California Studies in Classical Antiquity: Volume 10 [Reprint 2020 ed.] 9780520312746

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California Studies in Classical Antiquity Volume 10

CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY Volume 10

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY • LOS ANGELES • LONDON

C A L I F O R N I A STUDIES IN CLASSICAL A N T I Q U I T Y

Senior Editors: R. S. Stroud and Philip Levine Advisory Editors: Erich Gruen, J. Puhvel, T. G. Rosenmeyer

VOLUME 10

T h e poppy motif used throughout California Studies in Classical Antiquity reproduces an intaglio design on a bronze finger ring of the fourth century B.C., from Olynthus: D. M . Robinson, Excavations at Olynthus 10 (Baltimore 1941) 136, pi. 26, no. 448.

ISBN: 0-520-03567^1 Library of Congress Catalog Card N u m b e r : 68-26906 University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles California University of Calif ornia Press, Ltd. London, England © 1978 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America

Contents

EVELYN ELIZABETH BELL Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

1

M A R K W. EDWARDS Agememnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

17

CHARLES W. F O R N A R A IG 12, 39.52-57 and the " Popularity" of the Athenian Empire

39

P A T R I C I A A. J O H N S T O N Vergil's Conception of Saturnus

57

NICHOLAS JONES The Topography and Strategy of the Battle of Amphipolis in 422 B.C.

71

ALDEN A. M O S S H A M M E R Phainias of Eresos and Chronology

105

FRANK J. NISETICH Convention and Occasion in Isthmian 2

133

R U G G I E R O STEFANINI Giambattista Casti in Troy and Athens, 1788

157

vi

Contents

LESLIE THREATTE Unmetrical Spellings in Attic Inscriptions

169

CAROLINE WEISS An Unusual Corinthian Helmet

195

NANCY ZUMWALT Fama Subversa: Theme and Structure in Ovid Metamorphoses 12

209

List of Illustrations

Bell, Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon PI. 1:1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5511. Attic black-figured eye-cup. PI. 2:1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5511. Attic black-figured eye-cup. PI. 3:1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5556. Attic black-figured eye-cup. PI. 4:1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5556. Attic black-figured eye-cup. PI. 5:1-4. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, no 2052. Attic blackfigured eye-cup. PL 6:1-4. Seattle, Art Muesum, no. Cs 20.51. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Pl. 7:1-3. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, no. 48.42. Attic black-figured eyecup. Pl. 8:1-3. Providence, Rhode Island School of Design, no. 63.48. Attic blackfigured eye-cup. Pl. 9:1-3. Copenhagen, National Museum, no. Chr. VIII 457. Attic blackfigured eye-cup. PL 10:1. Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, no. 01.8057. Attic black-figured eyecup. Pl. 10:2-4. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, no. 2053. Attic blackfigured eye-cup. Pl. 11:1-2. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, no. N.I. 8518. Attic black-figured neck-amphora. The Long-nose Painter. Pl. 12:1-2. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 06.1021.101. Attic black-figured column-krater. Jones, The Topography and Strategy of the Battle of Amphipolis Map Amphipolis in 422 B.C. PL 1:1. Strymon and western plateau from St. Catherine's Hill. Pl. 1:2. Modern bridge and southern plateau from St. Catherine's Hill.

viii

List of Illustrations PI. PI. PI. PL PL PL PL PL PL PL PL

1:3. 2:1. 2:2. 2:3. 2:4. 3:1. 3:2. 3:3. 4:1. 4:2. 4:3.

PL 5:1. PL 5 : 2 . PL 5 : 3 . PL 6:1. PL 6 : 2 . PL 6 : 3 .

Classical and Hellenistic wall north of city, Byzantine tower to right. Blocked Classical gate with Hellenistic gate at left. R o a d f r o m Argilos leading down to modern bridge. Southern Long Wall ridge f r o m south. Wall near center of plateau a n d west of ancient city. Byzantine tower and Strymon f r o m east. Plateau f r o m Hill of the Macedonian T o m b . Lion M o n u m e n t with St. Catherine's Hill to right, f r o m northeast. Lower Strymon plain f r o m St. Catherine's Hill. Neochori with Hill 133 in background, f r o m southwest. Pangaion outrunner east of northern plateau with Hill 133 in background. O u t r u n n e r f r o m northern plateau crossed by Drama-Serres highway, saddle on horizon at left. T o p of " s t r a i g h t " road (?) just below Drama-Serres highway, low hill at junction of highways to left. View southwest f r o m Hill of the Macedonian T o m b with bridge and Lion M o n u m e n t visible in distance. Easternmost road f r o m southern plateau and probable route of Brasidas' sally f r o m city. View f r o m Macedonian T o m b showing routes of descent f r o m plateau and road from Neochori at right of center. R o a d f r o m outskirts of Neochori to guardhouse at highway.

Weiss, An Unusual Corinthian Helmet Fig. 1 Fig. 2 PL 1:1-2. PL 2 : 1 - 4 . PL 3 : 1 - 4 .

EVELYN ELIZABETH BELL

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

Masks of Dionysos decorate a small number of Attic black-figured eyecups of the period ca. 530-520 B.C. They are, for the most part, large kylikes with a diameter of 0.30 m. or more, which were probably commissioned for special occasions. Among the many black-figured drinking cups appropriately decorated with Dionysiac motifs, these with their simple, bold masks of Dionysos framed by eyes and vines are remarkable for the beauty and visual impact of their motifs. There are two Dionysos-mask cups among the fifty-two Attic blackfigured vases at the Hearst San Simeon State Historical Monument (pis. 1-4). 1 They belong to the Krokotos Group of kylikes and, in the quality of their drawing and the studied balance of their decoration, are among the finest members of this group. One of the San Simeon cups, inv. 5556 (pis. 3-4), has previously been published; 2 the other, inv. 5511 (pis. 1-2), is presented here for the first time. DESCRIPTION

O u r two cups with masks of Dionysos have essentially the same shape and syntax. They are cups of type A, decorated on the inside with a gorgoneion in a reserved tondo and on the outside with Dionysos masks between large outline eyes and, at the handles, grapevines. One cup, inv. 5511 (pis. 1-2), is slightly smaller than the other, more compact in shape, and somewhat less elaborate in decoration. Its date should be shortly after 530. This kylix has a broad, deep bowl; a black moulding between the bowl and stem with a white band above it; a short, thick stem; and a foot

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Evelyn Elizabeth Bell

in two degrees. 3 The interior of the bowl is glazed black, except for a reserved central medallion containing a gorgoneion whose face, save for the nose, and ears are drawn in outline. The nose is black, marked with incised lines and one band of red. The ears are drawn in side view, with the helix and lobe indicated. Teeth and tusks are white, and between the upper and lower rows of teeth runs an incised line. The hair consists of alternately black and red locks, separated by incision; the red paint, like the red of the tongue, is laid on over black. On each side of the exterior of the cup, there is a large mask of Dionysos, drawn partly in outline, between eyes with reserved sclera and irises composed of red, white and black rings. The eyes extend from the mask to the handle-roots, allowing no space for figural or vegetal motifs beside the handles. The masks of Dionysos, drawn in a rather stiff manner, are distinguished from each other by their expressions, one cheerful and one grave. The wine god has a long, full beard, outlined with red paint along its upper edge; a drooping moustache; and hair arranged in a row of tight curls across the brow and two wavy locks on either side of the face. His eyebrows and nose are drawn separately with the nostrils of the nose indicated. Notice the very awkward rendering of the nose, particularly of the serious mask. The ears are extremely small and summary. On his head the god wears an ivy wreath of red and black leaves. A wavy line, perhaps intended as the core of the wreath, separates the leaves and hair curls. At the handles vines bearing bunches of incised grapes spring from two entwined stalks. The patternwork beneath the pictures comprises black lines in the sequence 2-1-2 and rays alternately black and void. We turn now to the other cup with masks of Dionysos at San Simeon, inv. 5556 (pis. 3-4). Somewhat larger in size than its companion, this kylix has a broad, gently curved bowl; a red moulding, surmounted by a reserved band, at the top of the stem; and a foot in two degrees. 4 The date should be ca. 525-520. Within the black-glazed interior is a small (d. 0.06 m.), reserved central medallion containing a gorgoneion similar in type to the one on inv. 5511 (pi. 1:1), except for the ears which are empty outlines, the almond-shaped eyes, and the beard shaped like a crescent moon. In addition this gorgoneion has a glaze dot on the forehead and an incised line down the center of the tongue. The exterior of the bowl displays on each side a large mask of Dionysos between outline eyes, their irises treated as on the other cup. Because the decorative eyes are smaller than those on inv. 5511, there is sufficient space for grapevines beside the handles. The features and ears of the Dionysos mask are rendered in outline, the hair, beard, moustache, and wreath in black-figure. The wine god wears his hair in a sharply

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

3

peaked row of curls over the forehead and bundles of three wavy locks, bound with thick red fillets, on either side of his face. He has a thick black beard, which is squared off at the bottom, and a thin, drooping moustache, painted red in one instance. 5 A thick red line defines the upper edge of the beard. T h e god's eyebrows and nose form a continuous line, and his ears have curved inner markings and lobes of double form. He wears an ivy wreath, composed of black and red leaves attached to a wavy core by delicate stems. Slender, curling branches frame his face. Between the decorative eyes and the handles grow thick, tangled vines bearing bunches of grapes. A siren to right, her head turned round, stands beneath each handle, replacing the more usual twisted vine stalks. A broad black band, framed by glaze lines, separates the picture frieze from the alternately black and reserved rays at the base of the bowl.

S H A P E AND W O R K S H O P ASSOCIATIONS

T h e two Dionysos-mask cups at San Simeon belong to the Group of Walters 48.42, a fairly large group of eye-cups with primarily Dionysiac scenes, which were put together by Beazley as part of the Krokotos Group. 6 Mrs. Ure has shown that these kylikes issue from a single workshop, the Krokotos workshop, which also produced the skyphoi of the Heron Class. 7 T h e name of this establishment was derived from the saffron-yellow chiton, the krokotos, worn by the women on many of the skyphoi. 8 T h e shape typical of the Krokotos Group of cups is represented by Munich 2050, which Bloesch in Formen attischer Schalen placed within the "Circle of the Andokides G r o u p . " 9 Of the ten kylikes in this class, six either belong or are related to the Krokotos Group. 1 0 Besides their shape and syntax the Krokotos cups share in common a black moulding between the bowl and stem with a thin reserved band beneath it (see pi. 1:2). San Simeon 5511 (pis. 1-2) is similar in shape and size to the cups of Bloesch's "Circle of the Andokides Group." I t is closely comparable, for example, to his no. 7, Munich 2052 (pi. 5), also a member of the Krokotos Group, particularly in the height of the stem, which varies among the members of this class. 11 Within the Group of Walters 48.42, the nearest morphological parallel to our cup is offered by a kylix in the Seattle Art Museum (pi. 6), a work of the Painter of Munich 2050. 12 San Simeon 5556 (pis. 3-4) displays the same general shape as most of the Krokotos cups; however, it differs from them in its proportions. T h e bowl is wider and shallower than those of the other cups; the handles are

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more slender and form a less acute angle with the rim; and the foot has a taller, more subtly curved stem and a thinner resting-plate. O n e finds the nearest parallels to these features among bilingual cups made in the Nicosthenic workshop, such as Adolphseck 30. 1 3 A black-figured eye-cup in the Vatican, signed by Pamphaios as potter, is also similar in shape to the San Simeon kylix, especially in the form of the foot. 1 4 Like our cup it has a broad glaze band between the picture zone and the rays, a feature not normally found on cups of the Krokotos Group. Further associations between San Simeon 5556 and the works of Nikosthenes and Pamphaios are evident in the red molding between the bowl and stem and, as will be shown (infra p. 7), in the gorgoneion. 1 5 These relationships suggests that the cup in San Simeon was made either in the Krokotos workshop by a potter influenced by the Nicosthenic or in the workshop of Nikosthenes itself. From the style of the drawing, however, it was decorated by an artist trained in the Krokotos workshop.

STYLE

Stylistically both Dionysos-mask cups at San Simeon belong to the Krokotos Group and more narrowly to the Group of Walters 48.42, whose name-vase (pi. 7) also carries masks of Dionysos between eyes. 16 T h e Krokotos Group of kylikes has been studied in detail by both Beazley and Mrs. Ure. In classifying their examples these scholars have used somewhat different terminology, which it may be helpful to define before taking u p the subject of the relationship between the San Simeon cups and the Krokotos Group. For Beazley the term "Krokotos G r o u p " signified the Group of Walters 48.42, the D u r a n d Painter, and the Painter of Munich 2100. 17 Ure has divided the cups of the Krokotos workshop into four groups: (1) the Krokotos Group of cups and (2) the Winchester Group, which are approximately equal to Beazley's Group of Walters 48.42, (3) the works of an artist whom she calls the Painter of the British Museum Poseidon (in part Beazley's Painter of Munich 2100), and (4) the Durand Painter. 1 8 Within the group of Walters 48.42 there are six previously assigned kylikes decorated with masks of Dionysos which are closely similar in style and type to the San Simeon cups. Beazley had attributed one of them, Vatican 458, to the Painter of Munich 2050. 19 Two others, Louvre F 131 and a cup in a Swiss private collection, works of a single hand, may also be by this artist. 2 0 T h e mask cup Boston 01.8057 (pi. 10:1) was attributed by Ure to the Krokotos Painter, primarily on the evidence of the gorgoneion and the vines. 21 She has placed the name-vase of the group,

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

5

Baltimore, Walters 48.42 (pi. 7), within her Winchester Group, which comprises five cups which she believes are by one hand. 2 2 T h e remaining mask cup, Providence 63.48 (pi. 8) is unattributed. 2 3 To these six kylikes we may add San Simeon 5511 (pis. 1-2) and 5556 (pis. 3-4). Beazley associated the latter with the Group of Walters 48.42 on the strength of the style of the Dionysos masks but hesitated to include it because he was unfamiliar with the gorgoneion. 2 4 T h e connection between the former cup and this group has not previously been drawn. San Simeon 5511 is typical of the Group of Walters 48.42 except for the treatment of the nose of the Dionysos mask and the vines at the handles, which trail downward without crossing one another (contrast pi. 2:1 to pis. 5 : 4 and 7:3). T h e artist's rather stiff manner of drawing may explain the peculiar rendering of these elements. T h e gorgoneion of our kylix, framed by a dilute glaze line and a reserved circle, corresponds to those of the five cups that make up Ure's Winchester Group (cf. pis. 5 : 2 and 7:1). 2 5 These gorgoneia are distinguished from the others of the Krokotos Group chiefly by the inner markings of the ears and the locks of hair behind them. Like the gorgon face of Munich 2052 (pi. 5:2), ours has an incised line between the teeth. 2 6 This detail also appears on the gorgoneion of Providence 63.48 (pi. 8:1), which stands nearest in style and type of all the Walters mask cups to San Simeon 5511." T h e Dionysos masks of our kylix find their closest analogies on the cups in Baltimore and Providence (pis. 7:2 and 8 : 2 - 3 ) . 2 8 Only in the rendering of the nose do our masks differ significantly from those on the other cups: it is drawn separated from the eyebrows, rather than in a continuous line with them, and has the nostrils indicated. A parallel to this representation of the nose occurs on the mask of a satyr on the neckamphora Munich N.I. 8518 by the Long-nose Painter (pi. 11:1). 29 T h e Dionysos masks on the Baltimore kylix are framed within branches, which echo the shape of the head, while on the cups in San Simeon and Providence they are placed against a bare background, lending them an austere effect. In other respects too the latter cups belong together: the Dionysos masks on each side differ in expression, one looking jolly, the other grave; the vines at the handles coincide in the forms of the leaves and grapes and in the five twists of the central stalks; and these vines spring from the handles rather than from the stalks, a feature shared with the kylikes of the Winchester Group (cf. pis. 5 : 4 and 7:3). Despite their many similarities San Simeon 5511 and Providence 63.48 are works of different hands. Both cups appear to belong to Ure's Winchester Group by virtue of the treatment

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Evelyn Elizabeth Bell

of the gorgoneia and the vines beneath the handles, but they are not by the artist, or artists, responsible for the other five cups in this group. The individual character of the handle motif is much more salient on the other Krokotos cup at San Simeon, inv. 5556 (pis. 3-4, particularly pi. 4:1). Here a siren replaces the twisted vine stalks, while the grapevines, which appear to grow from the handle, form delicate, interlaced patterns. The clusters of grapes, treated as silhouettes, hang from short stems. The same handle decoration, though with the fruit incised, appears on the kylix Copenhagen inv. Chr. V I I I 457 (pi. 9), which, as Beazley saw, is by the same hand as the cup in San Simeon. 30 On the obverse of this striking piece is represented the return of Hephaistos, with the smith god mounted on a spirited donkey and attended by Dionysos. Allusions to the source of Hephaistos' inebriation are plentiful in the capacious rhyton held by Dionysos and the tangle of grapevines in the field. The reverse shows two goats rearing antithetically against a tree, and the tondo is decorated with a running woman, probably a maenad to complement the exterior motifs. Although their different subject matter tends to discourage stylistic comparison, the cups in San Simeon and Copenhagen offer close analogies in their subsidiary ornament, such as the sirens at the handles, the vines and branches, and the patternwork beneath the figures. Further similarities occur in the rendering of the ears of the Dionysos masks and those of the figure of Dionysos, the beards, and the individual grape leaves and bunches of fruit. From the same hand as San Simeon 5556 and Copenhagen Chr. V I I I 457 comes a third kylix, now in a Swiss private collection, which Beazley describes as being " i n the same style a s " the cup in Copenhagen. 3 1 A more ambitious work than its companions, the kylix in Switzerland is decorated on the interior with courting male figures in a tondo, around which frolic satyrs and maenads with Dionysos and Ariadne in their midst. Both sides of the cup's exterior show the wine god and his consort standing between ornamental eyes, and beyond each eye a figure of Dionysos dancing. Beneath the handles are leaping dolphins. This cup differs in patternwork from the other two, for the rays at the base of the bowl and the sirens and vines at the handles have been omitted. If we had only the cups in Switzerland and San Simeon with which to work, we should be hard put to determine whether the two vases were by the same artist, since they lack comparable motifs. Fortunately our task is simplified by the kylix in Copenhagen (pi. 9), which offers many points of comparison to the cup in the Swiss private collection. For example, the figures of Dionysos in motion on both pieces are closely

Plate 1

Bell

l.

3.

1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5511. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of Professor D. A. Amyx.

Bell

Plate 2

3.

1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5511. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of Professor D. A. Amyx.

Plate 3

Bell

3.

1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5556. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of Professor D. A. Amyx.

Bell

Plate 4

3.

1-3. San Simeon, Hearst State Historical Monument, no. 5556. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of Professor D. A. Amyx.

Plate 5

Bell

Bell

Plate 6

CO

Plate 7

1-3. Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, no. 48.42. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

Bell

Bell

Plate 8

1-3. Providence, Rhode Island School of Design, no. 63.48. Attic black-figured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence.

Plate 9

3. 8 1-3. Copenhagen, National Museum, no. Chr. VIII 457. Attic blackfigured eye-cup. Photographs courtesy of the National Museum, Copenhagen, Department of Near Eastern and Classical Antiquities.

Bell

Bell

Plate 10

Plate 11

1-2. Munich, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, no. N.I. 8518. Attic black-figured neck-amphora. T h e Long-nose Painter. Photographs courtesy of the Museum.

Bell

Plate 12

Bell

2.

1-2. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, no. 06.1021. 101. Attic black-figured column-krater. Photographs courtesy of T h e Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1906.

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

7

similar, as are Dionysos on his donkey and the satyrs on theirs. O n all three cups the form of the branches and their arrangement around the figures and masks are strikingly similar. These comparisons confirm Beazley's attribution of the cup in the Swiss private collection to the same hand as the one in Copenhagen, which he in turn connected with the piece in San Simeon. I n choosing a name for the painter of these cups, who was one of the most talented and individual artists of the Krokotos Group, we have tried to convey something of his distinctive qualities. Thus it seems fitting that he be called the Mask and Siren Painter after the splendid masks of Dionysos on San Simeon 5556 and the sirens, novel substitutes for vine stalks, on both this cup and the one in Copenhagen. O u r new painter's kylix in San Simeon may be assigned to the Group of Walters 48.42 on the basis of the style of the gorgoneion and the masks of Dionysos, although the vines at the handles differ from the more severe vines of the Walters group. 3 2 T h e cups in Copenhagen and Switzerland, however, should be kept apart from the Group of Walters 48.42 because they lack both the characteristic gorgoneion and the simple vines with entwined central stalks. All three cups by the Mask and Siren Painter do belong to the Krokotos Group, which is more broadly defined in terms of iconography than the Group of Walters 48.42. T h e masks of Dionysos on San Simeon 5556 (pis. 3:2 and 4:2) stand nearest in style to those on the name-vase of the Group of Walters 48.42 (pi. 7:2), although they are not by the same hand. 3 3 A connection with the Dionysos masks on the richly decorated kylix Boston 01.8057 (pi. 10:1) is evident in the sharply peaked forehead, the double-lobed ears, the three hair locks on either side of the face, and the branches framing the mask. T h e treatment of the side locks distinguishes the San Simeon masks from the others of the Krokotos Group; each bundle of hair stands out prominently from the face, secured by a thick red fillet. T h e gorgoneion of San Simeon 5556 (pi. 3:1) conforms to the same general type as those of the other kylikes of the Group of Walters 48.42. 34 In the rendering of the eyebrows, nose, ears, and hair and in the form of the mouth, it especially resembles the gorgoneia on two cups in Munich by the Painter of Munich 2 1 00. 35 Unusual for gorgoneia of the Walters type are the almond-shaped eyes, the cleft tongue, and the glaze dot on the forehead, all of which find ready parallels on gorgoneia associated with the workshop of Nikosthenes. 36 These details of the gorgoneion, together with certain elements of the shape of our cup (see supra p. 4), point to a connection with the Nicosthenic workshop.

