p. 326), but notes that “Philostratus the Younger had no qualms about introducing his 17 paintingdescriptions as an ecphrasis of works of painting/description” (pp. 327); in this respect, “The description of Achilles’ shield was viewed as not only the earliest example of Greek or Latin ecphrasis, but also its founding paradigm” (p. 328).

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Chapter One as when a potter crouching makes trial of his wheel, holding it close in his hands, to see if it will run smooth. At another time they would form rows, and run, rows crossing each other. And around the lovely chorus of dancers stood a great multitude happily watching. And among them sang an inspired singer playing his lyre, while with them two acrobats led the measures of song and dance revolving among them. (tr. Lattimore 1951)

We may observe first that Daedalus and Ariadne are the only human beings named in the description of the shield. Daedalus is, of course, the artist or artisan par excellence, and in comparing the dancing floor in the shield sculpted by Hephaestus to the one created by Daedalus, Homer calls attention to the shield as an artefact, and the description of it as, I suggest, an ecphrasis in the modern acceptation of the word. The reference to Daedalus echoes the beginning of the ecphrasis, in a kind of ring composition: ʌȠȓİȚ į੻ ʌȡȫIJȚıIJĮ ıȐțȠȢ ȝȑȖĮ IJİ ıIJȚȕĮȡȩȞ IJİ ʌȐȞIJȠıİ įĮȚįȐȜȜȦȞ, ʌİȡ੿ įૃ ਙȞIJȣȖĮ ȕȐȜȜİ ijĮİȚȞ੽Ȟ IJȡȓʌȜĮțĮ ȝĮȡȝĮȡȑȘȞ, ਥț įૃ ਕȡȖȪȡİȠȞ IJİȜĮȝ૵ȞĮ. ʌȑȞIJİ įૃ ਙȡૃ Į੝IJȠ૨ ਩ıĮȞ ıȐțİȠȢ ʌIJȪȤİȢ: Į੝IJ੹ȡ ਥȞ Į੝IJ૶ ʌȠȓİȚ įĮȓįĮȜĮ ʌȠȜȜ੹ ੁįȣȓૉıȚ ʌȡĮʌȓįİııȚȞ. (Hom. Il. 18.478-482) First of all he forged a shield that was huge and heavy, elaborating it about, and threw around it a shining triple rim that glittered, and the shield strap was cast of silver. There were five folds composing the shield itself, and upon it he elaborated many things in his skill and craftsmanship.

The words daidallôn and daidala anticipate the explicit reference to Daedalus himself.3 What is more, the circling dance is likened to a potter’s wheel, once again summoning up the idea of craftsmanship. But that is not all. Homer is comparing the movement of the dancers to something that in real life rotates endlessly, without beginning or end—or almost so; for the potter has a purpose in running the wheel, and when he has tested it he will

3

There are other elements of ring-composition in the depiction of the shield, for example, in the opening and closing references to Ocean (483-489, 607-608); within the passage under discussion, the mention of the chorus in 593-605 echoes the earlier account of the festivities marking the city at peace (491-496).

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presumably stop it. The dancers on the shield too perform different steps, and at another time will form rows; but these are discrete scenes: whether in circles or rows, the dancers represented on the shield are frozen in position, in a way that the potter’s wheel is not, for it is not imagined as a still image but as a moment outside the ecphrasis proper, in a simile that references, as it were, the real world. And this is just the difference between the description of a work of art and ordinary narrative: a pictorial representation necessarily stops time, and can indicate motion only by suggestion, such as gestures, turbulence in water or air, or scenes placed side by side to indicate a progression. Narrative, on the contrary, is temporal by nature: it tells a story, and indicates not just movement but movement organised as a sequence of events that typically suggests purpose or order. If a work of visual art paralyses motion, even as it attempts to represent it, a description of such a work in a medium naturally given to expressing action inevitably reimports the movement that the image had halted.4 The tension between the temporal thrust of the description and the static quality of the image described—a stasis that itself manifests the reverse strain of immobilising a dynamic event—was not lost on the poets who composed such ecphrases, from Homer onward.5

4

Cf. Heffernan 1991: “From Homer’s time until our own, ekphrastic literature reveals again and again this narrative response to pictorial stasis, this storytelling impulse that language by its very nature seems to release and stimulate” (quotation from p. 301). The idea goes back to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s seminal work, Laocoon. As David Marshall notes (Marshall 1997, 696), “Lessing, in contrast [to Pope], insists that ‘Homer represents nothing but progressive actions’, just because ‘he used narrative rather than images’”. Lessing observed that “Homer does not paint the shield as finished and complete, but as a shield that is being made… We do not see the shield, but the divine master as he is making it” (Laocoon: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, ch. 18, tr. McCormick 1984, 95). 5 Koopman 2014, explores the tension between narrative and description in five ecphrases (the shield of Achilles, the Shield of Heracles, Jason’s cloak in Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica, the cup in Theocritus Idyll 1, and Moschus’ Europa). The principal contrast between the two terms is most succinctly summarised as follows: “Descriptive passages prototypically lack the ‘chronology’ of narrative—they are nondiegetic—and must therefore be organised differently” (p. 49). Thus, “In the descriptive discourse mode time is static” (p. 59); what is more, “The tense typically found in the descriptive discourse mode is the imperfect, which either designates a state or an ongoing event” (p. 60), without reaching a conclusion, whereas narrative passages tend to feature rather the aorist. But the continuous present is also characteristic of ecphrasis, representing an ongoing act that reaches no terminus.

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Chapter One

There are two further points of interest in this passage. First, we may note that Homer has included in the description the response of observers within the scene: “a great multitude happily watching”. This is a characteristic feature of ecphrases, which tend to incorporate the viewer in the representation and give some indication of the expected reaction. Second, there is the detail that ‘the young men carried golden knives that hung from sword-belts of silver’ (Ƞ੄ į੻ ȝĮȤĮȓȡĮȢ İੇȤȠȞ ȤȡȣıİȓĮȢ ਥȟ ਕȡȖȣȡȑȦȞ IJİȜĮȝȫȞȦȞ, 598-599). Now, Homer tells us in the opening verses, quoted above, that Hephaestus cast ‘a shining triple rim around Achilles’ shield, and the shield strap was cast of silver’ (ਥț įૃਕȡȖȪȡİȠȞ IJİȜĮȝ૵ȞĮ, 480). There is a reflection, it seems to me, of the object under description within the designs depicted on the object itself, a form of selfreferentiality that again is a feature of a number of ecphrases in the modern sense of the term. In a similar though not identical fashion, the Gorgons on Hercules’ shield in the Hesiodic epyllion wear belts or zonai that are themselves adorned, in a passage that intrudes upon the mention of the shield’s own substance (231-234): ਥʌ੿ į੻ ȤȜȦȡȠ૨ ਕįȐȝĮȞIJȠȢ ȕĮȚȞȠȣıȑȦȞ ੁȐȤİıțİ ıȐțȠȢ ȝİȖȐȜ૳ ੑȡȣȝĮȖį૶ ੑȟȑĮ țĮ੿ ȜȚȖȑȦȢ: ਥʌ੿ į੻ ȗȫȞૉıȚ įȡȐțȠȞIJİ įȠȚઅ ਕʌૉȦȡİ૨ȞIJૃ ਥʌȚțȣȡIJȫȠȞIJİ țȐȡȘȞĮ… as they [the Gorgons] trod upon the pale adamant, the shield rang sharp and clear with a loud clanging. Two serpents hung down at their girdles with heads curved forward…

The shield resounds with the Gorgons’ footsteps and serpents in turn issue from their belts, a kind of ecphrasis within the ecphrasis. Before leaving Homer’s shield, let me call attention to one further scene, namely the adjudication of the dispute between two citizens in the city at peace. Here is Lattimore’s translation of the relevant verses (18.497-508): The people were assembled in the market place, where a quarrel had arisen, and two men were disputing over the blood price for a man who had been killed. One man promised full restitution in a public statement, but the other refused and would accept nothing. Both then made for an arbitrator, to have a decision; and people were speaking up on either side, to help both men. But the heralds kept the people in hand, as meanwhile the elders were in session on benches of polished stone in the sacred circle and held in their hands the staves of the heralds who lift their voices.

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The two men rushed before these, and took turns speaking their cases, and between them lay on the ground two talents of gold, to be given to that judge who in this case spoke the straightest opinion. (tr. Lattimore 1951)

What I wish to emphasise (a point noticed by commentators) is the lack of resolution in the episode. We can only imagine how the viewer could determine the reason for the trial, but however that may be, we are given no indication of who won in the dispute, or how the arbitrators arrived at their judgment. There is, up to a point, a forward narrative thrust: a quarrel, the presentation of both sides to the argument, the offer of a reward, the tense moment of expectation—and then, the frustration of the storyline, as we are left in indefinite suspense. There is a similar interruption of the account of the two cities at war, which terminates in an indecisive ambush. The descriptions are vivid enough, no doubt, but the tension between narrative movement and the static quality of visual images is specific to verbal descriptions of works of art, which imply action and resolution even as they arrest it. The description of the shield of Hercules in the poem ascribed to Hesiod is divided into two approximately equal parts by the figure of Perseus (216-236), who is pictured fleeing the Gorgons after the slaying of Medusa. The second segment, which runs to 81 verses as opposed to 77 for the first, portrays two cities, the first at war, the second at peace, like Homer’s account, but in reverse order. At the end of the latter passage, and just before the concluding verses of the ecphrasis, we read (306-313): Next to them were horsemen hard set, and they contended and laboured for a prize. The charioteers standing on their well-woven cars urged on their swift horses with loose rein; the jointed cars flew along clattering and the naves of the wheels shrieked loudly. So they were engaged in an unending toil, and the end with victory came never to them, and the contest was ever unwon. And there was set out for them within the course a great tripod of gold, the splendid work of cunning Hephaestus. (tr. Evelyn-White 1914).

The final four verses of the Greek read: Ƞ੄ ȝ੻Ȟ ਙȡૃ ਕȓįȚȠȞ İੇȤȠȞ ʌȩȞȠȞ Ƞ੝įȑ ʌȠIJȑ ıijȚȞ ȞȓțȘ ਥʌȘȞȪıșȘ, ਕȜȜૃ ਙțȡȚIJȠȞ İੇȤȠȞ ਙİșȜȠȞ. IJȠ૙ıȚȞ į੻ ʌȡȠȑțİȚIJȠ ȝȑȖĮȢ IJȡȓʌȠȢ ਥȞIJઁȢ ਕȖ૵ȞȠȢ, ȤȡȪıİȚȠȢ, țȜȣIJ੹ ਩ȡȖĮ ʌİȡȓijȡȠȞȠȢ ਺ijĮȓıIJȠȚȠ. (Hom. Il. 18.310-313)

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The struggle is strictly endless, infinite: the term aïdios, unlike aiônios, means strictly eternal, not just a long period or lifetime, and the contest will go forever undecided.6 This is what visual art does: it freezes the moment. It is not that it reproduces a static event, such as a description of a landscape might do; rather, it stops a process, something that moves toward a conclusion, and reduces an action that takes place in time to a timeless instant, in which it can never reach resolution. And yet, the description begs for an ending, some kind of finality: that is what narrative does. Hesiod rounds off the description of the shield with four verses on Ocean, reminiscent of Homer’s shield, before returning to the frame narrative of Hercules’ encounter with Cycnus (314-317): And round the rim Ocean was flowing, with a full stream as it seemed, and enclosed all the cunning work of the shield. Over it swans were soaring and calling loudly, and many others were swimming upon the surface of the water; and near them were shoals of fish. (tr. Evelyn-White 1914).

