Pushing the Boundaries of Historia 9781315171487, 9781351695008, 9781351694995, 9781351694988, 9781138046320, 1315171481

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Pushing the Boundaries of Historia

Pushing the Boundaries of Historia collects together 20 chapters, whose coverage extends from the prehistory of Greece through early Christianity in the Roman Empire to the reception of classical texts by contemporary playwrights and poets. The essays range beyond Greece and Rome to the ancient realms of Persia and China and explore a vast array of ancient authors – Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides, Euripides, Vergil, Ovid, Livy, and Tacitus. Written by philologists, historians, epigraphers, palaeographers, archaeologists, and art historians, it brings together the best of old and new traditions of classical study, from senior emeritus faculty with established records of scholarly productivity, to the newest generation of classics and archaeology professors. What draws together the disparate strands of academic inquiry found in these pages is a passion for understanding how the lessons of the world of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and their still lamentably understudied neighbors, can offer commentary on the contemporary world. Mary C. English is currently Professor of Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State University, USA. In addition to publishing articles on Aristophanes as well as on the reception of Greek tragedy, she is the coauthor, with Georgia L. Irby, of A Little Latin Reader (2011; 2nd edn 2017) and A New Latin Primer (2015). Lee M.  Fratantuono is Professor and Chair of Classics at Ohio Wesleyan University, USA. Among other works on Latin literature and Roman history, he is the coeditor of Aeneid 5 (2015) and Aeneid 8 (2018).

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Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

Titles include: Aeschylus and War Comparative Perspectives on ‘Seven Against Thebes’ Edited by Isabelle Torrance The Etruscans and the History of Dentistry The Golden Smile through the Ages Marshall J. Becker and Jean MacIntosh Turfa Masculinity and Dress in Roman Antiquity Kelly Olson Juvenal’s Global Awareness Circulation, Connectivity, and Empire Osman Umurhan The Greek and Roman Trophy From Battlefield Marker to Icon of Power Lauren Kinnee Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition Edited by A.J. Berkovitz and Mark Letteney Thinking the Greeks A Volume in Honour of James M. Redfield Edited by Bruce M. King and Lillian Doherty Pushing the Boundaries of Historia Edited by Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono Greek Myth and the Bible Bruce Louden For more information on this series, visit:  https://​www.routledge.com/​ classicalstudies/​series/​RMCS

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Pushing the Boundaries of Historia Edited by Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono

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First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: English, Mary C., editor. | Fratantuono, Lee, 1973– editor. Title: Pushing the boundaries of Historia / edited by Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono. Description: First edition. | London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2018. | Series: Routledge monographs in classical studies | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018029524 (print) | LCCN 2018044303 (ebook) | ISBN 9781315171487 (ebook) | ISBN 9781351695008 (web pdf) | ISBN 9781351694995 (epub) | ISBN 9781351694988 (mobi/kindle) | ISBN 9781138046320 (hardback : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Civilization, Classical. | Classical antiquities. | Classical philology. | Historiography. Classification: LCC DE60 (ebook) | LCC DE60 .P87 2018 (print) | DDC 938.0072–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018029524 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​04632-​0 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​17148-​7 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Out of House Publishing

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Contents

List of contributors  Preface and acknowledgments  Introduction 

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MARY C.  E N G LI SH A N D LEE M.  FR ATA N TU ONO

PART I

Herodotean narratives and cross-​cultural comparisons 

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1 Different ways of saying historia in the prose of Herodotus and Thucydides 

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G RE G ORY  NAG Y

2 Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 

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D E B ORAH B OED EK ER

3 Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji about Herodotus’ fragmented narrative of the story of Miltiades 

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T H OMAS R.  MA RTI N

4 Settling family feuds: Lysias 1 and Herodotus’ Lydians 

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N I NA C.  C OP PO LI N O

5 East and West in the Histories of Herodotus and Tacitus  T I MOT H Y  J OS EPH

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vi Contents PART II

Historia and the ancient world 

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6 Thucydides’ use of Homer in his Archaeology 

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MARY  E B B OTT

7 Models of gift-​exchange and practices of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking in classical Persian poetry 

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OLG A M.  DAV I D SO N

8 Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow, and the initial reception of the decipherment of Linear B 

115

ST E P H E N   T R AC Y

9 Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 

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N E E L   SMI TH

PART III

The development and reception of historical exempla 

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10 Othryadas: The development of a historical and literary exemplum 

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AL I SSA VAILLA N C O U RT A N D A N D R EW G.   S COTT

11 No peeking! Athene and Alcibiades 

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J OSE P H FALA K Y  NAG Y

12 A furious fury: Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus, and the reconciliations of Juno 

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L E E M.  F RATA N TU O N O

13 Ovid’s autobiography (Tr. 4.10): Poetic identity and immortality in the poetry of exile 

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MAT T H E W M.  MC G OWA N

14 Billy Collins as a modern-​day Ovid: An Ovidian reading of Collins’ Ballistics  J I L L A.  C OYLE

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Contents vii PART IV

Fury, honor, and historia: Conflict and struggle in the Greek and Roman imaginations 

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15 Sound effects: Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 

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K AT I E L AMB ERTO

16 Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed in Aeneid 8 

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JAME S J.  O’H AR A

17 A disquiet follows my soul: Civil war in Livy Book I 

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MARK J.  B.  WRI G H T

18 Saint Pilate and the conversion of Tiberius 

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PAU L F.  BU RK E

19 Julius Caesar in the 1960s: Jerome Kilty’s stage adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March 

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MARY C.  E N G LI SH

20 Edward Robinson’s plaster casts and the battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 

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E L L E N   E . P E RRY

Index 

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Contributors

Deborah Boedeker is Professor Emerita of Classics at Brown University. From 1992 to 2000, together with Kurt Raaflaub, she codirected Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. Her scholarly publications include monographs, articles, and edited or coedited volumes on Greek poetry (epic, lyric, elegy, and tragedy), religion, and historiography. Her current work focuses on Hipponax, Herodotus, and Sappho. Paul F. Burke worked at Clark University as Professor of Classics and Adjunct Professor of History from 1976 to 2018. His research interests include Vergilian literature, ancient medicine, and ancient religion. He has also served as President of the Vergilian Society. Nina C. Coppolino earned her B.A. in Classics at College of the Holy Cross and her Ph.D. at Fordham University. She served as editor-​in-​chief of New England Classical Journal, following upon her term as book review editor. She is Assistant Professor in Residence in the Department of Literatures, Cultures and Languages at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. In addition to Greek rhetoric and historiography, her publications include topics in Latin poetry and Roman history. Jill A. Coyle is a professor of English at Spartanburg Methodist College. She holds a B.A. in Classics from College of the Holy Cross, an M.A. in  English from North Carolina State University, and a Ph.D.  in Classical Studies from Duke University. She has a strong interest in creative writing, and her poems and essays have appeared in numerous journals. Olga M.  Davidson earned her Ph.D.  in Near Eastern Studies in 1983 from Princeton University. She is on the faculty of the Institute for the Study of Muslim Societies and Civilizations at Boston University, where she has served as Research Fellow since 2009. From 1992 to 1997, she was Chair of the Concentration in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. Since 1999, she has been Chair of the Board, Ilex Foundation. She is the author of Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings (1994; 2nd ed. 2006; 3rd ed. 2013) and Comparative Literature and Classical Persian Poetry (2000; 2nd ed. 2013).

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Contributors ix Mary Ebbott is a Professor of Classics and Dean of Faculty at the College of the Holy Cross. She is the author of Imagining Illegitimacy in Classical Greek Literature and coauthor of Iliad 10 and the Poetics of Ambush as well as coeditor of the Homer Multitext project (www.homermultitext.org). Mary C.  English earned her degrees in Classics from the College of the Holy Cross and Boston University. She is currently Professor of Classics and General Humanities at Montclair State University. In addition to publishing articles on Aristophanes as well as on the reception of Greek tragedy, she is the coauthor, with Georgia L. Irby, of A Little Latin Reader (2011; 2nd ed. 2017) and A New Latin Primer (2015). Lee M. Fratantuono studied Classics at the College of the Holy Cross, Boston College, and Fordham University, and is Professor and Chair of Classics at Ohio Wesleyan University. Among other works on Latin literature and Roman history, he is the coeditor of Aeneid 5 (2015) and Aeneid 8 (2018). Timothy Joseph is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. He earned his B.A. in Classics at Holy Cross and his Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard University, and is the author of Tacitus the Epic Successor (2012), as well as numerous essays on Latin historiography and epic poetry. Katie Lamberto received her undergraduate degree in Classics from the College of the Holy Cross. She went on to obtain her Ph.D.  in Classics from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She has taught at the College of the Holy Cross and Clark University. Thomas R.  Martin is the Jeremiah W.  O’Connor Jr. Professor in Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. His teaching and research focus on ancient Greek and Roman history and historians. His books include Sima Qian:  Uomini e storie dell’antica Cina (with Ivy Sui-​yuen Sun and Monica Berti, Edizioni Tored, 2008); Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China (2010); and Ancient Greece:  From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times (2nd ed. 2013). Matthew M.  McGowan is Associate Professor and Chair of Classics at Fordham University. His research focuses on Roman literature, Latin pedagogy, and the reception of classical antiquity, especially Neo-Latin texts. He is the author of Ovid in Exile: Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto (2009) and co-editor with Elizabeth Macaulay-Lewis of Classical New York: Discovering Greece and Rome in Gotham (2018). Gregory Nagy is the author of The Best of the Achaeans:  Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (1979; 2nd ed., with new Introduction, 1999). Other publications include Homer the Preclassic (2010) and The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours (2013). Since 2000, he has been the Director of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, while continuing to teach at the Harvard campus in Cambridge as the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature.

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x Contributors Joseph Falaky Nagy, the Henry L. Shattuck Professor of Irish Studies in the Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, has published books and articles on medieval Irish literature and comparative mythology. James J. O’Hara studied at the College of the Holy Cross and the University of Michigan. He has taught at Wesleyan University and the University of North, Chapel Hill, where he is the George L. Paddison Professor of Latin. He has written Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil’s Aeneid (1990); True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay (2nd ed. 2017); Inconsistency in Roman Epic: Studies in Catullus, Lucretius, Vergil, Ovid and Lucan (2007); Vergil: Aeneid Book 4 (2011); and Vergil: Aeneid Book 8 (2018). Ellen E. Perry is Professor of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross. She has published articles on Roman sarcophagi, the aesthetics of ancient painting, and the Roman imitation of Greek art. Her book, The Aesthetics of Emulation in the Visual Arts of Ancient Rome appeared in 2005, and she coedited the anthology Roman Artists, Patrons and Public Consumption. Andrew G.  Scott is Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Villanova University. His areas of research are Spartan social history and the historiography of Severan Rome, especially the work of Cassius Dio. He is the author of Emperors and Usurpers: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History, Books 79(78)–80(80) (217–229 CE) (2018). Neel Smith is Associate Professor in the Department of Classics at Holy Cross, where, in addition to teaching a wide range of course in ancient languages, archaeology, and ancient science, he serves as faculty advisor to an undergraduate organization devoted to research on manuscripts and other documents (http://​hcmid.github.io). He is a coarchitect of the Homer Multitext project. Stephen Tracy is Emeritus Professor of Greek and Latin at Ohio State University, former Director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, and currently a member and long-​term visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Alissa Vaillancourt is Assistant Professor of the Classical Studies at Villanova University. Her principal interests are the development of literary epigram, the reception of Homeric models in Hellenistic poetry, and law as literary trope. She is currently engaged in researching the Homeric influence on the epigrams of Leonidas of Tarentum. Mark J. B. Wright is a scholar of Roman Historiography and Roman Satire. He is presently preparing a monograph on Horace’s first book of Satires as well as an edition of the medieval romance “Titus and Vespasian” with Kara McShane. He has taught at the Ohio State University, Hope College, and Boston College High School.

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Preface and acknowledgments

If all books are labors of love, some are imbued with a particular spirit of affection and grateful respect. Such is the present volume. The collaborators whose work has made this edited collection possible are united not only in a passion for antiquity but also by the common bond of the privilege of working with Blaise John Nagy, Professor Emeritus of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. This collection was originally conceived as a tribute to Professor Nagy on the occasion of his 70th birthday and retirement from the college where he taught Greek, Latin, and ancient history for some 40 years. The chapters in this collection are diverse, in reflection of the varied interests and specialties of the authors. Manifold in content, the individual chapters nonetheless share a common feature: they all explore new directions in classical studies, even as they rely on time-​tested, treasured paradigms and methodologies for investigation into the mysteries and problems of antiquity. In this they reflect nothing so much as a seminar exercise of the sort that those of us fortunate enough to have been taught by Professor Nagy would appreciate; they seek to distill something of the sense of wonder that accompanies first discoveries in the academic process by eager, fledgling students. This volume would not have been possible without the much-​appreciated support of many individuals. Pride of place in our acknowledgments must go to the members of the Nagy family, in particular to Blaise’s brothers Greg and Joseph, and to Blaise’s wife Pamela. The Department of Classics at the College of the Holy Cross provided significant assistance and encouragement. Among the contributors, Professor Thomas Martin offered help that went far beyond the call of duty. The staff at Routledge was consummate in professionalism and sound advice; here Amy Davis-​Poynter and Elizabeth Risch merit our sincere thanks for shepherding this project to completion. It is our hope that the chapters contained in this volume will be of interest not only for their individual content but also for the spirit of young adventure in setting out to explore classical antiquity that so many of the authors remember fondly from the shared experienced of our undergraduate days.

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xii  Preface and acknowledgments For that and so many other reasons, we are proud to present this volume in testament to how Professor Nagy made that experience possible. Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono Montclair, NJ, and Delaware, OH April 2018

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Introduction Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono

This collection is not a “companion” to any one topic of scholarly investigation in Classics, nor is it a “handbook” to assist in the exploration of any one area of academic inquiry in ancient studies. Rather, it grew out of a desire to honor a particular individual on the occasion of both his 70th birthday and his retirement from a professional career in Classics: Blaise John Nagy, Professor Emeritus of Classics and History at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. Particularly in the days of increasing costs in publication, the Festschrift can be a difficult genre to defend if you are neither familiar with nor –​worse still –​a direct fan of the honoree. When we asked former students of Professor Nagy to consider papers for this project, we quickly realized that the invited contributors  –​Holy Cross alumni/​ae who had pursued doctorates in some aspect of classical antiquity –​were truly all over the map in the study of the ancient world. Suggested topics that filled our electronic mailboxes displayed an impressive breadth of range and depth. Soon enough we were remarking to each other that this diversity of topics was no surprise:  Professor Nagy had taught and published in an equally broad range of subjects in Greek and Roman studies. Excitement among his former students proved infectious; long-​standing colleagues and friends of Blaise were in touch with us about a wish to contribute something that might reflect not only their own work but also, and more importantly, how Professor Nagy had influenced their thought –​how, as one contributor put it, he had demonstrated pushing the bounds of historia and embracing the truest sense of Herodotean investigation. Time and again, Professor Nagy has shown both students and colleagues how the connections between seemingly disparate areas of academic inquiry in the ancient world were far more numerous than the discontinuities. And so this volume contains chapters that extend from the prehistory of Greece through early Christianity in the western Roman Empire to the reception of classical texts by modern playwrights and poets. It incorporates the work of classical philologists, ancient historians, and classical archaeologists. It ranges beyond Greece and Rome to the ancient realms of Persia and China. It moves, as another contributor put it, from stone to screen, as the work of a noted epigrapher is juxtaposed with a study of a contemporary digital project

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2  Mary C. English and Lee M. Fratantuono on the text of Homer. It is our hope that the wide range of chapters may be of interest to an equally broad range of students, teachers, and scholars of the ancient world; at the same time, the connections that emerge between the chapters may well prove to be more noteworthy than the apparent differences. The chapters of the present collection are divided into four sections; each is preceded by a brief introduction by the editors. The first section is concerned with ancient Greek history, in particular the work of Herodotus and Thucydides. Herodotus has been called the father of history, the parent, if you will, of inquiry and investigation, and so we begin with a brief study of the concept of historia in Herodotus and his great successor Thucydides. Herodotus was intimately concerned with the relationships between his own Ionian Greeks and the many nations and peoples that surrounded the fragile Greek cities of his day; in this first section we find chapters that consider cross-​cultural connections between Herodotus’ work and areas as diverse as the China of Sima Qian and the reflections of east-​west conflicts in the Roman historian Tacitus. In this opening section of the volume, we both define essential terms and pose questions that we hope will be answered in subsequent chapters in the collection. After establishing our base for investigation, we do what Herodotus seeks to do time and again: we step back and extend our inquiry to the Homeric world. We begin the second section with a study of the use of Homer by Thucydides and immerse ourselves in a world where historical and moral concerns overlap sometimes rather uncomfortably –​a world of violence and bloodshed, but one open to the possibility of redemption via inquiry into human actions and motivations. From there, we explore models of gift-​giving in ancient Persia. Finally, we turn to two chapters about the challenges of contemporary investigations into Homer’s Bronze Age World and the preservation and dissemination of the Homeric epics in the digital age. Having explored the world that made Herodotus’ investigations possible, we sharpen our focus on one of Herodotus’ preferred modes of inquiry: the use of historical and literary exempla. Once again, we explore related ideas across both temporal and genre lines, in not only Herodotus but also Virgil and Ovid. The study of classical exempla affords a wonderful opportunity to examine the relationship between history and literature and to appreciate how for the ancient Greeks and Romans the line between the two was not drawn as straight as in today’s academy. And so figures from both literature and history are found juxtaposed in this section. The relatively unknown Othryadas, the Spartan survivor of the Battle of Champions, is read against Alcibiades, perhaps the most infamous politician of late-​fifth-​century Athens; early Roman heroes, such as the Roman general Camillus, stand next to the illustrious poet Ovid. In the final section, the volume investigates violence and discord in mortal interactions. We begin deliberately with the world of Greek tragedy, where in Euripides’ Bacchae one finds reflections of conflict in the very language of the script; we next consider the problem of civil war in the

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Introduction 3 legends of early Rome, the clash of religious systems of belief in the early Christian period, and the long-​held fascination with the assassination of Julius Caesar. We end with a timely reminder, if one were needed, that the world of the ivory tower is not immune from such struggle and internecine strife. This collection represents the work of 21 individuals whose scholarly approaches and methodologies reflect their different areas of expertise and professional training. What draws together the disparate strands of academic inquiry found in these pages is ultimately a love for the perhaps sometimes unappreciated sense of magic and wonder in the investigation of classical antiquity and the study of the ancient world; a passion for understanding how the lessons of the world of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and their still lamentably understudied neighbors can offer commentary on the contemporary world.

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Part I

Herodotean narratives and cross-​cultural comparisons For decades, students of Herodotus were more or less compelled to use the two-​volume Oxford commentary of How and Wells (1912) to guide their study of the great Ionic historian’s massive work on the conflict between East and West, the series of wars and struggles between the city-​states of the Hellenic world, and the vast Persian Empire. For all of its very real virtues, How and Wells was in many ways outdated on the day it was published; the fundamental problem for any commentator on Herodotus’ nine books is how to explicate a work that requires detailed, expert knowledge of nothing less than the entirety of the classical Greek world. From Scythia to Egypt, from Persia to Athens and Sparta, the student of Herodotus can be simultaneously dazzled and daunted (not to say deterred) by the sheer volume of the material that demands attention and consideration. The first section of this collection displays how five contemporary scholars come to terms with the majesty and mystery of Herodotus’ historia or “investigation” into what for him was the fundamental problem of human political and social existence: the clash between East and West. Herodotus’ account of the Persian Wars was both a response to the archaic traditions of the Homeric Bronze Age and a commentary on the greatest event of his own day. So great was the struggle between Greeks and Persians that Herodotus, like Homer before him, saw it as a paradigm, or perhaps a series of paradigms, for the understanding and appreciation of human behavior and motivations. In the prose narrative of the events surrounding the Persian Wars, we also find a scientific study of the same problems and concerns that exercised the epic attention of Homer. The chapters of this first section represent a variety of perspectives on Herodotean study; they offer a range of commentaries and views on the history of the Persian Wars that reflect both the significant advances made in Herodotean studies, and the different methodologies and training of the contributors. Gregory Nagy opens the section with a broad discussion of how Herodotus employs in his Histories a unique interpretation of historia, and one that sets him apart from his successor Thucydides. Deborah Boedeker then looks at how Herodotus uses a complicated “spectacle” motif throughout his narrative to characterize those in possession of autocratic power, whether

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6  Herodotean narratives they be tyrants or members of the Athenian public. In the chapter that follows, Thomas R. Martin compares the “fragmented” nature of Herodotus’ narrative about Miltiades to the approach taken by the Chinese historian Sima Qian. The final two essays of this section examine Herodotean influences on other authors: Nina C. Coppolino traces how Lysias employs a distinctively Herodotean understanding of tyranny and the violation of traditions in his defense of Euphiletos; and Timothy Joseph explores Herodotus’ influence on Tacitus and how the Tacitus was able to take Herodotus’ methodology, especially as it pertains to his conception of the struggles between the East and the West, and modify it to produce a historical narrative that was distinctly Roman. Professor Nagy regularly taught Herodotus’ great history both in the original Greek and in his survey of the History of Greece; his textbook, A Herodotus Reader (2010), provides first-​time readers of the Halicarnassian with a suitable introduction to the study of his Ionic prose. It is hoped that the chapters of the introductory section of this volume will provide both a sense of how Herodotus can be interpreted, as well as a series of paradigms for how his work can be employed in the explication and exegesis of works disparate in both time and space. By consideration of a Herodotean model of inquiry and a Herodotean hermeneutic of interpretation, we hope to set a foundation for broader consideration of the implications of some of the problems the ancient historian faced in his efforts to understand better both past and future.

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1  Different ways of saying historia in the prose of Herodotus and Thucydides Gregory Nagy

The point of departure for this chapter is the fact that Herodotus uses the word historiā (historiē in Ionic), which we translate as “history,” when he refers to the work that we conventionally call his History, whereas Thucydides does not use the word historiā anywhere in his corresponding History. I will argue that the idea of historiā as understood by Herodotus is expressed and understood by Thucydides as well, but he expresses this idea in a different way. In other words, Herodotus and Thucydides have different ways of expressing the idea of historiā.

The use of the word historiē by Herodotus As I  have argued previously (Nagy 1990, ch. 8 and ch. 9), Herodotus uses the word historiē in his prooemium (0.0.0) and elsewhere to express a kind of investigation that displays the juridical and moral expertise of the speaker. But such investigation also displays scientific expertise, which was highly valued in the historical context of Herodotus’ own life and times (Nagy 1990, 311 = 10§53). So I agree with Rosalind Thomas (2000) when she argues for the scientific aspect of the word, although I disagree with her undervaluing of the juridical and moral aspects (Nagy 2011, §162). Herodotus uses the word historiē in his prooemium (0.0.0) in such a way as to signal the scientific as well as moral and juridical superiority of his worldview over the worldview of rivals with whom he contrasts himself in the sentence that follows the prooemium. That following sentence is the first sentence of the text proper of the History of Herodotus (1.1.1). In this first sentence, Herodotus refers to his rivals as logioi, “masters of speech,” describing them as siding with the Persians instead of the Hellenes (1.1.1). I should emphasize that these logioi, although they are presented as inferior to Herodotus, are still worthy rivals, as he refers to them in contexts where they, too, like Herodotus, could deal with moral and juridical aitiai, “causes” or “cases” (Nagy 1990, 121–​122 = 8§9, with reference to Herodotus 1.1.1 and its organic relation to the highlighting of historiē in Herodotus 0.0.0; see also Asheri et al. 2007, 72–​73, citing my analysis in Nagy 1990, ch. 8). Still, even if the logioi are qualified rivals, the point is that Herodotus as the master of historiē

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8 Gregory Nagy is even more qualified. Only Herodotus, by claiming mastery of historiē, could claim a superior authority not only in moral and juridical matters but even in science (Nagy 2011, §163). Combining synchronic and diachronic approaches (in using the terms “synchronic” and “diac hronic,” I  follow the definitions in Saussure 1916, 117), I have analyzed the contrast set up by Herodotus between the authority of his historiē and the corresponding authority of the logioi (Nagy 2011; see especially §161 for a debate with the critique of Luraghi 2009). Here is a summary of my analysis (Nagy 2011, §164): From a synchronic point of view … the meaning of historiē in the usage of Herodotus is broader than the meaning of logios and is therefore more applicable to the medium of this author. From a diachronic point of view, the meaning of historiē can be seen as newer for the medium of Herodotus, while the meaning of logios would be older for the practitioner of such a medium; and, though it is an older word that used to have a broader meaning, logios now develops a relatively narrower meaning in contrast to the broader meaning that has in the meantime been appropriated by the word historiē. For this analysis, I applied the “fourth law of analogy” as formulated by Jerzy Kuryłowicz (1945–​1949 [1966], 169)  and as reformulated by myself (Nagy 1990, 5–​6  =  0§13) with reference to the semantics of secondary meanings taken on by older forms when the primary meanings of these forms have been taken over by newer forms (Nagy 2011, §165). I also applied a relevant formulation by Mikhail Bakhtin (1965/​1984, 410):  “The object that has been destroyed remains in the world but in a new form of being in time and space; it becomes the ‘other side’ of the new object that has taken its place” (Nagy 2011, §165, with reference to Nagy 1990, 6 = 0§13 with n. 18). In terms of Bakhtin’s formulation, we can think of logios as a word that specializes in referring to the “other side” of historiē, an exotic side that is seemingly less appropriate to Hellenes and more appropriate to non-​Hellenes (Nagy 2011, §166). Herodotus uses the word logioi with specific reference to masters of discourse who are Persians (1.1.1), Egyptians (2.3.1, 2.77.1), and Scythians (4.46.1). I  find it relevant to note here the wry remark made by Plutarch in his essay On the Malice of Herodotus (871d), in which he mentions specifically the Scythians, the Persians, and the Egyptians as the talking characters of Herodotus, to be contrasted with animals such as apes and ravens, who are featured as the talking characters of Aesop’s fables (Nagy 2011, §166). Plutarch is in effect saying that any communication from such Scythians, Persians, and Egyptians, who as we have seen are described as logioi in the History of Herodotus, is a matter of hearing virtual fables. And, from a diachronic point of view, Plutarch is right, if we think of the telling of these virtual fables in the comprehensive sense of telling an ainos (Nagy 2011, §166, this time with reference to Nagy 1990, 332, 334 = 11§19, 11§35).