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The placement of San Simeon 5511 and 5556 within the Group of Walters 48.42 raises to eight the number of its cups decorated with masks of Dionysos. A newly published kylix with the same motif in the Faina Collection, Orvieto, probably constitutes the ninth. 3 7 Only the loss of a substantial portion of the gorgoneion prevents this cup from being assigned to the group. Most of the hair, beard, and tongue and all of the right ear of the creature have been preserved, revealing that it was close in style to the gorgoneion of San Simeon 5511 (pi. 1:1). Like the gorgon face on San Simeon 5556 (pi. 3:1), the Orvieto example has an incised line down the center of the tongue. The Dionysos masks, which lack the framing branches of the more elaborate examples, resemble those on the kylix in Providence (pi. 8:2-3). Other masks of Dionysos in the Krokotos style appear on a cup fragment in Parma and a Chalcidizing cup in Munich (pi. 10:2-4), the gorgoneion of which departs from the Krokotos type. 3 8

DIONYSOS-MASK C U P S NOT OF THE KROKOTOS G R O U P

Most of the extant Attic eye-cups which feature masks of Dionysos are associated with the Group of Walters 48.42. We know of only five exceptions, all probably contemporary with the Krokotos cups and iconographically indebted to them. One of these pieces, a Chalcidizing cup, appeared recently in the Basel market; another, whose whereabouts we have been unable to trace, was offered for sale by Sotheby & Co., London, in 1969. 39 The remaining vases are kylikes in Birmingham and Altenburg and fragments of a red-figured cup in Florence. 40 Related in motif, though not in style, to the Krokotos and the other eye-cups with masks of Dionysos are contemporaneous kylikes which display gorgoneia or masks of a satyr between eyes. Examples of the latter theme decorate a kylix in the Louvre, assigned by Beazley to the manner of the Lysippides Painter, and one recently acquired by the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, which Boardman has attributed to the same hand as that of the other cup, an artist whom he calls the Bomford Painter. 4 1 O T H E R SHAPES WITH M A S K S OF DIONYSOS

The motif of a mask of Dionysos or a satyr between eyes is not confined to kylikes; it also appears on a few black-figured neck-amphorae and columnkraters, which seem to be iconographically indebted to the cups. 42 Among neck-amphorae, the mask motif is characteristic of a class some of whose members are associated with the Antimenes Painter. 4 3 An example is the

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

9

amphora Munich N.I. 8518 (pi. 11), decorated by the Long-nose Painter with a satyr mask on one side and a figure of Dionysos on the other. 4 4 T h e neck-amphorae with masks are contemporary with the Dionysos-mask cups of the Group of Walters 48.42, which may be dated ca. 530-520 or slightly later. It is thus tempting to conclude that some of these vases with matching motifs were commissioned as sets for special symposia. From the years ca. 515-510 come two column-kraters decorated with masks of Dionysos which, judging from their similarity in shape, size and patternwork, were probably made in a single workshop. O n e of them is a handsome piece in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (pi. 12), displaying a mask of Dionysos on the obverse and a satyr mask on the reverse, both framed by eyes with white sclera. 45 O n the other krater, which recently appeared in the Basel market, is represented a mask of Dionysos between eyes with black sclera; the opposite side shows, between similar eyes, Dionysos seated with a satyr. 4 6 Neither vase is by the same hand as any of the eye-cups or neck-amphorae decorated with masks, although there is a certain resemblance, probably more typological than stylistic, between the Dionysos mask on the New York krater (pi. 12:1) and those on the Krokotos cups in the Louvre and a Swiss private collection. 47

T H E O R I G I N OF THE DIONYSOS-MASK M O T I F

T h e motif of a frontal mask of Dionysos between eyes may have developed naturally from the simple design of a nose between eyes seen on early eyecups, such as Munich 2044 by Exekias. 48 It seems more probable, however, that the motif found its source in a ready-made model, either a theatrical mask of Dionysos or the mask-idols of the god worshipped at an Attic festival which some regard as the Lenaia, others as the Anthesteria. O u r knowledge of these idols comes solely from the series of so-called Lenaian vases, which date from ca. 500 to ca. 420. O n e of the principal arguments in favor of the theatrical mask as the model for the Dionysos-mask motif is based on the fact that the beginning of d r a m a in Athens falls within the period in which the kylikes and neckamphorae with masks of Dionysos were made. It is known that tragedy was introduced in Athens during the third quarter of the sixth century, the official date being 534. 4 9 Although we have no undisputed archaeological evidence for the existence of tragic masks before the second quarter of the fifth century, when they are represented in the hands of actors on two red-figured vases, 50 there is a tradition that Thespis, who was active sometime after the middle of the sixth century, introduced painted linen

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Evelyn Elizabeth Bell

masks into dramatic performances. 51 It is certainly possible that these masks, the subjects of which were often drawn from the realm of Dionysos, inspired the vase-painters to represent masks in the narrow space between the eyes on the type-A cup. Particularly relevant to this proposal is the fact that the kylikes and neck-amphorae with masks began to be made during the last years of the rule of Peisistratos, who was renowned for his patronage of Dionysiac festivals and his introduction of competitions for tragic choruses. 52 Perhaps some of the vases which display masks of Dionysos or a satyr were commissioned by patrons or members of the choruses to celebrate winning performances. 53 The third and, we believe, more probable explanation for the origin of the Dionysos masks on the black-figured eye-cups, neck-amphorae and column-kraters derives them from the mask-idols of Dionysos which were worshipped in a ceremony pictured on the later "Lenaian vases." These are a series of black- and red-figured vases, the earlier ones mainly lekythoi and oinochoai, the later for the most part stamnoi, which depict a ritual conducted by women or maenads around an image of Dionysos. 54 O n two late black-figured lekythoi, which apparently show the same ceremony, the object of worship is a satyr mask. 55 Although the identity of the festival at which this ritual took place is unknown, most scholars have associated it with either the Lenaia or the Anthesteria. 56 Among the earliest "Lenaian vases" are two lekythoi, in Palermo and Athens, by the Gela Painter, on which are shown frontal masks of Dionysos attended by satyrs and maenads. 5 7 Their date is ca. 500-^90. Like the masks on the Krokotos cups, those on the Gela Painter's vases are rendered partly in outline. The latest known "Lenaian vase," dated ca. 420, is a stamnos in Naples by the Dinos Painter, representing maenads dancing, playing musical instruments, and ladling wine before a frontal mask-idol of Dionysos. 58 On these vases the image of the god is at first shown as a frontal, usually free-standing, mask or as a profile mask attached to a column, with or without drapery. On a few very late blackfigured vases, among which is a lekythos in the manner of the Haimon Painter, the idol consists of a column or pillar bearing two profile masks. 59 This form of image is remarkably like the herm and may, in fact, be dependent upon it. The earliest representation of a full-figure mask idol, as opposed to a simple mask, appears on a skyphos in Athens of ca. 500 by the Theseus Painter. 6 0 It consists of a profile mask of Dionysos, with drapery beneath it, fastened to a column. This type of image, with the mask shown in either profile or frontal view, prevails throughout the series of red-figured "Lenaian vases," a representative example of which is Makron's magnificent kylix in Berlin, dated ca. 485. 61

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

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The mask-idols of Dionysos on the "Lenaian vases" may find their prototype in the simple frontal masks of the wine god that decorate the earlier black-figured eye-cups, neck-amphorae and column-kraters. This is not to say that the latter are themselves "Lenaian vases," for they represent the mask of Dionysos but not the ceremony connected with it; furthermore they are symposion vases rather than vessels intended for ritual use. Still the mask of Dionysos which they depict may have been derived from the mask-idol worshipped in the rites shown on the later "Lenaian vases." And the satyr mask which occasionally figures on the earlier group of vases may find its source in the same or a related ceremony for, as we have seen (supra p. 10), two early-fifth-century lekythoi, classified as "Lenaian vases," show a ritual being performed around the image of a satyr. The chronology of both series of vases supports the proposal that the masks between eyes and the mask-idols have their origin in the same cult image. Most of the earlier pieces, with the masks of Dionysos or a satyr between eyes, fall within the decade ca. 530-520; the latest members of this series, the two black-figured column-kraters in New York (pi. 12) and formerly in the Basel market, may be dated ca. 515-510. 62 It is approximately at this time, or slightly later, that the long series of "Lenaian vases" begins. And some of the earliest of them represent the idol of Dionysos as a simple mask in a combination of black-figure and outline, such as we see on the Krokotos cups. From the evidence presented here, it seems highly possible that the Dionysos masks on the Krokotos cups and the related kylikes, neck-amphorae, and column-kraters reproduce the mask-idol that figured in the ritual which was to be depicted in fuller detail on the "Lenaian vases."

SUMMARY

Our study of the two eye-cups with masks of Dionysos at San Simeon, inv. 5511 and 5556 (pis. 1-4) has allowed us to expand the list of the Krokotos Group of cups and to illuminate some of the stylistic relationships between them. The motif of a mask of Dionysos appears to have originated in this group or, more precisely, in the Group of Walters 48.42, from which it passed to the decorators of larger vases such as neck-amphorae and columnkraters. The simple mask motif flourished for but a brief time, from ca. 530 to ca. 510, then it seems to have disappeared. Because their popularity coincided with the official patronage of Dionysiac cults and with the rise of drama, we have suggested that the masks of Dionysos on vases were inspired by actual tragic masks. Another and, in our opinion, more

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Bell

convincing explanation of their origin has them modelled on the maskidol of Dionysos which was worshipped in the ceremony represented on the "Lenaian vases." The eye-cups, neck-amphorae, and column-kraters with simple mask motifs would be in this sense predecessors of the later series of vases. University of California Berkeley NOTES I wish to express my thanks to Professor Darrell A. Amyx for his invaluable assistance in the preparation of this p a p e r ; to Dr. Dieter Ohly for his kindness in allowing me to study and photograph the kylikes Munich 2042 and 2053; to Professor Michael M . Eisman for his enlightened comments on the style and typology of the San Simeon cups; and to Ms. Ann Miller, Supervising Housekeeper and Custodian of the Hearst State Historical Monument, for her constant help and interest in our study of the ancient vases at San Simeon. T h e abbreviations are those prescribed by the American Journal of Archaeology 80 (1976) 3-8. In addition the following are used: ABL—C.H.E. Haspels, Attic Black-figured Lekytkoi (Paris 1936) ABV—J. D. Beazley, Attic Black-figured Vase-painters (Oxford 1956) ARV2—J. D. Beazley, Attic Red-figured Vase-painters, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1963) DFA2—A. Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. (Oxford 1968) Paralipomena—-J. D. Beazley, Paralipomena: Additions to Attic Black-figured Vase-painters and to Attic Red-figured Vase-painters (Oxford 1971) 1 Hearst Estate no. 5511 (San Simeon Warehouse no. 9908) and no. 5556 (San Simeon Warehouse no. 9994). 2 Catalogue Sotheby 2 July 1929, pi. 3, 15; A. D. Ure, "Krokotos and White H e r o n , " J / i S 75 (1955) 102; ABV206-207. 3 T h e dimensions are: height 0.122, diameter of bowl 0.309, diameter including handles 0.375, diameter of foot 0.125 m. 4 T h e dimensions a r e : height 0.132, diameter of bowl 0.318, diameter including handles 0.393, diameter of foot 0.133 m. 5 T h e red paint defining the moustache of one mask (see pi. 3:2) obscures the lower contour of the nose and thus appears to be modern restoration. There is some repainting as well along the cracks within the tondo. « O n the Group of Walters 48.42, see ABV 205-207 and 689; Paralipomena 94-97. 7 U r e (supra n. 2) 96. For the Heron Class of skyphoi, named after the white herons often placed beneath the handles, see also ABV617 and the references there cited. 8 U r e (supra n. 2) 90 and n. 4. 9 H . Bloesch, Formen attischer Schalen (Bern 1940) 15, no. 1, and pi. 4,3; U r e (supra n. 2) 96, no. 1, 98, fig. 4, and pis. 11,4 and 14,1; ABV 206, no. 8; Paralipomena 95, no. 8 and 97, no. 2. 10 O n the "Circle of the Andokides G r o u p , " see Bloesch (supra n. 9) 15-16. His nos. 1-3, 7 and 9 have been assigned by Beazley to the Group of Walters 48.42; his no. 4, London B 428, belongs to the Leagros Group but has a gorgoneion of the Walters type (ABV 207, middle, and 381, no. 297; Paralipomena 96, below). 11 Bloesch (supra n. 9) 16, no. 7; U r e (supra n. 2) 99, no. 14, and pis. 12, 3, and 14, 14; ABV206, no. 7; Paralipomena 95, no. 7. 12 Seattle Cs 20.51: Catalogue Christie 23Feb. 1965, pi. at p. 35, no. 185; Parali-

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

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pomena 96, no. 18 (there London market [Christie]), and 98, above. According to Beazley, this cup is probably by the Painter of Munich 2050. 13 Bloesch (supra n. 9) 9, Nikosthenes no. 7, and pi. 3, 3 (there Kassel, Slg. Prinz Philipp von Hessen) ; CVA Adolphseck 1, pis. 22, 6 and 24, 2; ARV241, no. 27. 14 Vatican 453; C. Albizzati, Vasi antichi dipinti del Valicano (Rome 1925-39) 206 and pi. 68; Bloesch (supra n. 9) 62, no. 2;ABV235, no. 2. 15 For the red molding, cf. the kylix Louvre F 127 bis, signed by Pamphaios as potter (Bloesch [supra n. 9] 62, no. 1 ; CVA Louvre 10, pi. 101, 1-5; ABV 207, middle, and 235, no. 1; Paralipomena 97, middle). Ure (supra n. 2) 102, has observed similarities between Pamphaios' Louvre kylix and other Krokotos cups, notably Munich 2049 (her no. 3). There seems, in fact, to have been close ties between the Krokotos workshop and that of Nikosthenes and Pamphaios. For example, Vatican 454, a member of the Group of Walters 48.42, has a foot of Nicosthenic type (Albizzati [supra n. 14] 207; Ure [supra n. 2] 97, no. 6, and pi. 14, 6; Paralipomena 95, no. 95) ; while a number of cups bearing the signature of Nikosthenes or Pamphaios, like Louvre F 127 bis, mentioned above, have gorgoneia of the Walters type (see Paralipomena 97). 16 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, 48.42 : Ure (supra n. 2) 99, no. 16, 98, fig. 7, and pi. 12, 2; ABV 205, no. 1; Paralipomena 94, no. 1; J . Boardman, Athenian Black Figure Vases (London 1974) fig. 178. " ABV205-208 and 689; Paralipomena 94-98. 18 Ure (supra n. 2) 96-101. 19 Albizzati (supra n. 14) 210, fig. 159; Ure (supra n. 2) 97, no. 9, and pi. 14, 9; ABV205-206, no. 2; Paralipomena 94, no. 2, and 97, no. 1. 20 Louvre F 131 : CVA Louvre 10, pis. 99, 7-8 and 100, 3; Ure (supra n. 2) 97, no. 8; ABV206, no. 3; Y. Garlan, Lasagesse: Le miracle grec {Les metamorphoses de l'humanité) (Paris 1968) frontispiece. Swiss, private: Vente publique xi, 23/24 janvier 1953. Monnaies et Médailles S.A. Bâle pl. 17, 324; Ure (supra n. 2) 97, no. 7 ; ABV206, no. 4 (there Basle market) ; Paralipomena 94, no. 4. 21 Ure (supra n. 2) 97, no. 10, and pis. 12, 1 and 14, 10; ABV 206, no. 5; Paralipomena 94, no. 5. Beazley apparently did not accept Mrs. Ure's attribution, for he made no mention of it in Paralipomena. In our opinion, the Boston kylix is very probably a work of the Krokotos Painter. 22 Supra n. 16. For the Winchester Group, see Ure (supra n. 2) 99, nos. 13-17. These cups are there said to be works of the Painter of the Villa Giulia Artemis, an artist who does not appear in Paralipomena. 23 Hesperia Art Bulletin 26, no. A 2; Paralipomena 95, no. 4 bis; R.S. Folsom, Attic Black-figured Pottery (Park Ridge, N.J., 1975) pi. 9 c. 24 ABK206-207. 25 Cf. Ure (supra n. 2) pi. 14, 14-15. 26 Supra n. 11. 27 Supra n. 23. 28 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, 48.42 ; supra n. 16. 29 Munich N.I. 8518 (formerly 1480 A) : ABV275, no. 4; Paralipomena 121, no. 4; CVA Munich 8, pis. 380, 1, 381, and 382, 1-2. Attributed to the Long-nose Painter by E. Kunze-Gôtte (CVA Munich 8, 34). 30 Copenhagen Chr. VIII 457 (Birket Smith, no. 106): CVA Copenhagen 3, pis. 115, 1 and 116 ; AB V 207, above. 31 Catalogue Sotheby 17 Dec. 1935, pl. 1; ABV 207, middle (there Northwick, Spencer-Churchill); AntK, Beiheft 7 (1970) pi. 15, 3; Paralipomena 98, below. 32 Ure (supra n. 2) 102, has compared the vines on the cups in San Simeon and Copenhagen to those on the bilingual amphora Munich 2301, with Herakles resting, by the Andokides Painter (ABV255, no. 4; ARV2 4, no. 9, and 1617; Paralipomena 113, no. 4, and 320, no. 9), and pointed out how they differ from the vines of the Krokotos Group of cups, which themselves depend upon prototypes from the hand of Exekias.

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Evelyn Elizabeth Bell 33 Supra n. 16. 34 Cf. Ure (supra n. 2) pl. 14 for a representative selection of gorgoneia of the

Krokotos Group. 35 U r e (supra n. 2) pl. 14, 19 and 21. For the Painter of Munich 2100, see U r e Paralipomena 98. 36 Almond-shaped eyes: Louvre F 121, signed by Nikosthenes as maker (CVA Louvre 10, pl. 106, 4 - 7 ; ABV2Z\, no. 7; Paralipomena 108, below). Cleft tongue: Louvre F 127 bis, signed by Pamphaios as maker (supra n. 15). Glaze dot on forehead: Louvre F 122, signed by Nikosthenes as maker (CVA Louvre 10, pis. 98, 7-9, and 99, 1; ABV231, no. 6; Paralipomena 108, P. 231, x, no. 6. 37 Orvieto, Faina, 2590: CVA Orvieto 1, pis. 13, 14, 1 and 17, 1. 38 Parma C. 42: CVA P a r m a 1, pl. 14, 2; Paralipomena 96, middle (there P a r m a 38). Munich 2053: AthMitt 25 (1900) 58, fig. 18; U r e (supra n. 2) 97, n. 45; ABV205, no. 15. 39 Basel market ( M . M . ) : Basel. Münzen und Medaillen AG: Sonderliste "G", Attische Schwor zfigurige Vasen (November 1964) no. 70; Paralipomena 93, middle. London market (Sotheby): Catalogue Sotheby 1 July 1969, 97, no. 212; Catalogue Sotheby 1 Dec. 1969, 39, no. 84. 40 Birmingham 707'62: Auktion XXII. Münzen und Medaillen AG Basel. Kunstwerke der Antike. 13. Mai 1961, pl. 41, 134; Archaeological Reports 1964-65, 64, fig. 3. Altenburg 224, 1: CVA Altenburg 1, pl. 39, 4 and 6. Florence AB 1: CVA Florence 1, I I I I, pl. 1, 7; ARV2 160, middle. 41 Louvre F 130; CVA Louvre 10, pl. 95, 1 and 4 - 6 ; ABV 262, no. 49. Oxford 1974.344: Ancient Glass, Jewellery and Terracottas from the Bomford Collection (Oxford 1971) 53-54, no. 136; Boardman (supra n. 16) fig. 177; idem, " A Curious Eye C u p , " AA 1976,281-290. 42 T h e motif of a frontal mask of Dionysos was, in all probability, created by cup-painters of the Krokotos workshop and borrowed from them by decorators of neckamphorae (see Boardman [supra n. 16] 109). In support of this proposal, we have the fact that out of a total of twenty-six vases decorated with Dionysos masks, eleven belong or are related to the Krokotos Group; of the remaining fifteen, three are associated with the Antimenes Painter (ABV275, nos. 1-3), and twelve display various styles. 43 ABV275 and 691; Paralipomena 121. 44 Supra n. 29. 45 New York 06.1021.101: AthMitt 53 (1928) 66; G . M . A . Richter, Handbook of the Greek Collection (Cambridge, Mass. 1953) pl. 45 d. Height 0.349 m. 46 Auktion 40. Kunstwerke der Antike. 13. Dezember 1969. Münzen und Medaillen AG Basel, pl. 26, 73; J r f / 8 8 (1973) 15, fig. 15. Height 0.335 m. 47 Supra n. 20. ->8 ABV 146, no. 21; P.E. Arias, M . Hirmer, and B.B. Shefton, A History of Greek Vase Painting (London 1963) pis. X V I and 59; Paralipomena 60, no. 21. 49 M . Bieber, The History of the Greek and Roman Theater, 2nd ed. (Princeton 1961)31. 50 Athens, Agora P 11810, fragments of an oinochoe compared by Beazley to the Painter of Munich 2413 (ARV2 495, below, and 1656; DFA2 180-181 and fig. 32; Paralipomena 380, middle; Ferrara T . 173 C, bell-krater (DFA2 181-182 and fig. 33). About 480 Makron represented what is possibly an actor from a satyr play, wearing a mask and drawers, on a kylix in Munich (Paralipomena 378, no. 267; J . Boardman, Athenian Red Figure Vases. The Archaic Period [London 1975] fig. 314). Beazley, however, has identified the figure as a satyr dressed in the drawers of the satyr player, rather than the actor himself (ARV2 475, no. 267). 100; ABV208;

51 DFA2 190-191. See also M . Bieber, " D i e Herkunft des tragischen Köstums," (1917) 78-79; idem (supra n. 49) 30. 52 T h e Great, or City, Dionysia was instituted in Athens during the period of Peisistratos and probably as a result of his influence. An integral part of this festival was the performance of tragic choruses, introduced by the tyrant and organized in the form of a contest. O n Peisistratos' encouragement of the worship of Dionysos, and his contribution to the beginnings

Jdl42

Two Krokotos Mask Cups at San Simeon

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of drama, see especially A. Andrewes, The Greek Tyrants (London 1956) 113; J . B. Bury, A History of Greece, 3rd ed. (New York 1967) 200-201; DFA2 58. 53 In like manner, several red-figured vases of the later fifth century illustrating characters from specific plays, such as Sophocles' Andromeda, or dithyramb or concert performers seem to have been specially ordered for symposia celebrating dramatic or choral victories (see T . B . L . Webster, Potter and Patron in Classical Athens [London 1972] 46-52). 54 T h e most comprehensive work on the " Lenaian vases" is still A. Frickenhaus, Lenaenvasen (72. Berliner Winckelmannsprogramm) (Berlin 1912). Recent discussions of these vases may be found in DFA1 30-34 and the references there cited; B. Philippaki, The Attic Stamnos (Oxford 1967) xix-xxi; T . B . L . Webster, The Greek Chorus (London 1970) 18-19 and 81-83; idem (supra n. 53) 119-120. 55 Munich 1874: ABL 223, no. 36, and pi. 31,1; Paralipomena 222, middle (Painter of Munich 1874). Louvre (sine inv. [?]), from Athens: Frickenhaus (supra n. 54) 34, no. 8. 56 O n the Lenaia, see especially DFA2 25-42. For the Anthesteria, see DFA2 1-25. A summary of the various interpretations of the festival represented on the " L e n a i a n vases" appears in T . B . L . Webster, The Greek Chorus (London 1970) 81-83. 57 Palermo (sine inv. [ ?]: ABL 206, no. 3, a n d pi. 23,3. Athens 11749: ABL 208, no. 55; BCH 87 (1963) 318, fig. 7; Paralipomena 214, Haspels no. 55. Also by the Gela Painter is a chous in the Vlasto Collection, Athens, on which is represented satyrs dancing around a frontal mask of Dionysos (ABL 214, no. 196, and pi. 25,6). 58 Naples 2419: AKW- 1151-1152, no. 2; Arias, Hirmer, and Shefton (supra n. 48) pis. 206-211; Paralipomena 457, no. 2. 5» Athens 464: Frickenhaus (supra n. 54) pi. 1,5; ABL 243, no. 38; ABV 553, no. 392. «0 Athens 498: CVA Athens 1, I I I H g, pi. 4,1-3; ABL 251, no. 44. «1 Berlin 2290: ARV2462, no. 48, and 1654; A. Greifenhagen, Antike Kunstwerke, 2nd ed. (Berlin 1965) pis. 75-77; Paralipomena 377, no. 48; Boardman (supra n. 50) fig. 311. 62 Supra nn. 45-46.

M A R K W. EDWARDS

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

I n 1956 Lloyd-Jones published an article challenging the dominant view of Aeschylus as a religious thinker, and in 1962 followed this u p with a second dealing with the problems presented by Agamemnon's decision, in the first choral ode of the Agamemnon, to kill his daughter. A n u m b e r of other scholars, especially in England, have entered the debate. M y reason for further contributing to it is that I feel a more acceptable overall understanding of Aeschylus' intention can be obtained by combining the insights of several scholars, by relaxing somewhat the demands of strict logic, by comparing the poet's practice in other plays, and by analyzing more closely t h a n has yet been done the vital stanzas of the first ode in which the decision is made. M y views are in m a n y respects similar to those which have been expressed by Lloyd-Jones and Lesky, but with modifications which I think are of some importance. 1 T h e questions about Agamemnon's decision are obvious enough. C a n we think that he has a free choice of alternatives ? If so, is it a choice between alternatives both of which are disastrous ? O r has he no free choice, and does Zeus, or Necessity, force him to choose one way, and then later punish him for so doing ? Is he guilty of anything, and if so, of what ? If he in fact makes a choice, and it leads to his death, is it because of his misjudgement, his hamartia, his personality, his folly, the guilt he inherited from his father ? Is he a devout man, subordinating his personal feelings to undertake a mission ordered by his G o d ? A patriot, sacrificing his daughter for the good of his country ? Does Aeschylus even realize he is posing a problem ?