Ocean serves here, as it does in the Homeric ecphrasis, to suggest the roundness of the shield and at the same time to frame the entire description. The mention of swans provides a punning transition to Hercules’ duel with Cycnus, and at the same time echoes the dolphins that appear just before the Perseus tableau. Immediately thereafter Hercules is described as leaping onto his chariot and engaging in battle with Cycnus, whom he will slay, as Athena foretells, even as she instructs him on how to treat Cycnus’ body and defend himself against Ares (325-337). This is no longer an unending or eternal contest; we are back in story time, and the narrative will proceed to a conclusion, as Athena makes clear from the very beginning. The contrast between the forever suspended action on the shield and the forward drive of the narrative frame is striking. Both Homer and Hesiod call attention regularly to the material of the shield, and to the labour of Hephaestus as craftsman. Homer, for example, says: ਥȞ įૃ ਥIJȓșİȚ ıIJĮijȣȜૌıȚ ȝȑȖĮ ȕȡȓșȠȣıĮȞ ਕȜȦ੽Ȟ țĮȜ੽Ȟ ȤȡȣıİȓȘȞ: ȝȑȜĮȞİȢ įૃ ਕȞ੹ ȕȩIJȡȣİȢ ਷ıĮȞ, ਦıIJȒțİȚ į੻ țȐȝĮȟȚ įȚĮȝʌİȡ੻Ȣ ਕȡȖȣȡȑૉıȚȞ. ਕȝij੿ į੻ țȣĮȞȑȘȞ țȐʌİIJȠȞ, ʌİȡ੿ įૃ ਪȡțȠȢ ਩ȜĮııİ țĮııȚIJȑȡȠȣ. (Hom. Il. 18.561-565)

6

On the distinction between the two terms, see Ramelli and Konstan 2007.

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He made on it a great vineyard heavy with clusters, lovely and in gold, but the grapes upon it were darkened and the vines themselves stood out through poles of silver. About them he made a field-ditch of dark metal, and drove all around this a fence of tin.

Hesiod, in turn, has: ਥȞ įૃ ਷Ȟ ਫ਼ıȝȓȞȘ ȁĮʌȚșȐȦȞ ĮੁȤȝȘIJȐȦȞ ȀĮȚȞȑĮ IJૃ ਕȝij੿ ਙȞĮțIJĮ ǻȡȪĮȞIJȐ IJİ ȆİȚȡȓșȠȩȞ IJİ ੘ʌȜȑĮ IJૃ ਫȟȐįȚȩȞ IJİ ĭȐȜȘȡȩȞ IJİ ȆȡȩȜȠȤȩȞ IJİ ȂȩȥȠȞ IJૃ ਝȝʌȣțȓįȘȞ, ȉȚIJĮȡȒıȚȠȞ, ੕ȗȠȞ ਡȡȘȠȢ, ĬȘıȑĮ IJૃ ǹੁȖİǸįȘȞ, ਥʌȚİȓțİȜȠȞ ਕșĮȞȐIJȠȚıȚȞ: ਕȡȖȪȡİȠȚ, ȤȡȪıİȚĮ ʌİȡ੿ ȤȡȠ૗ IJİȪȤİૃ ਩ȤȠȞIJİȢ. ȀȑȞIJĮȣȡȠȚ įૃ ਦIJȑȡȦșİȞ ਥȞĮȞIJȓȠȚ ਱ȖİȡȑșȠȞIJȠ ਕȝij੿ ȝȑȖĮȞ ȆİIJȡĮ૙ȠȞ ੁįૃ ਡıȕȠȜȠȞ ȠੁȦȞȚıIJ੽Ȟ ਡȡțIJȠȞ IJૃ ȅ੡ȡİȚȩȞ IJİ ȝİȜĮȖȤĮȓIJȘȞ IJİ ȂȓȝĮȞIJĮ țĮ੿ įȪȠ ȆİȣțİǸįĮȢ, ȆİȡȚȝȒįİȐ IJİ ǻȡȪĮȜȩȞ IJİ, ਕȡȖȪȡİȠȚ, ȤȡȣıȑĮȢ ਥȜȐIJĮȢ ਥȞ Ȥİȡı੿Ȟ ਩ȤȠȞIJİȢ. țĮȓ IJİ ıȣȞĮǸȖįȘȞ ੪Ȣ İੁ ȗȦȠȓ ʌİȡ ਥȩȞIJİȢ ਩ȖȤİıȚȞ ਱įૃ ਥȜȐIJૉȢ Į੝IJȠıȤİįઁȞ ੩ȡȚȖȞ૵ȞIJȠ. (Hes. Scut. 178-190) And there was the strife of the Lapith spearmen gathered round the prince Caeneus and Dryas and Peirithous, with Hopleus, Exadius, Phalereus, and Prolochus, Mopsus the son of Ampycus of Titaresia, a scion of Ares, and Theseus, the son of Aegeus, like unto the deathless gods. These were of silver, and had armour of gold upon their bodies. And the Centaurs were gathered against them on the other side with Petraeus and Asbolus the diviner, Arctus, and Ureus, and black-haired Mimas, and the two sons of Peukeus, Perimedes and Dryalus, made of silver, and they had pinetrees of gold in their hands, and they were rushing together as though they were alive and striking at one another hand to hand with spears and with pines. (tr. Evelyn-White 1914).

This illustrates another common feature of ecphrasis: mention of the lifelike quality of the figures represented, or comparison with living creatures. Homer avails himself of the device, but much more sparingly: ੪ȝȓȜİȣȞ įૃ ੮Ȣ IJİ ȗȦȠ੿ ȕȡȠIJȠ੿ ਱įૃ ਥȝȐȤȠȞIJȠ, ȞİțȡȠȪȢ IJૃ ਕȜȜȒȜȦȞ ਩ȡȣȠȞ țĮIJĮIJİșȞȘ૵IJĮȢ. (Hom. Il. 18.539-540) All closed together like living men and fought with each other and dragged away from each other the corpses of those who had fallen. (tr. Lattimore 1951)

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Both the references to the materiality of the shields and the emphasis on the lifelikeness of the representations are topoi specific to descriptions of works of art and not just any vivid depiction. They are reminders that the artwork itself seeks to intimate the kind of motility that living beings possess, and which the narrative can restore to the engraved images. Centuries later, Dio Chrysostom will place in the mouth of Phidias the complaint that the visual arts cannot portray the movements of the gods, but are confined to representing them in one place and position (Dio Chrys. Or. 12.70). A device specific to the Hesiodic ecphrasis is the frequent insistence that the images on the shield are in some sense ineffable or indescribable: ਥȞ įૃ ੑijȓȦȞ țİijĮȜĮ੿ įİȚȞ૵Ȟ ਩ıĮȞ, Ƞ੡IJȚ ijĮIJİȚ૵Ȟ, įȫįİțĮ. (Hes. Scut. 160-161) And there were heads of snakes unspeakably frightful, twelve of them. (tr. Evelyn-White 1914). īȠȡȖȩȞİȢ ਙʌȜȘIJȠȓ IJİ țĮ੿ Ƞ੝ ijĮIJĮ੿ ਥȡȡȫȠȞIJȠ ੂȑȝİȞĮȚ ȝĮʌȑİȚȞ. (Hes. Scut. 230-231) And after him rushed the Gorgons, unapproachable and unspeakable, longing to seize him. (tr. Evelyn-White 1914).

This is a curious gesture of modesty on the part of the narrator, lending the visual image a power that words cannot match (cf. the non enarrabile textum of Aeneas’ shield at Virg. Aen. 8.625). Of course, the poet may be suggesting just the opposite, as he successfully conveys the horror of these figures in his verses. But he may also be hinting at the distinct capacities of verbal and visual representation, again pointing up the interrelationship between the arts that is specific to ecphrasis. In the Hesiodic shield, there is virtually a complete absence of temporal markers in the descriptions of local scenes—no such particles as “then”, “next”, or “after that” punctuate the successive images. There are none at all, for example, in the account of Perseus, and indeed the only instances in the entire ecphrasis occur in the brief episode concerning a battle between boars and lions, where we find the particles nu, êdê, and eti (170, 172, 176), although these tend more, I think, to confirm the simultaneity of the several moments than to mark their temporal arrangement. In the Homeric shield of Achilles, by contrast, there are numerous temporal adverbs, such as entha, epeita, ou pô, hote, autika,

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hopote, opisthe, allote (18.497, 506, 513, 520, 531, 544, 554, 602; cf. 522, 523, 545, etc.), as well as indications of motion (takha, aipsa, 525, 532), that help to organise the individual scenes according to temporal sequences. While the succession of images does not exhibit an overall linear progression, taken one by one they are more compatible with the narrative movement of the rest of the epic than are the icons that adorn the shield of Hercules. As Andrew Becker remarks of the shield of Achilles: “The Shield appropriates visual images by translating them into stories. The translation includes motion, thought, motive, cause and effect, prior and subsequent action, and sound”.7 The Hesiodic ecphrasis rather blocks the narrative thrust of the frame story. Instead of providing a counterpoint to the outer narrative, it conforms rather to the atemporal decorative or ornamental arrangement characteristic of the visual arts.8 In place of temporal particles, the Hesiodic poem offers spatial adverbs, such as en, epi, heterôthen, huper, peri, and proparoithe (144, 147, 184, 237, 279, 285), or else mere signs of repetition or parallelism, like aute (296). To be sure, the several images are described successively, for this is the only way that poetry can represent them. I suggest that this fidelity to the plastic medium should be seen not as a primitive parataxis, but rather as an artistic achievement that may very well be the result of a centuries-long tradition of oral composition, alongside and in competition with the Homeric method.9 However that may be, the two ecphrases manifest in a variety of ways an awareness of the dynamic between visual and verbal representation, and together form the point of reference for subsequent experiments in the form. 7

Becker 1995, 152. Cf. Guez 2013, 39: “On sait en effet qu’un certain nombre des motifs gravés par Héphaistos sur la surface du bouclier semblent littéralement animés; la scène de l’embuscade, par exemple, se présente formellement comme un récit, repérable par la présence d’adverbes temporels (਩ʌİȚIJĮ, IJ੺ȤĮ, Į੝IJ઀țĮ, ĮੇࣜĮ), ou de subordonnées temporelles introduites par ਥʌİ઀ ou ੪Ȣ”. 8 Putnam 1998, elegantly remarks of an ecphrasis embedded in a frame story that “two types of narrativity collide” (p. 10; cf. pp. 12, 36); in the case of Hesiod, however, the action within the ecphrasis is so reduced as to call into question the applicability of the term “narrative”. Putnam elsewhere (p. 21) refers to the ecphrasis as a place where “the narrative momentarily rests”. 9 See Konstan 2000-2001. Zoran 1984 notes the “asymmetry of time and space” in narrative, since time can be correlated with the order of events, but no such correlation is possible with space; since a spatial object is complete and exists all at once, “language cannot give full expression to the spatial existence of any object”; as a result, the spatial aspects of an object “are arranged along a temporal line” (p. 313). This is true, of course, but the strategies for translating space into narrative descriptions vary.