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Different ways of saying historia 9

The nonuse of the word historiā by Thucydides Such a broad understanding of historiē as we see it at work in the discourse of Herodotus becomes too broad for his immediate successors. The most prominent example is Thucydides. He never uses the word historiā, which would be the Attic equivalent of Ionic historiē, nor does he ever use the derivative form historeîn (Nagy 1990, 220  =  8§7). The priorities of Thucydides are evidently different from those of Herodotus. And the same can be said about Xenophon, who self-​consciously continues his Hellenic History where Thucydides left off: like Thucydides, Xenophon never uses the word historiā or its derivative historeîn. To be contrasted is the prominent featuring of historiā at the beginnings of the Histories of later authors such as Polybius (1.1.1), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman Antiquities 1.1.2), and Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 1.1.1). So, how are the priorities of Thucydides different from those of Herodotus? The answer to this question is relevant to the point I  was making about the word logios. Just as Herodotus avoids applying this word logios to himself, assuming that the authority of his historiē surpasses the authority of logioi, so also Thucydides avoids applying the word historiā to his discovery procedures, assuming that they surpass the discovery procedures linked with historiā. Such an assumption on the part of Thucydides can be linked with his awareness that his medium, unlike the medium of Herodotus, is a written text that does not need to be performed and therefore does not depend on public approval (Thucydides 1.22.4, with commentary in Nagy 1990, 220 = 8§7). Even so, Thucydides can be seen as a potential practitioner of historiā if we view both synchronically and diachronically the words that he uses in referring to his discovery procedures, just as Herodotus can be seen as a potential logios if we view both synchronically and diachronically his uses of that word. For example, we find in the first 22 sections of Book I of Thucydides three attestations in which he refers to his discovery procedures by using the verb heuriskein, “discover, make discoveries,” in collocation with the noun tekmērion, “piece of evidence,” or with the related verb tekmairesthai, “estimate [on the basis of evidence].” Here are the three attestations: [1]‌ Θουκυδίδης Ἀθηναῖος ξυνέγραψε τὸν πόλεμον τῶν Πελοποννησίων καὶ Ἀθηναίων, ὡς ἐπολέμησαν πρὸς ἀλλήλους, ἀρξάμενος εὐθὺς καθισταμένου καὶ ἐλπίσας μέγαν τε ἔσεσθαι καὶ ἀξιολογώτατον τῶν προγεγενημένων, τεκμαιρόμενος ὅτι ἀκμάζοντές τε ᾖσαν ἐς αὐτὸν ἀμφότεροι παρασκευῇ τῇ πάσῃ καὶ τὸ ἄλλο Ἑλληνικὸν ὁρῶν ξυνιστάμενον πρὸς ἑκατέρους, τὸ μὲν εὐθύς, τὸ δὲ καὶ διανοούμενον. {1.1.2} κίνησις γὰρ αὕτη μεγίστη δὴ τοῖς Ἕλλησιν ἐγένετο καὶ μέρει τινὶ τῶν βαρβάρων, ὡς δὲ εἰπεῖν καὶ ἐπὶ πλεῖστον ἀνθρώπων. {1.1.3} τὰ γὰρ πρὸ αὐτῶν καὶ τὰ ἔτι παλαίτερα σαφῶς μὲν εὑρεῖν διὰ χρόνου πλῆθος ἀδύνατα ἦν, ἐκ δὲ τεκμηρίων ὧν ἐπὶ μακρότατον σκοποῦντί μοι πιστεῦσαι ξυμβαίνει οὐ μεγάλα νομίζω γενέσθαι οὔτε κατὰ τοὺς πολέμους οὔτε ἐς τὰ ἄλλα.

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10 Gregory Nagy Thucydides of Athens wrote a systematic account of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, how they fought the war with each other. He began right at the moment when the war got under way, expecting that it would be a big war and one worth speaking about, more than any other war. And he was making an estimate [tekmairesthai] [on the basis of evidence]. One piece of evidence was the fact that both sides were at the peak of readiness in every aspect of their preparation. Another piece of evidence was the fact that all Hellenes were about to ally themselves with one side or the other. Some would choose sides right away, while others were still thinking about it. {1.1.2} I say all this because, as it turned out, this thing that was set in motion was the biggest thing that had ever happened to the Hellenes and to a large part of the non-​Hellenic world –​you could say, to all humankind. {1.1.3} And here is why I say this. Although it was impossible, when it comes to the things that happened immediately before the war and the things that happened even earlier, to discover [heuriskein] things in a clear way, on account of the vast stretch of intervening time, I still think, on the basis of pieces of evidence [tekmēria] that I could trust as I looked as far back as I could, that none of those other things, whether it was war or anything else, was nearly as big. Thucydides 1.1.1–​1.1.3 [2]‌ Τὰ μὲν οὖν παλαιὰ τοιαῦτα ηὗρον, χαλεπὰ ὄντα παντὶ ἑξῆς τεκμηρίῳ πιστεῦσαι. So then, such things did I  discover [heuriskein] when it comes to the ancient times, and I grant that it is difficult to trust every piece of evidence [tekmērion] that I presented, one by one, in sequence. Thucydides 1.20.1 [3]‌ ἐκ δὲ τῶν εἰρημένων τεκμηρίων ὅμως τοιαῦτα ἄν τις νομίζων μάλιστα ἃ διῆλθον οὐχ ἁμαρτάνοι, καὶ οὔτε ὡς ποιηταὶ ὑμνήκασι περὶ αὐτῶν ἐπὶ τὸ μεῖζον κοσμοῦντες μᾶλλον πιστεύων, οὔτε ὡς λογογράφοι ξυνέθεσαν ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον, ὄντα ἀνεξέλεγκτα καὶ τὰ πολλὰ ὑπὸ χρόνου αὐτῶν ἀπίστως ἐπὶ τὸ μυθῶδες ἐκνενικηκότα, ηὑρῆσθαι δὲ ἡγησάμενος ἐκ τῶν ἐπιφανεστάτων σημείων ὡς παλαιὰ εἶναι ἀποχρώντως. Anyway, on the basis of the pieces of evidence [tekmēria] that I have just put into words, one would not go wrong in thinking of such things mostly the way I have gone through them, and in not putting more trust in the poets [poiētai] and the way they have sung such things by embellishing them to be bigger than they are, or in the writers of prose [logographoi] and the way they put such things together by aiming to get the attention of their listeners instead of aiming for the truth. Such things [as treated by the poets and the writers of prose] could not be thoroughly examined

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Different ways of saying historia 11 for their validity, since they have succeeded in reaching the status of myth, losing for the most part their credibility over time. But, as I say, one would not go wrong in thinking that such things have been discovered [heuriskein] sufficiently well [by me] on the basis of the clearest available pieces of evidence [sēmeia], considering how old such things are. Thucydides 1.21.1 If we compare these wordings of Thucydides with the corresponding wordings of Herodotus, we find that Herodotus likewise uses the verb heuriskein, “discover,” in collocation with the noun tekmērion, “piece of evidence,” or with the related verb tekmairesthai, “estimate [on the basis of evidence].” But the difference is, Herodotus uses these words in overt collocation with the two words avoided by Thucydides, historiā and historeîn: {2.43.1} … πολλά μοι καὶ ἄλλα τεκμήριά ἐστι τοῦτο οὕτω ἔχειν, ἐν δὲ καὶ τόδε, ὅτι … {2.44.2} … Ἐς λόγους δὲ ἐλθὼν τοῖσι ἱρεῦσι τοῦ θεοῦ εἰρόμην ὁκόσος χρόνος εἴη ἐξ οὗ σφι τὸ ἱρὸν ἵδρυται {2.44.3} εὗρον δὲ οὐδὲ τούτους τοῖσι Ἕλλησι συμφερομένους … {2.44.4} Ἀπικόμην δὲ καὶ ἐς Θάσον, ἐν τῇ εὗρον ἱρὸν Ἡρακλέος ὑπὸ Φοινίκων ἱδρυμένον, … {2.44.5} Τὰ μέν νυν ἱστορημένα δηλοῖ σαφέως … {2.43.1} … I  have many pieces of evidence [tekmēria] that this is the way it is, and among these pieces there is one that stands out, that … {2.44.2} … And then, getting into a conversation with the priests of the god, I  asked them how much time had elapsed since the sacred space had been founded … {2.44.3} And I found [heuriskein] that even these [priests] did not agree with the Hellenes … {2.44.4} And then I arrived in Thasos, where I found [heuriskein] a sacred space of Herakles that had been founded by the Phoenicians, … {2.44.5} So, the things that I have inquired [historeîn] about show clearly that … Herodotus 2.43.1, 2.44.2, 2.44.3, 2.44.4, 2.44.5 Here is another example: {1.56.1} ἱστορέων τοὺς ἂν Ἑλλήνων δυνατωτάτους ἐόντας προσκτήσαιτο φίλους. Ἱστορέων δὲ εὕρισκε … {1.57.1} … εἰ δὲ χρεόν ἐστι τεκμαιρόμενον λέγειν … {1.57.2} … εἰ τούτοισι τεκμαιρόμενον δεῖ λέγειν {1.56.1} [Croesus was] inquiring [historeîn] which of the Hellenes were the most powerful, so that he might acquire them as friends. And as he was inquiring [historeîn], he discovered [heuriskein] that … {1.57.1} … and if I need to say it by estimating [tekmairesthai] [on the basis of the evidence] … {1.57.2} … and if I need to say it by estimating [tekmairesthai] [on the basis of this evidence] … Herodotus 1.56.1, 1.57.1, 1.57.2

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12 Gregory Nagy So the infrastructure of the inquiries of Herodotus and Thucydides is expressed by the same wordings, even if Thucydides avoids applying the words historiē and historeîn to his actual mode of inquiry. Here, then, is my conclusion: just as the word logios can apply to Herodotus diachronically but not synchronically, so also the word historiā can apply to Thucydides diachronically but not synchronically.

Bibliography Asheri, D., A. Lloyd, and A. Corcella. 2007. A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–​IV. Edited by O. Murray and A. Moreno and translated by B. Graziosi et  al. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bakhtin, M. M. 1965. Tvorchestvo Fransua Rable i narodnaja kul’tura srednevekov’ja i Renessansa. Moscow: Chudozˆevennaja Literature. Published in 1984 as Rabelais and His World. Translated by H. Iswolsky with foreword by K. Pomorska and prologue by M. Holquist. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Kuryłowicz, J. 1945–​1949 [1966]. “La nature des procès dits ‘analogiques’.” Acta Linguistica 5: 15–​37. Reprinted in E. P. Hamp, M. Joos, F. W. Householder, and R. Austerlitz, eds. 1966. Readings in Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 158–​174. Luraghi, N. 2009. “The Importance of Being λόγιος.” Classical World 102: 439–​456. Nagy, G. 1990. Pindar’s Homer:  The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore, MD:  Johns Hopkins University Press. Available online at http://​nrs.harvard.edu/​ urn-​3:hul.ebook:CHS_​Nagy.Pindars_​Homer.1990. Accessed 18 August 2018. Nagy, G. 2011. “Diachrony and the Case of Aesop.” Classics@ 9:  Defense Mechanisms in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Classical Studies and Beyond. Available online at http://​nrs.harvard.edu/​urn-​3:hul.ebook:CHS_​Classicsat. Accessed 18 August 2018. Saussure, F. de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale. Critical edition 1972 by T. de Mauro. Paris: Payot. Saussure, F. de. 1966. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by W. Baskin. New York: McGraw-​Hill. Thomas, R. 2000. Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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2  Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus Deborah Boedeker

The Histories is a rich and challenging text, not least for the variety of its sources and contents.1 As Herodotus himself makes clear, his logoi are based on everything from hearsay to legend to propaganda to reports of participants to his own autopsy.2 He builds a meaningful narrative out of extremely disparate material that relies mainly (as the author indicates, and most but not all Herodoteans believe) on widespread oral sources.3 His achievement involves both skilled inquiry (historia) and a great deal of poiesis.4 Not only does he gather and select logoi to shape the structure of his narrative, but he also builds more subtle patterns of meaning through images, allusions, and associations. This chapter looks at one aspect of Herodotus’ artistry that helps to characterize some of his most powerful political actors and to suggest tendencies they have in common. The Histories’ main focus and raison d’être is of course the Persian Wars (Histories 1.1.0), a series of conflicts involving a few dozen Greek poleis and the Persian Empire between 499 and 479 BC E . Herodotus begins his work, however, not with the Ionian Greeks’ unsuccessful revolt in 499 B C E , but instead with a long description of the growth of the Persian Empire, starting more than half a century earlier and often looking back even farther. His account spotlights the Eastern kings who so intrigued Greeks, starting with Gyges of Lydia (ruled c.680–​c.645 BCE ) and his descendent Croesus (560–​546 B C E ), and ending with the Great Kings Darius (522–​ 486 B C E ) and Xerxes (486–​465 B C E ) of Persia. It is curious how often in the Histories an Eastern king (basileus) or other monarch is linked with a grand sight that he arranges to view himself, or sets up for others, or which less mighty folk present for him to see. I propose that Herodotus uses stories of spectacle-​making to convey, by poetic suggestion rather than explicit argument, some aspects of absolute rule. Frequently these incidents include the verb theaomai “view” (cf. English “theater”). In fact, of the 45 attestations of the verb, only eight are not clear instances either of a ruler (or his agent) viewing something, or of someone else viewing a spectacle explicitly arranged by a ruler –​and at least two of those eight (7.146.3 and 148.1) are borderline cases.

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14  Deborah Boedeker In addition to basileus, the wielder of power is usually called tyrannos (“sovereign,” a word borrowed from Lydian) or despotes (“master”). It is worth recalling that unlike their English derivatives “tyrant” and “despot,” these are not necessarily negative terms in the Histories. In general, Herodotus does show that power concentrated in a single person brings trouble, but he also has positive things to say about some who hold such power.5 Pisistratus, for example, who turned the factionalized Athenian polity into a tyranny headed by himself, is praised for ruling well and observing the established laws (1.59.6). Actually, Pisistratus became tyrant of Athens not once but three times between 561 BCE and his death in 527 B C E ; he was ousted twice but later regained power. The first time he seized control, significantly for our purposes, he did so according to Herodotus by staging a deceptive show: When the Athenians of the coast…and those of the plain … were engaged in political strife, [Pisistratus], who was aiming at tyrannis, raised up a third faction. Collecting supporters and claiming to head the Athenians of the hill country, he devised this scheme: wounding himself and his mules, he drove his wagon into the agora, as if he had escaped from enemies who wanted to kill him as he was driving into the countryside. He asked the demos to give him a bodyguard. … Deceived by this, the Athenian demos gave him a guard of chosen citizens. … These men revolted together with Pisistratus and took the Acropolis. Histories 1.59.3–​6 Pisistratus was driven out of Athens a few years later, but gained power a second time (556 BCE ) with an even more impressive spectacle: a grand reentry into the city: In the deme of Paiania there was a woman called Phye, almost six feet tall and very good-​looking. They [Pisistratus and his ally Megakles] dressed this woman in full armor and put her in a chariot, posing her to make the most impressive appearance, and then drove into the city. They sent heralds who ran ahead and proclaimed, as instructed, when they arrived in the city: “Athenians, welcome Pisistratus with good cheer. Athena herself honors him above all men and is bringing him back to her acropolis.” The heralds went along saying this, and soon the rumor spread to the demes that Athena was bringing Pisistratus back, while those in the city, believing the woman was the goddess herself, worshipped this human being and welcomed Pisistratus. Histories 1.60.4–​5 Herodotus pauses his narrative just before this incident to marvel at length that the Athenians, usually considered highly intelligent, were taken in by such a ridiculous trick (1.60.3). Religious historians have suggested that Pisistratus was evoking the traditional idea that the goddess was involved

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 15 with the protection and rule of her people, so that the spectacle was a mutually intelligible use of Athenian cult imagery rather than a trick.6 Historically speaking, this approach has great merit, but the point Herodotus makes here is that a mere show was instrumental in changing the political order in Athens. Herodotus’ Pisistratus had great success in manipulating “reality” for public consumption; he was not really attacked by partisans in his first coup, he was not really brought back to Athens by the goddess herself in the second. Thanks to the spectacles he staged, however, many Athenians “saw” and believed these things. And seeing is more powerful than hearing, as we have heard from an earlier tyrant who was soon to lose power because of a spectacle he staged: Candaules, ruler of Lydia. In the familiar story, Candaules fell in love with his own wife –​ the most beautiful woman in the world, according to him. To prove this point, since as he said “men trust their ears less than their eyes” (1.8.2), he forced his unwilling bodyguard Gyges to view the queen naked, without her knowledge or consent. Gyges protested, reminding his master that men should “look at what is their own” (1.8.4), but Candaules insisted that Gyges must see in order to believe, saying: I will bring you into our bedroom, and hide you behind the open door. After I have entered, my wife too will come to bed. A chair stands near the entrance of the room, on which she will put each piece of clothing as she removes it, and you will be able to view (theêsasthai) her at your leisure. Then, when she goes from the chair to the bed, turning her back on you, be careful she does not see you as you go out through the doorway. Histories 1.9.2–​3 This spectacle turned out quite badly for the king who staged it. The queen saw Gyges as he left the bedroom. The next day she confronted him and told him that, because he had seen what he should not, he must choose either to be killed himself, or to kill Candaules, marry her, and take over the kingship. Under duress, Gyges made his choice; that was the end of Candaules and the beginning of a new Lydian dynasty (1.11–​12). Candaules, tyrannos (the title Herodotus gives him) and despotes (this is how Gyges addresses him), overestimated his control of spectacle. He forced one person to view and another to be viewed, in an outrageous violation of Lydian norms (1.10.3, 11.3), all to show that he possessed the most beautiful wife. Gyges’ great-​great-​grandson Croesus, tyrannos of Lydia, made a spectacle not of his wife but of his wealth. His motives were perhaps not so different from those of his predecessor Candaules: Croesus wanted to be acknowledged the most fortunate of men by the Athenian sage Solon. (Solon’s visit to Croesus has long been questioned on chronological grounds,7 but the moral of the story is more important than its historicity.) A few days after Solon arrived, Croesus told his servants to show him the treasury. They pointed out the most remarkable items, then came the moment of truth:

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16  Deborah Boedeker After Solon had time to view (theêsamenon) and examine everything, Croesus said to him, “My Athenian guest, we have heard much about your wisdom and your travels, how as a lover of learning you have wandered much of the world for the sake of looking at it (theôriês); now I want to ask you whether you have yet seen someone who is the most fortunate of all.” He asked this question expecting that he was the most fortunate, but Solon, not flattering him but speaking the truth, said, “O King, it is Tellus of Athens.” Histories 1.30.2–3 Tellus was a well-​to-​do citizen with fine sons and grandsons, Solon explains, who died fighting so bravely in battle that he was buried with public honors. Croesus, astonished at Solon’s choice, ultimately sent him away as a fool. Like Candaules before him, the king had wanted to determine what another would see and to control his estimation of what he saw: the most beautiful woman, the most prosperous man. With Solon, this failed; only when Croesus was facing an ignominious death did he come to understand Solon’s perspective on human happiness (1.86). Herodotus later describes another prominent Athenian’s visit to Croesus –​ and to his treasury. The tale of Alcmaeon son of Megakles gives an amusing and disturbing version of where the Alcmaeonids’ “old money” came from. In thanks for a favor he had done, Alcmaeon was invited to visit the king in Sardis. When he got there, Croesus offered to give his guest as much gold as he could carry out of the treasury. Alcmaeon took full advantage of the opportunity: … he put on a large tunic, leaving a deep fold in it, and the widest boots he could find, then went into the treasury. … Falling upon a heap of gold-​dust, first he packed next to his legs as much gold as his boots would contain; then he filled the fold of his tunic with gold and strewed the dust in his hair, and took more of it into his mouth; when he came out of the treasury, barely dragging his heavy boots, he looked like anything but a human being, with his mouth crammed full and everything swollen. Croesus burst out laughing when he saw him (idonta), and gave him all the gold he already had and that much more again. Histories 6.125 These two stories of Croesus’ treasury are mirror images of each other. At each visit the Lydian dynast made a show of his spectacular wealth. Although Solon was not impressed, Alcmaeon seemed to share with Croesus the belief that money makes the man, but did so at the cost of making himself into a ludicrous subhuman sight for the tyrannos. Not only were Croesus’ quantitative values8 echoed by Alcmaeon’s greed for gold, but Croesus’ superiority in wealth and power –​not to mention dignity –​was confirmed when he saw

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 17 Alcmaeon attempt to get as much of it as he could. No wonder his visit amused the tyrant. If we turn to the two major dynasts in the Histories, the Persian kings Darius and Xerxes, we find that each is a master but also a dupe of spectacles. Darius evidently liked to view his domain; he also liked to mark his accomplishments with impressive memorials. As part of his imperial expansion, he led what Herodotus judged an ill-​conceived campaign against the nomadic Scythians north of the Black Sea. En route to Scythia, Darius sailed to a vantage point over the magnificent sea and the straits of Bosporus. It is possible to read an entire book of the Histories without once coming across the word theaomai,9 but in this passage the verb and its derivative axiotheêtos “worth viewing” occur four times in 30 lines: …there he sat on a headland and viewed (ethêeito) the Pontus, a sight worth viewing (axiotheêton). For it is the most wonderful sea of all. … [Herodotus here describes the size and shape of the sea.] After having viewed (etheêsato) the Pontus, Darius sailed back to the bridge … and when he had viewed (theêsamenos) the Bosporus also, he set up two pillars of white marble by it, engraving on the one in Assyrian and on the other in Greek characters the names of all the nations that were in his army: all the nations subject to him. Histories 4.85, 4.87.1 The king admires the view and leaves a conspicuous memorial there, the gleaming stelae whose bilingual inscriptions proclaim his power.10 After crossing into Europe, Darius comes to the Tearus river with its many springs, and orders another grandiose inscription: “From the headwaters of the river Tearus flows the best and finest water of all; and to them came, leading an army against the Scythians, the best and finest man of all, Darius son of Hystaspes, king of Persia and all the mainland” (4.91.1). At the next river, the Arteskos, he leaves behind another visible sign of his mighty presence: “… he pointed out a spot to the army, and told every man to put one stone there as he walked past it. After his army did this, he led it away, leaving behind huge piles of stones” (4.92). Herodotus emphasizes Darius’ affinity for magnificent sights; he views the sea, the straits, the rivers. He seems to appreciate vantage points that make him feel like lord of all he surveys –​exactly what he intends to become –​but he takes in all these spectacles on his journey to conquer Scythia, a goal he will never achieve. The grand views not only inspire in the king a spirit of admiration, but they also encourage him to equate himself or compete with wonders of nature, erecting spectacular monuments to his own power. Darius’ mastery of spectacle is somewhat ironized, therefore, and soon after the Scythian excursion he himself becomes the victim of a deceptive show. Although he failed to conquer Scythia, he did subdue parts of Thrace

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18  Deborah Boedeker on the north coast of the Hellespont. When he returned to Sardis, he “saw a thing” (prêgma toionde idomenon) that roused him to attack and relocate a Thracian community (5.12.1): There were two Paeonians, Pigres and Mantyes, who wanted to rule (tyranneuein) their countrymen. When Darius had crossed into Asia, they came to Sardis, bringing with them their sister, a tall and beautiful woman. After waiting for Darius to sit before the entrance to the Lydian city, they adorned their sister as best they could, and sent her to get water, with a jug on her head, leading a horse by the bridle and spinning flax at the same time. Darius noticed the woman as she passed by, for what she was doing was not Persian or Lydian, or the behavior of any Asian people. After noticing her, he ordered some of his guards to watch (phylaxai) what the woman would do with the horse. They followed her, and she went to the river, gave water to the horse, filled her jug with water, and went back the same way, carrying the water on her head, leading the horse with her arm, and turning her spindle. Histories 5.12 When Darius’ spies reported this, he asked the three siblings whether all Paeonian women were so industrious. The brothers assured him they were, thinking this would encourage the king to conquer their land and make them its governors, but their clever spectacle backfired. Much impressed by the show he and his guards witnessed, Darius ordered an attack on the Paeonians and deported them to his realm in Asia (5.13–​15). We hear no more about the would-​be tyrants. Some years later, Darius quelled the Ionian revolt, and later sent an expedition to mainland Greece to punish Athens for sending help to the Ionians. This incursion ended with a spectacle, but not one that the Great King controlled. At Marathon in 490 BC E , against all expectations the Athenians routed the Persian forces. Darius’ dead and defeated men (he was not there himself) were left on the battlefield. The Lacedaemonians could not join the Athenians in time for the battle, for they were celebrating a religious festival until the moon was full, but what happened when they arrived a few days later is described with artful understatement: After the full moon, two thousand Lacedaemonians went to Athens, hastening so much to reach it that they were in Attica the third day after leaving Sparta. Although they arrived too late for the battle, they wanted to view (theêsasthai) the Medes, so they went to Marathon and viewed them (etheêsanto). Then they left, praising the Athenians and their achievement. Histories 6.120 Here Darius’ mighty army becomes a passive spectacle for Greeks, whose ability to view them at leisure shows where the power now lies. To gaze on

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 19 someone at will signifies (or is assumed to signify) having power over that person, as we have seen ever since the tale of Candaules and his beautiful wife. The troops of Darius the great spectator lie helpless at Marathon under the gaze of their enemies; as we shall see, the outcome will be different when Xerxes displays the dead at Thermopylae. Xerxes apparently inherited his father’s affinity for spectacle. Theaomai and its cognates are used of Xerxes in the Histories far more than any other character: of the verb’s 45 attestations, 20 are linked to him. Xerxes himself “views” something (most often his troops) 13 times, and his spy at Thermopylae “views” the Spartan camp at Thermopylae (7.208.2, 3); spectacles arranged by Xerxes are viewed three times (or five, if we include the Greek spies whom he allowed to “view” Persian troops at Sardis [7.146.3 and 148.1]).11 In 480 BCE , Xerxes led his massive armada against Greece; Herodotus describes at length their trek by land and sea, and “viewing” plays a significant role. Just after “viewing” the haunted site of Troy (7.43.1–2 bis), while preparing to cross the Hellespont, Xerxes inspected his forces in a memorable scene: When they were at Abydos, Xerxes wanted to see his entire army. A lofty throne of white stone had been set up on a hill there for this purpose… at the king’s command. There he sat and looked down on the shore, viewing (thêeumenos) his army and his fleet; while he viewed them (ethêeito) he wanted to see the ships contend in a contest. They did so, and the Phoenicians of Sidon won; Xerxes was pleased with the race and with his expedition. Histories 7.44 But immediately, Herodotus tells us, “when he saw the whole Hellespont covered with ships, and all the shores and plains of Abydos full of men, Xerxes first declared himself blessed, and then wept.” Artabanus asked him about this sudden change of mood, and Xerxes replied, “I was moved to pity when I considered the brevity of human life, since not one of all this multitude of men will be alive a hundred years from now” (7.45–​46). David Konstan explained this strange reaction by arguing that Xerxes, or Herodotus’ Persians in general, measure things quantitatively –​how many men, how long a life –​ rather than qualitatively.12 I  would add that here Xerxes even takes on the stance of a spectator-​god, like Zeus, Apollo, or Athena looking down on the actions at Troy. Even his pity (which I find less self-​inclusive than Artabanus’) seems to separate him from the mortal multitude below.13 When he crossed over to Doriscus in Thrace, Xerxes decided to inspect his troops more carefully. He figured out how to estimate their numbers by packing his men 10,000 at a time into a huge corral; Herodotus tells us the total was 1.7  million infantrymen! In this way Xerxes asserted his control, and made his troops perceive it too, by turning them into a captive spectacle. Captives they had been shortly before as well, when Xerxes bridged the Hellespont, “yoking” Europe and Asia, in a famous Herodotean image,