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More specifically: at what point in the stanzas describing his decision (Ag. 205-223) is his choice made ? W h a t is the meaning of his change of mind ? or perhaps his double change of mind ? Does Ate appear before he makes up his mind, or afterwards ? Is Infatuation the reason he makes such a terrible choice, or the punishment for making it? T h e question of Agamemnon's freedom to choose, and the nature of his folly (if that is what it is) in making his choice, affect our view of his murder later on, of the meaning of the trilogy as a whole, and of the theology of the poet. Like most of us, Aeschylus may not have been completely clearheaded and logical about the roots of h u m a n action. But a poet who wrote plays dealing with matters h u m a n and divine must have had views about their interrelationship; these views are (pace Pope 2 ) likely to be discernible in his plays; and they may well (pace Herington 3 ) be fairly consistent, since the probability is that he did not change his attitude to life fundamentally after reaching maturity. His ideas, particularly in the areas of h u m a n responsibility and the possibility of prediction of the future, may be, however, considerably different from what we think is rational. Without questioning the poet in a way he could not have understood, or bringing in logical ideas of fate and freewill which only developed later, we must attempt to define the areas of vagueness or inconsistency. 4 In his 1962 article Lloyd-Jones argues that Agamemnon is forced to choose between two crimes; and Zeus punishes him for Atreus' guilt by sending Ate to take away his wits and making him choose to sacrifice his daughter. H a m m o n d denies that the inherited guilt from Atreus is important, and thinks Agamemnon has a real choice, and this choice alters his personality. Lesky addresses the larger question of the significance ascribed by Aeschylus to personal h u m a n decisions, and concludes that Agamemnon, like King Pelasgus in the Suppliants, makes a personal decision for which he must take the responsibility, but he makes it under the pressures of the situation; he further stresses that the external necessity which forces the choice brings with it a passionate desire for the action chosen, not only in Agamemnon's sacrifice of Iphigenia but also in Eteocles' decision in the Seven and Orestes' in the Choephoroe (he does not further explore the nature of this desire). Peradotto, in an article making other important contributions to our understanding of the parodos, likewise feels Agamemnon has freedom to choose, but emphasises that his choice depends on his character [ethos) rather than on external pressures; this is to a large extent denied by de Romilly, who stresses that Aeschylus, though seeing human motives and divine justice working towards the same end, is silent about the psychological motivation involved (in

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

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contrast to Herodotus) and does not tell us why characters act as they do and what part is ambition, what is constraint. Dover has gone further in suggesting that the lack of clarity about the springs of h u m a n action is intended by the poet, who regards such actions as inherently irrational, though this does not absolve the agents from responsibility for them. Lebeck in her important book returns to some extent to Lloyd-Jones's idea, and holds that Agamemnon is already guilty of hereditary pollution and pays the penalty for it after he has himself freely chosen to commit a similar crime; but Ate and hybris appear after his decision. By contrast, Fontenrose denies that Zeus wants Agamemnon punished at all, either for killing his daughter, for the bloodshed at Troy, or for Atreus' sin. 5 In the following, I shall first review decisions made by characters in Aeschylus' other plays, and especially the role of Ate; does she seem to strike because of a wrong decision, or to cause the wrong decision? And what can be seen of the characters' motivations ? With these results in mind, I shall then consider in detail the meaning of the two stanzas in the parodos of the Agamemnon in which the king's decision is described. T h e Persians brings out clearly the incontrovertible nature of Xerxes' hybris. But what exactly is the gods' part ? At what point does Ate, or the god, touch his wits and affect his j u d g e m e n t ? In the first few lines of the play (3-4) the wealth of Persia is juxtaposed with a foreboding of trouble, which passes into grief for the sons of Persia absent on land and sea. Then becoming more explicit, in Aeschylus' manner, the chorus state the concrete underlying fact; their impetuous (thourios) king, like a very god (isotheos phos), trusting to his commanders, 6 has launched an attack both by land and sea, and thrown a yoke over the neck of the Hellespont (65-80). They celebrate Xerxes' power, proclaim with a truth they do not realize that no one can constrain with strong coils the irresistible wave of the sea (90), and lead on immediately into the obvious religious issue; what mortal can escape the guile of the god ? for fawning, kindly infatuation leads him aside into her snare (93-100). For the gods long ago granted Persia dominion over the land, and now they have learned to cross the sea too (101-114). 7 T h e ode concludes with further words of fear and grief, and a recapitulation of the specific action of crossing the bridge over the sea. These same basic themes are now taken up by the Queen. She is fearful lest the olbos built by Darius with the gods' help be overthrown by the Persians' great ploutos. Her forebodings are even clearer than those of the chorus, and show the hand of god already at work; for she has had a dream which portends trouble. After the short account of Athens, there

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follows the terrible news (stressing the part played by the gods 8 ), the lament (which blames Xerxes and the ships of the Greeks 9 ), and the evocation of the shade of Darius. His speech makes everything clear (like those of Cassandra in the Agamemnon, and the ode at Seven 720-791), and confirms the previous forebodings of the chorus and Queen. T h e Hellespont-crossing was a god-sent folly, a mortal man's effort to overpower all the gods, a disease of the mind of the impetuous young king, 1 0 a folly fulfilling the old oracles, doubtless proclaimed by those who foresaw that Persia's prosperity must in time make her vulnerable to disaster, 11 though the disaster had been postponed by the wisdom of Xerxes' predecessors (765-781). For this hybris and godless arrogance further punishment remains; 1 2 hybris has blossomed forth into Até, "disaster" (821-822). 1 3 Let no one despise the gifts god has given and desire more, through thrasos like this (831, cf. 744), or his olbos may be destroyed, for Zeus punishes overweening pride. An ode celebrating Darius' own great achievements then prepares for the contrast with the subsequent arrival of the ruined and tattered Xerxes. Did the god affect his judgement and thus cause his hybristic act, and then punish him for it ? Were his wits touched by Até before he crossed the Hellespont, or after? I think the question does not admit of a precise answer. T h e way Aeschylus sees it, Xerxes was in an especially vulnerable position, because of the great prosperity of Persia coupled with his own youthful impetuosity and his desire to emulate his forefathers. Inevitably Temptation came, in the shape of " f a w n i n g " Até (97-98). This Até is clearly not the undeserved blow of god; the temptation was inevitable, for one in his situation, and we know that he succumbed. So he burst the bounds of Persia's land empire, yoked the Hellespont, and thus committed great hybris (through thrasos); and we know that infatuation must have seized h i m ; for this was the act of a m a d m a n , one whose wits have been touched. We know that god and Até do not overlook a chance to tempt a m a n who is predisposed to fall—orav anevSj) tis avrós, x 0e°s awanrerai (742). And when disaster strikes, we know that this is punishment for his m a d folly. I t is useless to push the question further. 1 4 Aeschylus does not probe further into theodicy. Here he does not go beyond Solon's riVrei yap Kopos tlfipw, orav ttoXvs oXfios ¿Trr¡rai avdpcüTTOLs ¿jróaois p/fj vóos ciprios f¡. (6.3—4 West) 1 5 In the Seven, the onset of Até takes place onstage before our eyes. Early in the play (69-73) Eteocles, hearing of the attack of the heroes, prays to the Curse and powerful Erinys of his father not to destroy the city. Almost certainly in the preceding play of the trilogy the curse of

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

21

Oedipus upon his sons had been pronounced. After this preliminary statement of the theme comes the long build-up as the Messenger announces in t u r n the six champions threatening the six gates, and Eteocles names a defender for each. T h e n comes the revelation that the seventh attacker is Polynices. Eteocles knows that the curse of his father has been fulfilled—ci/Liot, 7rarpos 8r/ vvv ¿pal reXea(j>opoi—and the hatred of the gods against the race further revealed (653-655). But lamentation serves no purpose; he will fight his brother. T h e chorus w a r n him of the eternal pollution he will incur, w a r n him not to be swept away by heart-destroying, war-craving Ate, warn him to shun the onset of evil eros. Eteocles declares (for the first time in this play) t h a t it is the anger of Phoebus against the whole race of Laius (691), and the chorus repeat their warning against this too-savage himeros for the unholy bloodshed. Eteocles, however, refers again to the curse of his father, speaks of his evil dreams (710-711, of course sent by the gods, like that of Atossa), a n d defying the pleadings of the chorus goes off to his doom. 1 6 A long choral ode follows, performing the same function as the shade of Darius and Cassandra, setting the agony of the present disaster against the wider f r a m e of the wrongdoing of the past (720-791). For the first time in this play the precise terms of Oedipus' angry curse are specified: 1 7 the steel has allotted them enough land for a grave; new pollution is piled upon old evils. They tell of the old defiance by Laius of Apollo's warnings, his folly in begetting his son Oedipus, that son's parricide and incest, and the dangers this has brought upon the city. Finally they return to the immediate concern, their dread that Oedipus' curse on his sons is about to be fulfilled. T h e Messenger returns and assures t h e m that the city is saved, but Apollo has repaid Laius' old folly and the brothers are dead. T h e final dirges are full of the Curse, the Erinys, and Ate. 1 8 W e should not ask if Eteocles is guilty, or even if he has a free choice in deciding whether or not to fight his brother and die with him. T h e essential point is that he is not an ordinary m a n ; like Xerxes, he is vulnerable, predisposed to be tempted, to yield to eros, and to fall into disaster, this time not because of wealth and youthful impetuosity but because of the curse of Oedipus his father and the earlier wrongdoing in Laius' house. 1 9 Of course Ate does not omit to offer such a m a n the opportunity to fall into disaster, and of course he takes it. T h e r e is really no question of guilt or innocence, or of any other possible choice; when the time is ripe the thing will come about. O n e cannot say that Ate causes his decision; she provides the temptation, she accompanies his fall, she will carry the disaster through to the e n d ; she does not excuse it. After he has made his fatal step, we realise that with such an ancestry the outcome could not be

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otherwise; Eteocles has been doomed since he was born into such a house. T h e gods need not be vindictive or cruel—they have no alternative either, since mercy is not one of their attributes; after Laius' foolishness (or perhaps crime—we do not know the circumstances of Apollo's warning in the early part of the trilogy) there can be no outcome but calamity. 2 0 In the case of King Pelasgus of the Suppliants there is no question of infatuation. H e has to make a difficult decision, after a protracted dilemma, between two hard courses. In this his situation is parallel to that of Agamemnon, and the agony of the choice is stressed at great length; but in Pelagus' case it is clear that his choice is a rational decision, without influence from Ate or Peitho, and there are no forebodings of his personal doom. 2 1 Again there is an early statement of the essential point; in this case, the power of Zeus and in particular the anger of Zeus Hikesios (parodos passim, 347, 385-386). In the long scene of his dilemma, the king sees that if he gives the suppliants up to their enemies he will create a heavy alastor for his house (412-416). T h e chorus emphasize that his decision will remain for himself and his children. H e still hesitates, seeing the anangke to stir up a great war with one side or the other; there is no way out without disaster (442). Hopelessly, he concludes " M a y it turn out well, though I don't expect it t o " (454). Then a new consideration is introduced; the chorus threaten to hang themselves on the images of the gods, and the king eloquently restates his dilemma; evils flood upon him, he is adrift upon a sea of Ate (clearly " d i s a s t e r " here, not " i n f a t u a t i o n " ) 2 2 with no harbor (470-471). O n the one hand is boundless defilement, on the other a war shedding men's blood for the sake of women. He is constrained by anangke: this time not the necessity of making a decision (439) but the necessity of respecting the anger of Zeus Hikesios (478), most to be feared of all things. H e makes his decision for the suppliants. In spite of his stress on the necessity of a democratic decision by the citizens there is no doubt that he has made up his own mind, unaffected by Peitho, Ate, or Curse. 2 3 If his death came in the following play, it seems it must have come without guilt or blame—an exceptional case in Aeschylus' surviving plays. 2 4 Pelasgus is thus in a different situation from Xerxes, Eteocles, or (as I shall argue below) Agamemnon, because he is not vulnerable and so far as we know is not destroyed because of his decision. T h e parallel with the Agamemnon is limited to the necessity (anangke) of making a hard decision. T h e Prometheus I shall not consider, because the special circumstances of the prophecy known only to Prometheus, upon which the plot of the play depends, may make the nature of anangke peculiar to this play. Of lost plays, the JViobe f r a g m e n t 2 5 is in agreement with the idea that

Agamemnon's Decision : Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

23

infatuation takes hold of a man who is in some way vulnerable and tempts him into disaster; the aitia which god produces for men when he wishes the destruction of a house would be some kind of Peithô (or erôs), preceding Atê, and the occasion might well be the hybris of Niobe and probably of her father Tantalus too. Amphion, whose house is destroyed, may have been less guilty but involved by association. The line from an unknown play, iXeî 8è rœ xâ^vovri ovowevSew fleo'ç,26 might well mean not " G o d loves to help him who strives to help himself" (as H. W. Smyth has it) but something like "when a man is in trouble (or vulnerable), the god is wont to lead him on to final ruin." In the Agamemnon, the first infatuated act of the doomed man to be described is the sacrifice of his daughter; later we shall hear of his deeds at Troy and shall witness his temptation by his wife and his treading of the purple tapestries. This will be a parallel to Xerxes' yoking of the Hellespont and attempt at land empire beyond it, and Eteocles' facing of the pollution of killing his brother. In the other cases, Aeschylus prepared the minds of his audience for the disaster to follow by the forebodings raised in the minds of the Persian councillors and the Queen by Xerxes' seacrossing and the great wealth of Persia, and by Eteocles' mention early in the play of the Curse and Erinys of his father. Is there any such preparation in the Agamemnon, any indication prior to Agamemnon's decision to sacrifice Iphigenia that he is vulnerable, and so liable to temptation, infatuation and ruin? It could be argued that the audience must be expected to know of the Curse of Atreus, to be brought out so effectively by Cassandra, just as they must know of Clytemnestra's plan to murder her husband and King if the ironies of her speeches before the dénouement are to have real effect. But even apart from that, an atmosphere of foreboding is set by the Watchman's sinister hints, and the idea of wrong and folly is conveyed early in the entrance anapaests of the Chorus, as they speak of the weary struggles of Greek and Trojan alike for the sake of a promiscuous woman (60-67). The gods' anger is unappeasable (69-71). 27 Moreover, I agree with Peradotto and Lebeck that there are allusions in the chorus' words which indicate, in the oblique, poetic style characteristic of Aeschylus' introduction of his themes, that the crime of Atreus is weighing upon the King. 2 8 The simile of the vultures, presented immediately after the statement of the initiation of the expedition by the two sons of Atreus, speaks in terms of exceptional grief for children and shrill-voiced lamentation, expressions which (as has long been observed 29 ) better suit the loss of children by Thyestes (and by the citizens of Argos) than Menelaus' loss

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of Helen. This same emphasis on the destruction of innocent young things marks the later omen of the killing of the hare and her young by the eagles, identified by Calchas with the sons of Atreus. The mention of sacrifice (137) and the feast (138) reinforces this implication; 30 Aeschylus is suggesting the deaths not only of the innocent people of Troy and of Iphigenia, but also of the innocent children of Thyestes. Finally, the overpowering lines which end the seer's interpretation of the omen are heavy with this old sin as well as with the immediate trouble: " O n l y may the goddess not bring about for the Greeks contrary winds and long delay for their idle ships, seeking a further sacrifice, 31 unknown before, unfeasted, builder of strife grown within the house, violator of husband's rights; for there dwells still a dread Wrath within the house, ever re-arising, unforgetting, full of guile, to avenge on the children the deaths of children" (149-155). 32 So the hereditary guilt in the house of Atreus rears its great shadow (like the Curse of Oedipus in the Seven), as the seer prays that contrary winds may not come; Zeus is invoked; but the contrary winds begin, the fleet is delayed, and its leader waits without reproach (186). 33 The flower of the Greeks withers and wearies; and Calchas cries out another remedy. Atreus' heirs are plunged into horror and grief. Then Aeschylus, in a brilliant stroke, has the chorus give us Agamemnon's own words (206217). Let us look at them carefully. 34 fiapeia ¡iev Kr/p to ¡xrj mdeaOai, fiapeZa 8' el tIkvov Sat^co, 8ofiwv ayaXfia, [xiaivaiv irap6evocrayoicnv pelOpois

TTCtTpaHOVS X^PaS 77'^0£S' y3c0/J.0V-

(206—210)

The choice is between two evils, articulated clearly, as in the Suppliants. Pithesthai means to obey Calchas, Artemis, perhaps even Zeus too, though I do not think Aeschylus ever raises the issue of whether Agamemnon knows he is Zeus' agent. 35 The emphasis is laid not on the command of Zeus to punish Troy, but on the horror of the proposed sacrifice, both as hideous to a father's feelings and as the defilement of shedding kindred blood—and a maiden's blood at that. As Dodds says, " T h e considerations which influence him are purely human, and surely he believes himself to be making a choice between them." 3 6 ri Towh' avev ko.kwv;

(211)

Aeschylus has placed his character in the ultimate tragic situation, faced with a choice which must bring disaster whichever path he chooses. Lesky

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus well compares Pelasgus' words in a similar situation, ov8ap.ov Xifity (Supp. 471). 37 Here Agamemnon still knows the sacrifice is wrong. 7TCD? Xnrovavs yeviapxu

25 KOLKWV

afiaprdttv; (212—213)

Most scholars agree 3 8 that this indicates the thought which unbalances the poised alternatives, in the same way as the threat of the suppliants to hang themselves on the images of the gods did for the King in the Suppliants. Aeschylus thinks of Agamemnon as making up his mind here. TravaavijjLOV yap dvaiag vapdevlov 9' alfiaros opya nepiSpyius emdvp,elv depus. (214—217) Fraenkel renders " (I cannot), for it is right and lawful that one should with over-impassioned passion crave the sacrifice to stay the winds, the blood of the virgin. (It shall be done)." Wilamowitz took the passion to be that of Agamemnon: " z u dem Blute der Jungfrau, zum windstillenden Opfer treibt es mich unwiderstehlich. War' es denn Siinde zu folgen?" 3 9 Lloyd-Jones, with Page, 4 0 says " T h a t they should desire with passion exceeding passion a sacrifice to still the winds, a sacrifice of maiden's blood, is right in the sight of heaven." Fraenkel steers a rather uneasy course between, and notes " w e should perhaps recognise that the absence of a definite subject [to epithumein] is intentional. Agamemnon chooses a phrase which includes both his companions and himself." But if we think back to the "fawning infatuation" which afflicted Xerxes, the wicked, savage erds which marked the onset of "heart-destroying, war-craving infatuation" in the case of Eteocles, I think we shall find it hard not to feel that this "over-impassioned passion" for the blood of a virgin can only be the sign that infatuation is close at hand; it is not Themis, it is Ate—or more precisely, her agent Peitho. Once again the opportunity for a disastrous decision has been laid before a vulnerable man; he has just produced a reason for falling into the trap; and Temptation has led the way for Infatuation and eventual disaster. This is the erds haimatoloichos arising from the daimon of the race (1477—1488). ev yap eirj.

(217)

With irony, he is made to express his hope for a good outcome; he will be similarly cautious as he decides later on to tread on the purple tapestries (946-947). There is similar irony in the same expression when made by the Queen in the Persians (228) and (so far as we can yet see) by the chorus of the Agamemnon (121 = 139=159); the King's wish in the Suppliants (454) is a little different in tone, as his decision has not yet been made.

26

Mark W. Edwards €7T€i S' avayKag e'Sv AerraSvov (fjpevos TTvewv Svoaefifj rpoiralav avayvov aviepov, rodev to TravTOToXfxov povetv ixereyvct). Pporovs dpaovvei yap aioxpofjvrjTis raXaiva TrapaKcma TTpwTOTrrjfjaov. (218—224)

Here I think the account of Agamemnon's actions and thoughts is not continued, but repeated; after the direct speech, the chorus explain what has happened in their own words. I n those of Fraenkel, " A n d when he h a d slipped his neck through the strap of compulsion's yoke, and the wind of his purpose h a d veered about and blew impious, impure, unholy, from that moment he reversed his mind and turned to utter recklessness." This is rather obscure, and might almost be taken to mean that Agamenon changed his mind twice. Let us start with one part where we are on firm ground. T h e "impious, impure, u n h o l y " tropaian, " c h a n g e of wind," must refer to his decision to sacrifice his daughter. T h e n does this mean a change of mind, that at one time he intended not to sacrifice her ? We have no hint of this in the preceding stanza, and vacillation in the mind of Agamemnon has no textual support there. I think that Aeschylus, after the m a n n e r of poets, is alluding to more than one thing at a time, and is using wind imagery, which indicates trouble, to refer in addition to the literal result of Agamemnon's decision; there is a change of wind, and the unfavorable wind which held the fleet at Aulis will blow fair after the sacrifice; but because of the dreadful nature of the means by which the change will be achieved it is an impious, impure, unholy change of wind that he " breathed forth from his m i n d . " It is not a change in his decision.41 W h a t about the other " c h a n g e " — t o -navTOToXpiov povelv ¡xereyva>? We do not possess m a n y examples of metegno, but Fraenkel, in a note to the only other use of this verb in Aeschylus, defends the text at that place in these words: " t o pass from a normal state of mind into a condition in which he is ready to commit a crime, a m a n must have undergone a metagndnai."42 Let us accept exactly that meaning here; Agamemnon did not just change his mind in the usual sense in our language, or "reverse his mind," he changed his mind from that of a normal (though vulnerable, and cursed-by-inheritance) man into that of an infatuated man, one capable of all recklessness. In other words, Ate came upon him, now that he had made the fatal decision, just as she did upon Xerxes and Eteocles. T h e next sentence says just this, as clearly as possible: " for evil-counselling, foul Infatuation [parakopa), the beginning of woe, drives men to thrasos." We still have not explained " t h e strap of compulsion's yoke." Does

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

27

it mean that Agamemnon was compelled to choose in the way he did ? If so, what did the decision mean which we thought he made in the preceding stanza? Lesky 4 3 compares the necessity here to that called upon by the King in the Suppliants, when he says, after the chorus have threatened to hang themselves, " i t is necessary to fear the anger of Zeus, the god of suppliants" (478-479). But earlier in that play the King has also spoken of the necessity of choosing between two harsh alternatives, of making enemies of one side or the other (438-439), and that, I think, is a better parallel to this phrase in the Agamemnon. Agamemnon took upon himself not the necessity of choosing one particular option, but the necessity of making a choice between the two terrible alternatives. H e took up the lure which " f a w n i n g Ate," Peitho, laid before him, and accepted the necessity of making a choice by making the choice, on considerations given in his own words: " H o w can I fail in my duty to the alliance and thus become a deserter of the fleet?" (212-213, Fraenkel's tr.). T h e n Infatuation, parakopa, who had counselled the evil (aischrometis), seizes h i m ; she emboldens him with the recklessness (thrasunei), not to make the decision— that has already been done—but to carry out the sacrifice. 44 erAa §' ovv dvrrjp yevecrdai dvyarpos, yvvaiKonolvcov iroAefiiov apwyav teal nporeXeia vctiov. (225—227) And so, in his usual way, Aeschylus concludes with the simple statement of what he has painted beforehand with the colors of imagery and dramatic first-person speech. Now firmly in the grip of Ate, Agamemnon has the temerity to go through with his decision and sacrifice his daughter for the sake of a war to avenge Helen. As I have said before, I take the sense of these two stanzas to be not consecutive, but more nearly concurrent. Agamemnon presents his dilemma and his decision in his own words, and the chorus then go over again what has happened as the poet wants us to interpret it. Let me give the sense of the two stanzas: " K i n g Agamemnon, heir to the Curse of Atreus, said; ' I t is terrible not to do what the seer says the goddess demands, but terrible too is the agony, loss and defilement of sacrificing my daughter. There is no way of avoiding suffering. How [he went on] can I bear the shame of deserting my ship, of betraying the alliance I have made ?' And he fell into Temptation, into m a d desire for the sacrifice that would set free his expedition. So, when he had taken upon himself the necessity of making this awful choice, blowing forth from his resolution an impious, impure, unholy change in the delaying winds, he brought about a change in his mind too

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and became a m a n of utter recklessness. For men are emboldened by evil-counselling, foul infatuation, the beginning of woe. And so, he could now bear to carry out his appalling decision, and become the sacrificer of his own daughter [another murder of an innocent child!] as a propitiation for a war fought to avenge the abduction of an adulterous woman." I have purposely left out of account a few passages in the Agamemnon, subsequent to the first chorus, which show similar themes and may fairly be used to elucidate the less explicit ideas in that ode. Let us consider them here. T h e anapaests at the start of the second choral ode (355ff) speak of the destruction of Troy by Zeus Xenios. T h e first lyric stanza (367-372) begins by asserting that the gods pay heed to those who trample the charis of holy things. T h e n comes a textually corrupt passage, which includes mention of the family (eggonois 374), rashness (atolmeton or tolme 375), violence (Are 375), criminal excess (¡xeZ^ov f j SIKCCIWS 375) and overmuch wealth (377-378). These ideas are restated more simply, in Aeschylus' fashion, in the last four lines of the stanza (381-384); wealth is no defense against the koros of a m a n who scorns dike. Wealth, as in the Persae, makes a m a n vulnerable to hybris and subsequent disaster. T h e coming of disaster in such cases is analyzed in the following stanza. Destructive Peitho, the irresistible agent ( " c h i l d " ) of Ate, who planned it thus (proboulou), seizes upon him, and then there is no escape from ruin. 4 5 I n the remainder of the stanza this is repeated in a memorable image. A vessel of inferior bronze, in which the copper and tin alloy has also an admixture of lead, darkens under rubbing and wear and reveals its fault by its black hue. So Paris, weakened by overmuch wealth (carefully stressed in the preceding stanza), when tested by Temptation, showed his flaw and carried off the wife of his host, outraging Zeus Xenios. So Agamemnon too, bearer of inherited guilt, at the time of stress yielded, with a result described in the pathetic scene at the end of the parodos. T h e following ode (681-781) speaks first of Helen, and how she became the cause of destruction to the old city of Priam. T h e n in the third and fourth stanzas (717-736) Aeschylus puts this in the form of another striking image. T h e lion-cub, a pretty plaything when young, in the fulness of time reveals its true inherited nature (rjdos TO -rrpos roKeaiv 727) and returns the love and care it has received by bloody slaughter within the house; it becomes, by god's will, a priest of Ate (735). 46 Though here primarily applied to Helen herself and the ruin she has brought upon Troy, I think (with Knox 4 7 ) that the image also applies to Agamemnon himself and the guilt he inherited from his forebears.