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I speak of experiments, because ecphrasis lies at the limit of generic instability. The primary function of genre is to provide a horizon of expectation against which we may perceive the ways in which a work conforms to and at the same time modifies the tradition to which it belongs. As Tzvetan Todorov has argued, “any instance of a genre will be necessarily different” from those that preceded it, and by virtue of this difference, “every work modifies the sum of possible works”.10 Take the next example of descriptions of shields in what survives of classical Greek literature, namely the famous scene in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes: here, the emphasis is on the significance of the images, which are several times accompanied either by inscriptions or quotations of the warrior’s boasts. Thus, Tydeus declares his impatience to attack the city, despite unfavourable omens, while ਫ਼ʌૃਕıʌȓįȠȢ įૃ਩ıȦ ȤĮȜțȒȜĮIJȠȚ țȜȐȗȠȣıȚ țȫįȦȞİȢ ijȩȕȠȞ: ਩ȤİȚ įૃ ਫ਼ʌȑȡijȡȠȞ ıોȝૃ ਥʌૃਕıʌȓįȠȢ IJȩįİ, ijȜȑȖȠȞșૃ ਫ਼ʌૃਙıIJȡȠȚȢ Ƞ੝ȡĮȞઁȞ IJİIJȣȖȝȑȞȠȞ: ȜĮȝʌȡ੹ į੻ ʌĮȞıȑȜȘȞȠȢ ਥȞ ȝȑı૳ ıȐțİȚ, ʌȡȑıȕȚıIJȠȞ ਙıIJȡȦȞ, ȞȣțIJઁȢ ੑijșĮȜȝȩȢ, ʌȡȑʌİȚ. (Aesch. Sept. 385-390) … from under his shield, bells forged of bronze therein ring out a fearsome clang. He has this haughty symbol on his shield: a well-crafted sky, ablaze with stars, and the brightness of the full moon shining in the centre of the shield, the moon that is the most revered of the stars, the eye of night. (tr. Smyth 1926).

The bells recall Hercules’ shield, which “rang sharp and clear with a loud clanging”, and the moon harks back, I expect, to Achilles’ shield, which bears the earth, sky, sea, sun, and a full moon, along with several constellations (18.483-489). But the context is entirely different: for it is not an impersonal narrator who offers the description, but a scout who is reporting to the Theban king; the symbols are thus open to alternative interpretations, despite the intention of the artist or the man who bears the shield, and Eteocles offers a counter-reading, affirming that night represents the death that awaits the braggart. Capaneus comes next, and he tries even harder to control the meaning of his shield’s image, with words both spoken and inscribed: 10

Todorov 1972. Cf. Heffernan 1993, 23: “After Homer, all ekphrasis becomes doubly paragonal: a contest staged not just between the word and the image but also between one poet and another”.

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șİȠ૨ IJİ Ȗ੹ȡ șȑȜȠȞIJȠȢ ਥțʌȑȡıİȚȞ ʌȩȜȚȞ țĮ੿ ȝ੽ șȑȜȠȞIJȩȢ ijȘıȚȞ, Ƞ੝į੻ IJ੽Ȟ ǻȚઁȢ ਩ȡȚȞ ʌȑįȠȚ ıțȒȥĮıĮȞ ਥȝʌȠįઅȞ ıȤİșİ૙Ȟ. IJ੹Ȣ įૃ ਕıIJȡĮʌȐȢ IJİ țĮ੿ țİȡĮȣȞȓȠȣȢ ȕȠȜ੹Ȣ ȝİıȘȝȕȡȚȞȠ૙ıȚ șȐȜʌİıȚȞ ʌȡȠı૊țĮıİȞ: ਩ȤİȚ į੻ ıોȝĮ ȖȣȝȞઁȞ ਙȞįȡĮ ʌȣȡijȩȡȠȞ, ijȜȑȖİȚ į੻ ȜĮȝʌ੹Ȣ įȚ੹ Ȥİȡ૵Ȟ ੪ʌȜȚıȝȑȞȘ: ȤȡȣıȠ૙Ȣ į੻ ijȦȞİ૙ ȖȡȐȝȝĮıȚȞ ‘ʌȡȒıȦ ʌȩȜȚȞ’. (Aesch. Sept. 427-434) For he says he will utterly destroy the city with god’s will or without it, and that not even conflict with Zeus, though it should fall before him in the plain, will stand in his way. The god’s lightning and thunderbolts he compares to midday heat. For his shield’s symbol he has a man without armor bearing fire, and the torch, his weapon, blazes in his hands; and in golden letters he says “I will burn the city”. (tr. Smyth 1926).

Each of the Aeschylean shields contains a single image (or, in the case of Amphiaraus, no image at all), although sequentially they carry a set of episodes, beginning, not accidentally I think, with a cosmic image corresponding to the initial description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad; the two subsequent emblems are Capaneus’ torch-bearer and a figure mounting a wall on the shield of Eteocles, both representing a city at war. These are followed by Hippomedon, midway in the tally of seven shields, on whose armour the symbol-maker (੒ ıȘȝĮIJȠȣȡȖȩȢ, 491) placed Typho. Eteocles cleverly responds that his adversary will bear an image of Zeus brandishing the thunderbolt, a nice instance of hermeneutic oneupmanship; but it’s worth noting that Typho here occupies the middle place that Perseus and the Gorgons hold in the Hesiodic shield.11 Next comes the Sphinx, then Amphiaraus’ blank shield, and finally Polynices’, representing Justice leading a man etched in gold, with an inscription affirming that she is leading him back to his ancestral hall—perhaps, in its way, a recollection of the peaceful cities that adorn both epic shields. With the scenes dispersed over the individual shields, however, they lose their universality and become emblems or signs that invite exegesis and are open to conflicting interpretations. This struggle is waged in words, not pictures: that is why the attackers must proclaim their intentions, or have them written on their shields, as a supplement to the image, and why Eteocles can beat them at their own game. Poetry is not just painting that 11

Cf. Torrance 2013, 94-133, for a discussion of how Euripides, in The Phoenician Women, engages with Aeschylus’ description of the shields in the Seven by way of “competitive capping” (the reference is to the sympotic game of eikasmoi).

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speaks, nor painting silent poetry, as Semonides is said to have observed (Plutarch, De gloria Atheniensium 3, 347A); in his shields, Aeschylus has explored another dimension, quite self-consciously, I believe, of the tension between visual and verbal art that lies at the heart of ecphrasis. In Moschus’ poem on the abduction of Europa, there is a brief description of the figures on the basket that Europa carries, which is also the work of Hephaestus; it is a representation of the fortunes of Io, who, in the form of a cow, is sculpted in gold, and shown crossing the Bosporus ‘like one who is swimming’ (ȞȘȤȠȝȑȞૉ ੁțȑȜȘ, 47). Two men are shown watching her, recalling the internal observers in the Homeric shield, and more closely still the Hesiodic, on which, just before the section on Perseus, a harbour is portrayed, teeming with dolphins: ‘Two dolphins of silver were spouting and devouring the mute fishes. And beneath them fishes of bronze were trembling. And on the shore sat a fisherman watching: in his hands he held a casting net for fish, and seemed as if about to cast it forth’ (211-215). A further scene portrays Io’s transformation back into the form of a woman, by the Nile done in silver, though here the cow is of bronze and gold is reserved for the figure of Zeus (53-54). Finally, the rim illustrates Hermes slaying Argos, and the peacock emerging from his blood. Moschus has introduced another new wrinkle into the ecphrasis mode: a series of images centred on a single story, that of Io, and that are meant to be viewed sequentially—a technique that will be developed further by Virgil, in his description of the friezes on the temple to Juno and of Aeneas’ shield. Even the mentions of the metals employed are made to serve this narrative function: we cannot help but note that Io’s composition changes, as Zeus assumes the primary role in the scene. There is, however, a problem with the final episode that adorns the rim: it is out of chronological order, since Hermes liberated Io from the watchful eyes of Argos before she began her journey to Egypt. David Petrain has made much of this detail; as he puts it, “Moschus represents spatial position as the decisive factor determining the order of his description, and minimizes the role played by the viewer and his choices” (p. 263), in comparison, he suggests, with Theocritus’ description of the cup in the first Idyll.12 I wish to offer a different interpretation of the sequence. Moschus has constructed his ecphrasis as a specific counterpoint to the frame narrative: both Europa and Io are victims of Zeus’ passion, and their stories are analogous. The ecphrasis thus has more of the character of a narrative than is the case with any of the shield descriptions, whether the multi-scene constructs of Homer and Hesiod or the narrower 12

Petrain 2006.

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focus of Aeschylus’ series. To be sure, the depiction of Zeus restoring Io to her original form by his touch must be portrayed alongside that of Io swimming in the sea, although Moschus signals the shift simply with the particles men and de (ਥȞ ȝ੻Ȟ ਩ȘȞ ȤȡȣıȠ૙Ƞ IJİIJȣȖȝȑȞȘ ੉ȞĮȤ੿Ȣ ੉ȫ, / İੁıȑIJȚ ʌȩȡIJȚȢ ਥȠ૨ıĮ, 44-45; ਥȞ įࡑ ਷Ȟ ǽİઃȢ ȀȡȠȞȓįȘȢ ਥʌĮijȫȝİȞȠȢ ਱ȡȑȝĮ Ȥİȡı੿ / ʌȩȡIJȚȠȢ ੉ȞĮȤȓȘȢ, 50-51). Still, just because the episodes form part of a sequential tale, the ecphrasis threatens to compete with the frame narrative, relating a complete action or praxis and thus restoring temporality to the pictorial images. This was, of course, always an option for ecphrases, for which there were models in the pictorial arts, and in some of the scenes on the epic shields, for example that of the arbitration in Homer, there is an implicit development or temporal order to the events, for example when the men in the dispute over a murder bring their case before the arbitrators; Lattimore translates, ‘The two men rushed before these, and took turns speaking their cases’, but he omits the particle epeita (IJȠ૙ıȚȞ ਩ʌİȚIJૃ ਵȧııȠȞ, ਕȝȠȚȕȘį੿Ȣ į੻ įȓțĮȗȠȞ, 18.506). But these episodes, as we have seen, lack conclusion or finality, while the account of Io’s adventure reaches its natural end with her arrival in Egypt and the restoration of her human form. The verbal description undoes the freezing effect of the visual, until the final representation of Hermes and Argos disrupts the forward thrust and reminds us that this is a basket, made of gold and surrounded by a border, and that the primary dimension is space rather than time. I am convinced that Moschus was fully aware of what is at stake in representing a visual work of art in words, and is deliberately playing off, and with, the possibilities and conundrums suggested by his epic models. I now take up one Latin example before concluding with a later ecphrasis written in Greek. I believe that Catullus had the Hesiodic shield in mind when he composed a poem in which the description of an embroidered coverlet takes up almost half the entire text.13 However that may be, Catullus’ ecphrasis is another elegant variation on the form, reflecting yet again, in an original manner, on the boundaries between image and word. Catullus 64 takes the form of an epithalamium for the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. On the wedding couch, there is an embroidered coverlet that depicts the moment when Ariadne has been abandoned, while asleep, by Theseus on the island of Naxos. The description is divided into five parts: Ariadne’s awakening and discovery

13

The reasons include what I believe is a direct quotation at one point and more generally the structure of the frame narrative in Catullus, which corresponds reasonably closely to Hesiod’s; for further discussion, see Konstan 1993.