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20  Deborah Boedeker and the king “viewed (ethêeito) his army crossing under the lash. Seven days and seven nights it took to cross, with no pause” (7.56). At Doriscus, Xerxes visited and interviewed his infantry, cavalry, and fleet (as does our narrator in his way, for a dozen pages: 7.60–​99), noting the great diversity of nations under his control, as seen especially by their native dress.14 He “viewed” and interviewed his land forces from a chariot (theêsasthai: 7.100.1), with scribes along to record the data; then he similarly “viewed” (ethêeito:  7.100.3) and interviewed the fleet, neatly lined up for the purpose, from a Sidonian ship.15 Soon the king becomes a spectator of the war itself, at the iconic battles of Thermopylae and Salamis. At Thermopylae, Xerxes watched the early stages of the battle as if he were at a gripping contest that turned deadly serious: “In these assaults it is said that the king, watching (thêeumonon), leapt up from his throne three times in fear for his army” (7.212). When at last all 300 Spartans were dead, along with their allies, he tried to manage how others would see the results of the battle. The Greek corpses he displayed; of the Persian casualties (numbering some 20,000 according to Herodotus), most were buried in trenches covered with leaves and dirt “so that the men of the fleet might not see them”; only about a thousand were left in view. Xerxes sent a herald to the Persian fleet at Histiaia to announce that the king invited any of his allies who wished “to leave his place and come to view (theêsasthai) how he fights those foolish men who thought they would overturn the king’s power” (8.24.2). Xerxes’ troops responded enthusiastically: Many wanted to view (theêsasthai) this. They crossed over and viewed (ethêeunto) the dead. … However, those who came did not fail to see what Xerxes had done with his own dead, for it was truly laughable: a thousand Persians corpses were visible, but the Greeks lay all piled up in the same place, four thousand of them. They spent that whole day in viewing (pros theên) … Histories 8.25 (cf. also 8.66.1) At Abydos, the tyrant had made his men give a show of naval competition. But in the sea battle at Salamis, Xerxes watched a real naval battle from a height near the shore while his scribes took notes on how well individual ships were fighting (8.90.4). Xerxes had correctly anticipated that his fleet would fight better than they had at Euboea if they knew the king was watching (theêsasthai, 8.69.2, cf. 8.86). But just as Darius was fooled when he saw the industrious Paeonian woman, and the Athenians when they watched Pisistratus riding in with Athena herself, Xerxes was also deceived when he became a spectator at someone else’s show. Xerxes was also fooled by one of his own commanders: the Greek Artemisia, widow and successor of the tyrant of Herodotus’ own Halicarnassus. When her husband died, she took over the rule of their city, which was subject to Persia, and spiritedly went to war for Xerxes. She proved herself a mistress of spectacles, thanks to quick thinking at a tense moment during the battle:

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 21 Artemisia’s ship was pursued by an Athenian ship. She could not escape … so she charged and rammed an allied [Persian] ship. … When the captain of the Athenian ship saw her ram a ship with a barbarian crew, he decided that Artemisia’s ship was either Hellenic or a deserter from the barbarians now fighting on their side, so he turned away to deal with others. Thus she escaped and was not killed, and it even turned out that the harm (kakon) she had done won her exceptional esteem from Xerxes. It is said that when the king was watching (thêeumenon) the battle, and saw her ship ram the other, one of his attendants said, “Master, do you see how well Artemisia contends in the contest and how she has sunk an enemy ship?” When he asked if the deed was truly Artemisia’s, they said it was, knowing well the marking of her ship, and they supposed that the ship she destroyed was an enemy. Histories 8.87.2–​88.2 The spectator-​king is misinformed about what he is seeing. Artemisia his vassal (and also a Greek and a woman) fools both her enemy the Athenian captain and her ally the Persian king, by quick-​witted management of how they will interpret what they see her doing. What Artemisia did was called “bad” or “harmful” (kakon), but another Greek female dynast was responsible for one of the most brutal spectacles in all of the Histories. The formidable Pheretime took over the rule of Cyrene after her son, Arkesilaus III, was exiled from Cyrene and later killed in an uprising by the people of nearby Barca (4.161–​165). To avenge him, Pheretime convinced the Persian governor of Egypt to lend her a huge army. After a siege of Barca, and a successful trick by the Persian general in charge, the city was taken, and Pheretime executed her revenge: When they were delivered to her by the Persians, Pheretime took the most guilty of the Barcaeans. She had the men impaled in a circle around the top of the city wall; the breasts of the women she cut off and placed at intervals around the wall in like manner. Histories 4.202 Even absent the verb theaomai, it is clear that Pheretime intended to make a gruesome public spectacle of her enemies. She not only punished but debased them for all to see. The men who had fought against her were attached bodily to the wall of the city they had tried to defend. The breasts of the enemy women, which certainly belonged out of public view, were similarly displayed. Pheretime succeeded in punishing her enemies and avenging her son, but her own horrific death (her body teeming with worms) is attributed by Herodotus, quite unusually, to divine punishment of excessively cruel vengeance (4.205). The very last event reported by Herodotus approaches Pheretime’s spectacularly cruel revenge; here too the visual impact of punishment is emphasized. After Xerxes’ army was driven from mainland Greece, Athens

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22  Deborah Boedeker led the charge against Sestos, a Persian stronghold on the European shore of the Hellespont. Its governor was the Persian Artayktes, who had committed grievous wrongs against the Greeks of the area, even offending their local god/​hero Protesilaus.16 The Athenians captured Sestos; Artayktes and his son were tracked down while trying to escape. At last Xanthippus, the Athenian general in charge of the operation (and father of Pericles), bowing to local pressure, arranged a cruel death for Artayktes: “They led Artayktes away to the headland where Xerxes had bridged the strait … and there they nailed him to boards and crucified him. His son they stoned to death before the eyes (en ophthalmoisi) of Artayktes” (9.120.4). At the very end of the Histories, it is no longer just kings or tyrants but Athenians who behave despotically, making an enemy die slowly in a prominent location while forced to view the brutal death of his own son. This grim use of public spectacle does not bode well for the Greeks who now lead the offensive against Xerxes’ forces.17 Is Athens becoming the next in a line of tyrants? There are many reasons to believe that Herodotus intends this episode and others to be an admonition for his contemporary audience.18 In Herodotus’ time, as is well known (cf., e.g., Thucydides 1.122.3), Athens was called by some a “tyrant city” (polis tyrannos) because of its autocratic control over other Greek states, in what had evolved into a veritable empire. It is time to step back from individual anecdotes and consider how Herodotus uses a multisided “spectacle” motif to help characterize wielders of autocratic power.19 I  focus on three perspectives. First, the grand sights that a ruler arranges for himself to see, like Darius viewing Scythia or Xerxes gazing at his massive army, suggest a mortal distancing himself in a lofty position, looking at the world as if it were under his purview. I mentioned earlier that this recalls the Olympian gods who from time to time watch the Trojan War in the Iliad. The tyrant is a spectator, appropriating natural phenomena or human subjects to bolster his own sense of grandiosity (Darius en route to Scythia), judgment (Xerxes at Salamis), or vindictiveness (Pheretime at Barca). For Herodotus’ Greek audience, this attitude betokens a dangerously hubristic perspective. Second, when a Herodotean tyrant arranges a spectacle for others, he is trying to manipulate how they will perceive reality. Such is the case with Candaules “proving” to Gyges that his wife is superlatively beautiful, or Croesus displaying his superlative prosperity. Herodotus likes to show such spectacles as unsuccessful (Xerxes’ attempt to hide the Persian bodies at Thermopylae didn’t fool anyone) or ludicrous (the usually clever Athenians were fooled by Pisistratus’ silly charade of Phye/​ Athena). Turning the suffering of one’s enemies into a spectacle for their own people, as does Pheretime at Barca, displays tyrannical power at its cruelest, turning the defeated enemy into a debased object of public view. Finally, when others arrange a spectacle to manipulate the tyrant’s perception, the despot is inevitably taken in by such a show (although not always with the result intended by

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 23 the spectacle-​producer), as Xerxes was by Artemisia at Salamis, or Darius by the ambitious Paeonian brothers. In its various refractions, the spectacle motif reflects the precarious nature of autocratic rule, by revealing that its aspirations to power, or confidence in it, are unrealistic. Viewing a spectacle or staging one might make that scene appear static, as in a freeze-​frame, or under control as if by a director’s iron hand. It turns out that no ruler can control all the factors that may skew that picture: we need only remember the wife of Candaules. Is Herodotus himself not something of a spectator? Among his important attributes, the historian is one who sees the world and comes to know it.20 Famously, he prides himself on things he has taken a good deal of trouble to see: “I went to the city of Elephantine to see it for myself (autoptes) …” (2.29); many more examples could be adduced.21 Metaphorically at least, he determines what his audience will see/​know of the past, by selecting and framing his narrative. Herodotus, however, distinguishes his role in seeing and showing from that of a despot. He presents himself as a curious and careful observer, sometimes humbled by what he sees. Interestingly, he uses the verb theaomai of his own activity only once, in perhaps the most emphatic instance of his insistence on autopsy: “This part of it I describe, having seen it myself, and having viewed (theêsamenoi:  2.148.5) it I  tell of it.” And what he was viewing? Nothing other than the great labyrinth made by the ancient Twelve Kings of Egypt to commemorate themselves (sphi mnêmosuna, 2.148.1). Herodotus could not resist being a spectator at this most spectacular of all Egyptian constructions. Even here, however, he is not a superior over-​seer, let alone a self-​serving framer of spectacles: that is a task he leaves for tyrants.

Notes 1 An admiring former colleague of Blaise Nagy at Holy Cross, I offer this contribution in celebration of his scholarly and pedagogical accomplishments and appreciation of his personal warmth. It pleases me, and I hope it will please Blaise too, that almost all the texts discussed here are among those selected for his recent Herodotus Reader, a volume that will most engagingly bring Herodotus’ tour de force to future generations of Greek students. (Most translations from Herodotus are based on Godley's Perseus version.) 2 See Dewald (1987) for multiple perspectives taken by the histor in his narrative. 3 For an important contrary view, see Fehling (1989), with the spirited attack of Pritchett (1993). 4 I have in mind the contrast between historia and poiesis in Aristotle’s famous discussion of why the latter is “more serious” than the former, Poetics 9.1451a-​b. 5 See Stahl (1983). Dewald (2003) has cogently analyzed more subtleties within the “despotic template.” I am less convinced by Waters’ conclusion (1971), based on a more empiricist reading of the Histories, that Herodotus portrays tyrants “objectively.” 6 See Connor (1987) 42–​47 and Blok (2000) 17–​19, 37–​48.

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24  Deborah Boedeker 7 Summary in Asheri et al. (2007) 98–​99, ad 1.29. 8 This distinction between Lydian Croesus and the Athenian Solon brings to mind Konstan’s demonstration (1987) of Persian quantitative versus Greek qualitative values in Herodotus; some Greeks, like Alcmaeon here, are exceptions. 9 Based on Powell (1977), theaomai is not attested in Histories 5, and appears three times or less in Books 2, 4, 6, and 9. 10 Darius’ monument recalls the equally aggrandizing stelae erected by Sesostris (Ramses II) of Egypt, on his own expedition that reached as far as Scythia (2.102–​103, 106). Some of these Herodotus himself says he saw himself (autos hôrôn: 2.106.1); others have also “viewed” (theêsamenôn) but misinterpreted them (2.106.5). 11 In addition to the passages discussed here, theaomai is used three times of Xerxes viewing the Peneios River and gorge (7.128.1, 2 and 130.3; see note 15 below). In a lucid paper, Grethlein (2009) discusses a number of the passages treated here from the perspective of Xerxes as a “historian,” in contrast to Herodotus (206–​213). 12 Konstan (1987) 64. 13 Homeric gods, too, can have pity for human mortality, cf. Zeus viewing his son Sarpedon (Iliad 16.431–​461). 14 Briant (1999) 117–​120 interprets the review at Doriscus as Xerxes’ inspection of his “parade army,” larger than the actual fighting army and deliberately much more diverse, to reflect the huge range of the Persian Empire. 15 The same ship would be used when Xerxes sailed to view (etheêsato, 7.128.2; cf. 128.1 and 130.3) the mouth of the Peneios River; it was the vessel Xerxes always used for such purposes, says Herodotus, who clearly presents the king as a dedicated inspector. 16 See Boedeker (1988). 17 Dewald (1997). 18 See, e.g., Raaflaub (1987). 19 I do not mean that the Herodotean tyrant is a simple character-​type of the “other.” Gray (1996) argues persuasively that Herodotus does not use a single template for his tyrants; Dewald (2003) notes that his Greek tyrants in particular embody the desires of many. 20 Of course, even the word historia, which Herodotus used to describe the process of his investigation, derives from the root [w]‌id-​, “see/​know.” 21 We might even suspect that Herodotus was taken in by one or two things his informants showed him: “I went to that spot [in Arabia] to learn about the flying snakes; when I  got there I  saw (eidon) more snake bones and backbones than I could count” (2.75).

Bibliography Asheri, David, Alan Lloyd, and Aldo Corcella. 2007. A Commentary on Herodotus Books I–​IV. Edited by Oswyn Murray and Alfonso Moreno. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Blok, Josine H. 2000. “Phye’s Procession: Culture, Politics and Peisistratid Rule.” In Heleen Sancisi-​Weerdenburg, ed., Peisistratus and the Tyranny:  A Reappraisal of the Evidence. Amsterdam: Brill Academic Publishers, 17–​48. Boedeker, Deborah, ed. 1987. Herodotus and the Invention of History (Arethusa 20). Boedeker, Deborah. 1988. “Protesilaos and the End of Herodotus’ Histories.” Classical Antiquity 7: 30–​48.

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Tyrants’ spectacles in Herodotus 25 Briant, Pierre. 1999. “The Achaemenid Empire.” In Kurt Raaflaub and Nathan Rosenstein, eds., War and Society in the Ancient and Medieval Worlds:  Asia, the Mediterranean, Europe, and Mesoamerica. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Connor, W. Robert. 1987. “Tribes, Festivals and Processions:  Civic Ceremonial and Political Manipulation in Archaic Greece.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 107: 40–​50. Crane, Gregory. 1996. The Blinded Eye:  Thucydides and the New Written Word. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. (See especially pp. 238–​241 on “gazing” in Herodotus and Thucydides.) Dewald, Carolyn J. 1987. “Narrative Surface and Authorial Voice in Herodotus’ Histories.” In Boedeker 1987: 147–​170. Dewald, Carolyn J. 1997. “Wanton Kings, Pickled Heroes, and Gnomic Founding Fathers: Strategies of Meaning at the End of Herodotus’s Histories.” In Deborah H. Roberts, Francis M. Dunn, and Don P. Fowler, eds., Classical Closure: Reading the End in Greek and Latin Literature. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press, 62–​82. Dewald, Carolyn J. 2003. “Form and Content: The Question of Tyranny in Herodotus.” In Kathryn A. Morgan, ed., Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and Its Discontents in Ancient Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press, 25–​58. Fehling, Detlev. 1989. Herodotus and His ‘Sources’: Citation, Invention and Narrative Art. Translated by J. G. Howie. Leeds: Francis Cairns. Gray, Vivienne. 1996. “Herodotus and Images of Tyranny: The Tyrants of Corinth.” American Journal of Philology 117: 361–​389. Grethlein, Jonas. 2009. “How Not to Do History: Xerxes in Herodotus’ Histories.” American Journal of Philology 130: 195–​218. Herington, John. 1991. “The Poem of Herodotus.” Arion (Third Series) 3.1: 5–​16. Konstan, David. 1987. “Persuasion, Greeks and Empire.” In Boedeker 1987: 59–​73. Pelling, Christopher. 2006. “Educating Croesus: Talking and Learning in Herodotus’ Lydian Logos.” Classical Antiquity 25: 141–​177. Powell, J. Enoch. 1977. A Lexicon to Herodotus. Hildesheim: Georg Olms. Pritchett, W. Kendrick. 1993. The Liar School of Herodotos. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben. Raaflaub, Kurt. 1987. “Herodotus, Political Thought, and the Meaning of History.” In Boedeker 1987: 221–​248. Stahl, Michael. 1983. “Tyrannis und das Problem der Macht. Die Geschichten Herodots über Kypselos und Periander von Korinth.” Hermes 111: 202–​220. Waters, Kenneth H. 1971. Herodotos on Tyrants and Despots: A Study in Objectivity. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.

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3 Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji about Herodotus’ fragmented narrative of the story of Miltiades1 Thomas R. Martin

Introduction This chapter compares the nature of Herodotus’ narrative in his Histories of the story of the Athenian general Miltiades (c.550–​489 B C E ) the son of Cimon with the distinctive method of narrative employed by Sima Qian (late second century/​early first century BC E ) in his Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), the first extended history of ancient China.2 This comparison is worthwhile because it helps illuminate one distinctive characteristic of Herodotus’ various styles of narration, namely, his sometimes using a fragmented narrative to tell complex stories. When Herodotus employs this approach, he breaks the story up into pieces, which are here called fragments, a term meant to emphasize, as in the case of preserved portions of lost works, how difficult it can be to understand the full implications of a historical narrative unless and until all its pieces are seen as a unit. Fragments in Herodotus are pieces of a story that is not related continuously from beginning to end in one section of his work. They are different elements of the story told separately in different sections of the Histories, and not necessarily in chronological order. One distinctive effect of this fragmented narrative is that it only gradually reveals the full meaning of a story, sometimes with surprising results, as is true in the case of the famous Miltiades. Born probably in the late 550s BCE , Miltiades reached the acme of his fame as the stalwart commander whose impassioned plea in support of freedom for Athens and Greece tipped the balance in the decision of the Athenians (and the Plataeans) to fight the Persians at the battle of Marathon in 490 B C E rather than surrender.3 On that day, these Greek allies won an unexpected and glorious victory over their numerically superior opponent; their astonishing achievement was ever after remembered as a shining moment in the history of Athens as a democratic city-​state, and indeed of Greece as a politically independent land. Miltiades’ enduring reputation as a hero of Greek freedom rested on this wonder that shocked the world. The later Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos summed up Miltiades’ renown as the man “who preserved freedom for Athens and the whole of Greece. … He had a noble name and the greatest reputation for military achievement” (Miltiades 6, 8).

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 27 A comparison of Herodotus’ narrative on Miltiades with the narrative technique of Sima Qian in his Shiji is pertinent in fully grasping the effectiveness of a fragmented narrative in impressing readers with, to echo Herodotus’ opening words, the often surprisingly “wondrous” aspects of human actions –​ especially the complexity of individuals’ motivations. The Shiji frequently breaks up the stories of individuals and events into what I am calling fragments that are related in different parts of the work and convey sometimes surprisingly different pieces of information about the person or topic. In short, a comparison between Herodotus and Sima Qian is valuable because, to paraphrase Claude Lévi-​Strauss in a different context, Sima Qian’s narrative is “good to think [with]” in trying to understand what I see as Herodotus’ technique of fragmented narrative.4 In particular, the method and the purpose of Sima Qian’s fragmentary approach to writing history in his Shiji suggests a perspective for understanding how and why Herodotus tells Miltiades’ history as a series of fragments distributed through his narrative, presenting diverse aspects of the story that his readers have to assemble into a whole to grasp the complete picture being sketched of Miltiades, above all concerning why he did what he did. Like Sima Qian, Herodotus expects –​indeed, requires –​his readers to do the work of piecing together fragments of a long and complex story to get at the truth or truths hidden away in its fragments, none of which by itself reveals the full spectrum of possible motivations and meanings encoded in the complete narrative when compiled and analyzed as a whole from beginning to end.

Sima Qian and the writing of history in ancient China To explain my comparison between these two historians’ approaches to narrative, neither of whom, to state the patently obvious, was aware of the other’s work, I  will begin with a survey of Sima Qian’s invention of a new method of writing history in ancient China. Simply put, Sima Qian used his work’s complicated narrative structure as a novel way to maintain and deepen the strong Chinese tradition of finding and expressing moral judgments in the study of history (Hardy 1999, 5–​13). Being able to establish the truth of history was crucially important in ancient Chinese civilization because the past was seen as the guide to morally correct action in the present. Because Sima Qian fragments the narrative of the Shiji by separating information about the same people and events into multiple sections of the work, sections that had explicitly different orientations, his readers have to take note of these diverse “fragments” and put the various passages together to reach a composite and thorough view of the moral implications of the pieces of a particular story seen as a whole.5 This was no easy task because Sima Qian’s new technique also set him apart in terms of the length of his work. His Chinese predecessors in writing history, especially Confucius, emphasize concision and compression of narrative.6 Sima Qian, by contrast, relies on expansion and

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28  Thomas R. Martin multiplication of his narrative in introducing the fragmentation of narrative as a main ­characteristic of the Shiji.7 Sima Qian lived from about 145 to about 86 B C E (Loewe in Hulsewé 1979, 11, n. 24).8 At the time of his birth, China had been a unified empire for only about 75 years.9 China’s long history of wars between the rulers of its many regions meant that the emperors were constantly worried about opposition to their rule, including opposition from scholars composing works of history that expressed implicit or even explicit criticism of the government. For this reason, the first emperor of China, Qin Shihuangdi, had ordered most works of history to be burned and more than 460 scholars to be put to death in 213 BC E. The emperor feared that these experts in history would use stories about rulers from the past to criticize him and undermine his regime.10 The turning point in Sima Qian’s life came in 110 B C E when his father, Sima Tan lay dying. Sima Tan had served as Eminent Grand Astrologer under Emperor Wu (ruled 141–​87 BCE ) of the Former Han dynasty.11 The Eminent Grand Astrologer had duties that focused, first, on recording the movements of the planets and stars and, second, on linking these celestial events both to events taking place on earth in the empire and to the results of divinations done for the emperor. The Eminent Grand Astrologer therefore learned a great deal about history in the course of doing his job, but he did not have the official duty of recording that knowledge in a full narrative of past events and persons. On his deathbed, Sima Qian’s father told his son to finish the work of history that he had planned to write. Writing history had not been part of the father’s duties as an imperial official, but it was evidently of crucial importance to him personally. Sima Qian’s father had intended to write a world history down to his own times, meaning the history of China and the “barbarian” peoples living on the borders of Chinese territory. When Sima Qian promised to obey his father’s command and complete this unprecedented project of history writing, he accepted a solemn duty because obedience and loyalty to parents were central values of Chinese civilization. Sima Qian kept his promise to his father and wrote his history, working on the massive Shiji for years and years. He wrote it as a private research project that he completed while performing his other duties in the same job that his father had held at court.12 The completed Shiji was an enormous book  –​some 526,500 words, three times longer than the Histories of Herodotus. Sima Qian knew that being a historian in ancient China was a risky business, and he concealed his work during his lifetime: “I placed one copy [of my history] in the Famous Mountain and another in the capital, to wait for the eyes of wise men and scholars of later ages” (Shiji 130). It was not until two generations later that Sima Qian’s history became well known, thanks to the efforts of his grandson (son of the daughter whom he had fathered before his castration, on which see later in this chapter). Once Sima Qian’s work was known, its potentially subversive nature became obvious: in 32 B C E the reigning emperor denied the request from the ruler of a small kingdom to

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 29 acquire a copy of the history written by Sima Qian. As Ban Gu reports (Han Shu 80), the emperor’s chief general had advised him that letting this potential rival read about rebellions, criticisms, and geography in Sima Qian would not be a good idea (Hardy 1999, 192). Ironically, in 99 BC E Sima Qian came to disaster not for writing history but rather on a charge of “speaking evil of his emperor.” The accusation arose when a friend was condemned to death by the emperor. The friend was Li Ling, who had served Emperor Wu as a successful general for years. In 99 B C E , however, General Li incurred the wrath of the emperor because, in an impossible military situation, he had surrendered to an army of the non-​Chinese people known as the Xiongnu (or Hsiung-​nu).13 Li Ling surrendered to prevent his troops from being killed. The emperor therefore accused General Li of betraying him and condemned the general to death. Sima Qian spoke up to defend his friend, reminding the emperor of Li’s loyal service and of the soldiers whom Li had preserved to fight again for the emperor. The emperor took extreme umbrage at this perceived disloyalty on the part of Sima Qian, who then faced suicide as his penalty. As Sima Qian himself explains, he could not kill himself because he had not yet finished the Shiji. His deep feeling of commitment to his father forced him to continue to live –​ by pleading for the emperor’s permission to undergo the alternate penalty of castration. In 98 B CE , the emperor granted Sima Qian’s request and had him castrated. It is impossible to exaggerate the shame and disgrace that Sima Qian felt as a result of his decision to live on as a eunuch so that he could continue to write history. In his autobiographical letter to Ren An, Sima Qian expresses with dramatic feeling the anguish he feels: Though a hundred generations pass, my defilement will only become greater. This is the thought that wrenches my bowels nine times each day. Sitting at home, I  am befuddled as though I  had lost something. I  go out, and then realize that I do not know where I am going. Each time I think of this shame, the sweat pours from my back and soaks my robe. I am now no more than a servant in the harem. How could I leave of my own accord and hide far away in some mountain cave? Therefore I follow along with the vulgar, floating and sinking, bobbing up and down with the times, sharing their delusion and madness. Ban Gu, Han Shu 62.2736 As he epigrammatically commented, he survived as “something left over from the saw and the knife” (Ban Gu, Han Shu 62.2727–​2728). Two years after the castration, the emperor restored Sima Qian to favor, of a sort, by giving him a position as palace secretary. For the rest of his life, Sima Qian worked at the emperor’s court, mutilated and, in his mind, hopelessly humiliated.14 Given this disastrous personal history, Sima Qian had every reason to agree with his predecessors in China that history was a powerful, even necessary

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30  Thomas R. Martin medium for expressing moral judgments. As he says, to study the past is “to provide a mirror for oneself ” (Shiji 18). Therefore, the Shiji should be understood “in the Confucian tradition of historiography, which assumed that the best historians would communicate their moral insights through the subtle ‘praise and blame’ (baobian) implicit in their narratives” (Hardy 1999, 115). Sometimes Sima Qian does also express moral judgments directly, but more often he employs indirect methods for including moral judgments in the Shiji.15 This goal underlies his fragmenting of narrative, which requires his readers to reassemble multiple fragments of the story of an individual or a topic if they want to discover for themselves the moral truths hidden in history. Sima Qian’s penchant for fragmentation in fact begins with the formal division of the Shiji into five different sections: “Basic Annals,” “Chronological Tables,” “Treatises,” “Hereditary Houses,” and “Biographies,” which together contain 130 chapters.16 The opening section, “Basic Annals,” reports in 12 chapters the stories of the ruling emperors and empresses from legendary times down through the Qin and early Han dynasties. Because this kind of overview of the dynasties provides the general context for all of Chinese history, this section fittingly opens the work. The second section, “Chronological Tables,” has ten chapters with short introductions followed by elaborate tables in grid form that relate events from different regions and reigns to chronological headings. These tables have complex graphic designs that change to reflect the complexity of the chronological and geographical information that Sima Qian is reporting. In simplest terms, the tables allow a reader to read in one direction to see what the developments were over time in a single state, while reading in the other direction reveals what was going on each year in the different states covered in the tables. This section of chronological tables comes immediately after the Basic Annals because it shows in concrete ways how time and space have to be interrelated for history to make sense. “Treatises,” the third section of the Shiji, contains eight chapters that discuss topics including the relationship of the gods to human beings, calendar reform, music and rituals, the management of rivers and canals, and the economy. These essays show how history is full of both large-​scale trends and changes, all of which, however, are caused by or have direct effects on individuals, in particular those in power. The fourth section is usually entitled “Hereditary Houses.” Most of its 30 chapters tell the stories of important families that hold official positions or other benefits that pass on from one generation to the next by inheritance. Because these powerful families, often called “feudal houses,” are constantly involved in the struggles for power among the competing regional states before the Qin dynasty unified China, they merit their own section, especially to illustrate the errors in character and conduct that lead to the moral decay, loss of power, and eventual disappearance of most of the once dominant families. A few chapters in this section are seemingly out of place because they concern individuals instead of families. It is possible that these unusual chapters appear in this section because, like the