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and. Folly in Aeschylus

29

After a further stanza on Helen's marriage, restating the theme of a thing of charm becoming an Erinys of destruction (737-749), Aeschylus puts it all in simple terms. His view is not that prosperity (olbos) and good fortune bring destruction, but that an act of impiety, an old hybris, when the time comes bears a new hybris in human evils (765-766), and (here the text is uncertain) an irresistible thrasos and Até in the house. The former crime of hybris brings to birth later actions of similar wrongdoing (ieidomenas tokeusin 771). So Aeschylus speaks of generations of hybris here, meaning of course generations of men, and the inheritance of sin, reaffirming Agamemnon's inherited guilt and his vulnerability. (Because of the uncertainty of the text, the precise way in which Até is involved cannot be clearly discerned.) After a further stanza on the power of dike, Agamemnon enters, together with Cassandra—the sign both of his triumph and his folly—to demonstrate before our eyes the theme which has now been so often enunciated. The reasons for the decision that we now see made by Agamemnon, to yield to Clytemnestra's importunities and tread on the crimson tapestries, are disputed. 48 As in the first choral ode, Aeschylus has not clearly presented the mental processes of his character. Some points are, however, obvious enough: (i) to walk on the tapestries is dangerous (epiphthonon 921), like a barbarian (919, 935-936), a thing for gods, not men (922-925), violates moderation (927-930), and is likely to upset the people of Argos (937-938); (ii) Agamemnon agrees to do it, but is nevertheless still in fear of the resentment of the gods (944—947) and of despoiling the house of its wealth (948-949); (iii) he yields because of the temptation of Clytemnestra (the whole scene, and especially her final plea mdov . . . impels ¿KCÓV). I would say that Agamemnon has again fallen victim to Peithó, now incarnate in Clytemnestra; his condition will be summed up by Cassandra in the next scene: 49

OVK

ot8ev ola yXuiaaa.

JXIOTJTTJ?

KVVOS

Áeí£aoa KaKTelvacra ai8pov ovs

arr¡s Xadpalov revieren kukj) rv^fl

SIKT/V

(1228—1230)

When he treads the crimson tapestries, he is in the state of folly or recklessness induced by Até. To ask if he has been in this condition ever since the sacrifice of Iphigenia, or has somehow refreshed it in the tapestry scene, is not a real question; Aeschylus is not relating history, but presenting to us by the different techniques at his disposal the same essential idea of inherited guilt, temptation, criminal folly, and ruin. He has related an example from the past; he now shows us another in the present; and even before its completion he will begin (through Cassandra) to indicate that there may well be others to come.

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I might add that I take Agamemnon's subsequent mention of Cassandra, the "flower of the booty," sitting in captivity in her priestess' robes, as drawing attention to this visible embodiment of his impiety in destroying the altars of Troy (341-342 [note eras], 527, and cf. Persians 810-811) and defiling their priestess (ywcuKos rfjoSe Ávfiavr-qpiog 1438). And before the death of the sinner she will present, more vividly than any chorus could, the wrong-doing in generations past that has exposed him to the onset of these trials. I shall not attempt to draw similar examples from the rest of the trilogy, because I think that in the later plays Aeschylus intentionally alters the principles upon which he is shaping his action. Orestes, when he makes his decision to kill his mother, is not infatuated or stricken down by Até, and—here I differ from Lesky 50 —I do not feel that the desire which drives him to murder his mother is the same as the "over-impassioned passion" which affected Agamemnon, or the savage desire which made Eteocles confront his brother. I n the case of Orestes, I think we have a good man, like Pelasgus in the Suppliants, who is forced into a hideous action not by the operations of Até and Peithó on a m a n vulnerable through inherited guilt, a curse, or dangerous wealth, but by acceptable h u m a n motives and the divinely sanctioned demands of justice; and this leads him, not into m a d folly and deserved disaster, but into a situation which is clearly and intolerably unjust. Then in the final play action is taken by the design of Zeus, i.e. the institution of a law court, to ensure that Orestes will not be doomed and (much more important) that through the proper judicial processes of the State no single individual will again be called upon to perform such retributive action and shoulder its consequences. If the ideas of Aeschylus about h u m a n folly and wrongdoing in the Persians, Seven and Agamemnon are as I have presented them above, they are very like those of Solon a hundred years and more earlier. This has recently been stated by Page and Lloyd-Jones. 51 In Solon's Hymn to the Muses (13 West, 1 Diehl) the ideas are expressed in the same terms; the ploutos that men seek with hybris comes unwillingly, persuaded by dishonest acts, and Até swiftly joins in. She grows great from a small beginning, and sooner or later Zeus sees to the punishment of the sinner or his children. (That peithomenos here [line 12] may have the same sinister connotations as in Aeschylus is shown by xPVP-acjL 7reiBófíevoi, aSUois epyfíam netdójievoi, where Linforth translates " because they yield to the temptation of. . . . " 52 ) T h e idea is repeated at the end of the Hymn and in other poems. 5 3 There is the difference, however, that Solon did not (so far as we know) depict the way in which Até works; there is no mention of thrasos in

Agamemnon's Decision:

Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

31

his surviving verses, he m a y not h a v e b e e n so c o n f i d e n t as Aeschylus that it is not olbos alone, but ploutos plus hybris, that leads to disaster, 5 4 and he does not really present the psychological state o f the sinner. T h a t the emphasis on the passions o f the w r o n g d o e r is a fifth-century contribution is suggested b y the close parallel b e t w e e n Aeschylus' depiction o f P e i t h o a n d erds w o r k i n g on the v u l n e r a b l e m a n , and the description o f the incurable p o w e r o f eras and elpis on the minds o f both the i m p o v e r i s h e d and the affluent w h i c h T h u c y d i d e s (3.45.4—5) puts into the m o u t h o f D i o d o t u s : TJ FIEU

irevia avayKrj

TTJV TOX/JXHV

Trape\ov(ja,

povrj[IATI, al 8' aAAai £vvrv)(iai

vtf

UVRJKEOTOV

eptos 677i navrl,

TWOS

opyfj

TCOV

RJ

8' E£ovoia vfipei

avdpdnrcuv

Kpelaaovos e^ayovaiv es

TOVS

(BS

RRJV

nXeovt^iav Kal

e/caorij rt? Kare^erat

KLVSVVOVS.

rj re ¿Avis Kal o

o fiev rjyovfj,evos, rj S' eeirop,€VT), Kal o p.kv

¿Kcftpovrl^ajv, rj 8e rr/v eimoplav rfjg

RVYRJS

vnondeZaa,

nXelara

TTJV

¿irifiovArjV

fiXdnTovoi.

. . .

Anangke, tolme, hybris, orge, erds, all are here, and as Solmsen says, " T h i s is a r e m a r k a b l e admission o f the supra-human, quasi-demonic p o w e r that passions, moods, emotions, or w h a t e v e r w e m a y call these irrational forces exert."

55

I n the Agamemnon I think that Aeschylus is in fact presenting, not a Zeus w h o forces an innocent m a n to m a k e a decision and then destroys h i m for it, but a real w o r l d like that o f Solon w h e r e a m a n in a high position is liable to fall into arrogance, especially i f he has o v e r m u c h w e a l t h , a Curse, or a d e a d l y heritage o f w r o n g d o i n g behind h i m . A n d he is, o f course, held responsible for his actions, w h i c h is w h a t Aeschylus understood b y f r e e w i l l . 5 6 But this is not the end o f Aeschylus' thought, because before the t r i l o g y is o v e r w e h a v e seen the consequences o f man's w r o n g d o i n g f o r c i b l y limited by the powers and institutions o f the d e m o cratic state. Solon had seen this t o o : Evvojil-q 8' €VKoap,a Kal apria naVT airoalvei, Kal da/xa

TO IS ASTVOT?

afj,iri8rjai

TT 48a$-

rpa^ea Aeiaivei, Travel Kopov, vfipiv a/xavpol, avaivei S' arrjs avdea v6p.eva. (4 W e s t , 3 D i e h l 3 2 - 3 5 ) But it was left to Aeschylus to show o n the stage first the m a n o f inherited guilt w h o , because o f it, in a situation o f terrible choice had the m a d folly to incur terrible pollution and m a k e his ruin i n e v i t a b l e ; then to conclude his d r a m a w i t h the age-old superstitious fear o f the hideous agents o f d i v i n e punishment transformed into the healthy and essential fear o f transgressing the p r o p e r laws and institutions o f civilized fifth-century Athens.

Stanford U n i v e r s i t y

32

Mark W. Edwards NOTES

A version of this p a p e r was r e a d at a meeting of the California Classical Association (Northern Section) held at Berkeley in November 1975. I a m grateful to Professor M a r s h McCall J r . for his comments on the final draft. 1 H . Lloyd-Jones, " Z e u s in Aeschylus," JHS 76 (1956) 5 5 - 6 7 ; " T h e Guilt of A g a m e m n o n , " CQ 12 (1962) 187-199 (hereafter " G u i l t " ) . His views are also expressed in his review of K . von Fritz, Antike und Moderne Tragödie {Gnomon 34 [1962] 737—747), in his book The Justice of £eus (Berkeley 1971) a n d in his translation and c o m m e n t a r y on the Oresteia (Englewood Cliffs 1970). A. Lesky, " Decision a n d Responsibility in the T r a g e d y of Aeschylus, "JHS 86 (1966) 78-85 (hereafter " D e c i s i o n " ) a n d also "Eteokles in den Sieben gegen T h e b e n , " WS 74 (1961) 5-17, esp. 15-17. I n m a n y ways m y views are like those published seventy years ago by Walter H e a d l a m (Cambridge Praelections 99-137 [Cambridge 1906]) a n d F . M . Cornford (Thucydides Mythistoricus [London 1970]) esp. 153-163. 2 M . W . M . Pope, " M e r c i f u l heavens? A Question in Aeschylus' Agamemnon," JHS 94 (1974) 100-113, esp. 113. 3 C . J . Herington, The Author of the Prometheus Bound (Austin 1970) 76-78. 4 K . J . Dover, " S o m e Neglected Aspects of Agamemnon's D i l e m m a , " JHS 93 (1973) 58-69, is especially good on the differences between the Greek attitude to h u m a n responsibility a n d our own. 5 (I have limited this s u m m a r y to significant work published after 1961). Lloyd-Jones, " G u i l t " ; N . G. L. H a m m o n d , "Personal Freedom and its Limitations in the Oresteia," JHS 85 (1965) 4 2 - 5 5 ; Lesky, " D e c i s i o n " ; J . J . Peradotto, " T h e O m e n of the Eagles a n d the H&OZ of A g a m e m n o n , " Phoenix 23 (1969) 237-263; J . de Romilly, " V e n g e a n c e h u m a i n e et vengeance divine: remarques sur l'Orestie d'Eschyle," Das Altertum (Festschr. W. Schadewaldt [Stuttgart 1970] 6 5 - 7 7 ; Dover (above, note 4); Anne Lebeck, The Oresteia (Cambridge, Mass. 1971); J . Fontenrose, " M e n and Gods in the Oresteia," TAP A 102 (1971) 71-109. 6

Considering the importance of Peitho in Aeschylus' work, I wonder if pepoith6s (77), " trusting," has some connotations also o f " persuaded b y . " Cf. n. 20. 7 M o d e r n commentators do not indicate that 90 can refer to the yoking of the Hellespont as well as to the wave of men hurled against Greece, b u t the ambiguity is in Aeschylus' m a n n e r (cf. W . B . Stanford, Ambiguity in Greek Literature [Oxford 1939] 137-162). M u r r a y brought it out in his translation: " I n whom, then, confide ye, to withstand the a r m e d flood, P u t his gyves u p o n the storm a n d enchain the rushing t i d e ? " In 93-114 I here follow the M S S order of lines, with Page ( O C T 1972), A . J . Podlecki {The Persians [Englewood Cliffs 1970]) a n d W . C. Scott (GRBS9 [1968] 259-266). I would however prefer Müller's transposition of 93-100 to follow 101—114, with H . D. Broadhead (Persae of Aeschylus [Cambridge I960]), H . J . Rose (Commentary on the Surviving Plays of Aeschylus [Amsterdam 1958]), a n d most recently R . P. Winnington-Ingram, " Zeus in the Persae" JHS 93 (1973) 210-219, esp. 211 (an article which expresses, m u c h better and more fully, a view similar to mine). This makes the mention of philophron . . . potisainousa. . . Ata (95-7) follow immediately u p o n the sea-crossing (106-114); gar (101) then refers to the account of Xerxes' power (81-92), and tauta (115) nicely picks u p the thought of 93-100. I t could be argued, however, that philophron a n d potisainousa follow better directly upon the confident language of 81-92, and the point does not affect m y a r g u m e n t . In either case, Aeschylus follows his usual technique, reflecting u p o n the facts (93-101) after presenting them (101-114, or 65-92). I cannot agree with Podlecki (note to 93-100) t h a t " t h e primary application here is to the Greeks;" this kind of irony seems to m e foreign to Aeschylus, and against the whole sombre tone of this ode. Scott (who gives earlier bibliography) objects to the " loose connection between the account of Persian military excellence a n d the forebodings of future d e f e a t " if the transposition is adopted (p. 260), but I feel it is the juxtaposition of power a n d danger which is constant in Aeschylus' thought. In view of 8 - 2 0 and 115-139

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

33

I cannot agree that the chorus are "supremely confident that the war has been well-planned and that the power of Persia is fully capable of winning an impressive victory" (Scott p. 262). Broadhead's notes (pp. 54—7) seem to me to overstress an unwanted distinction between the Persian ships and the Hellespont-crossing (the ships are mentioned because Xerxes will be defeated by ships, cf. esp. lines 560-562, in responsion with Xerxes' name in 550-552), but on the whole I agree with his view of the thought here. As Winnington-Ingram points out (215-216), the yoking of the Hellespont of course also symbolizes the yoke of slavery on Greece, as presented also in the Queen's dream. 8 Lines 345-347, 353-354, 362, 373,454-455,472,495-496, 514,532-536. Punctuating after cheras in 564, against Page (OCT) but with M u r r a y (OCT* 1955) and Broadhead, partly in order to keep the balance with the punctuation of the strophe. T h e apparent switch from ships of the Persians in 560 to those of the Greeks in 561—562 has caused comment (see Broadhead and Podlecki ad. loc.), but as Broadhead implies the point is again that a sea-expedition is going beyond the limits for Persia. Could there be some reference to the bridge of boats in the strange word bans (554) ? 10 Thourios 717, 754; neos 744, 782. 11 Podlecki calls these oracles " a new and unexpected element in the story," (note to 739), but the latter epithet is too strong; after the forebodings of the chorus, the Queen's dream and omen, and the emphasis on the part played by the gods in Xerxes' defeat, it is natural that there should have been oracles about the disaster too. It is hardly material to ask if Aeschylus actually knew of any of those quoted by Broadhead. 12 T h e sacking of the temples (811-812) is a further example of Xerxes' folly, only to be expected after he has once been seized by Ate; cf. the misdeeds of Agamemnon at Troy and after his return home (below). 13 T h e first paragraph of Broadhead's note on 821-822 seems to me correct, but I cannot agree with his view in the second paragraph. T h e main, first hybris of Xerxes is the Hellespont-crossing, a sign of the infatuation by which he had been seized; its outcome, its "blossom," its harvest, must be disaster, for which Aeschylus again uses At6, as in e.g. Suppliants 470. 9

1 4 Though we base our arguments on the same passages of the text, my interpretation differs from that of M . Gagarin (Aeschylean Drama [Berkeley 1976] 29-56) in that he sees Persia's prosperity and disaster as the main theme of the play, whereas I take her wealth as the background of Xerxes' hybris and fall. I take Darius' condemnation of Xerxes' actions as the view of the poet, while Gagarin specifically rejects this (p. 52). I feel my view better accounts for the attitudes of the chorus, the Queen, and Darius, and especially for the final appearance of Xerxes in distress; the Athenians knew they had defeated Xerxes, not brought about " the fall of Persia as a w h o l e " (Gagarin 43). I also differ from Podlecki (Xerxes " w a s in a real sense driven to disaster by some power outside his control" (op. cit., 14]) and Scott, who says that if the transposition of 93-100 were adopted (as I prefer) " the chorus would be expressing its belief in a world where men are trapped and gods are willful t y r a n t s " (op. cit., 264). This seems to m e to leave out of account the fears and forebodings, dreams and omens presaging disaster—not to mention Darius' oracles—and the blame for the calamity heaped openly on Xerxes by his father and the chorus and diverted to his advisers by his fond mother (753-758). Broadhead's note on 114 is: " It is not true that a man may not escapefrom Ate's toils. What he can hardly escape is Delusion's onset and the snares of Infatuation, and what he certainly cannot escape is the consequences of his infatuation; but that he may free himself from the infatuation itself is obvious from the words of Darius . . . (831) . . . (cf. 932)." I would prefer to say that a man in Xerxes' position cannot escape the approach of temptation, "kindly, fawning Ate," and once he has yielded to her beguilements there is no escape from the Infatuation (100) which causes actions which will bring disaster (so W . Jaeger, Paideia I [English tr., 2 New York 1945] 258). T h e chorus are terribly afraid that his yoking of the sea is just this kind of infatuated action; later we learn that they are right, and a further reason is supplied (in addition to the stress on Persia's wealth) by the words thourios and neos. Whether another man in Xerxes' position could have repelled Atd's onset is not

34

Mark W. Edwards

what the play is about. T h e adjuration that Xerxes should watch his ways better in future (831) I take to be not a general statement that an infatuated man may free himself (as Broadhead does), but a particular application of the general lesson just enunciated, topical for Aeschylus' audience: " h e ' d better not try it a g a i n ! " Athens, like Poseidon, did not bear the yoke for long. 1 5 Foreshadowings of minor techniques of the poet, as well as the thought, link the play to the Agamemnon. T h e Queen, in agony of mind, hopes that all may turn out well (228); the doer must suffer (813); the destruction of temples is a sign of infatuation and disastrous for the conqueror (811-812); and the favor of god is seen as a changing wind (942-943, see Broadhead ad loc.). A bibliographical survey of the many recent articles on the Seven is given in the first footnote of G. M . Kirkwood, "Eteocles Oiakostrophos," Phoenix 23 (1969) 9 - 2 5 ; earlier reviews are included in the articles of L. Golden (CP 59 [1964] 79-89), Podlecki ( T A P A 95 [1964] 283-299) a n d B . Otis (GRBS 3 [1960] 153-174], T h e view I take is similar to that of F. Solmsen (TAPA 68 [1937] 197-211)—an article which cleared u p m a n y misapprehensions—except that he sees the change in Eteocles' mind brought about by the revelation that he must fight his brother as the work of the Erinys, the executor of Oedipus' curse. I would go further than this and see beyond the Erinys also Até and her attendants—not Peithó here, but erds and himeros (see n. 19). In a similar way, Helen in the second chorus of the Agamemnon is called an Erinys, but Até and Peithó still play a large part. This view has already been stated by A. Lesky (both articles cited in n. 1 above) and Lloyd-Jones (Gnomon 34 [1962] 740-742). Both these scholars draw the parallels with Agamemnon's decision, and show the weaknesses in the argument of Wolff and Patzer (HSCP 63 [1958] 89-95, 97-119). Other recent articles express different views on Eteocles' character in the early part of the play. I am afraid I cannot agree with Brooks Otis' view that we have in the play " a conflict of two rights which is resolved by the Olympians at Eteocles' expense" (op. cit., 156) and that the chorus is mistaken in attributing his decision to a kakos eras (166-167). It seems to me hazardous to divorce the words of this chorus from the meaning of the author at the climax of the play, and I feel the horrible words of Eteocles (" brother against brother, enemy against e n e m y " [674-675]) followed immediately by the chorus' warning to " Oedipus' s o n " against what he plans, make it clear that his is a true "evil passion" into which he will fall because of the Curse. Otis thinks Eteocles is conscious of and accepts his position, while I feel his mind is affected by erds, as part of the workings of the Curse and Até, when he makes his decision. 17 In 725 I would prefer to read xarápas OtSiiróSa ¡¡Áai/itypovas, but the emendation has found no favor with editors since H a r t u n g put it into his text in 1853 (as pÁaipújipovas t OíStiroSa Karápas). As H a r t u n g comments, it is the Curse itself which is the mind-destroyer. H e a d l a m (op. cit., n. 1) 117 speaks of até blapsiphrón, unfortunately without classical precedent. 18 T h e Curse, 832, 841, 894, 945, 954, 1017; Erinys, 868, 886, 898, 977 = 989, 1055; Até 956, 1001. I think it correct to equate erds here with Peithó. W e ourselves would think of persuasion as something exerted by B upon A, and of desire as something felt by A for B. But temptation, which is one meaning of Peithó, even for us implies some involvement of both A and B, and shows more clearly the close connection with desire. Aeschylus joins Peithó with pothos and erds in Supp. 1038-1042, and uses ems in connection with Agamemnon's folly at Troy (341) and in sacrificing his daughter (erds haimatoloichos, 1477-8; I take this as referring to Agamemnon as much as—or more than—to Clytemnestra, against Cornford \op. cit., n. 1] 161, though generally his discussion here is good). 20 Again there are motifs foreshadowing those of the Agamemnon; change of winds for change of fortune (705-708); no purification is possible for shedding of kindred blood (681). Peithó may possibly be alluded to inpepoithds (672; cf. n. 6 above). 21 O n conjectures about the fate of Pelasgus in the rest of the trilogy see A. F. Garvie, Aeschylus' Supplices (Cambridge 1969) 198-202. Winnington-Ingram suggests strongly that he died in the second play, but on grounds of convenience to the plot, not the moral ideas of the poet ( J H S 8 1 [1961] 141-152).