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that Theseus has sailed off; a flashback recounting Theseus’ arrival at Crete and the slaying of the Minotaur; Ariadne’s lament and the curse she lays on Theseus; a flash forward relating the consequences of the curse, that is, the suicide of Aegeus, since Theseus forgot to change the colour of his sails (just as he forgot his promises to Ariadne); and, finally, the arrival of Bacchus, alia ex parte, that is, from another location on the coverlet, together with a band of Maenads, presumably anticipating his marriage with Ariadne. Like the scenes on Moschus’ basket, the episodes depicted on Catullus’ coverlet centre around a single story, in some kind of counterpoint to the frame narrative, whether by way of contrast—the disloyalty of Theseus as opposed to the happy wedding of Peleus and Thetis—or similarity, in that both Peleus and Ariadne get to marry a deity. What is more, the temporal sequence of the events is again dislocated, with past and future incidents interpolated into the tableau of Ariadne on the beach of Naxos. But there are some radical innovations in Catullus’ version, above all the insertion of a long speech in direct discourse, which seems to be unique in the ancient ecphrastic tradition.14 Sounds may be mentioned, such as the jingling of bells, and allusion may be made to what people are saying, but their words are not directly quoted, and it is easy to see why: Ariadne’s complaint ruptures radically the illusion that a work of visual art is being described. If I may be permitted to introduce a personal note, it happens that I wrote my doctoral dissertation on this poem, and I had always supposed, along with most scholars, that the coverlet contained five scenes: three on the beach, and two looking backward and forward in time. Only recently, in the course of teaching a class on ecphrasis a couple of years ago, did I begin to think that Catullus meant the reader to think of just three episodes depicted, or indeed, only one: Ariadne on the beach, just awakened, looking out at sea, while off to the side, or in a corner, one sees Dionysus and his noisy troupe approaching, as in so many paintings of this affair so favoured by Roman villa dwellers. It was Stephanie Crooks, a student in the seminar, who made us aware of this latter possibility, which now seems to me entirely convincing. Stephanie took as her point of departure an article by JaĞ Elsner, in which he applied the theory of the gaze, as it is called, to the coverlet, noting how the eye of the reader, like that of the Thracian youths gathered round the marriage couch, focuses on Ariadne, the female object of the beholder’s regard: “Dishevelled and near-naked— with her ‘milky breasts’ undraped (63-67)—Ariadne is both a visual parallel to the naked nymphs glimpsed from the Argo [in the frame 14

See Laird 1993, esp. p. 20.

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narrative] and objectified by Catullus as the subject of a gaze from outside the image, whether this be his own gaze and ours as his readers or that of the young men of Thessaly within his narrative”.15 Elsner is aware that Ariadne too is represented as seeing: “Ariadne may also figure the extratextual viewers of the ekphrasis—Catullus himself and his readers, whose access to this picture is always vicariously through its description, and whose response to the subject of this description is continuously focalized through Ariadne’s gaze” (p. 23), though Elsner regards her gaze as unfulfilled (p 24).16 Stephanie, however, observed that we can plausibly take to be depicted on the coverlet just those moments in which Ariadne is the viewer, that is, when she is looking out at the receding image of Theseus’ ship; it is as though we see her only when she is actively seeing.17 Now, all this ought not to have been so mysterious as it was (at least to me), for Catullus seems to go out of his way to signal departures from the ecphrastic setting. This is how he introduces the back story of Theseus’ voyage to Crete: A misera, assiduis quam luctibus externavit spinosas Erycina serens in pectore curas, illa tempestate, ferox quo ex tempore Theseus egressus curvis e litoribus Piraei attigit iniusti regis Gortynia templa. nam perhibent olim crudeli peste coactam… (Catull. 64.71-76) Wretched thing, for whom bright Venus reserved the thorny cares of constant mourning in your heart, from that time when it suited warlike Theseus, leaving the curving shores of Piraeus, to reach the Cretan regions of the unbending king. For then forced by cruel plague, they say… (tr. Kline 2001)

15

Elsner 2007; quotation from p. 22. Elsner writes: “Arguably, the only images on the coverlet are that of Ariadne gazing out to sea and of Bacchus coming to find her (251-264). In the unfulfillment of Ariadne’s gaze, Catullus creates a whole past and future of gazes reverberating between love and despair, like so many cares in Ariadne’s heart”. The arrival of Dionysus is one of those anticipations of a future resolution that classical painters enjoyed placing in the margins of their composition. 17 Lorenz 2007, notes that “viewing… on the walls of Pompeii is almost exclusively performed by women” (p. 668). 16

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The word perhibent is the giveaway: when he turns to recounting past events, Catullus introduces the narration with a formula for telling, not seeing. As he nears the end of the flashback—but this is the wrong word to use, since it suggests a cinematic technique when in reality Catullus has shifted into verbal report—Catullus writes: sed quid ego a primo digressus carmine plura commemorem… (Catull. 64.116-117) But what should I relate, digressing further from my poem’s theme… (tr. Kline 2001)

There could hardly be a more explicit way of signalling that he had departed from the ecphrastic mode and been recounting the business on Crete in pure diegesis. Indeed, even Ariadne’s grand lament, which occupies the midpoint and is the highpoint of the story embroidered on the coverlet, is introduced with the same formula: saepe illam perhibent ardenti corde furentem clarisonas imo fudisse e pectore voces… (Catull. 64.124-125) Many times she, insane, they say, from her burning passion poured out words that howled from her deepest heart… (tr. Banks 1997)18

At the end of Ariadne’s speech, Catullus describes the consequences of her curse: has postquam maesto profudit pectore voces, supplicium saevis exposcens anxia factis, annuit invicto caelestum numine rector… (Catull. 64.202-204) When these words had poured from her sad breast, the troubled girl praying for cruel actions, the chief of the gods nodded with unconquerable will… (tr. Kline 2001)

18

Kline’s version neglects to render perhibent here.

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The account clearly exceeds anything readily represented on a tapestry; what is more, soon afterwards another character, Theseus’ father, breaks out in speech, and once again it is announced with the same kind of formula: namque ferunt olim, classi cum moenia divae linquentem gnatum ventis concrederet Aegeus, talia complexum iuveni mandata dedisse… (Catull. 64.212-214) For they say that when Aegeus parted from his son, as the ship left the goddess’s walls, he yielded him to the wind’s embrace with these words… (tr. Kline 2001)

Only when Bacchus arrives on the scene is there a renewed reference to the embroidered spread, with the phrase, cited above: at parte ex alia florens volitabat Iacchus cum thiaso Satyrorum et Nysigenis Silenis, te quaerens, Ariadna, tuoque incensus amore. (Catull. 64.251-253) But bright Bacchus hurries from elsewhere with his chorus of Satyrs and Silenes from Nysa, seeking you, Ariadne, burning with love for you. (tr. Kline 2001)

The entire narrative of Ariadne’s fortunes closes with a clear reminder of the ecphrastic mode: talibus amplifice vestis decorata figuris pulvinar complexa suo velabat amictu. quae postquam cupide spectando Thessala pubes expleta est, sanctis coepit decedere divis. (Catull. 64.265-268) The cloth, decorated richly with images like these, embraced the wedding couch, veiled it like a garment. After the youth of Thessaly were satiated with examining it desirously, they began to yield place to the holy gods. (tr. Banks 1997)

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It now seems evident to me that Catullus is toying with the ecphrastic style: he plants the expectation of a description of embroidered scenes, as evocations of genre do, but defeats it constantly in the course of the description, winking out, as it were, and reverting to straightforward narrative and speech. It is Catullus’ way of showing how literary art is needed to reanimate stories captured in a visual medium, for all their vividness and implied activity. He too, like Homer and Hesiod, can embed a reference to the described coverlet within the description; as Elsner puts it (p. 23): “In an extraordinarily self-referential moment within the ekphrasis, Catullus’ account of the tapestry posits another purple coverlet that the loving Ariadne might have spread over the bed of her beloved Theseus, had he not deserted her (purpurea… veste, 163)”. But there is another allusion to a material artefact, often noted by commentators, that seems to signal the reverse spin that Catullus is applying to genre, and it comes early in the ecphrasis: quem procul ex alga maestis Minois ocellis, saxea ut effigies bacchantis, prospicit, eheu, prospicit et magnis curarum fluctuat undis. (Catull. 64.60-62) The Minoan girl, at seaweed’s edge, stares far, far out at him with suffering eyes. Like a Bacchante’s stone statue she stares out— how sad!—and she swirls in great billows of hurt. (tr. Banks 1997)

The inner turmoil of Ariadne might well be evoked by a statue of a Bacchant, but this is at the limit of what such figures can represent; to go further and tell a story, like that of Ariadne, goes beyond the capacity of the plastic arts, and requires the recourse to narrative. If such a recourse was always latent in ecphrases, even as early as Homer and Hesiod, Catullus has brought it to the surface and effectively thematised it in his poem.19 For my last case of ecphrasis, I turn to an essay by Lucian entitled “Zeuxis”, or sometimes “Zeuxis and Antiochus”. Lucian begins by recounting how he was praised to the skies for a lecture he gave, only to realise that what impressed his audience was the novelty (neôterismos) of his theme, its paradoxical quality, rather than the grace or wit of his 19

Cf. Aesch. Ag. 242, where Iphigenia, on the point of being sacrificed, gazes out “hôs en graphais”; the image captures her silence and the impossibility of verbalising her feelings in words.