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 31 longest-​lived of the hereditary houses, the individuals described had families and reputations that lasted until Sima Qian’s time. One such chapter (Shiji 47) is the famous biography of Confucius. What is certain about this chapter is that Sima Qian wants to stress the importance of Confucius as a moral guide. As the historian says in the autobiographical chapter appended to the end of his history, “Confucius created a standard for the empire and transmitted the guiding principles of the Six Arts to later generations” (Shiji 130).17 For Sima Qian, Confucius laid out a path for the future by compiling the history of the past, and in himself composing the Shiji Sima Qian sees himself as following in the master’s footsteps, especially by indirectly expressing moral judgments in his history writing.18 The Shiji’s final section of 70 chapters, “Biographies,” is the longest section of Sima Qian’s work, making up about a third of the whole. Most of the biographies record the lives of individuals, though some concern groups, such as the chapter on the history and customs of the “barbarian” Xiongnu, while some deal with types of people, such as “The Compassionate Officials,” “The Harsh Officials,” and “The Assassin-​Retainers.” The final chapter is, as previously mentioned, an autobiographical account of Sima Qian’s life. Because Chinese tradition taught that form carries meaning, the details of Sima Qian’s new form for history writing are deeply significant. Hardy (1999) in fact argues that Sima Qian creates the structure of the Shiji to reflect the macrocosmic structure of the universe on a microcosmic scale in his book, just as the first emperor had done with the elaborate design and ingenious devices of his famous tomb guarded by an army of terracotta soldiers (described by Sima Qian in Shiji 6). As Hardy (1999, 226) remarks, “The universe that Sima Qian creates is in fact a multiverse, one that allows the construal of myriad lines of cause and effect coursing through space and time.” In this context, it is interesting to compare what Carolyn Dewald (1998, xvi) says of Herodotus’ “narrative habits,” namely that “[Herodotus] constructs a huge road-​map of the known human world, past and present, in which everything is linked through story to everything else.” In these sections, Sima Qian often presents different information in different formats concerning the same people and the same events (Hearn 1980; Hardy 1999, 73–​85). These fragmented narratives do not produce a unified view of the motivations of the individuals involved in the events being described. Indeed, narrative in the Shiji can be so complex as to resemble the fragmented storytelling from different points of view found in Akira Kurosawa’s famous 1950 film Rashomon (Hardy 1999, 74). A simple example of this technique comes with the case of the imperial chancellor Zhou Bo (died 169 BCE). In Shiji ­chapter  56 in the section “Hereditary Houses,” readers of Sima Qian learn that Zhou Bo feigned illness so that he could resign his post out of shame that he could not, he believed, match the high level of competence of his predecessor Chen Ping (died 178 BCE). In c­ hapter 57 of the same section, however, Sima Qian reports that Zhou Bo resigned because he was afraid that his luck in unexpectedly having been

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32  Thomas R. Martin promoted to the chancellorship presaged disaster because such an extreme instance of good fortune would most likely bring ruin in turn. Sima Qian does not resolve this apparent contradiction in Zhou Bo’s action, leaving the reader to wonder about his character and motivation or motivations (Hardy 1999, 74–​75). The fragmentation of history in the Shiji can in fact reach epic proportions. For example, Sima Qian presents 13 different people giving 13 different explanations for Gaozu’s defeat of Xiang Yu in a battle that played a crucial role in the late-​third-​century BC E civil war that led to the firm establishment of the Han dynasty. Moreover, Sima Qian fragments the information about the rivalry between these two men into 25 nonconsecutive chapters of the Shiji (Hardy 1999, 44, 46). In the case of Wei Bao, a major figure in this same civil war, Sima Qian gives five different versions of his story in nine different chapters (Hardy 1999, 75–​79). With this technique of fragmentation, Sima Qian can present a story in a dizzying array of separated pieces. As a result, readers of the Shiji must reassemble these fragments into a unified narrative in their minds in order to grasp the whole picture and learn the lessons of history being revealed. And even when readers do reassemble the fragments into a single picture, clarity can remain elusive and the moral lessons complex because the story as a whole depicts people’s motivations as multifaceted and ambiguous. For example, in the case of Wei Bao, Sima Qian’s fragmented presentation suggests a variety of motives for Wei Bao’s actions as a rebel who keeps changing sides in the war. Sometimes Wei Bao seems motivated by calculations of political advantage, while at other times he seems motivated by emotion, specifically his hatred of Gaozu. He also seems motivated by his refusal to acknowledge the will of Heaven in determining a winner in the civil war, as well as by his lack of understanding of prophesy. And as if these multiple motivations were not sufficient, Wei Bao also seems motivated by a desire to be independent and therefore not be forced into a coalition with others, as well as by the sheer rebelliousness of his innate character (Hardy 1999, 79). The stories in the Shiji emphasize the actions of people whose memory Sima Qian wishes to preserve so that their wondrous deeds or ideas, good and bad, will be remembered and can serve as an indirect form of moral instruction. Sima Qian tells the individuals’ stories in detail and often with an emotional tone that can only be called passionate, emphasizing information that illustrates their personal moral strengths or weaknesses. However, in keeping with his fragmentary approach to historical narrative, he often omits details of their lives from the biographies, consigning such information to other sections of the Shiji. In any case, Sima Qian evidently believes that the decisions and fates of individual people are the major factor in history, or he would not devote so much space to them. His complex fragmentation of narrative is a fundamental component of his approach to revealing moral truths concealed in history, especially concerning the motivations of prominent individuals. It is no wonder, then, that he remarks that the writing of such biographical

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 33 stories is hard work, involving the historian in “doubt, danger, and choice” (Shiji 61).

Herodotus’ narrative method and the “digressions” in the Histories Comparison with the narrative approach that Sima Qian took in the Shiji suggests a useful way to think about Herodotus’ narrative techniques in the Histories and his goals as a historian. Herodotus, does not, of course, divide his work into specific sections with different titles, but, as the vast international scholarship on the Histories amply demonstrates, the Greek historian certainly employs a complex approach to the narrative of events and the judgment of the motivations of individuals.19 Sometimes this complexity has been mistaken for garrulousness, however. Indeed, it has been characterized as an alleged lack of method. The main evidence for this criticism is based on what have been called, in English-​language scholarship, Herodotus’ “digressions.” For example, Carolyn Dewald (in Waterfield 1998, xvii) judges that, “No matter where in his ongoing story Herodotus finds himself, he is always willing to pause to note interesting and astonishing phenomena that occur almost as afterthoughts, or parenthetical remarks only tangentially related to the topic in hand. Distracting and amusing details about Herodotus’ world emerge …” This criticism about alleged digressions is of course not universal. Indeed, more than half a century ago, Francis Godolphin (1942, xxi) remarked that, “It would be unfair to regard the digressions as blemishes …” The majority of recent scholars in English no longer criticize Herodotus on this score. See, for example, John Marincola (1996, xx), who observes that, “Few of these digressions are without importance…” Donald Lateiner (2005, xxv) states the case well:  “Herodotus speaks of additions and insertions in his work –​for example at 4.30, 7.5, 7.171, where they are usually mistranslated as ‘digressions’. … Only through presumption or inattentiveness would we assert that he did not control his materials or that he ‘could not resist a good story.’ ” In fact, Herodotus’ supplements properly understood contribute to the complexity and drive of his narrative rather than detract from it. Consider, for example, the passage in Histories 4.30 that Dewald (loc. cit.) cites as an example of the kind of “distracting and amusing details” that Herodotus includes in his “digressions.” Here, the historian tells a brief story about the region of Elis in Greece, where, he reports, it is impossible to breed mules (the hybrid, sterile offspring of a mare and a donkey). He expresses wonder at this story because, he remarks, there is no obvious natural reason, such as climate, to account for this odd situation. In describing why he includes this story, Herodotus explicitly says that providing prosthekai is part of his method in composing his work. The term prosthekai is more appropriately translated into English as “supplements” rather than as “digressions.” Moreover, Herodotus also says here that this particular story inspires “wonder” in him,

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34  Thomas R. Martin a status that makes this “supplement” worthy of inclusion according to the goal he announced at the very start of his work, namely to record the “great and wondrous deeds” done by Greeks and barbarians. Finally  –​this is the crucial point about such stories  –​he explains that his history, his logos, a term that of course implies his method, “has sought out supplements from the beginning.” In other words, the kind of stories that some modern critics have labeled as digressions Herodotus explicitly regards as “supplements.” Supplements do just what the name implies: they supply additional information that is necessary for a fuller understanding of the past, especially when events and persons are presented in a way that reflects the inevitably fragmented nature of history. It must be admitted that sometimes we today cannot adequately unpack the full meaning of each supplement to Herodotus’ narrative, but we should recognize that most likely this happens not because Herodotus is prattling on like a dotty old storyteller suffering from logorrhea who cannot resist adding an irrelevant if “amusing” detail, but because we as modern readers lack the necessary information or comprehension of the context(s) of a particular supplement. We should give Herodotus the benefit of the doubt as a subtle and conscientious narrator even when we cannot easily grasp the depth of his thought in a particular instance. Seen in this light, it becomes clear that one function of the supplements in Herodotus’ work is to place the responsibility on his audience to figure out what connections there are between the additional information in the supplements and the overall narrative that Herodotus is constructing. In this particular story at Histories 4.30, the connection comes from Herodotus’ remark that it is the people of Elis’ traditional belief that makes them certain that no mules can be bred in their land:  they believe that there is a curse in existence that prevents the conception of these hybrid animals within the borders of their region. Therefore, they always take their mares over the border from Elis into a neighboring region to mate them with donkeys. This behavior, then, inevitably means that indeed no mules are conceived in Elis, a fact that makes the core of the story true! What it seems the audience should understand from this particular supplement, then, is that people’s belief in supernatural power (of which a curse is one manifestation) can be so strong that it can become a reason that they are willing to make significant changes in the way they live their lives and arrange their activities (in this case, going to huge trouble to breed mules). That this is true is, in turn, relevant to understanding the main part of Herodotus’ history about the conflict between Greeks and Persians, especially in the context of understanding how and why the usually disunited Greeks could band together to oppose the Persian invaders. As Herodotus’ narrative makes clear at various separate points, people’s beliefs about the attitude and interactions of divinities in the Persian Wars played major roles in crucial life-​ and-​death decisions made during that conflict.

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 35

The fragments of the story of Miltiades in Herodotus With this background in mind, it is now possible to consider the nature of Herodotus’ narrative of the story of Miltiades. In terms of the structure of its narration, that story proceeds through a series of fragments that are distributed throughout the final two-​thirds of the Histories. I will go through the fragments of the story serially, in the order in which Herodotus presents them, to try to replicate the way in which his readers (or auditors, if they heard the whole work) would have experienced the fragments. Of course, Herodotus’ narrative frequently shifts among different chronological and geographical contexts, and his audience could in theory have skipped around in the work consulting different parts “out of order” if they were interested only in certain time periods or places, but, without a table of contents or an index to consult, that procedure would seem highly impractical, if not impossible. It makes the most sense to think that his original readers encountered the narrative as it stands, from beginning to end, and that this was indeed the way in which Herodotus assumed that they would usually experience his work. The first demonstration of the fragmentary nature of the story of Miltiades in the Histories is that the story actually begins before the Athenian general is even mentioned in the narrative. Of course, we (the notional readers) cannot know this until we have read much further into the Histories and have encountered subsequent, direct references to Miltiades himself. That is, once we have read further on, we then come to realize that earlier on we were in fact being told something the significance of which was not clear (to us) at the time. On a larger level, we are also implicitly being taught always to read to the very end before making any final evaluation of the truth of what happened in the past and what it might mean in terms of our moral judgments about people and events. When we do that further reading in the case of Miltiades, we realize that the deep background of his story in fact lies in Herodotus’ description of the Persian king Cambyses (ruled 530–​522 BCE ) on his deathbed telling a group of “eminent Persians” that they must overthrow the rule of the Medes so that Persians can live in freedom (3.65). Herodotus does not at this point give the names of these “eminent Persians.” Then, slightly further on in the narrative we first meet the individual from this group whose high position in Persia as inherited by his son will turn out to offer a crucial key to understanding the meaning(s) of the story of Miltiades. This “eminent Persian” is Hydarnes, one of the seven men who conspired to fulfill the instructions of Cambyses in 522 BC E and restore Persian freedom (3.70).20 How Hydarnes and his son matter to Miltiades’ story we the readers will learn only significantly later in the Histories. At this point in Herodotus’ narrative, we also have not yet learned much about the concept of Persian freedom, but we get more information when the now-​successful conspirators hold their famous “Constitutional Debate”

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36  Thomas R. Martin (3.80–​83). There, Darius (ruled 522–​486 BC E ) argues that Persian freedom comes from the rule of a king (3.82.5), and his opinion emerges as the winner in the debate. Herodotus, however, immediately complicates the emerging picture of Persian freedom by remarking that the Persian conspirator Otanes, who had spoken in favor of democracy in the debate, strikes a deal for his family not to be obliged to obey the king. For this reason, Herodotus says, the family of Otanes remains the only one in Persia that is free (3.83.3). If Otanes and his family retained their freedom, we are then provoked to puzzle over in what sense the other Persians are free or not free. Herodotus provides no immediate answer. What we do know from the Constitutional Debate and its outcome is that the king is the source of freedom –​and all other good things. The next fragment of the story brings the first explicit mention of Miltiades (4.137–​141). Significantly, he is introduced as “ruling as a tyrant over the Chersonesites of the Hellespont.” The Chersonesites are the Greeks and non-​ Greeks living on the European (western) peninsula flanking the Hellespont strait.21 Herodotus’ narrative of events at this point implies, though it does not specifically state, that a tyrant in this region could only stay in power and maintain the wealth that his rule provides him if he cooperates with  –​ or at least does not openly resist  –​the Persian King and his satraps in the northwestern sections of the empire. What we are shown is that “the Ionians” whom Darius had ordered to accompany and support his military campaign against the Scythians across the Danube (Ister) River are in fact the Greek tyrants from the Hellespont (meaning the land on the Asian side; apparently only Miltiades was from the European side), Ionia, and Aeolia who are present on the river commanding forces of warships. This revelation comes in the course of several narrative fragments that occur relatively close to one another:  Histories 4.89 and 97 refer only to “Ionians,” 4.98 first mentions “tyrants,” and then 4.137–​138 gives the names and locations of most of these rulers. Miltiades is introduced after the Scythian nomads have outpaced Darius on his retreat back to the bridge of boats over the Danube that is the Persians’ only escape route from the territory of their elusive enemies on the far side of the river. Reaching the crossing point first, the Scythians urge the assembled Greek tyrants to destroy Darius’ bridge and “go away rejoicing in being free!” (4.136) The date appears to be 513 BC E .22 In response to the barbarians’ directive, Miltiades tells his fellow tyrants to be persuaded by the Scythians and “liberate Ionia” (4.137). Interestingly, he does not add the Hellespontine Chersonese to Ionia as a target for liberation from Persian control. The tyrants gathered at the Danube awaiting Darius at first agree with Miltiades that they should do what the Scythians advise, but then Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, speaks up to say that destroying Darius’ power will result in the overthrow of the tyrants’ personal regimes because, if the Great King is out of the picture, the Greek city-​states will then choose democracies to replace their tyrannies. As a result, “all of them” (pantes) change their minds and agree with Histiaeus (4.137). Is Miltiades included in “all of them”? Some

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 37 translators evidently assume not. For example, George Rawlinson translates the word “everybody” (pantes) as “the other captains,” while David Grene translates it as “all the others.” Could their expansions of the literal “all of them” perhaps be influenced by Miltiades’ reputation as the hero of Marathon and thus as a champion of Greek freedom?23 It is true both that Miltiades’ name is not listed in the following paragraph (4.138) in which Herodotus lists those who voted, and also that in the next section (4.139) Herodotus refers to “those” (houtoi) who choose to accept Histiaeus’ advice to support Darius. So, perhaps Miltiades is not one of “all of them,” but interestingly Herodotus has nothing to say about what Miltiades does, or does not, do in the aftermath of the vote of “all of them” to remain loyal to Darius (and deceive the Scythians by only appearing to disable the bridge). There is no indication, for example, that Miltiades leaves his fellow tyrants at the riverbank in anger at their refusal to fight for freedom. Furthermore, Darius never takes any subsequent hostile action against Miltiades, which perhaps implies that the Athenian did not make any obvious or public effort at that time to oppose Darius or distinguish himself from the tyrants who decide to remain loyal to the Persian and not to take action against him in support of Greek freedom, despite what the Phoenicians thought who later captured Miltiades’ son (6.41, on which passage see later in this chapter). At the very least then, Herodotus in this passage leaves open the tantalizing question of where Miltiades stands in terms of balancing a commitment to the freedom of others against his own self-​interest as a ruler over others, including Greeks. Herodotus’ next fragment in his narration of the story of Miltiades goes back in time to describe the complicated background history of how the Athenian had originally acquired his tyranny in the Hellespontine Chersonese (6.34–​41).24 In the course of explaining this background, Herodotus explicitly tells his readers that his narrative is fragmented and that it is necessary to consider the disparate pieces of information to understand the truth of what happened, in this case who was culpable for the death of Cimon, Miltiades’ father. He does this by saying that the Peisistratids, tyrants of Athens, pretended that they were not responsible and then adding (6.39.1), “I will give more information elsewhere in my book.” He makes good on this promise to continue his discontinuous narrative when, considerably further on in 6.103, he narrates another fragment of the story that reports the details of Cimon’s death and the role of the sons of Peisistratus in arranging the murder. This background story belongs decades earlier than the episode of Darius and the bridge of boats spanning the Danube, reaching as far back as the history of Miltiades son of Cypselus, the uncle of Miltiades son of Cimon. The older Miltiades is the original family member who became a tyrant in the Hellespontine Chersonese, in his case in the 550s or 540s BCE at the invitation of the Thracian Dolonci.25 Herodotus reveals that the Peisistratids, tyrants in Athens, later send Miltiades the younger (the nephew), whom they had been treating well, in a warship to “take control of things in the Chersonese” after

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38  Thomas R. Martin his brother Stesagoras dies; Stesagoras had originally succeeded the elder Miltiades son of Cypselus (6.38–​39). Miltiades (the son of Cimon) secures his tyranny over the people of the Chersonese by treachery and force in about 515–​ 514 BC E .26 Some of those Greeks were originally Athenians, who had come to the Chersonese with the elder Miltiades (6.36). In other words, Miltiades the younger is forcibly ruling as a tyrant over not just Thracian barbarians (the Dolonci), who had invited his uncle to come to the Hellespontine Chersonese, but also over Greeks, including his fellow citizens of Athens, who previously had enjoyed political freedom and were unhappy to lose it.27 It is no surprise that, as Herodotus notes, Miltiades the son of Cimon as tyrant has to maintain a guard of five hundred armed mercenaries (6.39). The chronology of the rule of Miltiades son of Cimon as tyrant in the Chersonese is a notorious crux, especially the confusing report of a period he spends away from that territory in response to what Herodotus reports as a threat from the Scythians (6.40).28 Herodotus then returns in his narrative to the general chronological context in which he began the story of Miltiades son of Cimon, namely the events following the Persian suppression of the Ionian Revolt in the mid-​490s BCE . The historian comments, “At that time, having learned that the Phoenicians were on Tenedos, [Miltiades] filled five triremes with the possessions he had with him and sailed off to Athens” (6.41). The date is apparently 493 BC E . During this flight, the Phoenicians capture one of the ships, which was captained by Miltiades’ son Metiochus. The Phoenicians capture Metiochus and take him as a prize to Darius; they expect that the Persian king will reward them for their gift to him of the son of the man who had advised in favor of accepting the Scythians’ advice to the Ionians to take down the bridge of boats across the Danube and sail home, leaving Darius to die at the hands of the barbarians. To the great surprise of the Phoenicians, however, the Persian king treats Miltiades’ son as a valued guest, in fact almost as his own child. He gives Metiochus a house, property, and a Persian wife, by whom Metiochus fathers children who are raised not as Greeks but as Persians. Herodotus here says nothing about how the situation of his son affects Miltiades’ feelings toward or relations with the Persian king; the historian reports only that the father escapes the Phoenician attack and makes his way to Athens. It is difficult to believe, however, that Miltiades does not hear of his son’s royal treatment and ponder what it might mean that his child is being hosted so munificently by their ostensible foe. In other words, is it not possible that this silence gives Herodotus’ readers reason to think that Miltiades has reason to think that the Persian king is an enemy of a very interesting, perhaps unique kind, one who can be the source of freedom (in the Persian sense) and many other great benefits, including material ones, even to those who have opposed him? In any case, the next mention of Miltiades (6.103–​113) presents him in his most famous instantiation, as the valiant commander and defender of freedom at the battle of Marathon in 490 BCE .29 As mentioned earlier in this chapter, Herodotus here gives the promised additional fragment of information that

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 39 Miltiades’ father had been murdered by the sons of Peisistratus, adding as well that Miltiades had been in Athens at the time of the killing. Herodotus also reports that at the time of the Persian invasion Miltiades is now one of Athens’ generals (strategoi), having escaped death twice. The first escape had involved the Phoenicians who had taken Miltiades’ son to Darius: they had actually been intent on capturing Miltiades and taking him to the king. We now learn, in other words, that Miltiades’ son had been a substitute for his father, who had been the specific target of the Phoenician attack. This detail sheds yet another interesting ray of light on the king’s generous treatment of his son: would Miltiades, knowing that the Phoenicians had been expecting to capture him, wonder if perhaps the Persian king, by treating his son so well, was in fact sending a message about how he would treat the father if given the opportunity? The second escape from death comes when Miltiades’ political enemies prosecute him at Athens for his tyranny in the Chersonese. Details are lacking, but the prosecution may have been based on a law prohibiting Athenian citizens from becoming tyrants at home or abroad.30 Whatever the precise legal mechanism may have been for attacking Miltiades on a capital charge, the prosecution makes abundantly clear to Miltiades that Athens can be a dangerous place for a man accused of betraying freedom. Unfortunately, Herodotus does not report the arguments that lead to Miltiades’ acquittal in the trial. Clearly, they are persuasive, however, as he is then elected to serve as a general “by the Athenian demos” (6.104). After the Persians land at Marathon, the Athenian commanders cannot agree on what to do. The invaders vastly outnumber the defenders, as the Athenians’ request to the Spartans for military aid has not produced any timely response, and only the small city-​state of the Plataeans has sent soldiers who arrive in Attica in time to help the Athenians confront the much larger force of the enemy. Half of the Athenian commanders do not want to go to battle, arguing that their force is too small to do battle with the Persians facing them. Herodotus does not report what these leading Athenians think their city-​state should do, but they cannot have been unaware that, after suppressing the Ionian revolt, Mardonius as the agent of the Persian king had not very long ago replaced the tyrannies in the Ionian city-​states with democracies (6.43). Even though Eretria had just been “enslaved” (6.101) and the ex-​Athenian tyrant Hippias was accompanying the Persian invasion force of Attica (6.107), could these generals be hoping that it is not too late to do a deal with Darius through Datis and Artaphrenes, the Persian commanders (6.94), to negotiate a settlement that would save their lives and, perhaps, even allow them to keep their government?31 As readers will discover later on, this is just the kind of settlement that the Persians offer to the Athenians after sacking their city in 480 B C E  –​in fact, the offer includes not just the promise of freedom but also of control of more territory and the rebuilding of the burned sanctuaries in the city (8.136–​144, 9.6–​8). As the Constitutional Debate revealed to Herodotus’ readers, the Great King could, if he wanted, give “freedom” and

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40  Thomas R. Martin other good things to those who come to terms with him. Regardless of what we conclude about the historicity of that debate as presented by Herodotus, it makes sense to think that this sort of deal with the Persian king was a real possibility for Greeks at almost any time, and that Greek leaders –​including Athens’ generals at Marathon –​knew this to be true. For this reason, the even split among the Athenian commanders at Marathon over the decision whether to fight or not should be seen not as a clash between cowards and heroes but as the result of a sincere difference of opinion about national policy affecting the very survival of the community. The stakes for Athens were as high as they could get. At this dramatic moment of decision in the story, Herodotus reports in direct speech the impassioned words that Miltiades uses to persuade the tiebreaker among the commanders to vote to risk the fight (6.109). Miltiades’ vocabulary is vivid and stark: the stakes are enslavement or freedom for Athens; if the Persians win, they will turn the city-​state over to Hippias; if Athens survives, then it can become the “first of the Greek city-​states;” if the commanders do not vote to fight, then the population will be factionalized and end up “Medizing.” Miltiades ends his speech by again telling his wavering colleague that, by voting for battle, he can make “his fatherland free and his city-​state the first of those in Greece.” He thereby convinces this fellow commander to cast his deciding vote in favor of battle, the Athenians and Plataeans charge the enemy, and the Persians are defeated in a fierce struggle. The invaders then lift anchor and sail away, after a failed attempt to take the city through a naval attack on the harbor. In the afterglow of the great and unexpected victory at Marathon, Miltiades certainly appears to be the champion of Greek freedom, meaning in this case the communal political freedom that consists in not being ruled by others, especially by foreigners. By all appearances, at this stage in his life he is adamantly and publicly opposed to any cooperation with the Persian king, having in his speech to his colleague equated any such arrangement with “slavery” and having argued that rejecting submission to the Persians could bring Athens the status of being “first,” which clearly means being powerful and rich. The next fragment of the story of Miltiades the son of Cimon begins with Herodotus’ statement that the general becomes even more famous for his role in the victory for freedom from Persian “slavery” at Marathon (6.132). In fact, Miltiades becomes so wondrously famous that the Athenians vote to give him a fleet of 70 warships and the requisite funding to use as he desires –​ without requiring Miltiades to inform the assembly about where he plans to take this powerful and expensive offensive force, or whom he is going to attack! He only tells the Athenians that he will make them rich by taking them to a land where their ships could easily carry away a huge amount of gold. This is evidently reason enough for the assembly to authorize Miltiades to lead this secret mission. This truly astonishing fragment of information shows that Miltiades as the champion of freedom enjoys an unprecedented acme of influence at Athens. No one in the history of the city-​state had ever been