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and. Folly in Aeschylus

35

22 Perhaps I separate these two meanings of Ate too distinctly, b u t I do not think it affects t h e a r g u m e n t . O n the whole problem of At6 see R . D . Dawe, " S o m e reflection on At6 a n d H a m a r t i a , " HSCP 72 (1967) 89-123, a n d references there to earlier literature. D a w e ' s analysis of t h e Persians a n d Seven is compatible with m i n e ; on his interpretation of Agamemnon 218-223, s e e n . 44. 23 B. Snell, Aischylos und das Handeln im Drama (Philologus Supp. 20, Leipzig 1938) 58f, considers t h a t t h e decision is m a d e essentially b y the people, not the K i n g . I find this h a r d to accept, b u t if correct it does not affect m y a r g u m e n t as we know h e uses Peithö to win over t h e Argives a n d thus must h a v e m a d e u p his own m i n d first. 24

I n this play Peitho only a p p e a r s in good guise, helping to win over the citizens (623). Again there is storm imagery to suggest trouble (166-167). As Snell {op. cit., n. 23) 52 said, m u c h emphasis is laid on the hybris of the Egyptians; H . G. Robertson counted nineteen references to it in the play (CR 50 [1936] 107 n. 2). 25 Fr. 1 Page (Select Papyri I I I [London 1941]), 277 Lloyd-Jones (Appendix to Aeschylus I I , ed. H . W . S m y t h [London 1957], 273 M e t t e (Die Fragmente der Tragödien des Aischylos [Berlin 1959]). 2« Fr. 223 Smyth, 673 M e t t e . 27 T h o u g h only touched on here, the idea foreshadows (in Aeschylus' usual style) the heavy stress later laid on the loss of the youth of Greece (427-455, also 109, 4 6 1 - 4 6 2 ; see Peradotto [op. cit., n. 5] 254-255). I c a n n o t agree with those w h o feel A g a m e m n o n ' s cause is j u s t (or at least that Aeschylus is here presenting it in that w a y ) ; so especially Dover ( " t h a t the enterprise itself was righteous the chorus do assert," op. cit., n. 4, 65) a n d Lloyd-Jones, " G u i l t , " 188. 28 Peradotto esp. 246-8, Lebeck 31 ( " T h e p r o p h e c y of Calchas contains allusion to all that which is developed in the vision of C a s s a n d r a " ) , 33-36 (both cited in n. 5 above). O n the other side, denying any reference to the Curse of Atreus until Cassandra's words, are Lloyd-Jones ( " C a s s a n d r a supplies us . . . with the vital piece of information that gives t h e missing clue for which we h a v e so long been s e e k i n g " [ " G u i l t , " 198]—but this is not Aeschylus' way), H a m m o n d ("Aeschylus does not mention anything like ' t h e curse' until the Agamemnon is two-thirds d o n e ! " [op. cit., n. 5, 42]), a n d now G a g a r i n (op. cit., n. 14, 62-64). O n this " p r o leptic introduction a n d g r a d u a l d e v e l o p m e n t " of a theme or i m a g e in Aeschylus cf. Lebeck 1 a n d 169 n. 1. 29 E.g. E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus Agamemnon (Oxford 1950), note on line 50 paidSn, "pais is not used elsewhere of the young of beasts," a n d on 57 goon, '"especially lamentation for t h e d e a d , ' as Passow rightly says." H e does not c o m m e n t on the significance of the choice of these words. 30 Cf. Peradotto, 246-247; Lebeck, 34. 31 " S i n c e Stanley m u c h misdirected learning a n d ingenuity has been spent on the explanation ofheteran: Ahrens even dragged in the epulae Thyesteae" (Fraenkel, o n 151). I would support Ahrens. 32 Fraenkel's only apparent reference to teknopoinos (note to 154palinortos, " T h e guilty—or their children—draw breath . . . the menis is finished") seems to restrict the meaning to "avenging on the children." Thomson is better: "the meaning of the final teknopoinos is deliberately left in doubt—is it payment of a child, for a child or to a child?" (The Oresteia of Aeschylus2 [Amsterdam and Prague 1966] on 154-155). I would add also "avenging through children (Agamemnon and Aegisthus, Orestes and Electra)," and extend "on the children" to those four, as well as taking the children avenged to include those of Thyestes as well as Iphigenia (not to mention the Greeks and Trojans killed at Troy). The lines deserve the widest possible interpretation, in the same style as Knox's interpretation of the lioncub image later in the play (CP 47 [1952] 17-25). This is the way Aeschylus works. 33 I take 187 to refer to the unfavorable wind holding the fleet at Aulis; so Fraenkel's translation. There is no veering of the wind here, as Agamemnon is not yet hesitating about the sacrifice. Scott (TAPA 97 [1966] 463-464) sees symbolical significance in this line ("Agamemnon complying with the will of Zeus and organizing the expedition does not resist the

36

Mark W. Edwards

will of fortune—he co-operates with i t " ) ; he may be right. Peradotto takes sumpneôn of Agamemnon's final yielding, which must go too far—he does not yet know what to yield to ( A J P 85 [ 1964] 383, and Time and the Pattern of Change in Aeschylus' Oresteia [microfilm, Ann Arbor 1963] 175). 34 In setting out the Greek (text of Fraenkel) I have sometimes followed the phrases rather than the metrical colometry. 35 Perhaps pithesthai also hints at the presence of Peithô. As A. Rivière points out, Agamemnon has seen the omen of the eagles and heard Calchas' interpretation, but Aeschylus does not mention that here and we should be cautious about introducing it ( " R e m a r q u e s sur le 'nécessaire' et la 'nécessité' chez Eschyle," REG 81 [1968] 12). 3« " M o r a l s and Politics in the ' O r e s t e i a ' " , PCPS 6 (1960) 28. 37 "Decision," 81. 38 So Fraenkel ad. loc., Lesky "Decision" 81, H a m m o n d 47. 39 Griechische Tragédien ubers. von U . v. Wilamowitz-Moellendorf I I (9th ed., Berlin 1922). 40 " G u i l t , " 191, J . D . Denniston a n d D. Page, Aeschylus Agamemnon (Oxford 1957) ad loc. (with Bamberger's emendation). Thomson's rejection of epithumein as a gloss on organ is plausible (Rose feels the same way), but even with his drastically-emended reading I would still consider Agamemnon the subject of the infinitive. Winnington-Ingram (BICS 21 [1974] 4-5) has recently suggested Artemis may be the subject, but this is rather strained. 41 Tropaia in metaphorical usage seems to mean a change of wind, not a veering or alternating wind; see Fraenkel ad loc. and LSJ. Contra Dodds (op. cit., n. 36) 28. Scott (op. cit., n. 33) 464 also takes tropaian in literal as well as metaphorical sense ( " h e breathes out from his own mind the change of the w i n d " ) , though I do not agree with what he says about its compulsion. 42 Vol. I I , 128 n. 1. B . M . W . Knox, "Second Thoughts in Greek Tragedy," GRBS 7 (1966) 213-232, discusses this passage (220 n. 22) and concludes that the phrase means a change from indecision to decision, but I do not see that this suits either the context of the passage or the other use in Aeschylus. Closest to my own view is Lloyd-Jones, who translates (without comment) " his mind changes to a temper of utter ruthlessness " (The Oresteia [Englewood Cliffs 1970] 28). Dodds (op. cit., n. 36) 28 speaks of a change of mind in the sense of hesitation. 43 "Decision," 81-2: " I t is anangkê to the king of Argos to avoid the anger of the Zeus of the suppliants. And Agamemnon, it is said, after making his decision took the yoke of anangkê upon h i m . " C . H . Reeves has good things to say about anangkê (CJ 55 [1960] 170-171), a n d is right in saying Agamemnon has to choose, but not (I think) in adding that he has to choose as he does. O n the precise meaning of the word, G. E. M . de Ste. Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (Ithaca 1972) 60-61 is also interesting. Winnington-Ingram's statement, " I t is by his decision that he takes on the yoke-strap of necessity and loses the freedom he had when he chose" (op. cit., n. 40, 5), I take to refer to his decision to make the sacrifice, not to accept the responsibility of making a choice. 44

Dawe (op. cit., n. 22, 109-110) emphasizes that parakopafollows Agamemnon's submission to the yoke of necessity, but goes on to misinterpret (in my opinion) aischromitis and prôtopêmôn by connecting them with his decision. They refer to the temptation, like proboulou . . . Atês in 386 (see below). Atê sends her agents ahead of her. As T . C. W. Stinton says, correcting Dawe, " T h e outrage in Agamemnon's act lies not in his decision to kill Iphigeneia, but in his bringing himself to do so " (CQ.25 [1975] 245)—this is parakopa. T h e transposition Dawe proposes, partly to solve his difficulty (Eranos 64 [1966] 1-21: 145-159,192-217,160-191,218-227) separates Agamemnon's words from the chorus' explanation of them by inserting the Zeus-hymn and the stanza 184-191. It seems to me that the latter stanza would lose all its force in the transposition. 4 5 Winnington-Ingram (op. cit., n. 40) 6 - 8 has good remarks on Peithô here and the dangers of Troy's prosperity. H e suggests, very cautiously, that the priority of Atê to her " c h i l d " Peithô might be accounted for by taking Paris' sin to be his judgement of the three goddesses. I do not see that this is necessary; Peithô is the means by which Atê works, her agent, and so Atê is her superior, her parent. T h e epithet of Atê, proboulou, is consistent with this.

Agamemnon's Decision: Freedom and Folly in Aeschylus

37

46

Headlam well pointed out that in the strophe the word corresponding to the Atas of the antistrophe is sainSn (op. cit., n. 1, 120). 47 Op. cit., n. 32. H e says Agamemnon "reverted to the temper of his forebears, Atreus and Pelops" (21) and "this connects the parable with the race of Pelops, where in each generation the evil shown in the race comes out," but does not go into the precise nature of this inheritance. Peradotto's fine article (op. cit., n. 5) presents a view in some ways parallel with mine, but the stress he lays in his last pages (256-261) on the éthos of the Atreidae seems to m e much too fourth-century for Aeschylus, despite the use of the word in this passage. O . L . Smith's view on the importance of character is rather like this (Eranos 71 [1973] 1-11). 4

8 Headlam (op. cit. n. 1) and E. T . Owen (Harmony of Aeschylus [Toronto 1950] 80ff) are closest to my own view. Fraenkel's idea that Agamemnon " appears as the true gentleman he always i s " (note to 944f) has not won acceptance. Page's opinion that " i t is simply because he is at the mercy of his own vanity and a r r o g a n c e " (note to 931ff) is partly right, but omits to give account of the origins of this hybris. Lloyd-Jones ( " G u i l t , " 195-196) I think is correct in following H . Gundert (Festschr. W.H. Schuchhardt [Baden-Baden 1960] 69-78) in saying that Agamemnon yields because Zeus has sent Até to take away his wits, and also in refuting Gundert's view that Agamemnon has no hybris and is essentially innocent; his summing-up, " In one sense Agamemnon is guilty; Page has shown that he utters words that are bound to bring down on him divine envy. . . . Yet in a certain sense he is innocent; he acts as he does because Zeus has taken away his wits. But why has Zeus done so ? For the same reason as at Aulis; because of the curse. . . Agamemnon succumbs, vanquished by the irresistible persuasion of Helen's sister, the destined instrument of his destruction . . . " (197) differs from my view only in that I see Até, infatuation, seizing Agamemnon only after Peithó has done her work, not incapacitating his judgement before he makes the decision. Lebeck (op. cit. n. 5) 74-77 is very good on the implications of this scene. 49 In the decisions of Agamemnon in the parodos and Pelasgus in the Suppliants Aeschylus presents poised alternatives, followed by a final factor that upsets the balance and so leads to a decision. T h e three verses of Pylades play the same part in the Choephoroe. If we are to see the same technique here, it must be Clytemnestra's final verse (943) that turns the scale, and with its mention of temptation and voluntary yielding it well reinforces the view I am expressing. Headlam (op. cit. n. 1) 131 stresses the importance of pithou and hekSn. 50 Lesky has suggested ("Decision" 84—5, and other articles mentioned there) that during the great commos of the Choephoroe Orestes comes to desire to murder his mother. Admittedly he speaks of the himeroi that drive him on—the god's commands, the suffering of his father, the loss of his rightful possessions. H e is impelled by the oracle (270) and the Erinys arising from his father's blood (283-284), and of course is driven from his wits at the end of the play. But there are important differences from the fatal decisions that we have seen in the Persians, Seven and Agamemnon. In Orestes, there is no indication of hybris, thrasos or tolmé; though Até is often mentioned, it means (both before and after the murder) the ruin of the house generally, and the murder itself is once anepimomphon atan (831); Peithó (726) I take as assisting Orestes, not tempting him, as it assisted Pelasgus (Supp. 623) and will assist Athena (Eum. 794, 829, 885); and the Curse (pace Lesky, WS 74 [1961] 16) is only said to be on Orestes by Clytemnestra on hearing the false news of his death, a dubious testimony (692). Certain themes (Zeus punishes the transgressor, the doer must suffer, etc.) run throughout the trilogy; others are brought in only when required (the guilt of Agamemnon, old versus new gods), and among these latter I would include the hereditary guilt or Curse and the working of Até through Peithó. Perhaps, as Dodds suggests (op. cit., n. 36, 30), the difference is due to the fact that Orestes knows and accepts the divine purpose, whereas Agamemnon and Clytemnestra were unconscious and guilty agents.

51 Page, note to 757-762; Lloyd-Jones, JHS 76 (1956) 65. 52 Fr. 4 West, 3 Diehl, 6 a n d 11. I . M . Linforth, Solon the Athenian (UCPCP 6 [Berkeley 1919]) 141. 53 Fr. 4 West, 3 Diehl 5-10, 11; fr. 6 West 3 - 4 = 5 Diehl 9-10.

38

Mark W. Edwards

54 I take Ate in the Hymn to mean "disaster," with G. Müller, " D e r homerische Ati-begriff und Solons Musenelegie," NaviculaChiloniensis {Festschr. F. Jacoby [Leiden 1956] 1-55), against H . Fränkel, Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (New York 1951) 307-313. R . Lattimore, " T h e First Elegy of Solon," AJP 68 (1947) 161-179, points out the ambiguity at the end of the H y m n about whether too much greed for wealth, or just wealth itself, breeds Ate, and wonders if Aeschylus had this passage in mind when he wrote Agamemnon 750-762. A. W . Allen, "Solon's Prayer to the Muses," TAPA 80 (1949) 50-65, well stresses the importance of wisdom in determining what limit should be set. 55 Intellectual Experiments of the Greek Enlightenment (Princeton 1975) 129; see his whole section on "Empirical psychology and realistic generalization." 56 This is in agreement with the view of A. W . H . Adkins, Merit and Responsibility (Oxford 1960) 120-124.

CHARLES W. FORNARA

IG l\ 39.52-57 and the "Popularity" of the Athenian Empire

Some of the measures taken by Athens to rearrange Chalcidian affairs in 445 B.C. when the rebellion of Euboea was quelled by Pericles are recorded in IG 1 2 , 39.1 This inscription is valuable for its clear expression of Athenian determination to ensure Chalcidian subservience, but no less so for the excellent state of its preservation, especially since the question I am concerned with here arises from a sentence in lines 52-57 that would have defied restoration had it been significantly effaced. The sentence defines the tax-obligations of certain non-Chalcidians residing in that city: to? 8 | e yoivos

t o ? ev XUXKLSL, hoooi

oih:ovTes

| ju.e TeXoocv

Adeva^e,

Kal

e'l TOI

SeSorai h\vTro to Seju.o to Adevaiov areXeia, to? Se a|AAo? reXev e? Xa.Xicnnj T\~ daXaaaaV T€ Kal rijv rjneipov OIKIAEV. 34 These remains have been known for at least a century : Heuzey a n d D a u m e t (166) noted in the southeast q u a r t e r of the site "quelques assises, en grandes pierres rectangulaires de tuf gris, assemblées selon les règles d e la construction hellénique," which they assigned to the Long Wall. Pelekides, writing in 1920, reported (80) appreciable traces of the L o n g Wall extending f r o m the general area of Neochori southwards to a point some distance f r o m the river. TOV

35 Pritchett, 32-34. 36 For the evidence for this western turn in the Long Wall see Lazarides' brief discussion at PAAH 1971,57 a n d Figures 1 a n d 4. 37 So G o m m e , 649. 38 Lazarides, PAAH 1960, 73; Orlandos, Ergon 1960, 76; Lazarides, PAAH 1972, 6 3 - 6 9 ; Orlandos, Ergon 1972, 2 6 - 3 0 ; Lazarides, PAAH 1973, 4 3 - 5 0 ; Orlandos, Ergon 1973, 39^11 ; Ergon 1974, 31-38. 39 Lazarides, PAAH 1972, 67, refers the wall to the fortification of the city by Hagnon. 40 Pritchett, 33. 41 O n the general subject of Long Walls see G r u n d y , 290-291; Winter, 111, 238-239. 42 See Winter's illuminating discussion, 108-113.

Topography and Strategy of Battle of Amphipolis

101

43

A fortification of this type is also assumed by Kromayer (201), G o m m e (577, 649), and Lazarides, AD 16 (1960) 217. 44 Leake, 197. 45 BCH 63 (1939) PI. 1. 46 Lazarides, PA AH 1960, 73; AD 16 (1960) 217; Orlandos, Ergon 1960, 77. A segment of the excavated wall is illustrated at PA AH 1960, Plate 59b; the polygonal workmanship can be appreciated in detail at Plate 60b. Evidence of habitation just inside the wall of fourth century and Hellenistic date {PAAH 1971, 56) guarantees a comparably early date for the fortification. 47 Kromayer, 201 n. 2, 202 and m a p . 48 An otherwise inexplicable detail of Roger's map, BCH 63 (1939) PI. 1, is of possible relevance here. In approximately the same location just described a p p e a r two parallel series of dashes extending from the left bank of the river to the highway. Although elsewhere on the m a p walls are indicated by different symbols, no alternative interpretation for the dashes is at hand. 49 Grote, 378 n. 1. 50 Brasidas, after his unsuccessful attempt to take Eion, " proceeded to fit out Amphipolis" (4.107.2). 51 As reconstructed, the aravpwfia will have corresponded, in its upper course, to the isolated remains running east and west across the lower slope of the southern plateau which Lazarides interpreted as a continuation of the Long Wall (above, and n. 36). A stone replacement for the upper OTavpuifia, even after the construction of the relxyi, cannot be eliminated as a possibility. 52

At 5.6.4-5, Thucydides gives a total force on hand of 3300 plus an unspecified n u m b e r of peltasts attached to Amphipolis; allies, 1500 Thracians and " a l l the Edonians," were being procured or summoned. Steup's objections to this natural interpretation (Glassen-Steup, Anhang, pp. 241-242) I do not find persuasive. In particular, the absence here, but presence in the final engagement (5.10.9), of Myrkinian horse may be explained by the assumption that they were among Edonian reinforcements who arrived in time for the battle (Gomme, 637). We may thus understand how Brasidas could have thought early on that Kleon would despise his numbers (5.6.3) but on the eve of the battle tell his men that the two armies were " a b o u t e q u a l " (5.8.2, but cf. 5.8.3). At 5.2.1 Kleon started out with 1500 Athenians a n d " m o r e (nXeiovs) allies" and later acquired some hoplites from the garrison at Skione (5.2.2), so, even allowing for losses earlier in the expedition, the numbers may have been about the same. Baldwin's efforts (212-213) to discredit Thucydides' account by maximizing the Peloponnesian numbers and minimizing the Athenian founders because he fails to distinguish between Brasidas' men on h a n d and the Thracians and Edonians who, at that time (5.6.3), were still on the way, and neglects the Skionian hoplites. 53 " P l a c e " translates x. T h e r e is no warrant for the assumption, implicit in the arguments of some scholars, that Kerdylion was a town. 54 Pelekides, 94. 55 Pritchett, 39. 56 Broneer, 15. 57 Pritchett, 39. 58 Pritchett, 39. So also Pelekides, 93. 59 Although Parthenios ('Epwriica irafliy/iara 6.1) calls Sithon, eponym of Sithonia and father of Pallene, TOV 'OSo/IÁVTOIV ¡¡aoiXda, so implying a location in or near the Chalkidike, from Herodotos (5.16.1?; 7.112), Thucydides (2.101.3), and later Strabo (7.331, fr. 36) and Pliny (NH 4.40) we have explicit testimony that they lived east of the river. Most recently, Danoff places their " K e r n l a n d " in the area north of modern Serres: Der Kleine Pauly 4 (1972) s.v. " O d o m a n t o i . " See also Casson, 40, 78. 6" For the routes see F. O'Sullivan, The Egnatian Way (Newton Abbot and Harrisburg 1972) 103-107. Figure 4 (p. 103) illustrates two ancient roads which pass through

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Nicholas Jones

Eion before reaching Amphipolis : the coastal road between M t . Symbolon a n d the sea, and the M a r m a r a s Valley route between Pangaion and Symbolon used by the Persians. T h e inland route followed by the Egnatian W a y through the Anghistis Valley north of Pangaion would have necessitated a passage by Amphipolis on the way to the Athenian camp. 61 For a description of the Via Egnatia from Thessalonike to Amphipolis see O'Sullivan, 95-103 and Figure 3 (p. 80). Alternate, inland routes existed. One, described by Casson (7 and 8 [map 1]), passes from the region of modern Thessalonike to Serres by way of the Langaza River, Zarovo, Berovo and down the gorge of the Kopachi Dere. Other routes between T h r a c e and eastern Macedonia are discussed by N . G . L. H a m m o n d , A History of Macedonia I (Oxford 1972) 194—203. Even so, the assumption of an inland approach would not favor the more northern candidates: whereas St. Catherine's Hill, admittedly, could not have provided adequate surveillance, looking west from the higher stations one sees only ridge-tops and nothing of the valleys between them. T h e Kopachi Dere route, moreover, lay too far to the north to be observed at all. 62 As assumed by Grote, 376; P. Collart and P. Devambrez, BCH55 (1931) 190; Kromayer, 203; and Broneer, 59. Pelekides (93) a n d Pritchett (38, 39) merely emphasize the importance of observation without considering what other purposes the maneuver might have had. 63 Yet the following interpretations occur among the literature cited above : " p o u r surveiller les mouvements de C l é o n " (Collart and Devambez); " u m von da aus die Bewegungen des Kleon in Eion zu b e o b a c h t e n " (Kromayer); and " I n order to keep watch on Kleon's movements" (Broneer). 64 Grundy, 282-291. 65 Garlan, 4-5. 66 Gomme, commenting on the present passage (640), supposed that the ¡nixaval " n e e d be little more than ladders." Similarly, Garlan concludes (136-137) that in the attested instances of the use of ¡i-qxavai during the Peloponnesian W a r we are to see " d e simples échelles, ou ploutôt des échelles plus ou moins complexes." Yet, if we can believe Diodoros' account (12.28.3), Perikles employed siege rams and tortoises against Samos in 440/39, and the use of both rams and minings is attested for the Peloponnesian W a r (Winter, 85 n. 44, 155 and n. 13). T h a t there are but few recorded instances of successful direct assaults on walled cities during the W a r does not, of course, contradict this evidence, but rather suggests that some means h a d been discovered to counter effectively the new inventions: Winter (156, 307-308) argues for the use of towers.