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discourse. To illustrate the reason for his chagrin, Lucian offers two cases: a painting by Zeuxis for which he won acclaim for its original and different subject matter, but was piqued that it was not equally appreciated for its technique; and a victory in battle that seemed hollow to Antiochus because he won by virtue of a clever stratagem suggested by one of his officers rather than the courage and discipline of his troops. Lucian depicts both the painting and the battle in detail, and what interests me here is the contrast between the two descriptions: for this is virtually a test case for the difference between an ecphrasis as I have been using the term and vivid evocations of other types of scene. Now, according to Lucian, Zeuxis really did enjoy painting unusual subjects (kainopoiein), though he wanted to be esteemed for the akribeia of his art (tekhnê), and in one work he depicted a female centaur nursing twin baby centaurs (for the novelty of female centaurs, cf. Philostratus the Elder, Eikones 2.3). Lucian’s narrator specifies that he hasn’t seen the original, which was lost when Sulla was transporting it to Italy, but only a copy (an antigraphos, or as he also calls it, an İੁțȩȞĮ IJોȢ İੁțȩȞȠȢ), which he saw recently in an artist’s workshop in Athens. He confesses that he is no expert (graphikos), but he was highly impressed (huperthaumasai) by it and remembers it well, and so he feels able to make it manifest in words (įİȓȟȦ IJ૶ ȜȩȖ૳; cf. įȘȜ૵ıĮȚ). His account is in fact quite detailed; here is a bit of it, on the appearance of the mama centaur: ਥʌ੿ ȤȜȩȘȢ İ੝șĮȜȠ૨Ȣ ਲ ȀȑȞIJĮȣȡȠȢ Į੢IJȘ ʌİʌȠȓȘIJĮȚ ੖Ȝૉ ȝ੻Ȟ IJૌ ੆ʌʌ૳ ȤĮȝĮ੿ țİȚȝȑȞȘ, țĮ੿ ਕʌȠIJȑIJĮȞIJĮȚ İੁȢ IJȠ੝ʌȓıȦ Ƞੂ ʌȩįİȢ, IJઁ į੻ ȖȣȞĮȚțİ૙ȠȞ ੖ıȠȞ Į੝IJોȢ ਱ȡȑȝĮ ਥʌİȖȒȖİȡIJĮȚ țĮ੿ ਥʌૃ ਕȖț૵ȞȩȢ ਥıIJȚȞ, Ƞੂ į੻ ʌȩįİȢ Ƞੂ ਩ȝʌȡȠıșİȞ Ƞ੝țȑIJȚ țĮ੿ Ƞ੤IJȠȚ ਕʌȠIJȐįȘȞ, ȠੈȠȞ ਥʌ੿ ʌȜİȣȡ੹Ȟ țİȚȝȑȞȘȢ, ਕȜȜૃ ੒ ȝ੻Ȟ ੑțȜȐȗȠȞIJȚ ਩ȠȚțİȞ ੫Ȟ țĮȝʌȪȜȠȢ ਫ਼ʌİıIJĮȜȝȑȞૉ IJૌ ੒ʌȜૌ, ੒ į੻ ਩ȝʌĮȜȚȞ ਥʌĮȞȓıIJĮIJĮȚ țĮ੿ IJȠ૨ ਥįȐijȠȣȢ ਕȞIJȚȜĮȝȕȐȞİIJĮȚ, ȠੈȠȓ İੁıȚȞ ੆ʌʌȠȚ ʌİȚȡȫȝİȞȠȚ ਕȞĮʌȘį઼Ȟ. (Luc. Zeux. 4) On fresh green-sward the female Centaur has been drawn, the whole equine part of her stretched on the ground, her hoofs extended backwards; the human part is slightly raised on the elbows; the fore feet are not extended like the others, for she is only partially on her side; one of them is bent as in the act of kneeling, with the hoof tucked in, while the other is beginning to straighten and take a hold on the ground—the action of a horse rising. (tr. H.W. Fowler and F.G. Fowler 1905, slightly modified).

One of the foals is nursing at her human breast, the other at her horse’s teat, and above the father centaur is depicted holding up a lion cub, amusing himself by scaring the baby centaurs a bit. The narrator now

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declares that, as an amateur (idiôtês), he will not attempt to evaluate Zeuxis’ craftsmanship, such as the precision of his lines, the mixture of colours, and the ratios of the parts to the whole (the Polyclitean criterion), but rather the complex variety Zeuxis achieved in a single theme (ਥȞ ȝȚઽ țĮ੿ IJૌ Į੝IJૌ ਫ਼ʌȠșȑıİȚ ʌȠȚțȓȜȦȢ IJઁ ʌİȡȚIJIJઁȞ ਥʌİįİȓȟĮIJȠ IJોȢ IJȑȤȞȘȢ, Zeux. 5), revealing the savage and arrogant nature of the male centaur, in his human as well as equine part, whereas the female is like a fine, unbroken Thessalian filly, and the transition between the human and horse in her is so gradual that the exact point escapes the eye (6). The babies, in turn, are fierce even in their tenderness, and they stare up at the lion whelp even as they snuggle in their mother’s breast. But when the crowd went on about the novelty of the theme (ਫ਼ʌȩșİıȚȢ) rather than his tekhnê, Zeuxis was disgusted and packed up his things, proclaiming that the masses were impressed only by the dregs of his art (IJઁȞ ʌȘȜઁȞ IJોȢ IJȑȤȞȘȢ), and not whether it was done well and in accord with the discipline (İੁ țĮȜ૵Ȣ ਩ȤİȚ țĮ੿ țĮIJ੹ IJ੽Ȟ IJȑȤȞȘȞ, 7). Lucian next relates (įȚȘȖȒıȠȝĮȚ, Zeux. 8) Antiochus’ battle with the Galatians. When he realised that his own forces were too few and worse armed and trained than the enemy, which Lucian enumerates with precision (the hoplite phalanx twenty-four rows deep, twenty thousand cavalry, eighty scythed and twice that many ordinary chariots), Antiochus was prepared to negotiate, when a Rhodian named Theodatas advised that he make use of elephants, concealed behind the lines; when they were let loose, the Galatians, who had no experience of such animals, would fall into a terrified disorder and be easy prey. And so it happened: at the sudden sight of the sixteen elephants, they turned to flight (਩ijİȣȖȠȞ), the chariots swerved (įȚİijȑȡİIJȠ), the horses wheeled round (ਕʌİIJȡȑʌȠȞIJȠ) and threw their riders; the elephants followed in pursuit (İ੆ʌȠȞIJȠ) and in the end (IJȑȜȠȢ) they handed (ʌĮȡĮįȚįȩĮıȚ) the victory to Antiochus (10). But, as I mentioned, Antiochus was disappointed that his victory depended on so cheap a trick, instilling panic in the Galatians by the mere novelty of the sight (IJઁ țĮȚȞઁȞ IJȠ૨ șİȐȝĮIJȠȢ, 11), and he insisted that only an elephant be carved on the trophy. There are, of course, levels of irony in Lucian’s account. Has his narrator in fact appreciated those elements in Zeuxis’ painting for which the artist wanted to be recognised, or is he as incompetent a connoisseur of art as his own audience is of rhetoric?20 Leaving such subtleties aside, we may observe that Lucian emphasises the expressiveness of Zeuxis’ 20 For the idea that the painting may be an invention of Lucian’s, and other ironies in the text, see Pretzler 2009.

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painting, above all in his ability to capture conflicting or contrasting elements: the father centaur is brutal but also sly and playful; the infants are childish but already show signs of adult boldness; the mother is a seamless combination of horse and human. Now, the description of the opposing armies is itself lively and striking, but it differs in a crucial respect from that of the work of art: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, clearly signalled, with the action narrated with imperfect verbs till the finale, when the elephants decisively grant success to Antiochus—this verb in the perfect tense. By way of contrast, all the verbs in the description of Zeuxis’ painting are in the present; this is a timeless moment, with no development in the action.21 There is rather a sense of a pause, an action captured as still life: the baby centaurs are in the midst of nursing, they look round at their father and the lion cub, surely there will be some further reaction, the mother may herself laugh or else perhaps scold her naughty husband. We do not know the outcome, even as we sense that something is in the offing. In a way that harks back to the

21

Koopman 2014, 58-60 discusses the tenses characteristic of the diegetic and descriptive modes of discourse, and notes that the diegetic tends to employ aorists, imperfects, and historic presents, whereas the descriptive chiefly makes use of imperfects, pluperfects, perfects, and what he calls “habitual/omnitemporal presents”. Cf. Guez 2013, 43: “À l’indicatif, les temps primaires du présent, et secondairement du parfait, sont de loin les plus utilisés par Achille Tatius et Philostrate dans les descriptions de tableaux; les temps secondaires (imparfait, aoriste, plus-que-parfait) sont très rares, et servent à évoquer les événements antérieurs à la scène couchée sur la toile”. In Euripides’ Electra, the chorus recount, in the midst of their own recollections of the fleet setting off for Troy, a description by a messenger of Achilles’ shield, which Nereids brought to him: the passage is framed by verbs in the aorist (ebate, 432, the chorus apostrophising the ships; ekanen, 480, of Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon), plus two final verbs in the future tense (pempsousin, 484; opsomai, 486), but the intermediate verbs are in the imperfect, irrespective of whether they describe actions (epalle, 435; epheron, 444; trephen, 448; ekluon, 451) or scenes on the shield (katelampe, 464; espeude, 473-474; epallon, 476-477; hieto, 477). There is, I think, a merging of direct report and description, since the shield itself is now a thing of the past— yet another way that time enters into an ecphrasis of a work of art. In Euripides’ Ion, the chorus describe the images on the temple of Apollo in the present tense, since they are seeing them directly (184-218), whereas the therapôn toward the end of the play describes the embroidered tapestries at a past feast in the imperfect (1141-1162).

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shields of Achilles and Hercules, it is the temporal dimension that marks the fundamental difference between image and narrative.22 Ecphrases took many forms in classical antiquity. Philostratus pretended to explain to a young boy the background story of the paintings that hung in his father’s portico;23 the tablet of Cebes exploited the form for purposes of philosophical allegory; inscriptions in the form of epigrams for statues, real or fictive, described the object that was purportedly on view. As John Ma puts it, “The ancient reflex was to look for words to elucidate the visual”.24 But all were conscious, I believe, of working within a special tradition, one that inevitably engaged with the tension between action frozen in the visual artwork and the thrust of narrative description, which was apt to reanimate the image. In a facetious vein, I am inclined to ascribe to ecphrasis what I call “the stewed prune effect”: when a plum is dried so as to become a prune, it may again be rehydrated by cooking it in water, but the end product is not a plum but a stewed prune—quite a different item. So too, when an action is congealed by virtue of being represented in a work of art, it may be reanimated through narrative description but it is not restored to its original form; rather, what emerges is something different which, like the stewed prune, bears the marks of its double conversion. But unlike the fruit, each ecphrasis also differs from its predecessors. I have examined only a selection of the classical ecphrases in this paper, but I feel confident in affirming that each new example was an innovation within a type, “necessarily different” from earlier instances, in Todorov’s words. Ecphrasis in the narrow sense of descriptions of a work of art went through a continuous, if ever innovative, development that we would not be wrong to think of as a minor genre of its own.25