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 41 granted a personal navy to use as a weapon. But, of course, the fragment also reveals that Miltiades’ fleet is a weapon for acquisition, to be employed to take others’ wealth away from them. The clear implication is that the voters of the Athenian assembly love freedom for themselves, but they love gold more than they care about the freedom of others.32 Herodotus then proceeds to reveal the secret target of the champion of Greek freedom:  he says that Miltiades is planning to attack the Parians  –​ Greeks –​on the pretense that these islanders had sent warships to accompany the Persian fleet in the landing at Marathon (6.133).33 Whether this allegation was true we cannot determine, but, if it was, most likely the Parians had not been free agents in joining the Persians, as Herodotus has previously implied that the Persians had taken over Paros on their expedition across the Aegean on their way to Marathon (5.31, 6.95–​96). In any case, Herodotus explicitly states that in truth Miltiades is not going to attack Paros to punish the islanders for having supported the Persians, but rather to satisfy a personal grudge. Miltiades, Herodotus startlingly reveals, in reality only wants to use the attack to exact personal revenge because the Parian Lysagoras (not otherwise mentioned by Herodotus) had “spoken falsely about [Miltiades] to Hydarnes the Persian.” This nugget of information, then, at last links Miltiades directly to Hydarnes, the “eminent Persian,” whose mention far back in the Histories we now might begin to suspect represented the first fragment in the story of Miltiades. But the fragmented narrative is still puzzling at this point because Herodotus here says absolutely nothing more at this point about Hydarnes, or why Miltiades, after the battle of Marathon, is so angry at having been slandered to a Persian. Why the champion of Greek freedom cares about this, what moral truth is lurking beneath the surface in this history, we are left to wonder. The attack on Paros ends in disaster for Miltiades (6.134–​ 136). Not only does he not bring home any wealth seized from the islanders, he is seriously injured in the failed attack. And then he is prosecuted at Athens by Xanthippus, the father of Pericles, on the capital charge of “deceit, fraud” (apatē), which presumably refers to Miltiades’ failure to bring home the loot that he had promised the assembly. Too ill from his wound to speak in his own defense, he lies on a bed in the court during the trial while his friends remind the jurors of his role at Marathon and how he had once captured Lemnos for the Athenians, a fact that is only now revealed by Herodotus. The jury convicts him nevertheless, though he is spared the death penalty and only subjected to a (very large) fine. He dies soon after from the infection of his wound, leaving his son Cimon to pay the fine. This inglorious death certainly imparts a melancholy finish to the story of Miltiades, and the verdict says as much about the Athenians as it does about Miltiades: the jurors were punishing him for his “deception” in failing to enrich his countrymen. Just as the story of Miltiades in Herodotus’ fragmented narrative does not begin with the first explicit mention of him, dutiful readers discover, neither does his story end with the last mention of him. The next relevant fragment

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42  Thomas R. Martin in this story comes much later at 7.83, where we meet a second Hydarnes, son of Hydarnes; the father is the Hydarnes whom Herodotus mentioned previously as one of the “eminent Persians” who conspire to help Darius win back “freedom” for their countrymen from the Medes. Hydarnes the son is a Persian of very high rank and great proximity to Xerxes (ruled 486–​465 BC E ), Darius’ successor as Great King: he commands the Immortals (The Ten Thousand) in Xerxes’ army. Employing his fragmentary narrative technique, Herodotus had previously mentioned the Immortals without giving any hint who they were (7.31); only here does he make clear their importance. At this point, then, Herodotus’ readers are made aware that there is more than one Hydarnes in the narrative. Although Herodotus does not explicitly say so, it seems likely that the son is the Hydarnes to whom Miltiades believed Lysagoras the Parian had “spoken falsely” about him (6.133).34 In any case, what matters is that the son, like his father, is a Persian of the highest rank, as close to the Great King as anyone at court and wielding as much influence as anyone. Whether the Hydarnes mentioned at 6.133 is the son, as it seems to me, or the father, the fact is indisputable that the person with whom Lysagoras communicates and whose opinion about Miltiades is so important to Miltiades is definitely a person of great importance in the Persian Empire. This fact is made as clear as possible with the fragment of information about Hydarnes the son that Herodotus subsequently reveals (7.133–​137). In this passage, the Persian hosts a dinner at which are present the distinguished Spartan citizens Sperthias (or Sperchias) and Bulis. These representatives of Persia’s bitter enemy in Greece are on their way to the Persian capital to surrender themselves to Xerxes. They have agreed to make this journey of submission so that they can be executed as sacrifices to atone for the murder of Persian heralds at Sparta during the reign of King Darius. At the meal, Hydarnes asks these noble Spartans why they do not want to be friends (philoi) of the Persian king. They can, he tells them, see from his situation that the king knows how to reward “good men.” If they “give themselves to the king,” Hydarnes says, they can in fact expect to be granted “land from Greece” to rule. The Spartans then famously reply that Hydarnes would never say such a thing if he knew anything about freedom, as opposed to being a Persian “slave” (by which they mean anyone obligated to the king). Herodotus at this point does not report any other relevant details about this dinner conversation or give a precise chronology for the incident, only that the Spartans continue on to Xerxes’ court. There, even though the Spartans refuse to follow Persian custom and prostrate themselves before the king, Xerxes not only does not execute them, he speaks to them “with a greatness of heart” and tells them he is not like the Spartans. Whereas the Spartans had broken a rule known to all humanity –​“Do not murder heralds!” –​Xerxes explains that he is going to behave honorably, and that he is not going to let them atone for Sparta’s guilt by sacrificing themselves. In other words, like Darius before him, Xerxes proves spectacularly generous to enemies who have fallen into his hands.

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 43 Herodotus then proceeds to explain the divine punishment that is much later inflicted on Sparta, cosmic vengeance revealing that Xerxes is in the moral right and the Greeks are not. The retribution comes during the Peloponnesian War two generations later, when the Athenians execute without trial the sons of Sperthias and Bulis because these Spartans had been captured while on their way to the Persian king to ask for money and support for their city-​state in the war.35 To judge from this story, the moral clarity of Greek freedom versus Persian slavery seems to be more complicated than it first appeared: the Persian king preserves the Spartans who are at his mercy, but the free Athenians do not. In terms of understanding Herodotus’ fragmented presentation of the history of Miltiades, the most important point about the Spartans’ dinner with Hydarnes is that it at last allows readers to deduce why Miltiades had been so angry with Lysagoras the Parian for having “spoken falsely” about him to Hydarnes:  the famous Athenian general blamed Lysagoras for his having lost a chance to become an official friend of the Persian king through the intercession of Hydarnes (the son or the father). That status would have guaranteed Miltiades riches and power, specifically as a ruler over Greeks. This is a startling fragment of information because it reveals that the hero of Marathon and champion of Greek freedom against Persian slavery had been motivated by the desire to enrich himself by becoming a dependent of the Great King. Miltiades, of all people, had been furious about not having been able to barter away his freedom to become, in his own terminology, the “slave” of the Persian monarch! There is one more point to make about Herodotus’ fragmented presentation of the motivations of Miltiades as revealed through the Athenian’s (much-​ longed-​for) relationship with Hydarnes. At 7.215, Herodotus reports that it is Hydarnes who enthusiastically volunteers to accompany Ephialtes, the traitor who shows the Persians how to outflank the Greeks at Thermopylae. This additional fragment of information suggests that Hydarnes was a specialist at using Greeks to further his king’s interests. Finally, in his last appearance in the Histories (8.118–​119), Hydarnes is a figure in the story about the helmsman whose fate –​first rewarded, then executed –​illustrates how treacherously ambiguous the king’s favor could be. These additional fragments of information therefore suggest, on the assumption that the Hydarnes in question is the son of the elder Hydarnes, that Miltiades’ ambition to use Hydarnes to become an official friend of the Persian king and beneficiary of his royal munificence was misguided, even in the context of promoting what he believed to be his own personal interests. The king’s agent, Hydarnes, would, readers can guess, have been intent on finding a way to use Miltiades against his fellow Greeks in the interest of Xerxes, not of Miltiades. Furthermore, if Miltiades had not cooperated fully, or even been seen as not doing enough to promote the king’s goals, he might have found himself in the same boat, so to speak, as the unfortunate helmsman. By putting together all the fragments of Miltiades’s story, Herodotus’ readers learn, presumably to their bafflement,

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44  Thomas R. Martin that not only was the famous Athenian general not what he seemed as the champion of Greek freedom, he was not even the perceptive assessor of his own best prospects that he thought he was in working to become close to Hydarnes and a subject to the Great King of Persia.

Conclusions: The methods of Herodotus and Sima Qian My conclusion, then, is that Herodotus uses a fragmented narrative to show Miltiades was a contradictory, even deceptive figure: a tyrant over barbarians and Greeks, an inspiring fighter for Greek freedom at Marathon, and a would-​ be “friend” of the Persian king with aspirations to rule other Greeks (again). Whatever he truly was, he was no simple hero defending Greek liberty from Persian slavery whenever and wherever it was threatened. A moral evaluation of Miltiades has to take into account all the fragments of information about his career that Herodotus places throughout the Histories. This complicated representation of Miltiades and his motives is worth comparing, I believe, to the narrative complexity and apparent contradictions that scholars often point to in describing Sima Qian’s fragmentary presentation of people and events in the Shiji. As Grant Hardy (1999, 215) says, “One of the consequences of the Shiji’s fragmented form is that the narratives regularly describe the same event from different perspectives and that these overlapping accounts are not always consistent.” Moreover, “Sima seems intent on forcing readers to compare and evaluate explanations themselves, to become their own historians” (45). Hardy also remarks that the type of indeterminacy exhibited in the Shiji is also a feature of the past itself, which is notoriously complex and confusing. Although some Westerners might regard the Shiji as unfinished history  –​the next step would have been for Sima to work all his meticulously researched facts into a unified, coherent narrative –​I do not believe that Sima ever had such a goal. Rather, he wanted to represent accurately the world and its history in all its splendor and confusion. (51) These conclusions also fit Herodotus well, if one accepts that, like Sima Qian, he intends his narrative to be indirect and fragmented, at least in part. This is, however, not Hardy’s conclusion; he draws a distinction between Sima Qian and what he sees as the directness of Western history writing as done by Thucydides and Herodotus that would exclude this comparison (43–​47). The numerous citations from Hardy’s 1999 book on Sima Qian that appear in this essay clearly show how much I have learned from his important work, but on this point I  cannot agree. In his argument for seeing a major difference between the Shiji of Sima Qian and “classical Western histories” such as that of Herodotus, Hardy says that the format of Sima Qian’s history “breaks at least four critical requirements of traditional Western historical

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 45 representation” (44–​45). Furthermore, he contrasts Sima Qian’s work with Western historical writing on the grounds that, for historians working in the Western tradition: the past is replaced by the historian’s conception of it, and because historical accounts are so personal and specific, they tend to coexist uneasily. … Sima Qian has compiled a less determinative, more impersonal representation of the past, from which readers can construe a variety of interpretations and construct manifold lines of causation. The Shiji is, from a Western perspective, underdetermined, but such a configuration gives it a particular kind of usefulness. First, it affords a certain amount of safety for the author. Sima Qian had a direct and unpleasant experience with the limits to criticism in Emperor Wu’s court. By producing a history with little overt interpretation, Sima gained a degree of plausible deniability. (58) Moreover, Hardy asserts, “most Western histories [are] a transcript of the historian lecturing about what he or she has discovered” and “a representation of a personal reconstruction of the past.” The Shiji, by contrast: is a synopsis of the past itself, which like the actual past but to a lesser degree, is replete with inconsistent evidence and indeterminate meanings. At any point in the Shiji, readers must be prepared to infer connections and to exercise a certain amount of skepticism. These skills are not entirely foreign to Western reading, but they are called on in different degrees and oriented toward different objects. (61) Hardy also contrasts Sima Qian with Western historians on the issue of discerning and revealing moral patterns in history: It is clear from his personal comments that Sima Qian was concerned with accuracy, but the attraction of this ideal was not based on Western notions of objectivity. Sima believed that there were moral patterns embedded in the working of the cosmos and that a truly accurate history would reveal them. Nevertheless, the ideal historian is not a neutral observer but someone who is personally attuned to moral standards, that is, a sage. (59) Hardy then concludes that Sima’s format forces his readers to become their own historians. A reader of the Shiji is not in a position simply to accept or reject the judgments of the author. He or she is constrained to make connections and

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46  Thomas R. Martin interpretations, entering into a dialogue with the text, forming tentative hypotheses that may need to be revised upon reading alternate narratives in other chapters, and always keeping an eye open for possible contrasts and parallels. (59) There is not space here to discuss Hardy’s generalizations about “classical Western histories,” but it seems to me that the example of how Herodotus tells the story of Miltiades strongly suggests that there is something to learn from a comparison of narrative techniques of the Greek and of the Chinese historian, something that comes from discovering an overlap between them. Of course, the historiographical natures of their respective works are very far from identical. For one thing, Herodotus does not overtly divide his work into separate sections with ostensibly diverse focuses. I  do nevertheless believe that both authors chose to employ fragmentation of narrative as a provocation to their readers to discover moral judgments embedded in history, judgments that are full of baffling ambiguities and even apparent contradictions but, for all that, still remain essential to try to make. In Herodotus, for example, the repeated theme of the nature of freedom and slavery in the Greek versus the Persian world fits this paradigm, with the case of Miltiades implicitly revealing the contradiction between a great leader’s fighting for freedom as an ideal and his willingness to serve an emperor and dominate others for his personal benefit. In sum, I believe that both Herodotus and Sima Qian conceived of their histories as complete works from the beginning of their innovative projects, wholes that would express moral judgments about people and events through a fragmentary approach to the past.36 Certainly in composing their own works they both exploited diverse, even fragmented oral traditions and perhaps also earlier monographic projects or chronicles, but I do not believe that the fragmentary natures of their narratives result from using nonunitary sources, or from any inability to synthesize large quantities of evidence, or from any loss of focus on their task –​they do not “nod.” I think that they are in control of their projects from the beginning, in the sense of having a vision of what they want to do in writing history. I conclude that they both want to show that the past and human character as revealed in it are themselves fragmentary –​or at least that we can only grasp their meanings in a fragmentary fashion –​and that our moral judgments about people and events must be formed with that understanding in mind. Why these two different historians in different times and different parts of the world adopt similar approaches to narrating the past remains a challenging question. Why do they both create a fragmentary narrative structure when they are changing the nature of history writing in their very different civilizations?37 Why do they adopt an indirect method to express at least part of the moral judgments to be drawn from history? At a general level of explanation, I  believe that both Herodotus and Sima Qian make their histories fragmentary because they believe that this fragmentation represents the

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 47 past more honestly and makes history more useful in expressing complicated moral judgments about human motivation. This method does not make history easier to comprehend, or clearer in providing guidance for our own moral choices. Herodotus and Sima Qian believe, I speculate, that doing the work of reading fragmentary history carefully and thoughtfully can change people and therefore can change the world, and change it for the better. But the work is hard to do. Above all, doing that work requires us to follow the famous judgment that Herodotus has the Athenian sage Solon express to the Lydian king Croesus: “It is necessary to watch for the end of every thing, [to scout out] in what way it will turn out” (1.32.9). Miltiades is Herodotus’ poster boy, so to speak, for the truth of Solon’s dictum on thinking about the past and the complicated reasons why people do what they do, especially when doing this thinking while reading the Histories. Miltiades’ story shows that studying history as Herodotus presents it –​like Sima Qian, through a series of fragments of information whose relationships are only fully revealed after they have all been recognized and analyzed, if then  –​demands that readers read to the very end before making their evaluations of people and events. In this way, Herodotus reveals, Solon’s observation pertains just as much to the past as to the present and to the future.

Notes 1 It is a great pleasure to dedicate this chapter to Blaise Nagy. As scholar, teacher, colleague, and friend he is second to none, and both his scholarship and his conversation on Herodotus have been inspirations to me. I am grateful to the editors and the anonymous referees for their insightful critiques and recommendations. I  am deeply indebted to Ivy Sui-​yuen Sun for translation and discussion of the Shiji. Any errors that remain are my responsibility. 2 Records of the Grand Historian is the title used by Burton Watson (1993) in what remains the largest available selection in English translation of sections from the Shiji. Among recent scholars, Grant Hardy (1999, xvi) uses “Records of the Scribes,” while Stephen Durrant (1995, xi) has “Records of the Historian.” Sima Qian apparently originally gave his work the title of The Book of the Eminent Grand Astrologer. Ssu-​ma Ch’ien is the spelling of the historian’s name in the Wade-​Giles system of transliteration, now replaced by the Pinyin system, in which his name is rendered as Sima Qian. 3 He is no. 10212 Miltiades (IV) in Davies (1971); see pp. 301–​302 (under the entry on his son, Cimon) concerning the uncertain chronology of Miltiades’ life. 4 Lévi-​Strauss (1963) 89 was explaining why human beings identified animal species as their totems, legendary ancestors whose characteristics their descendants believed that they had inherited and that helped shape and give meaning to their lives; the animals were “good to think [with].” For a sample of the variety of approaches that scholars have taken in comparing Herodotus and Sima Qian, see, for example, Hardy (1999), Kim (2009), Lloyd (2002), Martin (2009), Průšek (1970), Schaberg (1999), Schwartz (1996), Shankman and Durrant (2000, 2002), Sinaiko (1998), Stuurman (2008), Teng (1961), and Yu (2001, 30–​31).

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48  Thomas R. Martin 5 In my observations on the “fragmented” nature of the history of Sima Qian, I owe a great deal to the scholarship of Stephen Durrant and Grant Hardy. The idea of “fragmentation” as a characteristic of Sima Qian’s work in particular and of Chinese culture in general has long been discussed, with different terms and judgments applied to the phenomenon. See, for example, Watson (1958) 151; Durrant (1995) 123–​143, with the bibliography discussed in notes 2 and 3 on pp. 191–​192; Hardy (1999) 82–​87 and s.v. “fragmented nature of ” in his index on p. 297. Hall and Ames (1987, passim) provide a nuanced interpretation of Chinese philosophical thinking in terms of immanence and ambiguity that seems to me worth considering in the context of the general topic of “fragmentation” as a way of seeing and interpreting the concrete reality of the world and especially of the past. 6 See, for example, Durrant (1995) 47–​69; Hardy (1999) 55; and Schaberg (2001) 315–​324). 7 See Allen (1981) for an excellent introduction to Sima Qian’s overall narrative approach. 8 We know about Sima Qian’s life from two autobiographical documents, Shiji 130 and the “Letter to Ren An” (Ban Gu, Han Shu 62); cf. Durrant (1986) and (1995) 1–​2. They are conveniently grouped, in English translation with a brief introduction, in Watson (1958) 40–​69. 9 For a narrative of the formation of the first empire in China, see Twitchett and Loewe (1986). 10 Shiji 6. See Bodde (1938) 162–​166. 11 On the title, see Hardy (1999) 220, n.  8, citing Hucker (1985). Eminent Grand Astrologer can also be translated as Prefect Grand Astrologer, or under the Han dynasty, as Duke Grand Astrologer or Gentleman Grand Astrologer. 12 It is not certain how much Sima Tan had written before his death, but it seems clear that Sima Qian wrote, if not all, then almost all of the extant Shiji. 13 Emperor Wu accepted no failures in dealing with the Xiongnu because the threat of attack from and the promise of trade with these barbarians created the greatest challenges in foreign policy for Han emperors; see Yü (1967). The famous Great Wall of China had been built to try to keep the Xiongnu out of China; see Loewe in Hulsewé (1979) 50–​51 on Han foreign policy toward these barbarians, and Raschke (1978) 612–​622 on the empire of the Xiongnu. 14 Sima Qian had fathered a daughter before his castration, but apparently he had no son to carry on his family line (Ban Gu, Han shu 62.2733, 2737). 15 For examples of his directly expressed judgments, see the excerpts from the Shiji translated by Watson (1958) 190–​193. Sima Qian (Shiji 130) claims that in his history he was praising Emperor Wu as an “enlightened sage,” not criticizing him. Scholars regard this claim as disingenuous; see, for example, Durrant (1995) 159, n. 35. Sima Qian was the master of indirect criticism, and there are many stories in the Shiji that can be taken as indirectly expressed negative moral reflections on Emperor Wu’s reign. See Hardy (1999) 189–​192. 16 For more detailed information and alternate translations for the titles of the five sections, see Watson (1958) 101–​134; Durrant (1995) xix–​xx; and Hardy (1999) 29–​41. 17 The title Six Arts refers to the canon of ancient texts that by the Han dynasty were regarded as the foundation of a proper education. 18 Durrant (1995) discusses in insightful detail Sima Qian’s attitude toward Confucius and his teachings.

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 49 19 Comprehensive citation of scholarship on the historiography and narrative techniques of Herodotus is of course impossible. Insightful discussions with references to the earlier work of other scholars can be found in, to list only a tiny selection in English, Baragwanath (2008), Dewald (1998), Dewald and Marincola (2006), Godolphin (1942), Powell (1939), Lateiner (1989, 2004), Marincola (1996), Waters (1985), and Waterfield (1998). 20 At 3.65.1 Herodotus refers to the unnamed Persians as logimotatoi, while at 3.70 the conspirators are called protoi, but I  think it is reasonable to see these descriptions as equivalent, as is implied, for example, by Robin Waterfield’s translation “eminent” for both these adjectives in these passages. 21 On “the inhabitants of the Chersonese,” see Scott (2005) 176. 22 For this date, see Archibald (1998) 79; Scott (2005) 178. The precise chronology of the events of Miltiades’ early career is often unclear and controversial. Fortunately, chronological precision is not necessary for present purposes. 23 Some scholars assume that it was a later invention that Miltiades had advised the tyrants to act to liberate the Ionians. See, for example, Corcella and Medaglia (2001) 329–​330; Dewald (in Waterfield [1998]) 657. 24 For extensive commentary on this passage and others in Book 6, see Scott (2005). 25 He is no. 10209 Miltiades (III) in Davies (1971); for the date, see p. 299 (under the entry for Cimon, son of Miltiades), and Scott (2005) 166. On Miltiades (III) and the Dolonci, see Malkin (1987) 77–​78, 190–​193. 26 For the date, see Scott (2005) 177. 27 Cf. Scott (2005) 179. 28 On this section, see appendix 10 in Scott (2005) 522–​532. Cf. Marincola (1996) 584, n. 17. 29 See Billows (2010) and Krentz (2010) for extensive reconsiderations of the circumstances of the battle. 30 [Aristotle] Athenaion Politeia. 16.10; Antiphon 5. For discussion, see Scott (2005) 362–​367. 31 As before in the case of Metiochus, Miltiades’ son, Darius is again merciful to his Greek enemies when his generals bring back the “enslaved” Eretrians to Susa; he puts aside his anger at them and settles them on his own land, where they live, speaking Greek, in Herodotus’ day (6.119). 32 See Balot (2001) 122–​125 on greed and this decision of the Athenian assembly. 33 On the Paros expedition, see Hamel (1998) Appendix 3, 168–​171; Scott (2005) 431–​454 and Appendix 18, 630–​647. 34 See, for example, Marincola (1996) 758, s.v. Hydarnes and Dewald (1998) 691. Scott (2005, 434–​435) says it could be either Hydarnes. Rawlinson (1889, Vol. 3, 425, n.  3)  says that “[t]‌he Hydarnes meant is probably the conspirator (supra, iii.70), as no other has yet been mentioned.” It is of course part of my argument that the opposite is more likely to be the case: that the Hydarnes in question here has not yet appeared in the narrative would fit very well with Herodotus’ fragmentary approach to narrative. 35 This episode takes place in 430 BC E (Thucydides 2.67). It is fascinating and mysterious that Herodotus says that he is “not able to say” (7.133) what happens at Athens as divine punishment for their sacrilegious homicide. Pausanias (3.12.7) in fact tells us what happened: retribution falls on the family of the person responsible for the Persian heralds being killed in Athenian territory. That person is none other than Miltiades! It seems hard to believe that Miltiades would be further

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50  Thomas R. Martin entangled in this story in this crucial fashion without Herodotus’ knowing about it. Given that Herodotus most likely finished and “published” the Histories during the first half of the Peloponnesian War, does Herodotus in fact expect his audience to know this salient fact about Miltiades that he is “not able” to tell them? Or is this story reported by Pausanias in fact a post-​Herodotean invention to explain the sad end to Miltiades’ life and of the life of his son Cimon, who is exiled for failure and then dies in a failed military expedition? 36 The “unity” of Herodotus is of course a controversial topic. See, for example, Cagnazzi (1975), Lateiner (1989), and Waters (1985). 37 I think there is also an interesting correspondence to be found in a comparison of the concept of tisis in Herodotus and the concept of the “will of Heaven” in Sima Qian; the latter concept lies behind the cycle of political decay and moral rebirth described in the dynastic sections of the Shiji.

Bibliography Allen, Joseph Roe III. 1981. “An Introductory Study of Narrative Structure in the Shiji.” Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR) 3: 31–​66. Archibald, Zofia. 1998. The Odrysian Kingdom of Thrace:  Orpheus Unmasked. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Balot, Ryan. 2001. Greed and Injustice in Classical Athens. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Baragwanath, Emily. 2008. Motivation and Narration in Herodotus. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Billows, Richard A. 2010. Marathon: How One Battle Changed Western Civilization. New York: Overlook Duckworth. Bodde, Derk. 1938. China’s First Unifier: A Study of the Ch’in Dynasty as Seen in the Life of Li Ssu (280?–​208 B.C.). Leiden: Brill. Cagnazzi, Silvana. 1975. “Tavola dei 28 Logoi di Erodoto.” Hermes 103:  385–​423; revised as “Hoi 28 logoi tou ergou tou Herodotou.” In Alexandra Melista and Gabriella Soteropoulou, eds., 2004. Istorie:  Dekatessera melethemata gia ton Herodoto. Athens: Smile, 97–​150. Corcella, Aldo and Medaglia, Silvio M., eds. 2001. Erodoto, Le Storie, Libro IV: La Scizia e la Libia. 3rd ed. Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla. Davies, John K. 1971. Athenian Propertied Families 600–​300 B.C. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Dewald, Carolyn. 1998. “Introduction.” In Robin Waterfield, trans., Herodotus: The Histories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, ix–​li. Dewald, Carolyn and Marincola, John, eds. 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Durrant, Stephen. 1986. “Self as the Intersection of Traditions: The Autobiographical Writings of Ssu-​ma Ch’ien.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106: 33–​40. Durrant, Stephen. 1995. The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian. Albany: State University of New York Press. Godolphin, Francis R. B., ed. 1942. “Introduction.” In George Rawlinson, trans., The Persian Wars by Herodotus. New York: Random House, vii–​xxii. Grene, David, trans. 1987. Herodotus:  The History. Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.