67 Perikles' besiegement of Samos in 440/39 (n. 66 above) represents the earliest recorded use of siege machines in Greek warfare. 68 O n the advantage of multiple assaults see Winter, 112-113. Until the size of Greek armies increased in the fourth century through the use of mercenaries, attacks on walled towns tended to be concentrated in a single sector, and the time required to prepare the assault gave the defenders ample opportunity to congregate at the place of attack. Kleon's apparent departure from established practice probably motivated Thucydides' explanation that " h e was awaiting the larger force, not that he might gain an advantage in security should he be forced to fight, but in order to surround the city in a circle and take it by s t o r m " (5.7.3). . . . Kal vvv âraKTwç Kara Bèav TeTpajiptvovs . . . (Brasidas' speech, cf. 5.10.5). Woodhead's speculation (307-308) that Kleon, in contrast to Thucydides' account of his motivation, in fact deliberately feigned disorder in order to draw Brasidas out of the city is part of a larger thesis which holds Thucydides responsible for presenting an unfairly damaging portrait of the Athenian general. Concerning the present episode, let suffice the observation that from the standpoint of topography and strategy there is no cause to question the reliability of the historian's narrative. O n Woodhead's thesis as a whole see W. K . Pritchett, " T h e Woodheadean Interpretation of Kleon's Amphipolitan Campaign," Mn 26 (1973) 376-386. 70 Contra Pritchett, 4 1 ^ 2 , 44. 71 Pritchett, 41, 66.

Topography and Strategy of Battle of Amphipolis

103

72

Pritchett (42) takes Thucydides' words to imply possible difficulty, rather than ease, of retreat. 73 Lazarides' excavations have yet to reveal the location of the Upov : see PAAH 1971, 50. At Neochori Leake saw a Doric triglyph-metope block which he was told had been brought from the Bezestein " o n the summit of the hill," where similar fragments were said to exist. Unfortunately, he was prevented from ascending the plateau and confirming his suspicion that the block belonged to the temple of Minerva (198, cf. 191). Pritchett, 4 2 ^ 3 . 75 Pritchett, of course, believes Brasidas' encampment to have been on Hill 339, which is in fact visible from Hill 133. 76 Namely, the gates in the northeast sector revealed by Lazarides' excavations (see below). Proponents of the candidacy of Hill 133 must, I believe, assume here a report by scouts. 77 Pritchett, 45. 78 E.g. Kromayer, 204—205. Gomme (650, cf. 651) places the Athenian force on the slopes east of the town and astride the saddle, " p r o b a b l y not much above its lowest point." 79 Whether or not the Macedonian T o m b stood opposite Amphipolis town, however, is another question. Pritchett has argued (31-32) that the Classical town was located to the north on the site of Neochori. Since nothing of the modern village can be seen from any where on the slopes of the Hill, this might be considered a serious objection. But two counterarguments may be advanced : (i) for contemporary habitation of the general area of the R o m a n and Byzantine structures within the southern circuit wall one can now cite a house and well of the Classical period (Lazarides, Figure 32), the extensive reuse of architectural material of Classical date in later buildings (Lazarides, PAAH 1971, 51-52), and the presence of blackglazed sherds in appreciable quantity; (ii) the only structure which Thucydides actually says was seen by the Athenians is the sanctuary of Athena (5.10.2), which, as observed above (n. 73), has not been discovered. There is no reason, moreover, for supposing that the sanctuary necessarily stood in close proximity to the general community. 80 Hill 133 would, as Gomme suggests (650), have served this purpose well, though more could have been learned, I a m sure, from a closer, albeit less elevated, position. Hills 386 and 338 (Kromayer, 205) lie much too far to the east and are unnecessarily high. 81 T h e other candidates for Brasidas' encampment, Hills 277, 339 and K a t o Krousova, are also clearly visible. 82 See above, n. 79. S3 Thucydides' description (5.10.6-7) of the two sallies implies that the observation was made at the Thracian Gates only, for Brasidas did not have horses and began his sally, not from the First Gates of the Long Wall, but from within the circuit wall on the south (see below and sketch map). 84 According to Thucydides' figures at least 1800 men remained in the city after Brasidas' departure to Kerdylion (5.6.4-5, above n. 52). How Kleon could have believed the city " d e s e r t e d " I do not know. 85 'Em TO ATAVPW/IA, of course, can mean only "leading to the palisade," and so, presumably, through it. Some, however, may wish to take xal ràs npu>ras . . . as epexegetic, reducing the number of gates to two. Such an interpretation would necessitate a complete réévaluation of the city fortifications. Reconstructions of the gates proposed by modern scholars offer, not surprisingly, a bewildering number of variations. There would seem to be little profit in rehearsing these here, particularly as they depend by and large on assumptions concerning the several fortifications already refuted or at least called into question in the preceding discussion. 86 Pritchett, 35. This road, in fact, would have suited better Brasidas' ascent to the plateau after he had crossed the bridge from Kerdylion : it would have been the closer and more direct of the two routes under discussion and would have afforded somewhat more concealment from the Athenians to the east.

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Nicholas Jones 87

See Lazarides, Figure 32. 88 These features are represented in detail at Lazarides, Figure 31. 89 See Lazarides, Figure 30, and the sketch m a p . 90 C . E . Graves, The Fifth Book of Thucydides (London 1891) 99. 9! O n the location of the trophy I follow Gomme (651 ). 92 Casson, 39-43. 93 2.96.3 ; 97.2; 99.3,4; 101.3. 94 Here it is assumed that the northern bridge, unlike the southern, stood outside the Long Wall. T h e reason for the difference is obvious. A bridge set within the northern Long Wall (as reconstructed) would, in the absence of any other walls, have offered immediate access to the city proper. If situated a short distance upstream, however, the bridge could still have been easily defended by the garrison stationed within the fortifications. 95 T h e roughness of this terrain can be appreciated in Plate 5:1, in which the plateau is viewed from the northeast. Klearidas, having turned the ridge of the Long Wall, would have been required to traverse the steep slope into which the modern roadbed has been carved. T h e saddle lies on the horizon at the extreme left. 96 T h e road is also mentioned by Pritchett (35), who, however, places the Thracian Gates to the north. 97 At present, there is visible on the site no relevant archaeological evidence. But it is worth noting that Cousinéry, in a work published in 1831, reported (126) "ruines d'une p o r t e " on the east side of the city: " e t j e ne doutai pas que ce ne fût celle par où sortit la première division des troupes que Brasidas, général de Sparte, fit marcher pour combatre Cléon." Whether Klearidas' or Brasidas' division is meant is not clear. 98 See above, n. 83. 99 Gomme, 646-647. 100 For a detailed analysis of Kleon's orders see Anderson, 1-4.

ALDEN A. M O S S H A M M E R

Phainias of Eresos and Chronology

We know surprisingly little about the development of Greek chronological tradition during the period between the late fifth century, when persons such as Hellanicus of Lesbos and Charon of Lampsacus were publishing the first chronological works, and the Alexandrian period, when the chronicles of Eratosthenes and Apollodorus established a chronographic vulgate. Little remains of the fourth-century scholarship that underlay the work of Eratosthenes and Apollodorus. In many cases we have only names and titles, no fragments. The late literary sources upon which we depend for the reconstruction of the traditional Greek chronology generally transmit the Alexandrian vulgate with infrequent and unsystematic reference to earlier authorities. We do, however, possess an important, although badly damaged, chronicle of the early third century B.G. that survived the general neglect of such works in late antiquity because it was displayed on stone. The Parian Marble, inscribed in 264, thus affords at least some insight into pre-Alexandrian chronological tradition. In most cases where comparison is possible, differences are relatively insignificant, the Parian representing a less fully systematized version of what was to become the Alexandrian vulgate, as, for example, on the birthdates and lifespans of the three great tragedians. In a few instances, most notably the relative chronology of Homer and Hesiod, the Parian reflects an opinion (in this case, that of Ephorus) rejected by the Alexandrians and not again seriously entertained. Of special interest is any case for which the Parian reports a date apparently inconsonant with the mainstream of the tradition, but which nevertheless reappears in the

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Alien A. Mosshammer

later authorities. One such instance merits particular attention, because the evidence, such as it is, suggests that the Parian's authority may have been Phainias of Eresos, student of Aristotle, friend, fellow countryman, and colleague of Theophrastus. Equally important, whether or not the attribution to Phainias is correct, we can examine the development of scholarly opinion about a controversial date—that of Terpander—at several stages in the pre-Alexandrian tradition. 1 I The Parian Marble, ep. 34, dates Terpander's musical innovations to the archonship at Athens of Dropides, 645/4 or 644/3, depending on the method used in counting the Parian's interval of 381 years from the archonship of Diognetus, 264/3. Athenaeus (14.635), however, says that Hellanicus in his Carneian Victors (FGrHist 4 F 85a) reported that Terpander was the first victor in the musical competitions, and that Sosibius (FGrHist 595 F 3) dated the first Carneian festival to the 26th Olympiad, 676/5. There is no direct evidence for Apollodorus' date. It seems likely, as Jacoby suggested, that Apollodorus combined Hellanicus with Sosibius and dated Terpander to 676/5, preferring a date based on a festival to a vague floruit such as that of the Parian's source. 2 Indeed, Athenaeus' statement may well derive from Apollodorus, the latter having provided the citation of Hellanicus and Sosibius. This date in 676/5 for the establishment of a Carneian contest in music appears among the occasional historical notes included in Eusebius' list of Olympic victors. We should therefore expect Eusebius to enter Terpander at that date in the Chronological Canons. Instead, Eusebius notes the floruit of Terpander in the 34th Olympiad, 644/1. 3 There can be little doubt that Eusebius and the Parian shared an ultimate common source. Eusebius and the Parian Marble agree on a date for Terpander some thirty years later than that of the tradition Athenaeus attributes to Hellanicus and Sosibius. The absolute date derives from Sosibius, who wrote later than the inscription of the Parian Marble in 264/3. As is argued below, we cannot be sure that Hellanicus gave an absolute date for Terpander at all. Nevertheless, the source of the Parian and of Eusebius disagreed with Hellanicus and Sosibius not only on the absolute date of Terpander, but also on the relative chronology of Terpander and Archilochus. This disagreement is the more important one, since relative chronology preceded absolute dates in the development of the tradition. We are not told specifically what Hellanicus' opinion on the relative chronology was, but it can easily be inferred. Archilochus was generally

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synchronized with Gyges on the basis of a reference to him in a famous poem (fr. 22 Diehl). Even if one disbelieved a literal synchronism between the floruit of Archilochus and the reign of Gyges, the reference certainly required that one should date Archilochus after Gyges, not before. Clement of Alexandria {Strom. 1. 131) states that Hellanicus dated Terpander too early, having synchronized him with Midas. Eusebius (89® Helm) dates the beginning of Midas' rule some forty years before that of Gyges. Herodotus (1.14) suggested a similar relative chronology, for Midas and Gyges, saying that Gyges was the first of the barbarians, after Midas, to have sent gifts to Delphi. The synchronism with Midas thus suggests that Hellanicus considered Terpander older than Gyges and therefore older than Archilochus. Whether Hellanicus specifically said so or not we do not know; but Glaucus of Rhegium, a contemporary of Hellanicus, definitely affirmed that Terpander was older than Archilochus. 4 Again, there is no direct evidence for Apollodorus' position on the issue; but if in fact he followed Hellanicus and Sosibius in dating Terpander to 676/5, then he also agreed with Hellanicus and Glaucus that Archilochus was younger than Terpander. According to Gellius (17.21.8), Cornelius Nepos dated Archilochus to the reign of Tullus Hostilius. Nepos' source for dates of Greek history was Apollodorus, and we know that Nepos gave exact dates expressed both in the Olympiad system and in years ab urbe condita.5 Gellius unfortunately does not give the exact date; but the interval corresponding to Tullus Hostilius' reign (672-640) is later than any possible date for the Gyges-Archilochus synchronism that the various ancient versions of the Lydian king-lists allow and later than all dates for the floruit of Archilochus save one—Eusebius' date in the 29th Olympiad, 664/1 (94® Helm). Many of Eusebius' dates are demonstrably Apollodoran, so that we may follow Jacoby in using Eusebius' date to provide the precision lacking in Gellius' report. 6 Apollodorus dated Archilochus some dozen years later than Terpander, following Hellanicus and Sosibius for the absolute date of Terpander, vindicating Glaucus of Rhegium on the relative chronology. Indeed Jacoby argued that this relative chronology was one of the principal reasons that Apollodorus dated Archilochus so much later than any other ancient authority and therefore so much nearer the historical truth. 7 Eusebius and the Parian Marble have Terpander considerably later than even this lowest date for Archilochus. Their common source, if he had an opinion on the matter, must have thought Terpander younger than Archilochus, thus disagreeing with Hellanicus and Glaucus of Rhegium. We do know of an authority who held just such a relative

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chronology and who meets the further requirement of having lived before the Parian Marble was inscribed. In the same passage where he cites Hellanicus for the synchronism of Terpander with Midas, Clement of Alexandria adduces Phainias of Eresos in refutation of such an archaism; for Phainias had said that Terpander was younger than Archilochus. 8 On the basis of the relative chronology that Clement attributes to Phainias and supplying Archilochus to fill the badly mutilated gap of ep. 33 at the year 682, August Böckh in his 1843 edition of the Parian Marble argued that Phainias of Eresos was the Parian's principal source—not only for the chronology both relative and absolute of Archilochus and Terpander, but also for the chronology of literary history in general. Böckh further suggested that the Parian followed Phainias' example in using the Athenian archon-list as his chronological standard. 9 This hypothesis, at first widely accepted and uncritically promulgated, was subsequently so thoroughly discredited that Jacoby in his 1904 edition could relegate to a footnote the comment, "Böckhs Phainiashypothese ist längst vernichtet." 1 0 Both the extremism of Böckh's hypothesis and the arguments he adduced in its support have rightly been rejected. The restoration of Archilochus in ep. 33 may be right, but any argument based upon it is hazardous. None of the reconstructions suggested fills the space exactly, so far as we know; nor can we seek to verify them by reference to the stone, for this portion of the chronicle (epp. 1-45), conveyed to London in 1627 and published by J o h n Seiden in 1629, was destroyed in the civil wars of the 1640s.11 Furthermore, the testimonia and fragments of Phainias are not such as to suggest that he was a universal chronicler of the sort necessary to supply the widely various notices of the Parian Marble. Plutarch does cite Phainias for an archon's date, stating that Solon died in the archonship of Hegestratus, next after Comeas. 12 This note, however, probably derives from Phainias' work on Solon and Themistocles, rather than from a systematic chronographic context which might have exhibited the entire archon-list. The Parian Marble cannot derive from any single source, whether Böckh's Phainias or Dopp's anonymous universal chronographer—a hypothesis which only removes the question of source to another level. 13 The chronicler must have drawn, as Jacoby argued, rather unsystematically from a variety of recent, popular, and readily accessible sources—one or more Atthides, the universal history of Ephorus or an epitome of it, one of the many fourth-century works irepl evprjixarow, and several specialized literary histories such as Aristoxenus' rrepl TpaywSoTTOiipv.14 The problem of the Parian's sources will yield to no easy solution. The reaction to Böckh's extremist position, however, has been itself

Phainias of Eresos and Chronology

109

perhaps too extreme. It is by no means implausible to suppose that Phainias could have been the source of the Parian's absolute date for Terpander as well as of the relative chronology for which Clement cites him. It would be saying too much to characterize Phainias, with Bockh, as a chronographer who offered a systematic universal chronology for early Greek history and literature in general, with or without the Athenian archon-list as a framework. That chronological notes were to be found in Phainias' works, however, is certain. In addition to his opinion about the date of Solon's death, we know that he gave a date (however he expressed it) for the return of the Heraclids corresponding to 1050. 15 Among his works, according to Athenaeus (33a), was a npvraveis 'Epeoiojv in at least two books; and analogy with Charon's 1Tpvrávtis AaKehai¡xovía>v suggests that this was a chronicle. 16 Athenaeus (352c) also cites Phainias for musical history in the second book of a work -rrepl TTOIT¡T¿X>V, and such a study must have exhibited at least a relative chronology and perhaps an occasional absolute date. To suppose that the Parian's specialized sources included Phainias' 7T€PI TTOL7)TWV or an excerpt from it, as well as Aristoxenus' work on the tragedians, is not in itself unreasonable. Whether or not ep. 33 was about Archilochus, the Parian's date for Terpander is considerably later than any of the ancient dates for Archilochus. Such a date must have come from an authority who wrote prior to 264. Phainias is a good candidate. He was a fellow islander of Terpander and therefore likely to have been interested in his date. His works included a local chronicle and a history of poetry, to both of which such a date would have been appropriate. The question is an important one for our understanding of how Greek chronological traditions developed between the time of Hellanicus and that of Eratosthenes. During the intervening period there were few authorities whom one would want to call "chronographers." It was, however, a time of remarkable scholarly activity that produced a number of works to which chronology was at least a secondary concern. The traditions that Eratosthenes and Apollodorus synthesized included not only such primary evidence as there was, supplemented by the work of the earliest chronographers, but also the enormous scholarly output of fourth-century historians and antiquarians. We have long recognized the influence on the chronographic tradition of local chronicles such as the Atthides and universal histories such as Ephorus'. Historiography and horography were not, however, the only works to which some sense of historical time was essential. The encyclopedic work of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school demands particular attention. There has been much discussion, recently

110

Alden A. Mosshammer

renewed, on the place of the Peripatetics in the biographical tradition, and Phainias has not been neglected. 17 There has been too little attention, however, to the chronological implications both of this biographical work and the other interests of the Peripatetics. 18 Aristotle and Callisthenes themselves drew up the list of Pythian victors, and Callisthenes apparently used the result of this work for the chronology of the first sacred war (.FGrHist 124 T 23, F 1). If the rest of the 158 Constitutiones that the vita (p. 404, 70 West) attributes to Aristotle were organized like the Athenian with a dated historical section first, this collection was a gold-mine of chronological information. Theophrastus' doxographical work had at least a well-developed relative chronology based on an evolutionary theory of philosophical successions. Work such as Eudemus' history of astronomy (frr. 143-149 Wehrli), the cultural and literary histories of Chaemeleon (frr. 14-46) and Hieronymus of Rhodes (frr. 29-33), as well as Aristoxenus' biographical work (frr. 10-68), to name but a few, must have included at least an occasional absolute date, as well as a relative chronology. Demetrius of Phalerum, like Phainias, drew up a chronicle of his native state, the apxovrwv avaypatfrf. The fragments of this work show clearly that it was more than a bare list of magistrates, since it included notices of literary and philosophical history. The naming of Thales and the Seven Sages as "wise" in the archonship of Damasias (fr. 149 Wehrli) is the best known example. Demetrius, of course, had the example of the first Atthidographers before him. We know of no such tradition at Lesbos within which Phainias may have worked, although Hellanicus' Lesbiaca provided a precedent for local history. It is not possible to characterize Phainias' Prytanies as a whole or say whether it was organized like Demetrius' Anagraphe. The only fragment in which the Prytanies is specifically cited (17a Wehrli) merely says that it once rained fish in the Chersonesus for three days! Nevertheless, the fragment on the relative chronology of Archilochus and Terpander, whether it comes from the Prytanies or the work On Poets, demands our most careful investigation. There are enormous difficulties affecting our understanding not only of Phainias' work, but also of Hellanicus' date for Terpander. If the evidence is not suffcient to prove beyond doubt that Phainias was the source of the date for Terpander in the 640s that Eusebius shared with the Parian, we can nevertheless seek to elucidate the several stages in the evolution of the tradition. Clearly, some authority earlier than the inscription of the Parian Marble in 264 and of sufficient influence to reach the sources of Eusebius had a date for Terpander different from the Alexandrian date of the first Carneian competitions in 676/5.

Phainias of Eresos and Chronology

111

II Clement does not attribute to Phainias an absolute date either for Archilochus or for Terpander, so that we can never for certain say more than that the absolute chronology of the Parian and Eusebius is consistent with Phainias' relative chronology. There are, however, serious difficulties in the way of saying even that much. The several elements of the passage have generally been treated out of context with reference to one debate or another, especially the dates of Archilochus and Gyges. The passage needs to be studied as a whole. It is not a hodge-podge of chronological excerpts such as we find in the surrounding pages of Clement. It is meant to be an argument, and it is the date of Terpander—not Archilochus—that is at issue: val fj,rjv KKa[v] IG II 2 , 12141* (ca. 250). éVrà err, yeyovtóf?] IG II 2 , 12599.4-5f (300-250). polpd ere rjye IG II 2 , 3964 (after A.D. 128/9). Sai ite Se' oi IG II 2 , 3632 (after A.D. 150). owexa oi IG II 2 , 12568/9 (second c. after Christ). re lS4o6m IG II 2 , 13012 (ca. A.D. 150). Se'/ca opavov IG II 2 , 9898 (end second c. after Christ). éVSe/c' ¿xovTO. eri7 IG II 2 , 11477 (second or third c. after Christ, cf. GVI no. 1300), some of the stichi are metrically faulty. ovSe' r i oi IG II 2 , 10457a (second or third c. after Christ).