22 Lorenz 2007, 665 proposes an approach to art that focuses on “how the images put the viewer into the role not of the one who generates meaning but one who has to give answers”. 23 See Webb 2013, for a discussion of temporal markers in these descriptions and Philostratus’ “jeux subtils sur l’ordre chronologique des événements” (p. 33). 24 Ma 2013, 16. Ma notes: “Inscription on honorific statues is (mostly) narrative, a little sentence in the past tense, which tells a story, and locates the statue in a social world” (p. 17). 25 I wish to thank the editorial team for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

CHAPTER TWO ETYMOLOGISING HELEN EVANTHIA TSITSIBAKOU-VASALOS

The figure of Helen has captivated the Western imagination from the earliest literature to modern cinema. She is, notoriously, a woman of surpassing and fateful beauty: hers is ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’, as Marlowe would famously say. But she was from the outset much more than this. In ancient Greek literature from Homer to Attic tragedy and beyond, Helen is imagined as an immensely complex and ambiguous figure, a woman of extraordinary wit, shrewdness, and intelligence, but also of uncertain motivation and allegiance. Ancient writers repeatedly probed the depths of her psyche, and elaborated upon her extraordinary vita, producing a series of revisionary versions and accounts. An integral part of the creative elaboration of her puzzling nature has been the exploration of potential meanings lurking behind the name Helen, and the exploitation of these meanings for artistic and dramatic purposes. Poets repeat the sounds of her name and make semantic associations, such as ruin, death, attractiveness, spinning and weaving, which operate on a direct or metaphoric level. Her name, resemanticised in particular narrative contexts, becomes a device of sense manipulation. The etymology of Helen, implicit or explicit, informs literature throughout antiquity, illuminating the character of its bearer, in accordance with the ancient belief in the natural bond between name and thing, with the former reflecting the intrinsic properties of the latter. Here the picture is complicated by the fact that Helen was not originally an epic heroine but a goddess, and she continued to be worshipped as such in Laconia, where a festival was held in her honour, and elsewhere. Ancient mythographers, lexicographers and scholars scrutinised Helen’s name and interpreted it according to criteria of plausibility. In modern times linguists, folklorists and historians of religion have probed the Mediterranean and IndoEuropean cultural and linguistic heritage, seeking verbal forms and ancestral tales that might shed light on Helen’s etymology. The ancient

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evidence continues to provide crucial insights for contemporary scholarship, while remaining essential to the analysis of etymological play in ancient Greek literature. This paper will undertake a survey of ancient and modern etymological investigations, and then offer some preliminary thoughts on etymological play associated with Helen in Homeric epic.1

1. Ancient Scholarship and Lexicography The central cultural position of the Homeric epics throughout antiquity is among the most important manifestations of continuity in Greek civilization. These texts were studied, scrutinised, and analysed in all their aspects from an early period. Reece well describes the burgeoning scholarly industry that grew up around Homeric etymologies in particular:2 ‘Not a generation had passed since the composition of the Homeric epics before reciters and listeners, readers and interpreters, from the earliest rhapsodes to the pre-Socratic philosophers and Sophists, to Plato and Aristotle, to the Stoics, began increasingly to question the meaning and derivation of proper names, individual words, and longer formulaic phrases, and before long an industry of scholarship on etymology had arisen, reaching its zenith among the learned librarians and associated scholars of Alexandria and Pergamum…’

There was a good deal at stake since, as Reece points out, many ancient scholars regarded etymology as an important path to truth (as its own etymology suggests!). Most of these scholars followed the principle of aural similarity that was fundamental to ancient etymologising. One underpinning of this principle was a ‘naturalistic’ view of language that, evident shortcomings notwithstanding, enjoyed considerable prestige in antiquity. According to this view, the name of an object was a natural property of that object: that is to say, words were a product of nature (ijȪıȚȢ) rather than of convention (ȞȩȝȠȢ). This theory of language, which was by and large embraced by the Alexandrians, is famously articulated by the titular figure in Plato’s Cratylus. Allen offers a convenient overview of the naturalist versus conventionalist debate as it unfolded in antiquity.3 1 In the analysis that follows I mark names (e.g. Helen) and cognates with italics, underline synonyms, and use bold for added emphasis. It should be acknowledged, though, that the precise function of alliteration is not always clear: for example, should ੕ȜȜȣȝȚ be regarded as cognate (italics), or as a synonym (underline)? I would hesitantly opt for the former. 2 Reece 1999, 185. 3 Allen 1948.

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The same scholar goes on to discuss the ‘insecure basis’ of ancient Greek etymology, and elaborates on the etymological procedure most favoured in antiquity, that of compositio or ‘etymology by contraction’.4 Using the Cratylus as his paradigm, Allen elaborates on this method, which allows the meaning of words to be modified, or even reversed, by the addition or subtraction of letters.5 Ancient scholars and lexicographers have contributed much of value to the study of Helen’s etymology. They probed the Greek lexical system in a quest to elicit the image of Helen and her preeminent features. They registered words whose sounds reflect Helen’s name, and, no less significantly, attest to various religious and cultural associations, mostly of Laconian provenance. Plants of medicinal value, bundles of reeds, and torches, are connected to the name Helen with particular frequency. We begin with the Alexandrian grammarian Hesychius, whose lexicon, though composed at a relatively late date, is among our most important sources for the Greek language: epsilon 1992. ਬȜ੼ȞİȚĮ· ਦȠȡIJ੽ ਕȖȠȝ੼ȞȘ ਫ਼ʌઁ ȁĮțઆȞȦȞ; 1993. ਦȜ੼ȞȚȠȞ· ȕȠIJ੺ȞȘ IJȚȢ, ਸ਼Ȟ ijĮıȚȞ ਬȜ੼ȞȘȞ ıʌİ૙ȡĮȚ ʌȡઁȢ IJȠઃȢ ੕ijİȚȢ, ੖ʌȦȢ ȕȠıțંȝİȞȠȚ ਕȞĮȚȡİș૵ıȚȞ; 1995. ਦȜ੼ȞȘ· ȜĮȝʌ੺Ȣ, įİIJ੾; 1996. ਦȜ੼ȞȚȠȢ· ਕȖȖİ૙ȠȞ, ȤȦȡȠ૨Ȟ IJ੼IJĮȡIJȠȞ.

Hesychius attests to Helen’s religious and medicinal associations on the epichoric (or regional) level. A Laconian festival, the Heleneia, is named after her, which features the use of bundles of reeds (cf. Eurotas įȠȞĮțȠIJȡȩijȠȢ), and woven baskets. The mention of a torch (ȜĮȝʌ੺Ȣ) in connection with ਦȜ੼ȞȘ could suggest a nocturnal festival (pannychis), perhaps one accompanied by mystic rites (teletƝ).6 Hesychius also makes Helen the discoverer of helenion (calamint), a medicinal herb that she planted in order to exterminate serpents. In these lexicographical entries we see mingled the antithetical attributes associated with Helen throughout antiquity:7 the chthonic and the celestial, the salvific and the ruinous.

4

Allen 1948, 53-55. See also Tsitsibakou-Vasalos 2004, 45-48. Pl. Cra. 417d10-e5 (ȕȜĮȕİȡȩȞ), and ib. 418a5-418b5 (ȗȘȝȚ૵įİȢ) … ʌȡȠıIJȚș੼ȞIJİȢ Ȗȡ੺ȝȝĮIJĮ țĮ੿ ਥȟĮȚȡȠ૨ȞIJİȢ ıijંįȡĮ ਕȜȜȠȚȠ૨ıȚ IJ੹Ȣ IJ૵Ȟ ੑȞȠȝ੺IJȦȞ įȚĮȞȠ઀ĮȢ, Ƞ੢IJȦȢ ੮ıIJİ ıȝȚțȡ੹ ʌ੺Ȟȣ ʌĮȡĮıIJȡ੼ijȠȞIJİȢ ਥȞ઀ȠIJİ IJਕȞĮȞIJ઀Į ʌȠȚİ૙Ȟ ıȘȝĮ઀ȞİȚȞ. ȠੈȠȞ țĮ੿ ਥȞ IJ૶ "į੼ȠȞIJȚ"… 6 Cf., e.g. Alcman PMGF 1 and 56. 7 Chantraine s.v. ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ: tiré de ਬȜȑȞȘ par Strömberg, Pflanzennamen, 130. On its derivation and medicinal properties see H. Stadler, RE 7.2, 2838-2840, s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ; 2839.63-66: Dioscorides says that if the root of helenion is boiled and 5

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Behind helene and the ritual routine we may discern Helen’s connections with radiance, warmth and weaving, ‫ݐ‬ȜȘ, İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ, İ‫ݫ‬ȜȦ, ‫݌‬ȜȓııȦ. ǹthenaeus attests to the double semantics and etymology of helane. Radiance and warmth underlie the noun: ਙȜȜȠȢ į੻ ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޠ‬ȞȘȞ, ੔ į੼ IJȚȢ ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޠ‬ȞĮȢ, IJ੹Ȣ ȜĮȝʌ੺įĮȢ Ƞ੢IJȦ ij੺ıțȦȞ țĮȜİ૙ıșĮȚ ʌĮȡ੹ IJ੽Ȟ ‫ݐ‬ȜȘȞ… (FGrHist 3.4). Elsewhere he adds to this the alternative sense ‘bundle of reeds’: ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޠ‬ȞȘ į੻ ਲ ȜĮȝʌ੹Ȣ țĮȜİ૙IJĮȚ, ੪Ȣ ਝȝİȡ઀ĮȢ ijȘı઀Ȟ. ȃ઀țĮȞįȡȠȢ įૃ ੒ ȀȠȜȠijઆȞȚȠȢ ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޠ‬ȞȘȞ IJ੽Ȟ IJ૵Ȟ țĮȜ੺ȝȦȞ į੼ıȝȘȞ. Here we see resurface ‫ݐ‬ȜȘ, İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ, İ‫ݫ‬ȜȦ and ‫݌‬ȜȓııȦ.8 Pollux associates helene with a ritual: ਩ıIJȚ į੻ țĮ੿ ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޢ‬ȞȘ ʌȜİțIJઁȞ ਕȖȖİ૙ȠȞ ıʌ੺ȡIJȚȞȠȞ… ਥȞ મ ij‫ޢ‬ȡȠȣıȚȞ ੂİȡ੹ ਙȡȡȘIJĮ IJȠ૙Ȣ ‫ݒ‬ȜİȞȘijȠȡަȠȚȢ, İੁ į੻ ȕȠ઄ȜİȚ țĮ੿ ਙȜȜĮ IJ૵Ȟ ੂİȡ૵Ȟ ıțİȣ૵Ȟ (Onom. 10.191.1-3). According to this, then, helene is a wicker basket used to carry the sacred utensils required for the Elenephoria, a rite that commemorates the name of the container and the presumable recipient of the teletƝ. A sacred cyste constitutes the core of a rite in which merge two names of common root, helene and Helene (< İ‫ݫ‬ȜȦ, ‫݌‬ȜȓııȦ).9 It should be noted that the name of this ritual is often confounded with the title of a comedy by Diphilus attested in Athenaeus (ǻ઀ijȚȜȠȢ įૃ ਥȞ ‫ݑ‬ȜĮȚȦȞȘijȡȠȣȡȠࠎıȚ, 223Į), which Olson in the Loeb edition renders ‘Olive-Grove Guards’.10 This has to do with Brauronian Artemis, the goddess who presides over arkteia, the local initiation rites for girls. Her cultic contacts with Helen are well established, as we shall see later. Some details of Spartan rites in honour of Helen are preserved. Plutarch mentions kannathra, the cane or wicker carriages, in which girls were conveyed in religious procession. These kannathra were in fact in the form (eidola) of griffins and goat-stags, evidently mounted on wheels: țĮ੿ IJઁ ț੺ȞȞĮșȡંȞ ijȘıȚȞ ੒ ȄİȞȠij૵Ȟ Ƞ੝į੼Ȟ IJȚ ıİȝȞંIJİȡȠȞ İੇȞĮȚ IJોȢ ਥțİ઀ȞȠȣ