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Thinking with Sima Qian’s Shiji 51 Hall, David and Ames, Roger. 1987. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany:  State University of New York Press. Hamel, Debra. 1998. Athenian Generals:  Military Authority in the Classical Period. Leiden: Brill. Hardy, Grant. 1999. Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo: Sima Qian’s Conquest of History. New York: Columbia University Press. Hearn, Maxwell. 1980. “The Terracotta Army of the First Emperor of Qin (221–​206 B.C.).” In Wen Fong, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China: An Exhibition from the People’s Republic of China. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 334–​373. Hucker, Charles O. 1985. A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Hulsewé, Anthony F. P. 1979. China in Central Asia. The Early Stage: 125 B.C.–​A.D. 23. An annotated translation of ­chapters 61 and 96 of The History of the Former Han Dynasty, with an introduction by M. A. N. Loewe. Leiden: Brill. Kim, Hyun Jin. 2009. Ethnicity and Foreigners in Ancient Greece and China. London: Duckworth. Krentz, Peter. 2010. The Battle of Marathon. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Lateiner, Donald. 1989. The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Lateiner, Donald. 2005. “Introduction.” In George Macaulay, trans., Herodotus: The Histories. New York: Barnes & Noble, xv–​xxxii. Lévi-​ Strauss, Claude. 1963. Totemism. Translated by Rodney Needham. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Lloyd, G. E. R. 2002. The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malkin, Irad. 1987. Religion and Colonization in Ancient Greece. Leiden: Brill. Marincola, John. 1996. “Introduction.” In Aubrey de Sélincourt, trans., Herodotus: The Histories. New edition. London: Penguin Books, ix–​xlvi. Martin, Thomas R. 2009. Herodotus and Sima Qian:  The First Great Historians of Greece and China. A Brief History with Documents. Boston, MA: Bedford Books. Powell, J. Enoch. 1939. The History of Herodotus. Cambridge: University Press. Průšek, Jaroslav. 1970. “History and Epics in China and the West.” In Chinese History and Literature: A Collection of Studies. Dordrecht: Reidel, 17–​34. Raschke, Manfred G. 1978. “New Studies in Roman Commerce with the East.” In Hildegard Temporini, ed., Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2.9.2. Berlin: De Gruyter, 604–​1378. Rawlinson, George, trans. 1889. The History of Herodotus. 4  vols. New  York:  D. Appleton. Schaberg, David. 1999. “Travel, Geography, and the Imperial Imagination in Fifth-​ Century Athens and Han China.” Comparative Literature 51: 152–​191. Schaberg, David. 2001. A Patterned Past. Form and Thought in Early Chinese Historiography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schwartz, Benjamin. 1996. “History in Chinese Culture:  Some Comparative Reflections.” History and Theory 35: 23–​33. Scott, Lionel. 2005. Historical Commentary on Herodotus Book 6. Leiden: Brill. Shankman, Steven and Durrant, Stephen. 2000. The Siren and The Sage. Knowledge and Wisdom in Ancient Greece and China. London: Cassell. Shankman, Steven and Durrant, Stephen. 2002. Early China /Ancient Greece: Thinking Through Comparisons. Albany: State University of New York Press.

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52  Thomas R. Martin Sinaiko, Herman L. 1998. Reclaiming the Canon:  Essays on Philosophy, Poetry, and History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Stuurman, Siep. 2008. “Herodotus and Sima Qian: History and the Anthropological Turn in Ancient Greece and Han China.” Journal of World History 19: 1–​40. Teng, Ssu-​yü. 1961. “Herodotus and Ssu-​ma Ch’ien: Two Fathers of History.” East and West 12: 233–​240. Twitchett, Denis, and Loewe, Michael, eds. 1986. The Cambridge History of China. Volume I. The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.–​A.D. 220. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waterfield, Robin, trans. 1998. Herodotus. The Histories. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waters, Kenneth H. 1985. Herodotus the Historian:  His Problems, Method and Originality. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Watson, Burton. 1958. Ssu-​ma Ch’ien: Grand Historian of China. New York: Columbia University Press. Watson, Burton. 1993. Records of the Grand Historian. 3 vols., revised edition. Hong Kong and New York: Columbia University Press. Yu, Anthony C. 2001. Rereading the Stone: Desire and the Making of Fiction in Dream of the Red Chamber. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Yü, Ying-​shih. 1967. Trade and Expansion in Han China:  A Study in the Structure of Sino-​Barbarian Economic Relations. Berkeley and Los Angeles:  University of California Press.

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4  Settling family feuds: Lysias 1 and Herodotus’ Lydians Nina C. Coppolino

In Lysias 1, the defense of Euphiletos for the murder of his wife’s lover has parallels in the story of Gyges and Candaules in Herodotus (1.7.8–​14.1). The latter vignette ultimately brings about the Lydian dynastic change from Heraclid to Mermnadae, through revenge taken for the impropriety of behavior in a marriage: the Heraclid king, Candaules, compels his bodyguard Gyges to view his wife naked, contrary to custom and in violation of the marriage; the queen then forces Gyges to murder the king and seize the throne for the Mermnadae, an act which itself in tragic style will be avenged in the fifth generation, when the Lydian king Croesus is overthrown by Cyrus of Persia (1.91.1). In fifth-​century Athens, Lysias characterizes the adulterer, Eratosthenes, as a tyrant, who violates nomos. The episodes in Herodotus and Lysias each involve male offenders against the marriage (the king/​Gyges or Eratosthenes), who are caught in the act, and the themes of vision and exposure are paramount; both betrayals take place within the doors of the bedroom; both victims (the queen and Euphiletos) employ counterstrategies of silence, delay, and collaboration upon revenge, including the imposition of compulsory choices; both dramas involve a tension between viewing and hearing. Indeed some of the dramatic elements are transposed, as happens in variations of popular archetypes, nor does Lysias necessarily expect his audience to recognize the parallels in Herodotus. Rather, Herodotus offers insight into the way tyranny, quasi-​adultery, and the violation of custom are organized in the Greek imagination, and Lysias expertly plays off that pattern. In contemporary Athens then, parallels with Herodotean dynastic drama suggest that the politics of the Lysian oikos may extend implicitly beyond the stability of the individual home and familial power to the security of Athens and all Greece in the face of tyranny.1 I  suggest in addition that, rhetorically  and literarily, Lysias portrays nomos as a conflation of Herodotean custom and Athenian forensic law. The defense is accomplished via forensic rhetoric, which mobilizes historiographical and dramatic elements for the court. In the proem, Lysias delays the announcement of the name of the lover in order to win over the jury with a series of careful antitheses, which show unanimous approval of the penalty Euphiletos exacted: you/​me; democracy/​ oligarchy; weak/​strong –​everyone agrees with the action taken.2 He advises

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54  Nina C. Coppolino the jury of the paramount importance of their empathy with him: τὸ τοιούτους ὑμᾶς ἐμοὶ δικαστὰς περὶ τούτου τοῦ πράγματος γενέσθαι, οἷοίπερ ἂν ὑμῖν αὐτοῖς εἴητε τοιαῦτα πεπονθότες (1.1) “that you are for me the sort of jurors in this matter that you would be for yourselves having suffered such things.”3 He then cites wider geographical and political agreement with him: καὶ ταῦτα οὐκ ἂν εἴη μόνον παρ᾽ ὑμῖν οὕτως ἐγνωσμένα, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἁπάσῃ τῇ Ἑλλάδι· περὶ τούτου γὰρ μόνου τοῦ ἀδικήματος καὶ ἐν δημοκρατίαι καὶ ὀλιγαρχίᾳ ἡ αὐτὴ τιμωρία τοῖς ἀσθενεστάτοις πρὸς τοὺς τὰ μέγιστα δυναμένους ἀποδέδοται, ὥστε τὸν χείριστον τῶν αὐτῶν τυγχάνειν τῷ βελτίστῳ (1.2) “And these things would be acknowledged this way not only among you, but in all Greece; for concerning this crime alone, in both democracy and oligarchy the same right of vengeance is allowed for the weakest against the strongest, so that the least gets the same as the best.” The universal is finally emphasized: οὕτως, ὦ ἄνδρες, ταύτην τὴν ὕβριν ἅπαντες ἄνθρωποι δεινοτάτην ἡγοῦνται (1.2) “Therefore, gentlemen, all men consider this outrage the most terrible.”4 Only now, with the defendant in effect prosecuting the real crime, do we hear the name of the adulterer:  ἐμοίχευεν Ἐρατοσθένης τὴν γυναῖκα τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ ἐκείνην τε διέφθειρε καὶ τοὺς παῖδας τοὺς ἐμοὺς ᾔσχυνε καὶ ἐμὲ αὐτὸν ὕβρισεν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τὴν ἐμὴν εἰσιών (1.4) “Eratosthenes committed adultery with my wife and destroyed her and shamed my children and outraged me myself by coming into the house –​my house.” John Porter suggests that the stock character associations in the names of both the husband and adulterer cohere well with the stereotypical, comic adultery tale:  Eratosthenes means “vigorous in love [sex]” and Euphiletos means “beloved.”5 Porter argues also that we know nothing about this generic Eratosthenes and that even the detail about his deme of Oe (16) merely highlights the fact that we do not learn anything about him elsewhere.6 On this view, the reticence of Lysias concerning the adulterer’s likely connection to the tyrant Eratosthenes, whom Lysias prosecuted in his twelfth oration,7 merely confirms the fictitious nature of the adulterer in Lysias 1, who otherwise would have provided a compelling precedent for “tyrannical” contempt for law.8 Whether or not this speech is fictitious,9 however, I argue below that the name “Eratosthenes” is indeed associated with Athenian tyranny; in light of parallels with Herodotus’ Lydian succession, the association signifies the tyrannies of both illicit love and illicit power –​including fifth-​century Athenian conflicts. In Herodotus, when we first hear the name of Candaules, he is τύραννος Σαρδίων (1.7.2) “king of Sardis”;10 the immediate personal details about this τύραννος concern his passion for his wife: οὗτος δὴ ὦν ὁ Κανδαύλης ἠράσθη τῆς ἑωυτοῦ γυναικός, ἐρασθεὶς δὲ ἐνόμιζέ οἱ εἶναι γυναῖκα πολλὸν πασέων καλλίστην (1.8.1) “This Candaules was impassioned for his own wife, and so in love with her that he thought she was the most beautiful woman of all.” The name “Eratosthenes” in Lysias  –​the lover but not lawful husband  –​recalls the verb describing king Candaules’ passion (both ἠράσθη and ἐρασθείς),11 which violates marriage and custom by the display of the queen to Gyges.12 In Book 9’s vignette about Xerxes’ adulterous lust, which frames the Histories along

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Settling family feuds 55 with Candaules’ passion in Book 1,13 there is similar language when the Persian tyrant conceives the ultimately ruinous passion for his brother’s wife: τότε δὴ ἐν τῇσι Σάρδισι ἐὼν ἄρα ἤρα τῆς Μασίστεω γυναικός, ἐούσης καὶ ταύτης ἐνθαῦτα. (9.108.1.) “When he [Xerxes] was at Sardis, he passionately desired (ἤρα)14 Masisites’ wife, who was there at that time”; Xerxes then capriciously changed his mind and fell in love (ἤρα, 9.108.2) with her daughter-​in-​law instead; thus tragically resulted the ultimate death of Masistes and mutilation of his wife, all because of the passion of Xerxes, τὸν ἔρωτα τὸν Ξέρξεω (9.113.2). In the rise of Persian power in the aftermath of Lydian defeat, Herodotus also uses the verb specifically in conjunction with the autocratic government of the Medes over the Assyrians: ἐόντων δὲ αὐτονόμων πάντων ἀνὰ τὴν ἤπειρον, ὧδε αὖτις ἐς τυραννίδας περιῆλθον. ἀνὴρ ἐν τοῖσι Μήδοισι ἐγένετο σοφὸς τῷ οὔνομα ἦν Δηιόκης, παῖς δε ἦν Φραόρτεω. οὗτος ὁ Δηιόκης ἐρασθεὶς τυραννίδος ἐποίεε τοιάδε. (1.96.1–​2) “All of those on the mainland were now free men; but they came to be ruled by monarchs again, as I will now relate. There was among the Medes a clever man called Deioces: he was the son of Phraortes. Deioces was infatuated with sovereignty (ἐρασθεὶς τυραννίδος), and so he set about gaining it.”15 While the Peloponnesian War loomed in Herodotus’ own day, these stories of earlier tyranny, with shifting and ultimately tragic outcomes, resonated with contemporary Greek citizens.16 Lysias’ portrayal of Eratosthenes’ domestic treachery, which undermines the oikos ἐν ἁπάσῃ τῇ Ἑλλάδι, subtly evokes at the outset a kind of panhellenic, grasping power. In the narrative section of his defense,17 Euphiletos explains to the jury that it was at the funeral of his mother that his wife was first seen (ὀφθεῖσα) by Eratosthenes and corrupted:  ἐπ’ ἐκφορὰν γὰρ αὐτῇ ἀκολουθήσασα ἡ ἐμὴ γυνὴ ὑπὸ τούτου τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὀφθεῖσα χρόνῳ διαφθείρεται· As the narrative continues,18 Euphiletos receives confirmation of the affair by a servant girl, who must reveal to him the couple together, as proof: ἀξιῶ δέ σε ἐπ᾽ αὐτοφώρῳ ταῦτά μοι ἐπιδεῖξαι· ἐγὼ γὰρ οὐδὲν δέομαι λόγων, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἔργον φανερὸν γενέσθαι, εἴπερ οὕτως ἔχει (21) “I think it is right that you show (ἐπιδεῖξαι) me them in the act; for I do not need words, but for the deed to be exposed (φανερὸν), if in fact this is how things are.” After narrating the surprise killing of Eratosthenes in the house (22–​28), and reading and interpreting the laws to prove that the extreme penalty was taken neither by entrapment nor as a result of previous enmity (29–​47), Euphiletos in the peroration sums up his defense by emphasizing the visible example of deterrence, on behalf of the polis: Ἐγὼ μὲν οὖν, ὦ ἄνδρες, οὐκ ἰδίαν ὑπὲρ ἐμαυτοῦ νομίζω ταύτην γενέσθαι τὴν τιμωρίαν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὲρ τῆς πόλεως ἁπάσης· οἱ γὰρ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράττοντες, ὁρῶντες οἷα τὰ ἆθλα πρόκειται τῶν τοιούτων ἁμαρτημάτων, ἧττον εἰς τοὺς ἄλλους ἐξαμαρτήσονται, ἐὰν καὶ ὑμᾶς ὁρῶσι τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην ἔχοντας. (47–​48) Therefore, gentlemen, I  do not consider this was a private penalty on my own behalf, but on behalf of the whole city. Those doing such

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56  Nina C. Coppolino things, seeing what kind of prizes (ὁρῶντες οἷα τὰ ἆθλα) are set for their wrongdoings, will commit wrongs less against others, if they see (ὁρῶσι) you have the same opinion. The irony in the characterization of the extreme penalty as “prizes” (τὰ ἆθλα) is clear.19 I suggest next that this paradoxical, metaphorical use of the penalty as one of resources, in conjunction with the above actions of viewing and implied quantifying, contains Herodotean overtones of tragic tyranny. The Lydian king Candaules urges Gyges to see for himself the unsurpassed beauty of the queen (γυναῖκα πολλὸν πασέων καλλίστην 1.8.1): Γύγη, οὐ γάρ σε δοκέω πείθεσθαί μοι λέγοντι περὶ τοῦ εἴδεος τῆς γυναικός (ὦτα γὰρ τυγχάνει ἀνθρώποισι ἐόντα ἀπιστότερα ὀφθαλμῶν), ποίει ὅκως ἐκείνην θεήσεαι γυμνήν. (1.8.2) Gyges, I do not think that you believe me when I speak about the beauty of my wife (for the ears are less trustworthy for men than the eyes); see to it that you view her (θεήσεαι) naked. Gyges protests against the plan: πάλαι δὲ τὰ καλὰ ἀνθρώποισι ἐξεύρηται, ἐκ τῶν μανθάνειν δεῖ· ἐν τοῖσι ἓν τόδε ἐστί, σκοπέειν τινὰ τὰ ἑωυτοῦ. ἐγὼ δὲ πείθομαι ἐκείνην εἶναι πασέων γυναικῶν καλλίστην, καὶ σεο δέομαι μὴ δέεσθαι ἀνόμων. (1.8.3–​4) Long ago right things were established among men, from which we must learn; among them is this: that a person should look to his own business (σκοπέειν τινὰ τὰ ἑωυτοῦ). I believe that your wife is the most beautiful of all women, and I ask you not to ask for things contrary to custom. Candaules’ response is craftiness in the execution of the plan to expose the queen20: ἀρχὴν γὰρ ἐγὼ μηχανήσομαι οὕτω ὥστε μηδὲ μαθεῖν μιν ὀφθεῖσαν ὑπὸ σεῦ (1.9.1–​2) “From the beginning I will devise it that she does not know she has been seen (μιν ὀφθεῖσαν) by you.” Herodotus’ language, even in Gyges’ protest mentioned earlier, emphasizes viewing the best one as in an inventory of women (γυναῖκα πολλὸν πασέων καλλίστην 1.8.1) –​in this case viewing things unlawfully because they are not properly one’s own to see. The essence of the violation is not merely due to constraints of local custom,21 but in the ardent taking even by sight, which can compromise the viewer.22 The exposed object here is also damaged –​the queen’s aidos, her dignified respect for established social conventions.23 The loss of shame via the violation of custom cannot be measured.24 So too for Euphiletos, his marriage and property were destroyed when his wife was first seen (ὀφθεῖσα) by Eratosthenes at her mother-​in-​law’s

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Settling family feuds 57 funeral and pursued thereafter.25 Sight then is an important element in both narratives, albeit in different ways: Candaules wants his wife to be seen naked, while Euphiletos is upset that his wife has been quasi-​exposed to a man at the funeral. Extending this reckoning too, Euphiletos then properly avenged not only the clear action (τὸ ἔργον φανερὸν 1.21) of the lawless affair, but also Eratosthenes’ literally naked (γυμνὸν) abuse of the marriage: ὤσαντες δὲ τὴν θύραν τοῦ δωματίου οἱ μὲν πρῶτοι εἰσιόντες ἔτι εἴδομεν αὐτὸν κατακείμενον παρὰ τῇ γυναικί, οἱ δ᾽ ὕστερον ἐν τῇ κλίνῃ γυμνὸν ἑστηκότα (1.24) Pushing the door of the bedroom, those of us entering first saw him still lying near my wife; those entering after saw him standing naked (γυμνὸν) on the bed. With the tables turned on the voyeurs, the quantifiable prizes for these wrongdoers, who now tragically see their rewards (ὁρῶντες οἷα τὰ ἆθλα 47), are extreme punishment for causing comprehensive corruption of house, city and country, in tyrannical contempt of law/​custom. The perpetrators are in this estimation justly rewarded with irretrievable overthrow. Although Candaules is perhaps the real voyeur in Herodotus, what still must the relatively innocent Gyges do under compulsion, and how are the strategies of the king and of the queen over him possibly reflected in the dramatic portrayal in Lysias 1? First, both Candaules and the queen set the dramatic scene for Gyges: the bedroom –​and the door upon which the action hinges:26 ἐγὼ γάρ σε ἐς τὸ οἴκημα ἐν τῷ κοιμώμεθα ὄπισθε τῆς ἀνοιγομένης θύρης στήσω. μετὰ δ᾽ ἐμὲ ἐσελθόντα παρέσται καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἐμὴ ἐς κοῖτον. κεῖται δὲ ἀγχοῦ τῆς ἐσόδου θρόνος· ἐπὶ τοῦτον τῶν ἱματίων κατὰ ἕν ἕκαστον ἐκδύνουσα θήσει, καὶ κατ᾽ ἡσυχίην πολλὴν παρέξει τοι θεήσασθαι. ἐπεὰν δέ ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου στείχῃ ἐπὶ τὴν εὐνήν κατὰ νώτου τε αὐτῆς γένῃ, σοὶ μελέτω τὸ ἐνθεῦτεν ὅκως μή σε ὄψεται ἰόντα διὰ θυρέων. (1.9.2–​3) I [Candaules] will put you [Gyges] in our bedroom behind the open door. My wife will come to bed after I have entered. There is a chair near the door; she will put her clothes on it, one item at a time, and you will be able to view her at your complete leisure. When she goes from the chair to the bed and her back is to you, take care then that she will not see you going out through the doors. Gyges is similarly placed for action by the queen, when she exacts vengeance on her husband: ἣ δὲ ὑπολαβοῦσα ἔφη. ἐκ τοῦ αὐτοῦ μὲν χωρίου ἡ ὁρμή ἔσται ὅθεν περ καὶ ἐκεῖνος ἐμὲ ἐπεδέξατο γυμνήν, ὑπνωμένῳ δὲ ἡ ἐπιχείρησις ἔσται.

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58  Nina C. Coppolino (1.11.5) … εἵπετο ἐς τὸν θάλαμον τῇ γυναικί. καί μιν ἐκείνη, ἐγχειρίδιον δοῦσα, κατακρύπτει ὑπὸ τὴν αὐτὴν θύρην. (1.12.1) “She said [to Gyges] in reply: ‘When he is asleep, the attack will be on the very same spot from which he showed me to you naked (γυμνήν)’… [Gyges] followed the woman to the bedroom, and after she gave him the knife, she hid him behind the same door.” Canduales thus first stages Gyges in the bedroom behind an open door (ὄπισθε τῆς ἀνοιγομένης θύρης 1.9.2), in the venue that will become the scene of the revenge of the queen.27 In Lysias 1 there is also an ironic and wryly staged bedroom preamble to the actual attack on Eratosthenes eventually in a bedroom below.28 Euphiletos’ wife playfully locked him into the upper quarters (προστίθησι τὴν θύραν καὶ τὴν κλεῖν ἐφέλκεται 1.13), before going down ostensibly to the child; then at dawn the next day she came back and opened the door (ἧκεν ἐκείνη καὶ τὴν θύραν ἀνέωιξεν 1.14), explaining that the outer doors to and from the courtyard also creaked because she went to get a lamp-​light for the child from the neighbors!29 When Euphiletos is later informed that Eratosthenes is in the house in the bedroom below, the husband sets out to corral the neighbors for help, after leaving the maid to watch the door of the house (ἐπιμελεῖσθαι τῆς θύρας 23); he returns and enters easily undetected when the maid opens the door (ἀνεῳγμένης τῆς θύρας καὶ ὑπὸ τῆς ἀνθρώπου παρεσκευασμένης 24), at which point he and the men push open the door of the bedroom (ὤσαντες δὲ τὴν θύραν τοῦ δωματίου 24), surprise Eratosthenes and strike him down there in the bedroom (ὅστις ἐν τῷ δωματίῳ πληγεὶς κατέπεσεν εὐθύς 27), definitely not at the hearth. In sum we find theatrical manipulation of doors in both vignettes,30 before and during the murders of revenge/​justice; the tyrants are slain in the very bedroom sites, either of the illicit Lydian viewing or of the adulterous Athenian affair.31 Euphiletos argues in effect that his murder of Eratosthenes, unlike the queen’s reversed bedroom vengeance in Herodotus, is itself not a violation of nomos to be expiated later by the husband’s conviction, but is a just act to be exonerated by the Athenian court. Nor is the action all door-​revolving fun and murderous games: the Lydian “woman of destiny”32 is serious and sober in her outrage, strategy of silence and delay, search for help from others, and compulsion of one of two choices in effecting her revenge  –​all of which Euphiletos’ defense will echo in the Athenian forensic drama. First, the queen is quiet at the moment of ignominy and virtual betrayal of the marriage, when she realizes Gyges has watched her disrobe in the bedroom, from which he fails to exit secretly as planned: … καὶ ἡ γυνὴ ἐπορᾷ μιν ἐξιόντα. μαθοῦσὰ δὲ τὸ ποιηθέν ἐκ τοῦ ἀνδρὸς οὔτε ἀνέβωσε αἰσχυνθεῖσα οὔτε ἔδοξε μαθεῖν, ἐν νοῶ ἔχουσα τείσασθαι τὸν Κανδαύλεα (1.10.2) … τότε μὲν δὴ οὕτως οὐδὲν δηλώσασα ἡσυχίην εἶχε. (1.11.1) … and the woman saw him [Gyges] going out. Having learned what was done by her husband, she did not cry out although shamed, nor did she

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Settling family feuds 59 give the appearance of knowing, since she was planning to take vengeance on Candaules … Not thus revealing anything at that time she kept quiet. Then she got help  –​and Gyges (1.11.1):  ὡς δὲ ἡμέρη τάχιστα ἐγεγόνεε, τῶν οἰκετέων τοὺς μάλιστα ὥρα πιστοὺς ἐόντας ἑωυτῇ, ἑτοίμους ποιησαμένη ἐκάλεε τὸν Γύγεα. “As soon as it was day, she made ready those she saw as most trusted of her attendants, and she called Gyges.” So after the queen herself saw Gyges (ἐπορᾷ μιν) in a reversal of the infamous gaze, she reacted defensively by quietly turning her own sight to gathering trusted companions for help (τοὺς μάλιστα ὥρα πιστοὺς ἐόντας). Whereas Euphiletos’ defense purposely emphasizes his initial gullibility and then his alarmed and confused suspicion,33 at the critical moment of the affair’s event in the house Euphiletos remains silent, while he proceeds to deliberate action in gathering help, like the queen, so that the plan to catch the Athenian adulterers may be realized: ὁ δ᾽ Ἐρατοσθένης, ὦ ἄνδρες, εἰσέρχεται, καὶ ἡ θεράπαινα ἐπεγείρασά με εὐθὺς φράζει ὅτι ἔνδον ἐστί … καταβὰς σιωπῇ ἐξέρχομαι, καὶ ἀφικνοῦμαι ὡς τὸν καὶ τόν, καὶ τοὺς μὲν ἔνδον κατέλαβον, τοὺς δὲ οὐδ᾽ ἐπιδημοῦντας ηὗρον. παραλαβὼν δ᾽ ὡς οἷόν τε ἦν πλείστους ἐκ τῶν παρόντων ἐβάδιζον. (23–​24) Gentlemen of the jury, Eratosthenes enters [my house], and the maid having awakened me tells me he is within. Going down in silence (σιωπῇ) I go out, and I go to this and that person, and I found some not home and some not even in town. I gathered as many as I was able from those present and proceeded. The queen and Euphiletos then are both noiseless, each one wanting to delay an open reaction to the offenders, when the act of shamelessness is unfolding, the Lydian viewing or the adultery at the Athenian husband’s house. While Euphiletos gathers whomever he can to help him, and the queen gathers confidants, they each form a type of band or posse. Each one of them has delayed to a certain extent to get ready for action against the injuring party –​ the queen overnight, and Euphiletos several days, which include both interrogation of the maid, whom he has learned has knowledge of the events, and the delay to catch the couple in the act (17–​22). The dramas now are also similar in the compulsion upon characters of two critical choices that advance the tragic action. The queen confronts Gyges with this ultimatum: νῦν τοι δυῶν ὁδῶν παρεουσέων Γύγη δίδωμι αἵρεσιν, ὁκοτέρην βούλεαι τραπέσθαι. ἢ γὰρ Κανδαύλεα ἀποκτείνας ἐμέ τε καὶ τὴν βασιληίην ἔχε τὴν Λυδῶν, ἢ αὐτόν σε αὐτίκα οὕτω ἀποθνῄσκειν δεῖ, ὡς ἂν μὴ πάντα πειθόμενος Κανδαύλῃ τοῦ λοιποῦ ἴδῃς τὰ μή σε δεῖ. ἀλλ᾽ ἤτοι κεῖνόν γε τὸν ταῦτα βουλ-

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60  Nina C. Coppolino εύσαντα δεῖ ἀπόλλυσθαι, ἢ σε τὸν ἐμὲ γυμνήν θεησάμενον καὶ ποιήσαντα οὐ νομιζόμενα. ὁ δὲ Γύγης τέως μὲν ἀπεθώμαζε τὰ λεγόμενα, μετὰ δὲ ἱκέτευε μή μιν ἀναγκαίῃ ἐνδέειν διακρῖναι τοιαύτην αἵρεσιν. οὐκ ὦν δὴ ἔπειθε, ἀλλ᾽ ὥρα ἀναγκαίην ἀληθέως προκειμένην ἢ τὸν δεσπότεα ἀπολλύναι ἢ αὐτὸν ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων ἀπόλλυσθαι· αἱρέεται αὐτὸς περιεῖναι. ἐπειρώτα δὴ λέγων τάδε. ἐπεί με ἀναγκάζεις δεσπότεα τὸν ἐμὸν κτείνειν οὐκ ἐθέλοντα, φέρε ἀκούσω τέῳ καὶ τρόπῳ ἐπιχειρήσομεν αὐτῷ. (11.2–​4) “Now, Gyges, I  give you the choice of two ways at hand; pick the one you wish to follow. Either kill Candaules and take me and the kingdom of the Lydians, or you must die yourself right away, so that in the future, obeying Candaules in everything, you may not see what you ought not to see. But either he must be destroyed who has plotted these things, or you who saw me naked and did things contrary to custom.” But Gyges was astonished for awhile at what she said, then he begged her not to compel him to make such a choice. He did not persuade her and saw the necessity plainly upon him either to destroy his master or to be destroyed by others. He himself chose to survive. Then he asked this: “since you force me to kill my master unwillingly, let me hear how we will get hold of him.” By also offering two choices, Euphiletos coerces the maid into revealing his wife’s affair: σοὶ οὖν ἔφην ἔξεστι δυοῖν ὁπότερον βούλει ἑλέσθαι, ἢ μαστιγωθεῖσαν εἰς μύλωνα ἐμπεσεῖν καὶ μηδέποτε παύσασθαι κακοῖς τοιούτοις συνεχομένην, ἢ κατειποῦσαν ἅπαντα τἀληθῆ μηδὲν παθεῖν κακόν, ἀλλὰ συγγνώμης παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ τυχεῖν τῶν ἡμαρτημένων. ψεύσῃ δὲ μηδέν, ἀλλὰ πάντα τἀληθῆ λέγε. κἀκείνη τὸ μὲν πρῶτον ἔξαρνος ἦν, καὶ ποιεῖν ἐκέλευεν ὅ τι βούλομαι· οὐδὲν γὰρ εἰδέναι· ἐπειδὴ δὲ ἐγὼ ἐμνήσθην Ἐρατοσθένους πρὸς αὐτήν, καὶ εἶπον ὅτι οὗτος ὁ φοιτῶν εἴη πρὸς τὴν γυναῖκα, ἐξεπλάγη ἡγησαμένη με πάντα ἀκριβῶς ἐγνωκέναι. καὶ τότε ἤδη πρὸς τὰ γόνατά μου πεσοῦσα, καὶ πίστιν παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ λαβοῦσα μηδὲν πείσεσθαι κακόν, κατηγόρει πρῶτον … (18–​20) I said, “you can choose whichever of two things you wish, either after being whipped to be sent to a mill and never to cease suffering from such evils, or after telling the whole truth, to suffer no harm, but to get forgiveness from me for what you did wrong. Don’t lie, but tell the whole truth.” She at first was in denial, and she told me to do whatever I wish, for she knew nothing. But when I mentioned Eratosthenes’ name to her, and I said that he was having an affair with my wife, the maid was in a panic thinking that I knew everything in precise detail. And then after she fell at my knees and got a pledge from me that she would suffer no harm, she says first …” [details of couple’s meeting and access].