174

Leslie Threatte

¿vravda inTO, Trarprj Se fiol ¿an, rls Se ae KVfi6poi,o, ivdaSe epxofievcoi, TLS Se aoi eV IOJOLGL IG II 2 , 10073.2, 3, 6, 13, 14 (second or third c. after Christ). el Se 6 fxolpa GVI no. 1282 (third or fourth c. after Christ). Kara aarv IG 1 1 2 , 4223 (A.D. 379-395). Not quite certain: hop/cta IG I 2 , 920* (cf. GVI no. 2042) (ca. 500), unless ai/wfcjera ho'p/aa is correct (c3/xo[t£ov IG II 2 , 5673* (ca. 350). TrpovTre/xipe IG II 2 , 6626* (after 350). 7jpoie-qKev IG II 2 , 6320 (after 350). ràfia IG II 2 , 8388* (beginning third c.). X IG II 2 , 3474* (ca. 150). rovvofia IG II 2 , 9204* (second c.). owe IG II 2 , 10162 (GVI no. 456) (first c. after Christ). 7TPoiSXovTcc IG II 2 , 3963 {GVI no. 2025) (after A.D. 128/9). npovxovra IG II 2 , 3743 (A.D. 158/9). TovveKa, SEG 22.156 (ca. A.D. 176). xàyw IG II 2 , 13169/71 (second c. after Christ). irpowórjoe IG II 2 , 13172* (second c. after Christ, cf. GVI no. 1731). TovveKa IG II 2 , 11674 (Roman Period). Tovvofj.' IG II 2 , 13148 (second or third c. after Christ). ràvSpi IG II 2 , 11267 (second or third c. after Christ). rovvofia IG II 2 , 10116 (second or third c. after Christ). /car, KÌÌKOOTCÒ IG II 2 , 10073.16, 9 (second or third c. after Christ). Kovxt IG II 2 , 13150 (second or third c. after Christ). rovvofi^xoov IG II 2 , 3015 (A.D. 210-220). xàyw (not Kcdyió as printed in IG II 2 ) IG II 2 , 3014 (third c. after Christ). TovveKa IG II 2 , 3669.18 (ca. A.D. 269/70). ToiveKa IG II 2 , 4223 (A.D. 379-395). In texts with many metrical faults: /ca/noi IG II 2 , 7863* (shortly before 317/6 B.C.) ; K-qvd-qaa IG II 2 , 10699a (second or third c. after Christ). MOVABLE NY

Although the use of movable ny in prose inscriptions is not at all standardized except in certain phrases, e.g. é'SO£ev TOJI ST^IOH, its presence or absence in metrical texts is almost invariably in accordance with the

176

Leslie Threatte

meter. There are a very few possible exceptions. Two were known to Allen (cf. p. 158). The first is IG I 2 , 1016* (ca. 540?), of which the first stichus reads: cre/ia roSe : KvXov 7ratSot eiredeKev : 6aVOTOI. This makes a good hexameter if we delete the movable ny and make a few other changes: ai/xa roSe KvXov naiSoiv enedeKe davovroiv. The metrical anomaly in roSe KvXov is perhaps not too harsh in the area of the proper name, but there is a greater difficulty in that there is insufficient room for the completion of the pentameter (only ten letter-spaces) in the rest of line 3 of the text, and it is clear that there was no fourth line. But L.H. JefFery seems to have solved this difficulty on the assumption that a few letters were added boustrophedon at the right as sometimes occurs (cf. e.g. IG I 2 , 1012; SEG 10.460), cf. BSA 57 no. 41 with commentary. For the omission of the internal ny of davovroiv, the QUVOTL of SEG 25.60 may provide a parallel. Some of the errors in this text (including M T E M A for fivifj.a at the beginning of the pentameter) may have been corrected in paint as suggested by Jeffery. The other example is yet more doubtful. ]*ev : Aio? yAauPp[mSt, 2 IG I , 468* (vas), inscribed on a fragment of a vase, looks as though it should be restored as a hexameter of the common type: o Selva aveOexe J to? yXavKomSi tcopei, but with so little of the text left no assumption is really justified. Note that this text is not to be associated with the rest of IG I 2 , 468 (cf. DAA p. 358). Another possible case of unmetrical use of movable ny occurs in the famous Kallimachos dedication, IG I 2 , 609 (ca. 490 B . C . ) , and it too is not certain. The text of the opening stichus as given by R. Meiggs-D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford 1969) p. 33 reads as follows: [KaXifiaxos ¡jL'av]edeKev Ai§vaio[s] jadevalai : Here a hexameter of the type ending in radyvaiai can be obtained if we assume that what U

\J

—

u

u

—•

was really intended was aveOrjK Ai8valos (for examples of this poetical elision in Attic texts see below). This seems the best interpretation proposed thus far, and seems to have finally been adopted by Hiller, cf. his Historische griechische Epigramme (Bonn 1926), p. 7. The view he had earlier accepted (cf. IG I 2 , 609), that radevalai has been carved for radevii, is less convincing, in view of the great rarity of Adevii in these Acropolis dedications. The view that the first of the five stichi was prose or only quasi-metrical seems much less attractive. 8 Likewise the difficult line in IG I 2 , 571* (ca. 460-450 ? cf. DAA no. 46), which reads: Aioyevrjs avedeKev AlaoxvXo huijj KeaXeos can be made to scan as a hexameter if we follow Allen in reading: avedtK AlaxvX(X)ov (from a name AioxvXAos, with geminate written with a single consonant as normal in Attic texts of this period, cf. Allen, p. 55). The text is fraught

177

Unmetrical Spellings in Attic Inscriptions

with difficulties (cf. p. 183 infra for Kea\£os), and Schwyzer seems finally to have come to the view that it is not metrical, but prose. 9 But the word order is against this, and the occurrence of huihik in dipinti is nearly a century earlier than this monument, in which huu? is striking if the text is prose. In cases such as these it is very difficult to decide whether a verse text was intended whose scansion eludes us or whether the presence of proper names has rendered the result only quasi-metrical (cf. FH no. 159 for an example). 10 One certain case of unmetrical movable ny occurs in a funerary epigram of the fourth century B.C. published in Athenische Mitteilungen 78 (1963) 154 (SEG 22.196), with the hexameter: — UU U U— V u— 'Iarpos dvrjTOiaiv vo|awv o Kpanoros a7ra[v]|rtuv. A few more cases of unmetrical movable ny occur in texts of Roman times, although none is certain. In IG II 2 , 12794 (end second c. after Christ) the first stichus seems almost certainly to have been intended to — u yj — — — begin: etxev yap etKoarov, although it does scan as a dactylic heptameter catalectic rather than a hexameter. But the first two and the fourth stichus are faultless and the impossible third one can be read if we assume ¡jiVTjioKeodcu should have been written instead of the fiv^oKeaOai of the text (cf. n. 2 supra). Likewise in IG II 2 , 13223 (third c. after Christ) the U U

U U

U(J

first line reads if av, Merov, navreaaiv rerei[/¿eV-. Here iravreaai reTei[ seems certain (that the text was metrical can be seen from the nextU line: — UU — U U — —— — — — — U — lepoio fiddpoio).

E x c e e d i n g l y d o u b t f u l : [p-oZpav (f>vyelv ou/c] ean{v}

Sia TOV

haipova AG 2, p. 63, no. 210 (Roman Period). In the following cases the elision of a verb-form allowing movable ny occurs: !

c

I

G

I 2 , 974* (ca. 550).

h6s [laveOeK'avSpov

IG I 2 , 4 1 0 {FH n o . 131) (ca. 5 0 0 ) .

[K\e]68op6o?

aefia

roS'

then painted on a black-figure funerary plaque,

¿ari(v)

BSA

50

(1955) p. 60, no. 11 ( = SEG 16.35B) (ca. 540/530); Probable: npvra^v on an ostracon of the 480s B.C., cf. AJA 51 (1947) 257ff, has probably been correctly identified by E. Schweigert as the genitive plural of •rrpvravis, cf. AJA 53 (1949) 266-268; if this is correct the writer may have consciously written et for e/ V to obtain the necessary long syllable, presumably following the analogy of variants like reXeos and TeXeios in poetry. The short text contains also ¿Aemjpo?, poetical variant for ¿XeiTr/pios. And yet it is barely possible TrpvTocveiov should be interpreted as genitive plural of TTpvravela or irpvTavelov, although these are much more difficult in terms of the sense of the distich. Hve/xa

roS

Alveo

510-500); fifth c.).

aoias larpo

[A\lvlai

roSe

u (J —

aplaro

ae[p,a

IG

IG I2,

1019

(BSA

57

no. 66)

(ca.

2

I , 1010* ( G V I no. 149) (beginning

I 2 , 503 (beginning fifth c.); the iota was added later, possibly to insure interpretation of the word as genitive plural of ¡Mavreia (so DAA no. 236), although as far as the sense is concerned either the genitive of / t a v r e l a or ¡xavris is satisfactory (cf. FH no. 129). Prose texts. In the Old Attic Alphabet E may represent e, r], or «, but as it normally only represents ei when it is a spurious diphthong, in pre-vocalic position EI was presumably always the normal spelling in Attic, although it is only in the fifth century that large numbers of p.s are not found in prose texts in the Archaic Period and are not frequent until well after 400 B.C., the best interpretation of Trpvraveiov, if it is from irpvravis, seems to be as a conscious poetical spelling to obtain the necessary long syllable. I have no explanation for the anomalous fiavreióv, with a strange synizesis, and, if for fíávrecüv, with a very unusual intrusive iota; note also in this text the clumsy collocation of the Doric paap.o(jvvai and perpós (instead of fiarpos). Classical and Hellenistic Periods: huiij KefiaÁeós (if verse, cf. p. 177 supra) IG I 2 571 (ca. 460-450? cf. DAA no. 46). Interpretation quite uncertain, but probably not an unusual nominative as Raubitschek mooted (DAA no. 46). The easiest interpretation is to assume with Allen (p. 55) and Hiller (IG I 2 , p. 325) that KeaXfjos was intended, most likely a poetical form for Attic of this time. The other possibilities are KeaXéws, the normal prose form used contra metrum, or KetftaXeicos, which would be comparable to AapmTpela>s (in Ionic alphabet) on a gravestone said to be of ca. 450 B.C., cf. IG I 2 , 1063, and [Ke]aXelos (certainly KeaXeltos, not KeaXelos as in IG I 2 ) in IG I 2 , 370.7 (421-415), both precocious examples of -ela>s spellings frequent after 400 B.C. But note the rarity of-e/ V for -ei/ V in texts uu in the Old Attic Alphabet. For the possibility of reading KeaXéais, as the end of a rare pentameter monostich, cf. note 9 supra. KXeayópa IG II 2 , 7265 (after 350), IG II 2 , 6858 (fourth c.). oiVeaj épvos d>aiv in a text of the later fifth century noted above (cf. p. 190 supra), GVI no. 218. University of California Berkeley NOTES A shorter version of this paper was delivered orally at the December, 1975 annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank Professor Sterling Dow and Professor Eugene Vanderpool, who each supplied a valuable reference; and Mr. R. Perez, who pointed out difficulties in some of the texts which I had not previously noticed. 1 After ninety years the comprehensive study of F. D. Allen, On Greek Versification in Inscriptions (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 4 [1885-1886] 35-204), is justly consulted as a work of reference; it is unfortunately limited to texts of the period before ca. 150 B.C. In this article all examples to be found in Allen's book will be designated by the sign (*), and this book is referred to as Allen. In compiling his study Allen used chiefly the collections of Georg Kaibel, the Epigrammata graeca ex lapidibus conlecta (Berlin 1878) (hereafter: Kaibel) and an article in Rheinisches Museum 34 (1879) 18Iff. In addition to the new editions to which these texts have been subjected in the second edition of the Inscription's Graecae (hereafter:

Unmetrical Spellings in Attic

Inscriptions

193

IG I 2 and II 2 ), there have been issued several collections of metrical texts. T h e largest is W. Peek's collection of all the sepulchral monuments in verse, Griechische Vers-Inschriften, Band I: Grab-Epigramme (Berlin 1955) (hereafter GVI), the only volume thus far issued. Peek also included a number of epigrams in his smaller collection Attische Grabinschriften 2 (hereafter AG 2) (= Abhandlungen der deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Jahrgang 1956 Nr. 3 [Berlin 1958]) and in the article entitled "Attische Inschriften" in Athenische Mitteilungen 67 (1942) 1-217. Another important collection of verse texts is that of Paul Friedländer and Herbert Hoffleit, Epigrammata: Greek Inscriptions in Verse, From the Beginnings to the Persian Wars (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1948) (hereafter: FH). Also confined to texts of the Archaic Period is the collection of sepulchral monuments (not just metrical ones) published by L . H . Jeffery, " T h e Inscribed Gravestones of Archaic Attica," in Annual of the British School at Athens 57 (1962) 115153 (hereafter: BSA 57). Metrical dedications from the Athenian Acropolis are included and scrutinized in the comprehensive collection of A. E. Raubitschek, Dedications from the Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1949) (hereafter: DA A). These collections are the principal sources of the texts in this article, as well as the Supplementum epigraphicum graecum (hereafter: SEG). Of lesser importance are the collections of E. Hoffmann, Sylloge epigrammatum graecorum (Halle 1893) and F. Hiller von Gaertringen, Historische griechische Epigramme (Bonn 1926). Of works dealing specifically with metrics I have consulted in addition to the Allen the dissertation of J . Berteis, De pentametro inscriptionum graecarum quaestiones (Münster 1912) (hereafter: Bertels). A bibliography of Greek verse inscriptions has been published by G. Pfohl, Bibliographie der griechischen Vers-Inschriften (Hildesheim 1964) (shorter, more usable bibliography in his " M o n u ment und E p i g r a m m e " in Festschrift, 75 Jahre Neues Gymnasium Nürnberg [Nürnberg 1964] 54—57). In this article all dates are B.C. unless denoted otherwise. 2 T h e special difficulties involved with the scansion of proper names are dealt with briefly in section three below. Certain types of unmetrical spellings have not been treated. Cf. the type seen in ßioroio, where only ßiorov will scan, in IG I I 2 , 12403.1 (second or third c. after Christ), or fivefci«{v} [Jios Kparep]6povi of FH no. 15 ( = IG 12, 689) in favor of the two-line arrangement involving no {i>} in DAA p. 51, no. 50. 11 It may be noted that unmetrical use of scriptio plena instead of graphic indication of elision and crasis is frequent in papyri of Greek verse texts. 12 A very late example of AX Snodgrass (n. 3 supra) 24. 35 n. 27 supra. 36 Kunze (n. 6 supra). 37 Kunze (n. 6 supra). 38 The height of the helmet is 0.225 m. and its length 0.22 m. 39 Snodgrass (n. 3 supra) 24. 40 H . L . Lorimer, Homer and the Monuments (London 1950) 305-306. 41 P.L. Courbin: " U n e Tombe Geometrique D'Argos" BCH 81 (1957) 368, figs. 50, 51, and see Snodgrass' discussion (n. 3 supra) 166. 42 Snodgrass (n. 3 supra) 166. 43 The exception to the rule being Clytaemnestra, depicted on more than one vase painting brandishing a double-headed axe. An instrument of murder however need not be a weapon of war, and this was a domestic squabble rather than a skirmish on the battlefield. See for example the vase from Tarquinia, J . D . Beazley, Attic Red-figure Vase-painters (2nd ed. Oxford 1963) vol. 1,373, no. 129. 44 E . H . Minns, Scythians and Greeks (Cambridge 1913) 72-73. 45 Hor. Carm. 4, 4, 17-22. 46 Verg. Aen. 11.651. 47 Verg. Aen. 11.656. 48 Verg. Aen. 11.696-698. 49 Verg. Aen. 7.627. 50 J . Conington and H. Nettleship, P. Vergili Moronis Opera (London 1875) vol. 3, 368. Weege also discusses the axe as a rural weapon in reference to two single-bladed axes from Southern Italy, and cities Silius Italicus for the facta adrura bipennis. See F. Weege, "Bewaffnung und Tracht der Osker," Jdl 24 (1909) 142, fig. 16, 158; Sil. 8.550. 51 M . Pallottino, The Etruscans (Bloomington, Indiana 1975) 129-131, 280, pl. 30.

NANCY Z U M W A L T

Fama Subversa:

Theme and Structure in Ovid Metamorphoses 12

Early in Book 12 of the Metamorphoses Ovid presents the fourth of his celebrated ecphraseis (the earlier ones: Invidia 2.760ff, Fames 8.796ff, Somnus 11.592ff). T h e Fama passage (12.39-63), unlike its predecessors, has received little critical attention, and those who do discuss it, do not much approve. B. Otis censures the passage, and believes that it has only the most general functions: T h e Virgilian character of the whole section [the Trojan portion of the final section of the poem, 12.1-13.622] is indicated at the start by the F a m a ekphrasis (XII, 39-63). This is, of course, absurdly out of any proper context: Ovid's Fama only spreads the news of the approaching Trojan war. It is the first hint to the reader that Ovid's attitude to the R o m a n world of Virgil is not without its share of paradox and subtle parody. 1 According to O . S. Due, T h e obvious model of reading and writing for this passage is Vergil's Fama in the fourth Aeneid. But where Vergil describes Fama herself as a fantastic monster, Ovid concentrates on the place, as he did With. Invidia, Fames, and Somnus. In Vergil the ecphrasis is well motivated in the narrative. Dido's loss of her reputation is one of the outstanding features in her tragedy. In Ovid there is an obvious incongruity between the amplitude of the ecphrasis—it is much longer than Vergil's—and the trivial part which Fama plays in the context. By isolating an epic element and making it Selbstzweck Ovid has achieved a certain anti-epic effect.

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In Due's opinion, the Fama ecphrasis does have a function, however; it and the Somnus ecphrasis serve to "bind the mythical and the historical parts of the poem together." 2 But does Ovid present the Fama ecphrasis as an end in itself, or, as Due also suggests, in order to make fun of the ecphrasis as a literary device, or is there some other purpose ? Vergil's Fama, as Due points out, contributes to the characterization of Dido in an important way. Ovid's Fama is unrelated to any character. It is instructive to contrast the Invidia and Fames passages: Invidia appeals to Aglauros' already greedy nature and motivates her to feel envy toward her sister, Herse. This development occurs as punishment inflicted by Minerva for an earlier act of greed perpetrated against the goddess herself. Fames, sent by Ceres as punishment for greed and impiety, is both the psychological manifestation of Erysichthon's moral defect and appropriate retribution for his offense. In both of these passages, the personified abstract forces depicted in the ecphraseis are closely connected with the character of the central figure in the narrative episode. This is not the case with the Somnus passage. Somnus, besides serving the function which Due has pointed out, is like Fama in that he conveys information. He sends Morpheus to inform Alcyone of Ceyx' death at Juno's wish, either because the goddess pities Alcyone's suffering or because she is tired of her continual prayers. We turn now to the Fama ecphrasis to consider what purpose it serves in Ovid's narrative. This passage follows an account of the gathering of the Greek fleet at Aulis, with special focus on Calchas' prophecy of victory after ten years of fighting and on the ambiguities (moral and factual) of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. Connection between the ecphrasis and the narrative is made only after the description, in lines 64-66. 3 Ovid draws our attention first to the location of Fama's dwelling place: Orbe locus medio est inter terrasque fretumque caelestesque plagas, triplicis confinia mundi; unde, quod est usquam, quamvis regionibus absit, inspicitur, penetratque cavas vox omnis ad aures.

(39-43)

It is situated in such a location as to receive information, through sight and sound, from all parts of the universe. The entranceways are innumerable and none is blocked off by doors (44f): node dieque patet.4 Fama indiscriminately reiterates what she has heard, a hubbub of raw data. The echoing sound within the domus is compared to natural auditory phenomena, the sound of the sea when heard from afar, or to thunder. 5 In the next nine lines we are introduced to the inhabitants of the palace. These are first characterized in general terms, and then individual residents are named.

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atria turba tenet: veniunt, leve vulgus, euntque mixtaque cum veris passim commenta vagantur milia r u m o r u m confusaque verba volutant; e quibus hi vacuas inplent sermonibus aures, hi narrata ferunt alio, mensuraque ficti crescit, et auditis aliquid novus adicit auctor: illic Credulitas, illic temerarius Error vanaque Laetitia est consternatique Timorés Seditioque recens dubioque auctore Susurri; (53-61) Ovid's language in line 53 invites us to read these lines in terms which are primarily political. Haupt-Korn-Ehwald-von Albrecht 6 note that atria implies comparison of Fama's domus with a house of a prominent R o m a n . This anachronism is applied elsewhere in the Met. to the dwellings of the gods (1.172), in a passage where reference to R o m a n social and political life is important, but also to Circe's palace in Met. 14 (260). 7 Atria turba tenet suggests perhaps a turba clientum (Horace, Ep. 1.5.31, Juvenal 7.91) ; these are clientes who serve Fama as their patrona. But turba, leve vulgus, and Seditio recens also suggest the familiar characterization of the R o m a n mob, as a fickle and irresponsible force in R o m a n political life. Milia rumorum, we learn from 53-58, mingle indiscriminately with truths, words are confusa; sermones and narrata are not likely to be true; fabrication grows, presumably in scope and dimension (mensuraqueficti/crescit), 8 and each new transmitter of information embellishes what he has heard: Credulitas, temerarius Error, vana Laetitia, consternati Timorés, Seditio recens, dubio auctore Susurri. I n the closing two lines of the ecphrasis Ovid reasserts Fama's access to information from all parts of the universe. T h e reassertion does not reassure us, however, that the "information," once received and disseminated by Fama's notoriously biased comités or clientes, will have any truth value whatsoever. T h e immediate literary antecedent of Ovid's Fama, as we have seen, is Vergil's description of Fama in Aen. 4.173-197. Fama's function in the Aeneid is to spread the news of Dido's and Aeneas' liaison. She is characterized, however, as a malum (174), born of Terra, ira irritata deorum (178), and a monstrum horrendum, ingens (181). She is said not to discriminate between truth and falsehood (tam ficti pravique tenax quam nuntia veri 188, gaudens et pariter facta atque infecta canebat 190). Despite her evil heritage, monstrous nature and alleged indifference to truth, however, the news which Vergil's Fama spreads is the truth. Furthermore, Fama initiates a series of events which further the will of Jupiter and the workings of destiny. She informs Iarbas of the liaison, Iarbas in turn prays to Jupiter, and he responds by sending Mercury to Aeneas.

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Ovid is about to launch into his own peculiar treatment of the Trojan War, in which he focuses upon the single combat between Achilles and Cycnus. 9 Nestor's account of the Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs (a comparatively brief reference in Iliad 1.260-273), and the death of Achilles. Book 12 begins what has usually been called the historical and Roman section of the Metamorphoses.10 The Trojan War, Ovid's starting point, occurred, according to Herodotus (1.3-4) and Thucydides (1.9-12), at the beginnings of known history. It occupies a place on the borderline, so to speak, between legend and history, and this is where Ovid places it also. Ovid's allusion to truth, objectivity and impartiality in the Fama ecphrasis, i.e. to the values and criteria of historiography, prepare the way for further elucidation of these values in Book 12 and, ultimately, in the remaining books of the poem. While the primary sense of Fama in the ecphrasis is rumor, what is said could apply equally well to fama in the senses of "personal glory" and "tradition." We are shown that Fama cannot be relied upon to deal responsibly with information. 11 Thus, while fama has been present in the Metamorphoses since Book 1 (445), it is only in Book 12 that it becomes thematically important. It will be useful briefly to examine some of the uses o f f a m a in earlier books. The most frequent senses of fama in the Met. are reputation (as in 3.339 and 546, 6.30, 7.145, 9.556, 14.433) and report (as in 5.256 and 262, 6.267, 9.137 a n d 666, 10.28, 15.431). A report or story which has been in existence for some time becomes a tradition. Ovid often introduces a story or piece of information with fama est (2.268, 3.699, 4.305, 9.316, 10.45, 15.356 and 431; cf. 12.34 fertur and 12.197 and 200 ita fama ferebat, discussed below, p. 215), and sometimes the material so introduced is or borders upon the incredible (so 3.699, 10.45, 15.356). A tradition may be validated or destroyed by its antiquity, or it may be incapable of validation because of its antiquity (vetustas; cf. 1.445 and below, pp 215 and 220 and nn. 16 and 28). In Book 12 Ovid will undercut the notion, long fostered by both poets and historians, that lasting fama is the reward conferred upon virtus, by discrediting both. He will also discredit the reliability offama in the sense of tradition. 1 2 After the Greek forces have arrived at Troy, Ovid presents the single combat between Achilles and Cycnus. This episode is one of Ovid's studies in the psychology of the heroic ego and is also, like the account of the Calydonian Boar Hunt (8.267-444), a brilliant representation of heroic ineptitude. Here, as in the Cypria, the engagement between Achilles and Cycnus takes place at the beginning of the War, but Cycnus is already acquainted with Achilles through his reputation:

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"nate dea, n a m te fama praenovimus," inquit ille " q u i d a nobis vulnus miraris abesse? (mirabatur enim . . . ) (86-88) T h e main focus in this episode is on Achilles' expectations for himself and the self-doubt which arises when the capabilities which he believes to be infallible fail him. After his initial boast that his opponent, whom he does not recognize (quisquis es, o iuvenis), should take consolation from the fact that he died at the hand of none other than Achilles (80f), Achilles hurls his spear, which hits its mark but fails to wound. Achilles is amazed (miraris, mirabaturI enim 87f). Twice more he tries and fails. He then doubts his strength: " m a n u s est mea debilis ergo, q u a s q u e " ait " a n t e habuit, vires effudit in u n o ? "

(106-107)

He lists those whom he has felled in the past, and tests his prowess veluti male crederet (115) by killing a less distinguished enemy (Lycia de plebe Menoeten 116). Reassured, he again seeks Cycnus. His joy at having wounded Cycnus, however, is short-lived, for he realizes that the blood which he sees on Cycnus has come from his spear, still red with Menoetes' blood. Achilles resorts to a non-heroic mode of fighting, hand-to-neck combat, and succeeds in strangling Cycnus. When he attempts to strip the body of its arms, however, there is no body, for Neptune has changed Cycnus into a swan. Whether this strange outcome should indeed be considered a victory is doubtful, for the usual proof of slaying is the presence of a corpse, and further, Cycnus has escaped death by attaining immortality through metamorphosis. 1 3 O n the other hand, Cycnus is referred to as victum (143) and Achilles called Cycni victor (150) (Cf. 164167). Ovid does not resolve this ambiguity of viewpoint. In this episode Ovid undercuts traditional representations of heroism in combat, and points up discrepancies between self-image, public image (reputation, fama), and actual performance. Far from being impressed with the greatness of one of the most heroic figures in antiquity, we are instead struck by the fragility and vulnerability of his ego; further, the ambiguities of his victory preclude our attributing the outcome to a heroic display of virtus. Lines 146-167 form a transitional passage between the AchillesCycnus episode and Nestor's account of the Battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs. T h e setting of the account is not merely a lull in the fighting, but the anachronistic celebration of a R o m a n holy day (festa dies aderat 150) by Achilles and the Greeks. After offerings have been made to

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the gods and the men have partaken of food and drink, the heroes give their attention to after-dinner entertainment. T h e scene is mock-Homeric. In the Odyssey (1.150-155, 9. Iff), songs are shown and are said to be a regular feature of banquets. T h e subject matter of these songs are erga andron te theon te (Od. 1.337). T h e description is Penelope's, and it is borne out by the content of songs described elsewhere in the poem. In Od. 8.73 the Muse rouses Demodocus to sing klea andron, and these are what Achilles also sings of in Iliad 9.186. In the present scene in Met. 12 the participants have no taste for songs or instrumental music (157-158). sed noctem sermone trahunt, virtusque loquendi materia est; pugnas referunt hostisque suasque, inque vices adita atque exhausta pericula saepe commemorare iuvat. quid enim loqueretur Achilles, aut quid apud m a g n u m potius loquerentur Achillem?