drunk, it is a diuretic and promotes menstruation. Stadler loc. cit. 2840 and 28432847 refers to Galen (XIV 244, De theriaca ad Pisonem 14.244.13-14.245.1): the Dacians and the Dalmatians use ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ as poison for their arrow-points. If it enters the blood stream, it is toxic, but if eaten, it is harmless. Hence helenion is both detrimental and beneficial, for both sexes. See ȜȪȖȠȢ, agnus castus, n. 47, below). Its duality evokes Helen’s associations with menstruation, maturation, esthla and lygra pharmaka. 8 Athen. 699d, 701b; Eust. Il. 2.410.7; Od. 1.264.1-3, ‫݌‬ȜȐȞĮȢ IJ੹Ȣ ȜĮȝʌȐįĮȢ… ʌĮȡ‫ޟ‬ IJ‫ޣ‬Ȟ ‫ݐ‬ȜȘȞ ਸ਼IJȚȢ ਥıIJ੿Ȟ İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ ਕijૃ ਸȢ ʌȠȜȜ੹ Ȗ઀ȞȠȞIJĮȚ and ‫݌‬Ȝ‫ޠ‬ȞȘ, ੒ ਥț țĮȜ੺ȝȦȞ įİıȝંȢ. 9 On ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ, ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ, ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ and their associations see Laneres 2007, 245-247. 10 Cf. ਫȜĮȚȦȞȘijȡȠȣȡȠ૨ȞIJİȢ: PCG fr. 29, vol. 5: 65 (K.-A.). On the manuscript reading see Clader 1976, 66-67; ib. 80, ‫݌‬ȜİȞȘ-ijȩȡȚĮ, ‘the carrying of baskets’, or ‘the carrying of the divine entity’, “Helen”.

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șȣȖĮIJȡઁȢ ਲ਼ IJ૵Ȟ ਙȜȜȦȞ. ț੺ȞȞĮșȡĮ į੻ țĮȜȠ૨ıȚȞ İ੅įȦȜĮ Ȗȡȣʌ૵Ȟ ȟ઄ȜȚȞĮ țĮ੿ IJȡĮȖİȜ੺ijȦȞ ਥȞ ȠੈȢ țȠȝ઀ȗȠȣıȚ IJ੹Ȣ ʌĮ૙įĮȢ ਥȞ IJĮ૙Ȣ ʌȠȝʌĮ૙Ȣ (‘His daughter’s “kannathron”, as Xenophon tells us, was no more elaborate than that of any other maid. “Kannathra” is the name they give to the wooden figures of griffins or goat-stags in which their young girls are carried at the sacred processions’, Plut. Ages. 19.5, tr. Perrin 1917). Deer and vultures also figure on the carriages that carry the maidens in their procession towards Helen’s sanctuary.11 Virgins ride the kannathra, says Hesychius, identifying the worshipped divinity and alluding to Heleneia, the teletƝ named after her.12 The gender and age of the devotees illustrate the nature and purpose of the festival: Helen presides over coming-of-age rituals.13 The torch-bearing maidens and the emblematic, fabulous animals bring Helen and Artemis into contact;14 their respective cults intersect in the realm of adolescent maturation rites.

2. Scientific Etymology The evidence suggests that ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ, ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ and ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ were associated from an early period, and this could speak to an etymological connection. As already noted, the plant ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ was, according to a tradition reported by Hesychius (s.v., quoted above), first sown by Helen to eradicate serpents. It is also suggestive that, as Boisacq points out, this plant grows in marshy areas.15 Helen’s name and ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ (‘marsh-meadow’) are also connected through the mythology of her birth. According to a prominent genealogical variant, for which the Cypria is our earliest witness, Nemesis, not Leda, was Helen’s mother. This came about when the goddess attracted the amorous attention of Zeus; she undertook various transformations in an attempt to elude him, but was eventually raped while she took the form of a goose and Zeus of a swan. Nemesis conceived and subsequently gave birth to an egg which a shepherd found in an ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ and 11

Hsch. 675.1-2 ț੺ȞȞĮșȡĮ· ਕıIJȡ੺ȕȘ ਲ਼ ਚȝĮȟĮ, ʌȜ੼ȖȝĮIJĮ ਩ȤȠȣıĮ, ਫ਼ijૃ ੰȞ ʌȠȝʌİ઄ȠȣıȚȞ Įੂ ʌĮȡș੼ȞȠȚ, ੖IJĮȞ İੁȢ IJઁ IJોȢ ਬȜ੼ȞȘȢ ਕʌ઀ȦıȚȞ. ਩ȞȚȠȚ į੻ ਩ȤİȚȞ İ੅įȦȜĮ ਥȜ੺ijȦȞ ਲ਼ Ȗȣʌ૵Ȟ. 12 P. Stengel, RE 7.2. 2837, s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞİȚĮ, accepts the interpretation of Hesychius. 13 See below, n. 39. 14 The decoration of cane carriages points to Helen and Artemis, both accompanied by mythical animals of Eastern origin. The excavations on the acropolis of Kastro on Siphnos revealed two eidolia of female figures identified with Potnia Theron and Artemis (Hsch. 1288. ਫțȕĮIJȘȡ઀Į· ਡȡIJİȝȚȢ ਥȞ Ȉ઀ijȞ૳). Their bell-shaped skirts are painted with horses and griffins: see Vlahopoulos 2005, 254. 15 Boisacq 1916, discussed further in section 2.

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handed to Leda; it was from this egg that Helen was born. According to another variant, Helen was born from an egg that fell from the moon.16 Modern scholarship is far from unanimous on the etymology of Helen. A number of scholars even call into question the attempt to determine it. Bethe finds Helen obscure; M. Becker agrees with him, and Chantraine unequivocally declares that ‘il est vain de chercher une étymologie’, a statement that wins the approval of Ghali-Kahil and others.17 But this is overly pessimistic: if definitive answers are in short supply, there is still much of value to be gained from scholarly enquiry into the matter. Comparative linguistics allows us to take advantage of the Indo-European linguistic and poetic legacy: names and roots can be identified and tentatively assigned to the Spartan queen. These derivations look to a variety of traditions, including Minoan, Indo-European, Spartan and Rhodian, fashioning a composite canvas upon which aspects of Helen, whether onomastic, functional or religious, can be elaborated. In this endeavour, modern scholars are aided by the ancient lexicographical evidence. Curtius derives ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ from the root *swel-, considering her name and ıİȜȒȞȘ cognates.18 Based on ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ/‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ as ȜĮȝʌȐȢ, he posits that light and luminosity underlie her name and essence. Boisacq also associates 16 Apollod. Bibl. 3.127-128 (ਥȞ IJȠ૙Ȣ ਙȜıİıȚȞ İਫ਼ȡંȞIJĮ). Cf. ਪȜİıȚȞ apud Cypria fr. 10 Bernabé p. 51. Schol. Lyc. Alex. 88.9-13 ǽİઃȢ Ȗ੹ȡ ੒ȝȠȚȦșİ੿Ȣ ț઄țȞ૳ ȃİȝ੼ıİȚ IJૌ IJȠ૨ ੱțİĮȞȠ૨ șȣȖĮIJȡ੿ ıȣȞોȜșİȞ… ਲ į੻ IJİțȠ૨ıĮ ੩ઁȞ ਥȞ IJࠜ ‫ݐ‬ȜİȚ IJȠ૨IJȠ țĮIJ੼ȜȚʌİ. ʌȠȚȝ੽Ȟ į੻ İਫ਼ȡȫȞ etc. Cf. Photius Bibl. 190.149b.4-5 ‫ݒ‬Ȝ‫ޢ‬ȞȘȞ į੻… ਕʌઁ IJȠ૨ ਥȞ ‫ݐ‬ȜİȚ ਫ਼ʌઁ ȁ੾įĮȢ IJİȤșોȞĮȚ. EM 328.5-9 s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ, ʌĮȡ੹ IJȠ ਥȞ ‫ݐ‬ȜİȚ ȖİȖİȞોıșĮȚ… ਥȞ ‫݌‬ȜȫįİȚ IJȩʌ૳ ૧Țijșİ૙ıĮ… ‫݋‬ț IJȠࠎ ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȣȢ Ƞ੣Ȟ ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ ੩ȞȠȝȐıșȘ. ǹthen. 2.50.18-26 is sceptical about Helen’s birth from the moon egg. Parker 2016, 10 with n. 53 considers Helen “a hybrid, a glorious and terrible anomaly; … her birth from an egg indicates her exceptional nature”; cf. Eur. Hel. 256-259. 17 Bethe 1912, 2824; M. Becker 1939, 138-143; Chantraine s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ; GhaliKahil 1988, LIMC iv/1. 498. On ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ, ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ/‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ see Mader s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ, LfgrE 526.15-21. Cf. Laneres 2007, 267-268 (on IJ઼Ț FİȜȑȞĮȚ, inscribed on a harpax at Therapne) “Il faut donc se rendre à l’ évidence et admettre avec P. Chantraine que l’étymologie du nom d’ Hélène reste introuvable; il n’en demeure pas moins qu’ en grec l’ unicité archaïque du nom sous sa forme *swélenƗ est desormais assuré”. 18 Curtius 1879 s.v. Helena. Clader 1976, 63-65: the change of quantity in ıİȜȒȞȘ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ is problematic. Both she (pp. 63-65) and M.L. West 2007, 231 rule out ıȑȜĮȢ, ıİȜȒȞȘ. Cf. von Kamptz 1982, 372, §84 n. 154: “Einer Gleichsetzung von ਬȜȑȞȘ mit ıİȜȒȞȘ… wird jedoch schon durch die Grundform *ıFİȜĮı-ȞĮ widerraten”. Blondell 2013, 247 seeks the connection in the resemblance of Helene and selƝnƝ. Yet ancient sources attest to Helen’s origin from the moon: see n. 57, below.