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Settling family feuds 61 Although the sets of choices are different in kind –​Gyges’ choice to kill or be killed, and the maid to reveal the affair or be tortured perpetually –​each character faces the same basic decision: either to agree, or to refuse and pay the price. Gyges, unlike the maid, is more than a mere informant; he will accomplish the revenge and supplant the perpetrator of the crime. Gyges and the maid however both react negatively (astonishment at the grave import, denial and then panic) to respective proposals, and each one relents under necessity. These are choices proposed by the dominant party, the queen to the bodyguard and the citizen to slave.34 The queen has arguably become despotic in her righteous revenge;35 again, the gist of the Athenian defense is that Euphiletos himself has not overreached illiberally too. The choices forced upon Gyges are due to his violation of nomos –​he, compelled by Candaules, has done things οὐ νομιζόμενα.36 Euphiletos asserts the extreme agency of the violated law (nomos) to Eratosthenes, who has begged for his life and offered money instead: ἐγὼ δ᾽ εἶπον ὅτι οὐκ ἐγώ σε ἀποκτενῶ, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ τῆς πόλεως νόμος, ὃν σὺ παραβαίνων περὶ ἐλάττονος τῶν ἡδονῶν ἐποιήσω, καὶ μᾶλλον εἵλου τοιοῦτον ἁμάρτημα ἐξαμαρτάνειν εἰς τὴν γυναῖκα τὴν ἐμὴν καὶ εἰς τοὺς παῖδας τοὺς ἐμοὺς ἢ τοῖς νόμοις πείθεσθαι καὶ κόσμιος εἶναι. (26) I said that “I will not kill you but the law of the city (ὁ τῆς πόλεως νόμος), transgressing which you considered of lesser value than pleasures, and you preferred more to commit this wrongdoing (ἁμάρτημα ἐξαμαρτάνειν) against my wife and my children, rather than to obey the laws and to be decent (κόσμιος).” Euphiletos argues that he himself did not have a choice but was compelled by the law. It is clear however that, while the action taken was not illegal, there were other options.37 How then is he making this case for the extreme penalty? The language persists here in emphasizing elements of quantified objects and morality: the law was considered of lesser value than pleasures (περὶ ἐλάττονος τῶν ἡδονῶν); to commit this crime (ἁμάρτημα ἐξαμαρτάνειν) is a fault with tragic associations,38 emphasized by the repetition in the cognate accusative; the failure lastly is to be decent (κόσμιος),39 a lost value reminiscent of the queen’s complaint that Gyges saw what he should not (ἴδῃς τὰ μή σε δεῖ 11.2), and did things contrary to custom (ποιήσαντα οὐ νομιζόμενα 11.3). In both stories then there is a violation of nomos, and punishment is regarded as acting on behalf of nomos. So far I  have tried to show that despite no kingly dynastic struggle in Lysias’ Athens, or complicit adultery in the Lydian affair here, there are yet interesting contextual similarities in the related spheres of rhetoric and ancient historiography: staging and viewing of the domestic action; diction (overt and underlying); strategy; the duality of tyrannical passion and political tyranny;

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62  Nina C. Coppolino and a sense of what is customary, decent, and lawful. My final points now emphasize the literary aemulatio of the forensic rhetorician with the historian (and dramatist), and the outcome of this respectful rivalry for the Greek community. Anhalt argues that in the theatrical display of women for Herodotean viewers “visual evidence in and of itself is not sufficient for accurate knowledge” (277), as in the case of Gyges “who fails to persuade or outwit either Candaules or the queen, and his accession to power culminates in the disaster that befalls his descendent Croesus” (279); the historian’s own method however includes oral accounts (akoê), eyewitness evidence (opsis), as well as his own reasoning (gnomê), through which he can bring his audience to an understanding of the truth that visual observation alone can never convey: therefore the theatricality of tragedy is trumped by historiography in its ability to transmit truth.40 Like Herodotus’ tragic tale then, Lysias’ defense is intended to persuade, to bring matters “before the eyes” of the hearers.41 I suggest that Lysias’ speech, in its rhetorical excellence and in the continuum of domestic and national politics, aims to demonstrate that truth rests in the active power of forensic rhetoric to harness the methodology of the historian to the drama and ethics of tragedy’s dilemmas (and comedy’s foibles), for the family and state.42 Above all perhaps, Euphiletos argues repeatedly that the jurors should arrive at and hold the same reasoning (τὴν αὐτὴν γνώμην 36 and 47) that he holds about the truth (τἀληθῆ 5) of his accounts and his evidence, and affirm the fairness of the penalty exacted (κατὰ τῶν τὰ δίκαια πραττόντων 28), despite the artfulness of liars who stir up anger in those hearing (αὐτοὶ ψευδόμενοι καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα μηχανώμενοι ὀργὰς τοῖς ἀκούουσι ὀργὰς τοῖς ἀκούουσι … παρασκευάζουσι 28),43 hearing with unreliable ears here, too, unless guided –​not by the eyes primarily –​but finally by the rational interpretation of the persuasively true defense. The risks in the outcome for contemporary fifth-​century Athenians are perhaps higher than for readers of past events or viewers of theatrical productions, since the usurpation of law/​ custom (nomos) is at issue in the present: Euphiletos argues that it would be far better to wipe out the existing laws and establish others (πολὺ κάλλιον τοὺς μὲν κειμένους νόμους ἐξαλεῖψαι, ἑτέρους δὲ θεῖναι 48), which reverse the current penalties and immunities for those who violate and those who defend wives. This is portrayed perhaps then as a kind of tyranny against nomos in which Euphiletos as husband and citizen risks not only life and property but also an incalculable “everything else” (ἐγὼ γὰρ νῦν καὶ περὶ τοῦ σώματος καὶ περὶ τῶν χρημάτων καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων κινδυνεύω 50). While we cannot know for certain if Lysias 1 is a fictitious or actual defense in a case of domestic murder, the artfulness of the speech does not automatically imply that it is fictitious. First, real life perhaps all too often juxtaposes serious calamities with comic foibles, including seemingly improbable or reckless behavior under the pressure of circumstance, and involving even apparent ironies in ordinary, personal names. Then too, although not necessarily a mere political allegory, the defense is shaped by Lysias’ personal experience of political tyranny that caused the loss of a family member. The

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Settling family feuds 63 language and drama of the defense also reflect both the customs and tyrannies of the past as portrayed in Herodotus, who charted the large-​scale course of Greek freedom from Eastern domination, and whose tracks in Lysias 1 would only enhance the stakes for the ostensible microcosm of the Greek family –​thus perhaps increasing the likelihood of persuading a real jury to vote for an actual acquittal for the wronged husband. Finally, as the first of Lysias’ speeches, it is not necessarily a mere set piece advertising his rhetorical skills. It does however quite fittingly display his unique skill (τέχνη) at his own craft, in a local case defended within the broader compass of conflicting relations among people in Greek society.44

Notes 1 Studies have shown the literary influence of comedy and the traditional adultery narrative on Lysias 1 (Treneker 1958), and some analysis has suggested that this is an elaborately fictional speech advertising the skill of the writer (Porter 1997); alternately, that a genuine characterization of Euphiletos would convince the jury that only real passions of a bitterly disillusioned man mitigated his exaction of murder (Usher 1965); that the gender politics of the oikos empowered women to a certain extent but ultimately aligned the integrity of Euphiletos’ house with the stability of the polis (Wolpert 2001); and that the endorsement of civil punishment in the “execution” of Eratosthenes superseded pre-​polis, tribal revenge (Herman 1993). Carey (1989, 2–​3) provides traditional chronology in which Lysias wrote his speeches after the fall of the oligarchic regime of the Thirty in the Athenian succession of power. 2 On the severity of Athenian law against adultery, including the right to kill to protect family, property, and cults: Carey (1989) 59; also Porter (1997) 429, on the potential exploitation of the child by the wife in this case, with accompanying bibliography on Greek social and legal attitudes to adultery. Entrapment, as the relatives of the dead man tried to prove here, would have been illegal. Monetary compensation for the offence was allowed and often accepted instead of the extreme penalty, so Euphiletos argued here against the prejudice for the monetary alternative: Edwards and Usher (1985) 220. 3 Translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 4 Edwards and Usher (1985) note the conventionality of the universalizing theme, but also the absence of any attempt to flatter the jury, in these uncompromising and demanding words (221). 5 Porter (1997, 437) cites previous scholarly caution that not all potentially significant names are fictitious (n. 55), but argues ultimately that the speech is a literary display piece, not only in these names, but also because of its brevity, generic treatment of characters, points of contact with comic adultery tale in, e.g., Aristophanes and Menander, and what he calls the wildly improbable daring of the adulterous couple in the downstairs bedroom with the husband home upstairs (447). 6 Porter (1997) 436. 7 Carey (1989) 2:  Lysias prosecuted the tyrant Eratosthenes for the murder of the Lysias’s own brother, Polemarchus, to gain the family wealth. Lysias had escaped to Megara but aided the democratic cause with money and supplies; after the restoration of democracy under Thrasyboulus, he was rewarded with citizenship. This decree of Thrasyboulus was quashed, and Lysias remained a metic with privileged

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64  Nina C. Coppolino status. He took up a career as a logographer. Carey (72) adds that the dead man in Lysias may have been a younger relative of the “tyrant.” Edwards and Usher (1985, 224, n. 16) remark upon an “improbable” identification of the tyrant Eratosthenes with the one prosecuted by Lysias in speech 12, noting however that the two men may have belonged to the same tribe Oineis. 8 Porter (1997) 436–​437. He also cites (434, n. 46) a brief challenge to the authenticity of this speech in the Lysian corpus by Perotti (1998–​90), “La I  orazione di Lisia fu mai pronunciata?” in Sandalion 12–​13:  43–​48, who argues that this speech is an allegorical parallel of democracy against the tyranny of the Thirty, represented by the deliberately named Eratosthenes. My own view is that, even without an explicit statement, the clear association of the adulterer’s name with the murderer of Lysias’ own brother advances the authenticity of the speech, which Carey (1989, 12) cites among those considered Lysias’ own. 9 Although my main purpose is to argue Herodotean connections in Lysias 1, I  find no compelling reason that this speech must be considered fictitious, including so-​called improbabilities and comic foibles. See also my final remarks in this chapter. 10 He was son of Mysus, and the final Heraclid of 22 generations (1.7.4). 11 LSJ s.v. ἔραμαι (1)  of sexual passion. Konstan (1983, 12–​13) remarks here that “this is the same impulse under which an amorous youth in ancient comedy becomes infatuated with a slave girl or alien … the characteristic of such passion is disregard for conventional proprieties; its very essence is the neglect of limits. Marriage is normally an exchange between citizen households; the right to marry is thus constitutive of citizenship. Passion is indifferent to such relations. It locates the source of attraction exclusively in the bare object, without regard for status or context … Candaules’ desire is really an inversion of the comic paradigm.” More later in this chapter on aidos and nomos in this episode. 12 Anhalt (2008) discusses the theatrical viewing of a woman here and in other episodes as a feature of “autocratic rule … associated with overthrow, assumption, or undermining of political power” (269); the specific language of tyrannical passion is briefly noted (277): “the king’s judgment is distorted by his own passion [ἐρασθεὶς δὲ ἐνόμιζέ].” 13 So remarks Anhalt (2008) 273, with bibliography on Xerxes’ depravity as an eastern tyrant (n. 14). 14 LSJ s.v. ἐράω. 15 English translation by A. D. Godley, Cambridge (1920). 16 See Raaflaub (1987) on the familiar notion in Herodotus’ time of the polis tyrannos represented by the tyrant (224), and how these earlier stories of tyrants, including possibly Deioces (225, n. 10) and likely the rise and fall of Croesus (241–​244), had later associative import among the Greeks: “In a similar way [to the tragic poet], I suggest, Herodotus uses the history of the past to shed light on contemporary political issues” (231). 17 Edwards and Usher (1985) 222: before describing the events surrounding the case, Lysias gives a preliminary narrative “designed to portray a harmonious marriage (6–​7), to anticipate its destruction (8) and to explain the domestic arrangements which facilitated the adultery (9).” 18 Description of the house, and Eratosthenes’ collusion with the family’s servant-​ girl to provoke the child, so that the wife can leave her husband to meet her lover (9–​14); Euphiletos’ discovery of the affair via an informant from another woman

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Settling family feuds 65 wronged by Eratosthenes (τις πρεσβῦτις ἄνθρωπος, ὑπὸ γυναικὸς ὑποπεμφθεῖσα ἣν ἐκεῖνος ἐμοίχευεν 15). 19 Edwards and Usher (1985) 228–​229: “prizes: a strikingly ironic metaphor”; Carey (1989) 85: “ἆθλον is used metaphorically; here ironic.” 20 I discuss further in note 43 elements of craft in the Lydians and in Lysias –​in strategies, and also in the art or skill pertaining Lysias’ portrayal of the case. 21 παρὰ γὰρ τοῖσι Λυδοῖσι, σχεδὸν δὲ καὶ παρὰ τοῖσι ἄλλοισι βαρβάροισι καὶ ἄνδρα ὀφθῆναι γυμνὸν ἐς αἰσχύνην μεγάλην φέρει. (1.10.3) “For among the Lydians, as among most other barbarians, even for a man to be seen naked carries great shame.” 22 Pertaining to Asiatic states, Konstan (1987, 62) writes: “the objectification or reification of values among Persians, particularly in the case of Xerxes himself, lies behind their peculiar passion, as Herodotus describes it, for looking things over”; he notes (67) how quantifiable things have an “extrinsic character which inspire above all a passion to gaze upon them … As quantitative and as extrinsic, having such objects in view is the negation of human excellence or aretê.” 23 So defined by Konstan (1983) 12, not as mere modesty, but as shame “in an old and dignified sense” of respect for nomos. Here is the language, in the famous zeugma uttered by Gyges: ὃ δὲ ἀμβώσας εἶπε. Δέσποτα, τίνα λέγεις λόγον οὐκ ὑγιέα, κελεύων με δέσποιναν τὴν ἐμὴν θεήσασθαι γυμνήν; ἅμα δὲ κιθῶνι ἐκδυομένῳ συνεκδ ύεται καὶ τὴν αἰδῶ γυνή. (1.8.3) “Crying out [Gyges] said, “Master, what unhealthy word do you speak, when you command me to view my mistress naked? A woman removes her shame (τὴν αἰδῶ) with her clothing.” 24 Humphreys (1987, 281) notes that in Herodotus, “nomos represents an incalculable element in human behavior.” Konstan (1983, 4) explains generally the violation of nomos as the “failure to observe the context, a misapplication of codes … it is to act in one sphere according to the rules that govern another; in a word, it is abuse of boundaries”; and (12), “Candaules’ offense against his wife assails the conventions on which the conjugal bond is established. … To extend that privilege to another man abolishes the boundary that divides the intimate circle of the family from society at large. Accordingly, the queen regards the marriage as dissolved.” 25 Euphiletos’ defense related to marriage and property (1.33):  τοὺς δὲ πείσαντας οὕτως αὐτῶν τὰς ψυχὰς διαφθείρειν, ὥστ᾽ οἰκειοτέρας αὑτοῖς ποιεῖν τὰς ἀλλοτρίας γυναῖκας ἢ τοῖς ἀνδράσι, καὶ πᾶσαν ἐπ᾽ ἐκείνοις τὴν οἰκίαν γεγονέναι, καὶ τοὺς παῖδας ἀδήλους εἶναι ὁποτέρων τυγχάνουσιν ὄντες, τῶν ἀνδρῶν ἢ τῶν μοιχῶν. “[The law’s severity implies that] those who have persuaded them corrupt their souls, and thereby make other’s wives more devoted to themselves than to their husbands. Thus the whole family comes under their control, and it becomes uncertain whether the children’s father is the husband or the seducer” (trans. Edwards and Usher [1985] 141). The same commentators remark (227) that the “integrity of the family and estate depended on the wife’s, not the husband’s marital fidelity, and the law protected this by requiring him to divorce her if she was unfaithful.” 26 Smith (1902, 281–​282) suggests traces from popular legend of an erotic element between Gyges and the queen, which have been rationalized out of the story ultimately to accord with the author’s conception of the ethics of the situation (385), here following the favorable view of Gyges and the queen in the Delphian tradition (282); Plato’s account of Gyges and Candaules (Republic 359d–​360d) reflects a related detail of the old story, removed by Herodotus along with the

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66  Nina C. Coppolino seduction:  the ring and its marvelous power of invisibility (280), upon which Gyges depended to escape from behind the door unobserved, but whose power was dispelled by the counter-​charm, δρακοντίτης, of the queen (374). 27 Konstan (1983) 12 on the role of boundaries reflected in the geography of the story: “The bedroom is the locus of connubial intimacy. By leaving the door open and inviting Gyges in, Candaules breaks the circumference of this sanctum, and thereby allows the indiscriminate mingling of private and public domains.” 28 Euphiletos explains that he lived upstairs in the customary women’s quarters (with the outside lock on the door) so his wife, by sleeping below routinely, could avoid the risk of a potential fall in going downstairs to wash the baby (1.9–​10) –​and, as it happens, could make the traffic for the affair easier below. 29 ἐρομένου δέ μου τί αἱ θύραι νύκτωρ ψοφοῖεν, ἔφασκε τὸν λύχνον ἀποσβεσθῆναι τὸν παρὰ τῷ παιδίῷ, εἶτα ἐκ τῶν γειτόνων ἐνάψασθαι. (1.14) 30 On features of comedy, Porter (1977) 430, “doltish husband locked helplessly away in the women’s quarters” in the motif of sexual role-​reversal. Also Treneker (1958) 157: the wife’s “perfidious insincerity” in making a show of love when he sends her to the ground floor; and preventions for the creaking of the door from arousing suspicions, as in Tibullus, Aristophanes and Plautus (158, n. 6). 31 The wife in Lysias has no agency, but the boundaries of the two episodes are consistent. Konstan (1983, 12) notes the queen’s vengeance in the same room: “Once the perimeter is punctured, the place ceases to sacralize the traditions and behaviors of which it is normally the emblem … the mores of the world at large enter through the gap.” 32 Smith (1920) 25, quaintly here on the tradition of the story of Gyges in Herodotus as a tragedy of destiny: “the visible instrument of Destiny is the woman. She is the evil genius of the doomed king … As the old English etymologer has it ‘woman is woe-​man.’  ” 33 Strategically for the defense he gets the sympathy of the jury as the trusting husband, who only gradually comprehends the irregularities he has noticed, and then is struck hard by the implications, before he takes action: καὶ ἐγὼ οὐδέποτε ὑπώπτευσα, ἀλλ᾽ οὕτως ἠλιθίως διεκείμην, ὥστε ᾤμην τὴν ἐμαυτοῦ γυναῖκα πασῶν σωφρονεστάτην εἶναι τῶν ἐν τῇ πόλει (10) “I never suspected, but was so disposed as to think that my wife was the most virtuous in the city”; ἔδοξε δέ μοι, ὦ ἄνδρες, τὸ πρόσωπον ἐψιμυθιῶσθαι, τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ τεθνεῶτος οὔπω τριάκονθ᾽ ἡμέρας (14) “It seemed to me, gentlemen, that her face was made-​up, even though her brother had been dead not yet for thirty days”; ταῦτα εἰποῦσα, ὦ ἄνδρες, ἐκείνη μὲν ἀπηλλάγη, ἐγὼ δ᾽ εὐθέως ἐταραττόμην, καὶ πάντα μου εἰς τὴν γνώμην εἰσήιει, καὶ μεστὸς ἦν ὑποψίας (17) “she said these things [the old woman who informs him], gentleman, and went away, but I was immediately thrown into confusion, and everything came into my mind, and I was full of suspicion.” 34 In Book 9’s parallel vignette to Gyges and Candaules cited and discussed earlier, Xerxes’ wife compels him implicitly to decide between giving her Masistes’ innocent wife to mutilate or letting the affair between Xerxes and the daughter-​in-​law be revealed. The wife here, as does Candaules’ queen, takes over the power of the tyrant (9.110.1–​3). 35 Konstan (1983) 12: “Candaules’ humiliation of his wife does indeed lead to shamelessness, though it is not the sort that prudery condemns. The queen’s contempt for nomos is exhibited in the murder of the king.”

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Settling family feuds 67 36 Konstan (1983, 13) traces the connection this way: “eros [here Candaules infatuation for his wife] is the opposite of aidos; its nature is to transgress the boundaries defined by nomos, those customs that segregate the several degrees of relationship. Candaules is said to have deemed his wife the most beautiful; the word employed is nomizo. Under the influence of infatuation, his judgement is inconsistent with custom; as the queen later observes to Gyges, he did what was not deemed right, not nomizomena.” 37 Wolpert and Kapparis (2011, 18) comment that, despite his assertion, Euphiletos was under no such obligations, since he was not prohibited from accepting a monetary offer. Catching the seducer in the act however allowed the extreme penalty as an option: by declaring he had no choice he simplified his defense. 38 LSJ s.v. ἐξαμαρτάνω (A) “fail,” “miss one’s aim,” e.g., Sophocles, Philoctetes 95; and (2) “commit a fault,” e.g., Sophocles, Philoctetes 1012 and Herodotus 1.108.5, 3.145.1. 39 LSJ s.v. κόσμιος (2), e.g., in tragedy, Sophocles, Electra 871, τὸ κόσμιον, “decency, order.” Lysias uses the word often and in various forms:  κόσμιος 1.26, 26.3; κόσμιον 7.41, 21.19; κόσμιοι (also dat. and acc. masc. pl.) 14.41, 19.16, 12.20; κοσμίως 3.6, 16.18, 19; κοσμιώτατον (also superlative neut. pl., and comparative masc. pl.) 14.29, 3.4, 15.9, 22.19, 27.7. 40 Anhalt (2008) 277–​279. 41 Whereas the visual nature of theatrical performance may be less effective at providing full interpretation and therefore truth, tragic performance indeed in its totality is not only visual but verbal and persuasive, e.g., in the reporting of events by messengers, in the adroit dialogue of protagonists, and in evocative choral lyrics. Likewise, historiographically and rhetorically, the narratives of Herodotus and Lysias exploit the tension between eyewitnessing (by protagonists and conceptually by audience) and interpretation (by historian and logographer) as bases of truth. 42 The kind of “virtue in action,” which Lysias both defends and himself performs as logographer, is in my view here similar to the one in Konstan’s formulation (1983, 19) about excellence in Herodotus (italics mine): “Where[as] action is the manifestation of virtue, possession is an erotic drive, the work of passion or desire. … This mode [possession/​passion] is advanced among the Asiatic states in Herodotus’ account. The Greek city-​states are not affected by it … The structure of Herodotus’ stories implicitly valorizes the city-​state ethos as the ground of qualitative and active conception of value.” (19) In rhetorical excellence and potential efficacy, Lysias’ speech would also aim implicitly at such valorization of the city-​state ethos –​in its established matrix of relationships –​in contrast to tyrannical possession of home and government. 43 Here in Lysias μηχανώμενοι “contriving” or “devising” is paralleled in the diction of Candaules’ attempted assurance to Gyges that his crafty plan (ἐγὼ μηχανήσομαι) will hide the plot:  ἀρχήν γὰρ ἐγὼ μηχανήσομαι οὕτω ὥστε μηδὲ μαθεῖν μιν ὀφθεῖσαν ὑπὸ σεῦ. (1.9.1–​2); and perhaps notably, when the old woman reveals to Euphiletos the adultery in his marriage, she first names the lover, Eratosthenes of Oe, and adds an ironic comment about his skill (τέχνην) in seduction (16): Ἐρατοσθένης Ὀῆθεν ὁ ταῦτα πράττων, ὃς οὐ μόνον τὴν σὴν γυναῖκα διέφθαρκεν ἀλλὰ καὶ ἄλλας πολλάς· ταύτην γὰρ τέχνην ἔχει. Again, I suggest that the association of the name of the lover and the tyrant, in the context of amorous treacheries crafted

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68  Nina C. Coppolino back to the time of the Asiatics, may itself be artful in the aims for rhetorical excellence in Lysias 1. 44 With this chapter, I sincerely thank the honorand of this volume, Professor Blaise Nagy, for his great kindness to me as an undergraduate at College of the Holy Cross, and later at the college for giving me my first opportunity to teach the Greek authors of this study –​Herodotus and Lysias. I sincerely thank Professor David Konstan for taking time to read a draft of this essay even while he was abroad in Europe, and for his corrections and advice. I  am grateful for improvements suggested through refereeing, and for the encouragement of Professor Lee Fratantuono. Errors and infelicities are mine.