(159-163)

Once again, as in the Achilles-Cycnus episode, Ovid is subverting the epic tradition. T h e choice of sermo over carmina reflects the fact that the heroes prefer to relate their own deeds of valor, rather than to sing or hear songs commemorating the deeds of others. 1 4 Ironically, the heroes have no appreciation for the eulogistic and historical functions of poetry (the phrase is Stanford's, note on Od. 1.337). By commemorating their own deeds in conversation, they ignore the epic tradition, by which glorious deeds {klea, fames) are perpetuated. Noctem sermone trahunt echoes Aen. 1.748, as Haupt-Korn-Ehwald-von Albrecht point out, where, following Iopas' song, vario noctem sermone trahebatjlnfelix Dido. Dido persuades Aenas to recount his personal reminiscences of the W a r and his own wanderings. Aeneas' narrative is that of a personal participant and eye witness (Aen. 2.5f), as was, of course, that of Odysseus in Od. 9-12. W h o should know the t r u t h of events which have taken place better than the participants themselves? (See Od. 8.487-491 and Thuc. 2.35.2). Discussing Cycnus' marvelous invincibility, Nestor recalls an invincible fighter of an earlier age, Caeneus, a figure all the more remarkable because he began life as a female. T h e story of Caeneus deflects the reader's attention from the alleged topic of discussion, virtus. Nestojr's account of the Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs will culminate with the doubtful metamorphosis of Caeneus some 250 lines later, when the reader has almost forgotten about him, and it is initiated by Achilles' questions about this remarkable creature (176-181). By framing the Battle account with the fantastic story of Caenis-Caeneus, Ovid undermines the heroic

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tone of the (Homeric) narrative. Twice in relating the story, Nestor cites fama as the transmitter—and perhaps also the source—of the particulars: nec Caenis in ullos denupsit thalamos secretaque litora carpens aequorei vim passa dei est (ita fama ferebat), utque novae Veneris Neptunus gaudia cepit, " s i n t tua vota licet" dixit "secura repulsae: elige, quid voveas." (eadem hoc quoque fama ferebat), " m a g n u m " Caenis ait " f a c i t haec iniuria votum tale pati nil posse; mihi da, femina ne sim: omnia praestiteris."

195

200

Incredible as the story of the sex change is, Nestor does not question the authority of fama, although the critical reader may. Before launching into his account, Nestor speaks of his own qualifications as witness to the past: Turn senior: "quamvis obstet mihi tarda vetustas multaque me fugiant primis spectata sub annis, plura tamen memini, nec, quae magis haereat, ulla pectore res nostro est inter bellique domique acta tot, ac si quem potuit spatiosa senectus spectatorem operum multorum reddere, vixi annos bis centum; nunc tertia vivitur aetas. (182-188) Nestor stresses the fact that he has seen (spectata 183, spectatorem 187) m a n y events, thus placing great importance on his credentials as an eye witness. This event stands out more clearly in his heart, he claims, than any other. Nevertheless, his great age (tarda vetustas 182, spatiosa senectus 186) is, by his own admission, a possible obstacle to accurate recollection. T o emphasize the greatness of the obstacle, Ovid has made Nestor more than 200 years old (187f), now living in his third aetas, in contrast to Homer's Nestor, who has known three generations (geneai) of men. 1 5 He is thus the virtual embodiment of vetustas, in the sense of " a n t i q u i t y " or "ancient tradition." 1 6 Despite his disclaimers, Nestor's account of the Battle proves remarkable for its length (325 lines) and fullness of detail: the chronology of events, the names of the fighters, the aristeiai, the kinds of weapons used, the nature of the wounds, and the varied manners of death. Yet this catalogue, with its repetitious tales of senseless slaughter, is the antithesis of a glorification of heroic warfar. 1 7 Gloria (in the sense of "personal glory") occurs twice in the narrative, and both times its significance and value is questioned. I n line 292f Euagrus asks Rhoetus, already a proven

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victor (290), "puero quae gloria fuso/parta tibi est?" when the latter has just slain downy-cheeked Corythus. Rhoetus responds to this challenge to his manhood by shoving a fire-brand down Euagrus' throat. The account ends with the death of Caeneus and his doubtful metamorphosis into a bird. Though called Lapithae gloria gentis (530), Caeneus has failed to show remarkable prowess in fighting. During his aristeia he is subjected to taunts and insults which impugn his manhood and which have a unique application to him (470-474, 499f, 506). He is, however, through the favor of Neptune, invulnerable and immune from death by sword (205207). When a bird flies out of the forest of trees with which Caeneus has been smothered to death, Mopsus draws the dubious conclusion that Caeneus has been immortalized through transformation. Ovid stresses the uncertainties of the outcome and its interpretation (exitus in dubio est 522; credita res; auctore suo est 532.) At the end of the story, Tleptolemus expresses amazement and pique that Nestor has omitted all mention of one of the major participants in the Battle, his father Hercules (539f), and Nestor reveals that the omission was intentional: "quid me meminisse malorum cogis et obductos oculis restringere luctus inque tuum genitorem odium offensasque fateri? ille quidem maiora fide, di!, gessit et orbem inplevit meritis, quod mallem posse negare; sed neque Deiphobum nec Polydamanta nec ipsum Hectora laudamus—quis enim laudaverit hostem?"

(542-548)

The omission is not due to a lapse of memory, but to the enmity which Nestor has for Hercules. Nestor grudgingly confesses that Hercules' accomplishments were so great that they strained one's powers of belief; 18 nevertheless, no one praises an enemy. After relating how Hercules killed his eleven brothers, including the marvelous Periclymenus (549-572), Nestor concludes: "nunc videor debere tui praeconia rebus Herculis, o Rhodiae rector pulcherrime classis? nec tamen ulterius, quam fortia facta silendo ulciscor fratres: solida est mihi gratia tecum." (573-576) Nestor takes vengeance for his brothers' deaths by refusing to broadcast Hercules' deeds, fortia though they may be. He refuses to contribute to Hercules' jama ( = Homeric kleos) by including his achievements in his own personal transmission of the heroic deeds of the past. What constitutes

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material for praise (cf. 539f) and what is included in or excluded from the epic tradition depends, in part, on personal bias. 1 9 T o sum up, then, the significance of Nestor's account of the Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs: even if someone should, by some fluke, live long enough to know events of the distant past (vetustas) at first hand, and, in addition, could remember them with extraordinary exactitude and completeness, still the truth might not be available. T h e significance and value of fama is further explored in the last complete episode in Book 12, the death of Achilles. Neptune is angered that his son Cycnus 2 0 has been turned into a bird and is not comforted by the immortality conferred through metamorphosis. Although referred to as deus aequoreas qui cuspide temperat undas (580), 21 Neptune's iras are memores plus quam civiliter (583), a curious phrase which suggests both that Neptune's feelings are immoderate, like J u n o ' s (Aen. 1.4: saevae memorem Iunonis ob irarri) and that his motivation is personal, biased and excessive, like Nestor's, rather t h a n directed by any socially-sanctioned standards. H e appeals to Apollo, arguing that since Troy, the city which they both helped to build, is being destroyed, the least they can do is to kill the city's greatest enemy, Achilles. Apollo then incites Paris to kill the Greek hero, a n d it is an irony and a disgrace that Achilles, who "killed" an invincible man, is himself killed by a half m a n (608-611). Ovid now editorializes upon Achilles' d e a t h : l a m timor ille Phrygum, decus et tutela Pelasgi nominis, Aeacides, caput insuperabile bello, arserat: armarat deus idem idemque cremabat. iam cinis est, et de tam magno restat Achille nescio quid parvum, quod non bene conpleat urnam, at vivit, totum quae gloria conpleat orbem. haec illi mensura viro respondet, et hac est par sibi Pelides nec inania T a r t a r a sentit. (612-619) O n the surface, Ovid seems in these lines to express a theme common in consolatory literature: all men must die, yet their achievements live on forever through their fama or gloria (617). There are some important ambiguities in these lines, however. T h e word mensura occurred earlier in Book 12, in the Fama ecphrasis: mensuraque fictijcrescit (57f). We recall (above, pp. 212) that Fama is said to have no regard for t r u t h ; a lie, once generated, grows. T h e use of mensura in a figurative sense occurs in the Met. only in these two passages in Book 12. 22 Haec . . . mensura (618) refers to the dimension of Achilles' gloria, mentioned in the preceding line. Gloria is synonymous with fama, which may or may not, as we have seen,

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correspond to the truth. Haec illi mensura viro respondet may mean that the measure of Achilles' gloria corresponds to the man himself, or it may mean that it corresponds to what remains of the man, his cinis. If the latter, the mensura (cf. nescio quidparvum) is small indeed. If the former, we are invited to think back upon the portrait of Achilles presented in this Book: arrogant, egotistic, dubious victor of a marvelous contest who fails to perceive the ambiguity of his victory. Achilles' gloria may fill the entire world, but whether it is commensurate with the truth remains an open question. In the above analysis I have tried to show that Ovid's selection and treatment of the episodes of Book 12 reveal a common thematic interest. Beginning with a negative portrait of the personified Fama, Ovid moves to a mock-heroic view of virtus. Next, Nestor, a maker of oral tradition, and, because of his great age, virtually the embodiment of tradition, presents a selective account of what he knows from first-hand observation. Finally, there is a gross—though implied—discrepancy between Achilles' virtus and his gloria. In the closing lines of the Book, Ovid begins (12.620) a lengthy presentation of the rhetorical contest between Ajax and Ulysses for the arms of Achilles. In the end (13.383) the assembled Greek heroes perversely award the arms to the better speaker, not to the better fighter: Mota manus procerum est, et, quid facundia posset, re patuit, fortisque viri tulit arma disertus. (382-383) The thematic interest which I have noted in Book 12 carries over into this episode also. As W.S. Anderson has pointed out, Ajax possesses virtus (manliness, courage), but Ulysses so subverts virtus as a moral value through his arguments that the judges are totally confused and deceived. 23 I f f a m a (in both senses) and virtus are not what poets and historians have claimed them to be, then encomium—in any literary genre—is not possible, in Ovid's terms, and both legend and history (as received tradition, vetustas) blend into a continuum inaccessible to such values as truth and objectivity. These conclusions support and extend recent work by Ovidian scholars who have detected anti-Augustan and anti-Roman elements in both the subject matter and modes of Books 12-15. They have shown that the Aeneas story serves as foil for "lighter," mostly erotic pieces; 24 that in Ovid's view Rome is not aeterna;25 that there is no difference between immortality granted to an Ino or a Memnon and that secured by an Aeneas or a Caesar; nor any difference between " u p w a r d " metamor-

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phosis (deification) and " d o w n w a r d " metamorphosis (change into an animal, vegetable, or mineral form) . 2 6 Many, through analysis of individual episodes, especially the apotheoses of the Caesars in Book 15, have found elements subversive of Caesarian propaganda and of the Augustan attitude to Roman history in general. 27 The analysis of Book 12 presented above reveals that at the outset of the "historical" and " R o m a n " section of his work, Ovid has undermined the very values which provide the foundations for praise as well as for an historical approach to the past. No passage shows more clearly that Ovid does not share the mythopoetic vision of Roman history and Roman destiny, or the belief in historical progress, set forth by Vergil in the Aeneid than Book 15.418-452. Early in this passage, Pythagoras generalizes about the rise and fall of nations, part of the pattern of ceaseless universal change (418-423). There are many instances of this phenomenon: Troy, Sparta, Mycenae, Athens, Thebes (423-430). Then there is Rome: nunc quoque Dardaniam fama est consurgere Roman, Appenninigenae quae proxima Thybridis undis mole sub ingenti rerum fundamina ponit: haec igitur formam crescendo mutat et olim inmensi caput orbis erit! (431-435) We know from earlier discussion of Book 12 that fama is the purveyor of both truths and lies. Although fama is here supported by the faticinae sortes (436) of Helenus, who prophesies to Aeneas a Trojan-born city with power and empire of unprecedented size, scope, and duration, we recall the general rule stated at the beginning of this passage: as empires rise (and Troy was the first mentioned), so do they fall. Ovid juxtaposes the general truth and the inflated prophecy, leaving the reader to draw his own conclusions about the perpetuity of Roman power. Throughout his narrative, covering a time span from the creation of the world up to the present, Ovid has shown that the major forces motivating both men and gods are love of power, pride, greed, and libidinous passion. These forces, being constants, have produced patterns which transcend time and which are unchanging regardless of race, color, creed, sex, or place of national origin. The rest is change and chance. Only one thing will outlast the cycle of change which Ovid has described for 15 books, and that is the immortality of the poet himself. In the epilogue of the poem (15.871-879), Ovid makes his claim for the perpetuity of his own fama: ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama, siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam. (878-879)

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Siquid . . . praesagia modestly validates the claim. At 15.622f Ovid claims that vates, since guided by the Muses, receive true knowledge; the Muses are not led astray by antiquity: Pandite nunc, Musae, praesentia numina vatum, (scitis enim, nec vos fallit spatiosa vetustas) . . . 28 The luxuriant fantasy of the Aesculapius episode which follows greatly tempers the apparent seriousness of the invocation. There is no reason to believe, however, that the claim which Ovid makes in the epilogue is also ironic. The fame of the poet, unlike that of either Rome or the Caesars, will be lasting. Ovid conceded that poets lied, upon occasion, and he was also aware that in some instances, the epic tradition might not be true. 2 9 His main point is that the truths of his poem of changes are more valid and lasting than the truths of received tradition. Fama and vetustas (Jama multiplied by time) are susceptible to human hopes and fears, to irrational passions of all sorts, to parochial, particularly political manipulations— all of these are forces which distort the truth. Ovid presents a chronicle of effects of these forces in myth, legend, and history, and this vision is the closest that one can hope to get to the truth. 3 0 Boston University NOTES 1 B. Otis, Ovid as Epic Poet (Cambridge 19702) 282. O . S . Due, Changing Forms: Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid. Classica et Mediaevalia Dissertationes X (Copenhagen 1974) 148-149. 3 Fecerat haec notum Graias cum milite forti adventare rates, neque inexspectatus in armis hostis adest . . . 4 Cf. Aen. 6.127, Modes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis. Is Ovid slyly suggesting an analogy between the Underworld and Fama's domus ? Entrance and exit from Fama's domus is equally easy: exit from the Underworld, very difficult (128-129). 5 T h e echo of the Marabar Caves in E. M . Forster's A Passage to India (New York 1952) 149 is similar: . . . the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murmur, " Pathos, piety, courage—they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value." If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same—"ou-boum." 6 Haupt-Korn-Ehwald-von Albrecht, P. Ovidius Naso Metamorphosen. I I 5 (Zürich 1966). 1 Cf. Aen. 2.483: apparel domus intus, et atria longa patescunt (Priam's palace). 8 For mensura, see below, p. 217 on line 618 and note 22. 9 Briefly mentioned in the Cypria, as reported by Proclus in his Chrestomathia (see Homeri Opera v, O C T 104-105). •0 In his structural analysis of the Metamorphoses, B. Otis (above, n. 1) 278-305, considers the fourth and concluding section of the poem, on Troy and Rome, to be Books 12-15. 2

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W. Ludwig, Structur und Einheit der Metamorphosen Ovids (Berlin 1965) 62 regards 11.194-end as transitional. U Elsewhere in the Met. Ovid presents fama as the purveyor of both truth and falsehoods, e.g. 5.262 vera tamen fama est (that Pegasus was the source of Hippocrene); 9.137ff Fama loquax . . . quae veris addere falsa/gaudet et e minimo sua per mendacia crescit; 10.28f famaque si veteris non est mentita rapinae/vos quoque iunxit Amor; 15.3f destinat imperio clarum praenuntia veri/fama Numam; and 15.853 libera fama tamen nullisque obnoxia iussis (surely ironic, as C. Moulton, " O v i d as Anti-Augustan: Met. 15.843-879," C W 6 7 No. 1 [Oct. 1973] 7 suggests). Due (n. 2 above) loc. cit. suggests that Ovid is correcting Vergil's Fama: " I n the Aeneid F a m a blends true and false, we are told, when she disseminates the news about Dido and Aeneas; but her actual report is strictly in accordance with truth. Ovid on the one hand stresses Fama's unreliability and on the other the actual veracity of her message. By being in this respect more awkward than Vergil he draws attention to the fact that there is an awkwardness—in Vergil." Due is surely right that Ovid emphasizes the awkwardness, or better, inconsistency in Vergil's Fama, but he does so not merely in order to present a more complex and realistic viewpoint, or for the sake of playing an amusing literary game. Ovid's characterization offama undermines the very value of fame and opens the way for a skeptical attitude toward personal renown and toward knowledge of the past. 12 Ovid is, of course, working in the epic tradition. Historical tradition {fama), too, as Livy, for example indicates, may vary (23.12.2, 27.27.13f) or may not match the truth (2.10.11, 21.32.7, 25.30.12, 26.19.7, 37.58.7). See also Sallust B.J. 17.7. 13 Cf. 12.If: Nescius adsumptis Priamus pater Aesacon alis/vivere lugebat. . . and 4.563f. O n e recurrent feature in metamorphoses is the persistence of some essential characteristic in the new form; see 1.235-239 (Lycaon) and the commentary of F. Bomer, P. Ovidius Maso. Metamorphosen, Buck / - / / / (Heidelberg 1969) ad loc. 1* Similarly, Due, 150. For the ambiguity of klea andron, see Stanford's note on Od. 8.73f. For cithara and tibia (string instrument and wind instrument?), see Horace, C. 1.12.1-3 and Kiessling-Heinze's note. ls According to Haupt-Korn-Ehwald-von Albrecht (on line 188), Ovid misread Homer. l fi Cf. Cicero, De.Orat. 2.9.36: Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis, qua voce alia nisi oratoris immortalitati commendatur? 1 7 For the tone of the account, see R . Coleman, " S t r u c t u r e and Intention in the Metamorphoses," CQ65 (1971) 474:

Frequently celebrated in art and literature, the battle is p u t into the mouth of the Homeric Nestor and so presented, at a superficial level, as an extended glorification of heroic warfare. Yet it was one of the least edifying incidents of the epic tradition, a brutal and gory battle of a particularly futile kind, and by selecting it as his sole representative of heroic warfare, expounding it as the mere exhibition of brute force and senseless slaughter that it was and associating it with the fantastic story of Caeneus, he is in reality pouring scorn upon the whole epic tradition of the aggrandizement of war. T h e epic tone here is therefore parodic. 1 8 T o orbem implevit meritis, cf. 617 totum quae gloria conpleat orbem, and below, p. 217. Livy points out that fama can be manipulated for political purposes by individual statesmen and by noble R o m a n families; see, e.g., 8.40.4 and 10.26.1. T h e patronymic Phaethontida (581) recalls the Cycnus of Book 2 (376ff), who also turns into a swan and who is said to avoid " t h e sky and J u p i t e r . " Strictly speaking, the patronymic is appropriate to neither, since the Cycnus of Book 2 is lover, not son of Phaethon, and the Cycnus of 12 is son of Neptune, not Phaethon. I suspect that Ovid wished to undermine the value traditionally placed on nobility of birth: Cycnus did not win over Achilles, his superior lineage notwithstanding (93-94), any more than Phaethon's noble birth could compensate for his lack of sense. 21 Cf. Aen. 1.142-147, especially 146 et temperat aequor. 19

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22 See R . J . Deferrari, M . I. Barry, M . McQuire, A Concordance of Ovid (Washington 1939) s.v. But cf. Heroides 15.31-34 (Sappho): si mihi difficilis formam n a t u r a negavit, ingenio formae d a m n a rependo meae. sum brevis, at nomen, quod terras inpleat omnes, est mihi, mensuram nominis ipsa fero; Heroides 9.109f: (Deianira) illi procedit rerum mensura tuarum— ¡cede bonis; heres laudis arnica tuae; Fasti 1.603f: Magne, tuum nomen rerum mensura tuarum est; / Sed qui te vicit, nomine maior erat; and Ex Pont. 1.2.If: Maxime, qui tanti mensuram nominis imples, / et geminas animi nobilitate genus . . . I a m indebted to Mr. W . S . Bonds, a student in my Ovid seminar in Spring 1974, for calling my attention to the importance of mensura in Book 12. 23 W . S . Anderson, " M u l t i p l e Change in the Metamorphoses," TAPA 94 (1963) 21-23 and n. 9. I believe that this interpretation is valid even if we agree, with R . Coleman (n. 17 above) 475, that Ovid's Ajax is a stupid boor. 24 See Coleman, 472-474; C. Segal, " Myth and Philosophy in the Metamorphoses-. Ovid's Augustanism and the Augustan Conclusion of Book X V , " AJP 90 (1969) 257-292, especially 267-74; Otis (above, n. 1) 279; and L. Curran, "Transformation and Anti-Augustanism in Ovid's Metamorphoses," Arethusa5 (1972) 83. 25 Coleman, 473; Segal 288; Curran 87f; and W . S . Anderson (above, note 23) 27. 26 Segal, 284-288; Curran, loc. cit.; and D. Little, " T h e Speech of Pythagoras in Metamorphoses 15 and the Structure of the Metamorphoses," Hermes 98 (1970) 340-360. 27 For extended presentations of this viewpoint, see Otis, 306-374 (" Conclusion"), Segal, and W . R . J o h n s o n , "Counter-classical Sensibility and Its Critics," California Studies in Classical Antiquity 3 (1970) 137-148. For the apotheosis of the Caesars, see also Moulton (above, n. 11) 4-7 and A. W . J . Holleman, " Ovidii Metamorphoseon liber X V 622-870 (Carmen et e r r o r ? ) , " Latomus 28 (1969) 47-51. For Aesculapius, see Holleman 42-47 and Segal 275-277. For Cipus, see G . K . Galinsky, " T h e Cipus Episode," TAPA 98 (1967) 181-191. 28 Recall tarda vetustas and spatiosa senectus (12.182 and 186, above, p. 215. Cf. 15.234 and 15.872, where edax . . . vetustas is one of the things which will not be able to destroy Ovid's opus. At 15.622f Ovid says that the Muses have knowledge and that the tradition which they know is not diminished or changed by the passage of time (vetustas). There is no explicit mention of Jama. In Iliad 2.484-87, quoted by Haupt-Korn-Ehwald-von Albrecht on 15.622, Homer makes the distinction between true knowledge and hearsay (kleos): iaTrfrf vvv fioi, fiovaai 'OXvfiiria Sajfiur' ¿xovaai, VfjLels yap deal ¿are —apeaxt' T€ tore re TTavrcc, rjiieis 8e icAeo? olov ¿Kovofiev ovSe TL "Sficv, ot rives yyefioves Aavacov KAT Kolpavoi FJOAV. T h e Muses are goddesses and are present (at all events ?) and know all things. H u m a n beings, however, hear only kleos and do not know anything. In subsequent lines, H o m e r states that it would be beyond mere h u m a n powers to catalogue the multitude of Greeks; he needs the aid of the Muses to help him remember (jurqoaiaB' 492). Both passages suggest that fama (kleos) can be changed or partially lost by the passage of time. 29 Cf. Amores 3.12.41-42: exit in immensum fecunda licentia vatum obligat historica nec sua verba fide, cited by Little (n. 26 above) 348. Further discussion of Ovid on the credibility of poets, 352ff and see especially Met. 13.733fand 15.282f. 30 M y thanks to Professors W . S . Anderson and Donald Lateiner, and to the readers for CSCA for helpful suggestions. Any remaining errors or shortcomings are mine.