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‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ, ‘torche’, with ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ, ȜĮȝʌȐȢ, įİIJȒ (Ǿsch.), by means of progressive assimilation. Via *FȑȜĮ (drawn from glosses), and especially İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ, ܼȜȑĮ, ‫ݐ‬ȜȘ, which suggest ‘éclat du soleil’, ‘chaleur solaire’, Boisacq posits FelenƗ, ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ as goddess of the light (‘*déesse de la lumière’).19 He derives ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ from ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ-‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ (= ȜĮȝʌȐȢ), or İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ, the warmth of the sun (root *s‫ܜ‬el-, ardƝre). He derives ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ (a) from ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ, because this plant grows in swamps, which accords with the variant on Helen’s birth mentioned in the previous section, or (b) from ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ (FİȜ ‘enrouler’, ‘corbeille tressée’, plaited basket).20 Pokorny associates ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ and the noun ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ firstly in the sense of ‘torch’, and secondly in the sense of ‘basket’. In both cases he exploits two Indo-European roots. Apropos ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ = ‘torch’, he presumes the root *swel- which branches out (a) to ‘schwellen’, swell, increase, grow, and (b) to ‘brennen’, burn. Apropos ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ = ‘basket’, he employs the root *wel-, ‘drehen, wenden’, turn, twist, twine.21 These nouns are morphologically identical, but diverge etymologically and semantically.22 Frisk (s.v. ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ) dubiously mentions Nilsson’s proposal that Helen was an old Minoan divinity of vegetation, and accepts the possibility that the plant ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȚȠȞ derives from ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ.23 Her connection with ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ (see ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ) remains open for Frisk, who finally refers to Grégoire’s thesis: ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ, that is, *FİȜȑȞĮ, derives from *FİȞȑȞĮ and is closely related with Venus.24 Grégoire’s proposal is dismissed on the grounds that there is no precedent for this progressive dissimilation, and *FİȞȑȞĮ is unmotivated.25

19

Boisacq 1916, 237 and 241. See von Kamptz 1982, 136, section 48b.2, ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ ‘Fackel’ (Neanthes) neben ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ… Wz. *s‫ܜ‬el-… Lak. ȕȑȜĮ .ਸ਼ȜȚȠȢ țĮ੿ Į੝ȖȒ, ȖȑȜĮȞ . Į੝Ȗ੽Ȟ ਲȜȓȠȣ (Hsch); id. 1982: 372, section 84, ‫ݒ‬ȜȑȞȘ zu ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ, ‫݌‬ȜȐȞȘ, ȕȑȜĮ, İ‫ݬ‬ȜȘ ‘Sonnenwärme,’ idg. *s‫ܜ‬el-… ‘glänzt, scheint’ … gr. ıȑȜĮȢ (n. 154). Von Kampzt hesitantly renders ਬȜȑȞȘ as “die Leuchtende, Glänzende” … “Lichtgöttin”. 20 Strömberg 1940,130 finds neither ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ nor ‫݌‬ȜȑȞȘ (plaited basket) convincing etymologies. For Clader 1976, 64 n. 11, ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ is an “unlikely possibility”, as ijĮ-İıȞȩȢ ijĮİȚȞȩȢ shows, the phonological changes of an İı- stem presuppose: ‫ݐ‬ȜȠȢ> ‫݌‬Ȝİı-ȑȞȘ> ‫݌‬ȜȑıȞȘ> ‫݌‬ȜİȓȞȘ. 21 Pokorny 1959, 1045, 1140-1141. 22 Clader 1976, 68, associates both appellatives with the root *wel-, rejecting Pokorny’s Helen as ‘Lichtgottin’ ǾİȜȑȞસ. 37 Clader 1976, 56-57, endorsing Frame 1978, 20-24 and passim, interprets ਡȡȖȠȢ and ਝȡȖİȓȘ Helen in terms of brightness and life. See n. 59, below. In Argos (Paus. 2.22.6) Helen erected a shrine to Eileithyia, ‘who brings children to light’. Sidgwick 1903, 4 opts for the priority of movement. 38 ਷țĮ or ੯țĮ? The latter is inappropriate to the slow-speaking elders and to Helen: speeding to the walls seems undignified. Schol. A Il. 3.155a.1-4, ਥʌ੿ IJોȢ ਬȜ੼ȞȘȢ ਥıIJ઀Ȟ, ੖IJȚ ੯țĮ ਥʌȠȡİ઄İIJȠ, ਕʌȡİʌ੻Ȣ ਩ıIJĮȚ· İ੅IJİ ਥʌ੿ IJ૵Ȟ įȘȝȠȖİȡંȞIJȦȞ… ਕȞ੺ȡȝȠıIJȠȞ. Schol. ǹ Il. 3.155b.1-11, … ʌȡઁȢ į੻ IJ૶ ȝ੽ ਖȡȝંȗİȚȞ ਥʌ੿ IJોȢ ਬȜ੼ȞȘȢ IJઁ įȡȠȝĮ઀ĮȞ Į੝IJ੽Ȟ ʌȡȠı੼ȡȤİıșĮȚ… ੒ ʌȠȚȘIJ੽Ȣ ਥij઄ȜĮȟİȞ țĮ੿ IJઁ IJોȢ ਬȜ੼ȞȘȢ ਥȖțઆȝȚȠȞ țĮ੿ IJઁ IJȠ૙Ȣ ʌȡİıȕ઄IJĮȚȢ ʌȡ੼ʌȠȞ, ʌȡȠıșİ੿Ȣ IJઁ ਷țĮ. Cf. Eur. Hel. 543 įȡȠȝĮȓĮ. 39 On Helen and rites of transition from adolescence to womanhood, see Calame 2001, 191-202; id. 1981, 487-491. Bettini and Brillante 2002, 49-55 and Edmunds 2007, 19 and 25 with n. 85, agree that Helen at Therapne confers ‘upon the child the qualities that will make her eligible for marriage’ (Hdt. 6.61); Helen at Therapne and the Planes has the same function. See also Pirenne-Delforge 1994, 200-201; Pomeroy 2002, 114-115 with n. 42; Allan 2008, 15; Richer 2012, 20-21. Helen’s shrine at Platanistas ‘is surrounded by a moat just like an island in the sea; you enter it by bridges’ (Paus. 3.14.8, tr. Jones). The encircling river formed a natural obstacle; its crossing culminated in the rite of coming-of-age; adolescents entered a higher level of intellectual, physical and social maturity.

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Edmunds examines Helen under two theoretical models, (1) myth and ritual, and (2) Indo-European. He argues that the former is outdated and unsustainable, while the latter raises more problems than it solves.40 Instead he seeks an answer in folktale: “The folktale must define the conditions of possibility for the Indo-European prototype, too, in addition to whatever influence is exercised later within a specifically Greek reception”. He associates Helen with the plant and the reed basket, “if from the root *wel-2 ‘to turn, roll’; with derivatives referring to curved, enclosing objects”.41 To sum up: the scientific etymologies of Helen put forward by historians of religion and linguists, exploit common roots and mythical tales that have survived in various Indo-European languages and folklore. It is worth noting the close connection between modern scientific etymology and ancient scholarship, lexicography and literature: these overlap and are mutually informing. Associations with maleficent or beneficial medicine, with radiance, rolling, twisting, spinning, and weaving are to the fore.

3. Homeric Epic To this point the discussion of ancient evidence has been largely concerned with explicit etymologies, particularly as these are recorded in commentators and lexicographers. These ancient scholars invented or endorsed a given etymology according to more or less rigorous principles as a distinct, paratextual literary enterprise. In turning to the Homeric epics, the first point to acknowlege is that, like most ancient poetry, these works rarely offer explict etymologies, and certainly do not provide one for Helen. With a few noteworthy exceptions—perhaps most famously, the derivation of ‘Odysseus’ from ‫ݷ‬įȪııȠȝĮȚ, overtly asserted at Od. 19.40742—we are now firmly in the domain of implicit etymological

40

Edmunds 2002-2003, 15-22; he submits (22) the folktale type ‘the Abduction of the Beautiful Wife,’ who ‘has a non-dichotomous double-nature’. See also id. 2007, 33-38. 41 So Edmunds 2002-2003, 17 with n. 42, and 2007, 17 n. 60, quoting Watkins 1996, 2132, and referring to Clader 1976, 63-68 and 79-80. For a comprehensive overview see Edmunds 2016, 87-91. 42 The explicit etymology at Od. 19.403-409 ‫ݷ‬įȣııȐȝİȞȠȢ… ‫ݽ‬įȣııİީȢ, follows implicit effects at 1.62, 5.340, 19.275. As Louden 1995, 22 points out, “the argued derivation is validated, the folk etymology meaningful, through its use by such wily speakers as Autolykos, Athene, and Leukothea”.

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Chapter Two

effects embedded in the text, which we will for convenience refer to as ‘poetic’ etymologies. Poetic etymologies, which are found throughout ancient poetry, signal the notional etymology of a given term primarily through wordplay, the etymological device par excellence.43 Wordplay is a pervasive feature of Homeric epic, lying at the very core of its compositional technique. Following Louden, we adopt the following working definition of such wordplay: a connection established between two similar-sounding, usually proximate, words that invests the relationship between them with supplementary meaning.44 This ‘naïve’ technique belongs to the realm of what is now called ‘folk etymologising’. It is a particularly effective means for penetrating the semantic domain and achieving a resemanticisation of words through their integration in new thematic nuclei. It is often reinforced by supplementary poetical or rhetorical devices, among which alliteration enjoys a certain prominence. Names in particular tend to call forth such effects, prompting the proximate occurrence of words that through sound and meaning evoke those names and signal the attributes of their bearers.45 Poetic etymologies, then, entail imaginative effects that manipulate the Greek phonetic and morphological system. Such effects exploit the principle of aural similarity that was, as we have seen, fundamental to ancient etymologising. The favoured technique was that of compositio or ‘etymology by contraction’ as discussed earlier (see section 1). Poetic etymologies can be a symptom of authorial curiosity—or, indeed, perplexity. In the case of Homeric epic, a number of the proper names and traditional phrases that had been handed down were veiled in obscurity, and these compositions occasionally toy with possible meanings in the manner outlined above.46 The situation with the name ‘Helen’ is a particularly good illustration of this phenomenon. What makes the case of Helen more complicated than that of other Homeric figures is that, as we have seen in the first two sections, there is, so to speak, an embarrassment of etymological riches. Just as on the scientific level the picture is clouded by an overabundance of more or less plausible possibilities, so on the poetic level the reader is confronted with an unusually wide range of 43 Louden 1995, 22 divides instances of wordplay in Homeric epic into three broad categories, suggesting that the largest of these involves a play upon the etymological meaning of a name, or figura etymologica. 44 Adapted from Louden 1995, 21. 45 Louden 1995, 21-22. On the poetic etymological techniques see TsitsibakouVasalos 2007 passim. 46 See further Reece 1999, 185.

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connections. The Homeric epics can be seen to explore a variety of possible etymologies without clearly committing to a particular candidate. In Homeric epic as elsewhere, the fundamental phoneme of Helen, ‫݌‬Ȝ-, becomes a charter of her multi-faceted nature. For the most part, ‫݌‬Ȝspeaks to Helen’s ruinous aspects: she lives out these aspects in a poetic discourse studded with verbal cognates (