Bibliography Anhalt, Emily. 2008. “Seeing is Believing:  Four Women on Display in Herodotus’ Histories.” New England Classical Journal 35: 269–​280. Carey, Christopher. 1989. Lysias. Selected Speeches. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Edwards, Michael and Stephen Usher. 1985. Greek Orators I:  Antiphon & Lysias. Chicago: Bolchazy-​Carducci. Herman, Gabriel. 1993. “Tribal and Civic Codes of Behavior in Lysias 1.” Classical Quarterly 43: 406–​419. Humphreys, Sally. 1987. “Law, Custom, and Culture in Herodotus.” In Deborah Boedeker, ed., Herodotus and the Invention of History (Arethusa 21  & 22), 211–​220. Konstan, David. 1983. “The Stories in Herodotus’ Histories:  Book 1.” Helios 20: 1–​22. Konstan, David. 1987. “Persians, Greeks, and Empire.” In Deborah Boedeker, ed., Herodotus and the Invention of History (Arethusa 21 & 22), 59–​73. Porter, John. 1997. “Adultery by the Book:  Lysias 1.” Échos du monde classique 16: 421–​453. Raaflaub, Kurt. 1987. “Herodotus, Political Thought and the Meaning of History.” In Deborah Boedeker, ed., Herodotus and the Invention of History (Arethusa 21 & 22), 221–​248. Smith, Kirby F. 1902. “The Tale of Gyges and the King of Lydia I-​II.” American Journal of Philology 23: 261–​282, 362–​387. Smith, Kirby F. 1920. “The Literary Tradition of Gyges and Candaules.” American Journal of Philology 41: 1–​37. Treneker, Sophie. 1958. The Greek Novella in the Classical Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Usher, Stephen. 1965. “Individual Characterisation in Lysias.” Eranos 63: 99–​119. Wolpert, Andrew. 2001. “Lysias 1 and the Politics of the Oikos.” Classical Journal 96: 415–​424. Wolpert, Andrew and Konstantinos Kapparis, eds. and trans. 2011. Legal Speeches of Democratic Athens:  Sources for Athenian History. Indianapolis, IN:  Hackett Publishing.

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5 East and West in the Histories of Herodotus and Tacitus* Timothy Joseph

The imprint of Herodotus on Tacitus’ approach to his craft is evident in the important digression on the nature and aims of his writing at Annals 4.32–​ 33. In this passage, Tacitus’ most extensive discussion of his writing process, he defines his work as the act of “inquiring into and collecting” (conquiri) and “handing down” (tradi) the deeds of the Roman state (4.33.2).1 The verb conquiro, which Tacitus also uses of historical inquiry at Annals 4.11.2 and Histories 2.50.2,2 is a near translation of the Greek ἱστορέω, “to inquire into or about” (LSJ 1). Herodotus famously uses the related noun ἱστορίη when introducing his work as the “display of his inquiry” (ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις, 1.1.1).3 By using conquiro of his endeavors in a programmatic passage such as Annals 4.32–​33, Tacitus, then, seems to identify himself as a Herodotean –​that is, one in the business of inquiring into events and then transmitting the product of those inquiries. Moreover, his use of a form of trado, of the second step in the historian’s process, stands in parallel to the act of displaying captured by Herodotus’ ἀπόδεξις. To push the link through historia a bit further, Tacitus may have held up a connection with Herodotus in the title of his inaugural work of historical writing. Though Tacitus includes no title within the work, Tertullian, who lived about a century later, appears to refer to it by the name Historiae, a title that would surely and loudly place the Roman’s writing in the tradition of Herodotean inquiry.4 Tacitus’ fundamental kinship with Herodotus is apparent elsewhere in the digression at Annals 4.32–​33. His assertion that “the movements of great things often arise out of trivial things” (4.32.2) is close to the idea of the “ebb and flow” of cities from greater to lesser and from lesser to greater that is fundamental to Herodotus’ philosophy of history and explored throughout

*  It is a pleasure to dedicate this essay to Blaise Nagy, a great scholar and teacher of ancient history, and an invaluable mentor to me and countless others at Holy Cross and in the field of Classics. I am also thankful to the editors of this volume, Lee Fratantuono and Mary English, as well as Tom Martin, who read and commented on a draft of the essay. The texts I have used are Heubner’s (1978) for Tacitus’ Histories, Koestermann’s (1965) for the Annals, and Hude’s (19273) for Herodotus. Translations of Tacitus are my own; for Herodotus I  have used the translation by Andrea L. Purvis in Strassler (2007), with some modifications.

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70 Timothy Joseph his work.5 In addition, by including “the regions of peoples” (situs gentium, 4.33.3) alongside the vicissitudes of battle and the distinguished deaths of leaders in his list of the ideal material for the historian, Tacitus acknowledges the importance of history’s ethnographical element, another hallmark of Herodotus’ foundational Histories.6 Readers of Annals 4.32–​33 have also compared Tacitus’ use of travel metaphor in this passage to Herodotus’ own figuring of his efforts as a journey. Others have noted that the Roman’s discussion of the three forms of government at 4.33.1 recalls perhaps the most famous discourse on this subject, the Persian debate at 3.80–​82 of Herodotus’ work.7 As this critical passage in Annals 4 demonstrates, Tacitus the writer of history is among the offspring of the man whom Cicero famously styled the pater historiae (De Leg. 1.5). In this chapter I will explore this kinship further, with a concentration on Tacitus’ engagement with another Herodotean theme, that of the great struggle between East and West. I will focus on Tacitus’ employment of this dichotomy in Books 1–​3 of his Histories, his account of the civil wars of 69 C E , the “Year of the Four Emperors.” As we shall see, Tacitus’ use of the East/​West dichotomy in his narrative has a lot in common with the method of Herodotus, but at the same time he goes in entirely different, inventive, and particularly Roman directions.

East and West in Herodotus Before turning to Tacitus’ Histories, a short recapitulation of the issue of East versus West in Herodotus’ Histories is in order. Herodotus states at the outset to his work that his principal subject is “great and wonderful deeds, some brought forth by the Greeks, others by the barbarians, as well as the causes that led them to make war on each other.”8 As promised, in Books 5–​9 he will narrate the battles fought between the allied Greek forces and the Persians under the kings Darius the Great and then Xerxes during the years 500 to 479 B C E . Just after announcing this main topic in his preface, Herodotus positions the conflict as the latest and greatest in an age-​old struggle between Europe and Asia, West and East. From 1.1.4 to 1.5.3 he enumerates the many crimes committed by Asian and Greek nations against one another, each crime in counterbalancing retribution, or tisis,9 for the last: the thefts of the Argive princess Io by the Phoenicians, the Phoenician Europa by the Cretans, the Colchian Medea by the Hellenes, and the Argive Helen by the Trojans. The Greek sack of Troy followed that last theft, and “from that time on [the Persians] have considered the Hellenes to be their enemies. For the Persians assume Asia and the barbarian tribes living there as their own, and anything Hellenic is separate and divergent from themselves” (1.4.4).10 Now, Herodotus attributes the “back story” of 1.1.4 to 1.5.3 to Persian and Phoenician sources. And he segues from this passage by stating that, with the narrative of Croesus the king of Lydia, he will move on to material for

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 71 which he can personally vouch (1.5.3). Whatever authorial distancing from these stories that he may practice, Herodotus nevertheless places this archaeology of the European-​Asian conflict right at the outset of his work. He thus encourages his audience to read the Greek-​Persian Wars that he will narrate as part of the ongoing struggle between West and East. Herodotus will in fact evoke this theme on his own authority, perhaps most explicitly at 7.20–​21, at the beginning of his narrative of Xerxes’ expedition into Europe. There he recalls a series of hostile missions from Asia to Europe and vice versa, which were prelude to the contest he is now narrating: “All these expeditions combined, even with others added to them, could not possibly equal the size of the expeditions of Xerxes. For what nation of Asia did Xerxes not lead to Hellas?” (7.21.1). The geographical East-​West division that runs through the Histories is reinforced by the cultural differences that Herodotus the ethnographer highlights in his portraits of the Greeks and Persians. A conspicuous –​and surely the most significant –​difference is that in the Persian Empire everyone is a slave to the king; in Greece men are slaves only to the law.11 To be sure, the dichotomies in the Histories between West and East, Europe and Asia, and in particular the Greeks and the Persians, are not clear-​ cut. For starters, the Greeks and Persians, as well as the Egyptians, share an ancestor:  the much traveled hero Perseus, whose place in these peoples’ genealogy comes up at 2.91, 6.53, 7.61, and 7.150–​1.12 Furthermore, any sharp geographical divide between East and West in Herodotus’ time is complicated by the existence of ethnic Greeks in the cities and islands of Ionia, on the Aegean coastline of Asia; it is the revolt of these Greeks against Persia that, to one degree or another, leads to the involvement of mainland Greeks in the Persian Wars. In an influential article titled “East Is East and West Is West –​Or Are They? National Stereotypes in Herodotus,” Christopher Pelling discusses many other complications to such dichotomies. For example, the fact that “the great majority of the tyrants in Herodotus are Greek, over fifty of them, and on the mainland as well as in Ionia” throws a wrench into any easy opposition of Greek freedom and Persian slavery to despotism.13 Pelling also points to Herodotus’ choice to open his main narrative with the liminal figure of Croesus, the Lydian king: In terms of any East/​West division, he begins on the cusp, the margins of both parts of the world; and begins by dealing with a figure who is hard to place and who resists description in the easy formulations of Greek/​ barbarian discourse. Herodotus begins by pressing on the boundaries and blurring them, not by establishing them clearly. That does not mean that the categories do not exist, or that they are not important; but they are problematic from the start.14 So we see that, upon closer inspection, the division of East/​West, though surely present, is not restrictive, not definite.

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East and West made Roman It is with this complicated but nonetheless real dichotomy of East and West in Herodotus’ Histories in mind that I would like to move now to address this same issue in the war-​narrative of Tacitus’ Histories. Such a dichotomy is conspicuously operative in Books 1–​3 of this work, but it is problematic in a wholly different and wholly Roman way. The Roman Empire about which Tacitus wrote was, in the rhetoric of the time if not entirely in reality, itself inclusive of both East and West.15 A  rather explicit assertion of Rome’s westward and eastward reach comes at ­chapters 26 to 33 of Augustus’ Res Gestae, where the emperor catalogues the many foreign lands that he had retained, added, or otherwise lorded over.16 The passage begins in the West, with Gallia and Hispania (26) and concludes in the East. Significantly, the list ends with Rome’s great Eastern rival, Parthia,17 as Augustus refers to Parthian and Median supplications to him (32), and then to his own role in Parthian and Median king-​making (33). The lateral reach of the Empire that Augustus captures in the Res Gestae is expressed in a similar if less official way in Tacitus’ historiographical works. Within the annalistic structure of the Histories and Annals, the historian frequently moves from events in the West to events in the East and then back to Rome. A  good demonstration of this “spanning of the Empire” comes in his account of the year 16 CE in Ann. 2.1–​41, which moves from Parthian relations (1–​4) to Germanicus’ campaign in Germany (5–​26), to affairs in Rome and Italy (27–​41).18 Furthermore, on several occasions Tacitus, like other Roman authors,19 neatly packs into one phrase or sentence reference to Rome’s control over East and West alike. In the speech that he constructs for the Briton Calgacus prior to the decisive Battle of Mons Graupius in the Agricola, Tacitus has the leader of the British resistance memorably describe the Romans as “robbers of the world … whom neither the East nor the West has satiated” (Agr. 30.4:  raptores orbis … quos non Oriens, non Occidens satiauerit). In Annals 3, during a debate in the senate about the right of wives to accompany magistrates into the provinces, Drusus speaks of “how often the deified Augustus travelled to the West and the East with Livia as his companion” (Ann. 3.34.6: quoties diuum Augustum in Occidentem atque Orientem meauisse comite Liuia). And, when introducing the period 69–​96 C E in the table of contents to the Histories, Tacitus states that “things were prosperous in the East, adverse in the West” (Hist. 1.2.1: prosperae in Oriente, aduersae in Occidente). With nothing more than the juxtaposition of the evocative terms Oriens and Occidens, the reader is led to imagine the sun both rising and setting over Roman land. Immediately after the table of contents that occupy Histories 1.2–​3, Tacitus keeps the great geographical breadth of the Empire on the reader’s mind by means of the sweeping survey of the Empire that he offers in 1.4–​ 11. In this passage the historian moves rapidly from Rome (1.4.2–​1.7) to

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 73 the Western provinces (1.8–​1.9), to the East (1.10), then along Egypt and Africa (1.11.1–​2), and at last back to Italy (1.11.3). Ronald Martin has written of this passage that, “[w]‌hereas the first three chapters refer to the Histories as a whole, cc. 4–​11 refer more specifically to the period of the civil wars from the death of Nero to the final victory of Vespasian at the end of Histories III.”20 Indeed, this panoramic view of the Empire on 1 January 69 CE prepares the reader for what Tacitus will do with East and West in the war-​narrative of the Histories. Namely, while East and West are both markers of Roman sway and force in Histories 1–​3, they are forces at war with each other. Perhaps the most fraught sequence in this passage comes at 1.9–​1.10. In 1.9.1 Tacitus introduces the legions of Upper and Lower Germany, and then the man who will soon lead those legions down to Italy to fight for the principate, Vitellius. Soon afterward he notes that “there was also peace in Illyricum” (1.9.3: quies et Illyrico), since the legions there had been kept separate from each other. Tacitus begins the next chapter with the statement that “the East was still unmoved” (1.10.1:  Oriens adhuc immotus), before introducing the Eastern power players Mucianus and Vespasian. Now, the German legions introduced in 1.9.1 will soon make their march into Italy to engage in battle, in Book 2, against some of the pro-​Othonian Illyrian legions mentioned in 1.9.3. In Book 3, Vitellius’ Germans will face those same and some additional Illyrian legions, now fighting for Vespasian, who will also have the backing of the East –​no longer “unmoved,” to be sure. And so, here in the survey that introduces the combatants in Tacitus’ civil wars, the key armies and leaders from the West and East are dramatically and pregnantly juxtaposed. All is still quiet, but an explosion of activity and a collision of the Roman West and the Roman East are imminent. We see, then, that right from the opening of Tacitus’ Histories the slippage in the dichotomy between East and West that is operative in Herodotus’ war-​ narrative spills over like a deluge in Tacitus’. East and West are still terms of distinction, and the two are in fact at war with each other, but they are both wholly and equally Roman. Now, it is true that a great number of the legionaries and auxiliaries fighting these civil wars are themselves foreigners, and Tacitus on occasion highlights particular native features of these troops.21 But all involved are fighting for Rome, or at least for one of the aspirants to supreme power. The one significant part of a traditional “foreign enemy” that such troops retain is that, in battling the armies of other imperial aspirants, they are all fighting against Rome. Tacitus highlights this absence of any sort of traditional foreign Other from these wars during his description of the murder of the emperor Galba in January of 69 (1.40–​41), the bloody event that inaugurates a year of further and greater bloodshed. At 1.40.2 the historian writes of the entrance of the troops backing the usurper Otho into the Roman Forum, where Galba had just arrived:

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74 Timothy Joseph Igitur milites Romani, quasi Vologaesum aut Pacorum avito Arsacidarum solio depulsuri ac non imperatorem suum inermem et senem trucidare pergerent, disiecta plebe, proculcato senatu, truces armis, rapidi equis forum inrumpunt. Therefore Roman soldiers –​as if they were going to remove Vologaesus or Pacorus from the ancestral throne of the Arsacidae, and were not advancing to slaughter their own unarmed and elderly emperor  –​scatter the mob, trample the senate, and, savagely armed and quick on their horses, burst into the Forum. In an observation that is unique to this account of the murder, Tacitus underlines the abomination of this Roman attack on the Roman emperor22 by mentioning whom Roman soldiers more rightly should have been attacking: the Parthian king Vologaesus, or his brother and eventual successor Pacorus. With this sentence Tacitus makes Galba’s murder representative of what the wars in Histories 1–​3 will be –​Roman civil wars –​and, pointedly, what they will not be: Rome against Parthia, a clear-​cut, traditional “West vs. East.” As he announced in the survey at 1.4–​11, East and West will be on the battlefield, but it is the Roman East against the Roman West.

The East on the rise With the murder of Galba by Otho’s praetorian troops complete, the contest between Otho and Vitellius, whose legions have been marching southward from Germany, becomes Tacitus’ focus for the remainder of Book 1. In the penultimate chapter of the book, Tacitus compares the crisis of 69 with previous periods of turmoil under the empire. The extraordinary scope of the conflict between Otho and Vitellius is emphasized at 1.89.2: Tum legiones classesque et, quod raro alias, praetorianus urbanusque miles in aciem deducti, Oriens Occidensque et quicquid utrimque virium est a tergo, si ducibus aliis bellatum foret, longo bello materia. Then, legions and fleets and  –​what happened infrequently on other occasions –​the praetorian and urban troops were lined up for battle; the East and the West and whatever strength lies in each were waiting in the rear; if this had been fought by different leaders, there was the material for a long war. Earlier, I  discussed Tacitus’ pairing of the words Oriens and Occidens at Agricola 30.2, Annals 3.34.6, and in the table of contents of the Histories, at 1.2.1. In each of those passages the pair pithily and even pictorially captures the lateral spread of the Roman Empire. That effect is felt in Histories 1.89 as well, but toward a different end. In this passage, Tacitus is including Oriens Occidensque in his list of civil war combatants. In the ascending tricolon that serves to convey just how great and all-​encompassing the forces ready

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 75 for civil war were, the participation of East and West is the final, clinching flourish. But the forces of the East, though they swear an oath to Otho (1.76.2 and 2.6.1, on which see later in this chapter), never will come to fight on his behalf. In fact, at this point in the Histories the East has already been closely allied with the governor of Judaea, Vespasian. Note, most conspicuously, his introduction in 1.10, launched by Oriens adhuc immotus, as well as 1.50.4. There Tacitus writes about the Romans of January 69 CE that “there were those who were predicting Vespasian and the arms of the East” (erant qui Vespasianum et arma Orientis augurarentur). If the reader is mindful of this association, then the dramatic inclusion of Oriens Occidensque among those lined up for war in 1.89 seems to look ahead to the Flavian movement, and to the true clash between East and West that is to come in the battles fought between the armies of Vitellius, coming out of Germany, and Vespasian, emerging from Judaea. This narrative “zoom” past Otho to the Flavian movement in the East that I have suggested for 1.89 is certainly operative soon afterwards, in the opening chapters of Book 2.  This book begins with seven chapters on the actions and plans of Vespasian’s son Titus, Vespasian himself, and his Eastern ally Mucianus. These chapters overshadow, both by placement and in size, the one subsequent chapter (2.11) on Otho’s forces and the plans for his upcoming campaign against Vitellius.23 A key passage for establishing that the Flavian resources in the East are more significant than Otho’s forces –​as well as Vitellius’ –​is 2.6. This chapter follows a description of Titus’ visit to Mucianus, a trip that will secure the pact between Mucianus and Vespasian. I print it in full here: Antequam Titus adventaret sacramentum Othonis acceperat uterque exercitus, pernicibus, ut adsolet, nuntiis et tarda mole civilis belli, quod longa concordia quietus Oriens tunc primum parabat. Namque olim validissima inter se ciuium arma in Italia Galliave viribus Occidentis coepta; et Pompeio, Cassio, Bruto, Antonio, quos omnis trans mare secutum est civile bellum, haud prosperi exitus fuerant; auditique saepius in Syria Iudaeaque Caesares quam inspecti. nulla seditio legionum, tantum adversus Parthos minae, vario eventu; et proximo civili bello turbatis aliis inconcussa ibi pax, dein fides erga Galbam. (2) Mox, ut Othonem ac Vitellium scelestis armis res Romanas raptum ire vulgatum est, ne penes ceteros imperii praemia, penes ipsos tantum servitii necessitas esset, fremere miles et vires suas circumspicere. Septem legiones statim et cum ingentibus auxiliis Syria Iudaeaque; inde continua Aegyptus duaeque legiones, hinc Cappadocia Pontusque et quicquid castrorum Armeniis praetenditur. Asia et ceterae provinciae nec virorum inopes et pecunia opulentae. Quantum insularum mari cingitur, et parando interim bello secundum tutumque ipsum mare. Before Titus arrived [to see Mucianus], both [Vespasian’s and Mucianus’] armies had taken the oath to Otho, with the news coming, as is the custom, at great speed, and because of the slow weight of civil war, for which the

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76 Timothy Joseph East, quiet during a long period of concord, was then preparing for the first time. For in earlier times the strongest battles between citizens had begun in Italy or Gaul, with the strength of the West. Pompey, Cassius, Brutus, Antony, all of whom civil war followed across the sea, had not had prosperous ends; and the Caesars had been more often heard than seen in Syria and Judaea. There had been no mutiny by the legions, only threats against the Parthians, with various outcomes, and in the most recent civil war [Vindex’s and Galba’s uprisings in  68], though other provinces had been disturbed, there the peace was unshaken, and allegiance to Galba followed. (2) Soon, when it became known that Otho and Vitellius were contesting in criminal combat for control of Roman affairs, lest the rewards of empire be available to the rest and only the necessity of servitude to them, the soldiers were grumbling and looking around at their own strength. Seven legions were at hand, along with a huge number of auxiliaries, in Syria and Judaea. Bordering them on one side was Egypt and its two legions, on the other Cappadocia and Pontus and whatever camps are stationed on the Armenian borders. Asia and the rest of the provinces were not poor in men, and were rich with money. There were however many islands that are surrounded by the sea, and, as war was being prepared, the sea itself was advantageous and safe. In the sentence beginning with mox (“Soon …”), Tacitus portrays Eastern soldiers who, like their Flavian leadership (see 2.1.3, 2.5, and 2.7.1), are already preparing to make a move for the Empire –​regardless of the oath they so recently swore to Otho (sacramentum Othonis acceperat uterque exercitus).24 The statement about the soldiers’ ambitions is followed by an impressive catalogue of precisely what “the East” comprises at this time. Tacitus labels these forces as the “strength” (vires) of the East, and the reader recalls that he used this term at the beginning of the paragraph of the “strength of the West” (viribus Occidentis) in earlier times (olim). Times are changing: the strength of the Empire is shifting; it is the East that is now ascendant. In the enumeration of forces that concludes this passage, the proper names of provinces and the numbers of legions pile up; even the Syrian and Judaean auxiliaries are described in grandiose language (cum ingentibus auxiliis); and, in a memorable polyptoton of the root op-​, the wealth of both men and money available in the East is asserted (Asia et ceterae prouinciae nec virorum inopes et pecunia opulentae). In a final aggrandizing stroke in the chapter’s last sentence, the sea itself is made an ally, and a benevolent (secundum) one, of the Eastern forces. This is the army of the East. And, while the Othonians, in particular Otho’s wishfully thinking general Suetonius Paullinus,25 may think that the Eastern legions will honor their oath, this is the force already lined up behind the Flavian cause. The Flavians are the East in the narrative of Histories 1–​3, as 1.10, 1.50.4, 2.6, and Tacitus’ other affiliations of Vespasian or Mucianus with the term Oriens indicate.26

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 77 This close connection between the Flavians and the East will be strengthened later in the Histories, during Tacitus’ account of the prodigies in Judaea that anticipated Jerusalem’s fall. At 5.13.2 he writes: Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum litteris contineri, eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique Iudaea rerum potirentur. Quae ambages Vespasianum ac Titum praedixerat, sed volgus more humanae cupidinis sibi tantam fatorum magnitudinem interpretati ne adversis quidem ad vera mutabantur. Among more [Jews] there was a conviction that it was contained in their priests’ ancient writings that the East would grow strong at that very time, and that men setting forth from Judaea would become powerful over all things. This puzzling prophecy had predicted Vespasian and Titus, but the common people, in the usual manner of human longing, had interpreted such a greatness of fate for themselves, and not even misfortunes could change their minds to the truth. So we see that the Jews interpreted wrongly what Tacitus, with the advantage of hindsight, gets right: the men who would “set forth from Judea and become powerful over all things” were Vespasian and Titus, and the strengthening of the East was the strengthening of the Flavians. Tacitus corroborates his presentation of the Flavian movement as a force rising out of the East  –​or even as a manifestation of the East itself  –​by committing significant stretches of his narrative to the importance of Eastern superstitiones to Vespasian. So, soon after Mucianus gives a final speech of encouragement to Vespasian (2.76–​77), the latter pays a visit to Mount Carmel, located between Syria and Judaea and the home of a god of the same name (2.78.3–​4). Vespasian makes a sacrifice to this god, who, quite oddly to Roman sensibilities, has neither an image nor a temple. The god’s priest offers a reading of entrails and says to the imperial aspirant: “Whatever it is that you are preparing, Vespasian, whether to build a home or extend your lands or increase your number of slaves, to you will be given a great seat, immense territory, a multitude of men” (2.78.3:  quicquid est … Vespasiane, quod paras, seu domum extruere seu prolatare agros sive ampliare servitia, datur tibi magna sedes, ingentes termini, multum hominum). Later, in Alexandria, after Vespasian himself performs acts of healing for individuals who had been sent to him by the god Serapis (4.81), he visits that god’s sanctuary “in order to consult about affairs of empire” (4.82.1). After becoming “absorbed in the god’s spirit” (intentusque numini), he sees a vision of the Egyptian priest Basilides, who was in fact eighty miles away at the time. He departs the temple confident that he had seen a divine vision and that there was oracular force in the name Basilides, being akin to the Greek βασιλεύς (4.82.2).27 From these episodes we see that Vespasian will eventually come to Rome as “a Western leader backed by the supernatural forces of the East”28 –​and with a personal

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78 Timothy Joseph relationship with Eastern superstitio that, as Holly Haynes has discussed, does not conform with and in fact threatens traditional Roman religious practice.

Boundaries crossed; Tisis maintained? In Histories 1–​3 Tacitus tells the tale of (Roman) power rising in the East to defeat (Roman) rivals for power in the West. With this dynamic established, I want to return now to Herodotus’ Histories, and to the comparable storyline of the rise of the East in the form of the Persians, who strive to push aside their Western foes the Greeks. There are many points of contact between the two war-​narratives. There are the strongly underlined, if hyperbolic, East-​ West dimensions of the wars, the feature on which I have concentrated here. There is the particular enormity of the forces from the East, brought out by Tacitus in 2.6, and by Herodotus of Xerxes’ army at 7.20–​21 and then in the catalogue at 7.61–​99. Parallels in practice between the Eastern superstitiones cultivated by Vespasian and those of the Persians also invite comparison.29 But there is of course a key difference between the two storylines. In Tacitus’ narrative, the East wins. The Flavians, unlike Herodotus’ Persians, succeed in their movement westward. The failure of the Persians to prevail against the allied Greek forces can be read (and often has been read) as a function of a moral principle that predominates in Herodotus’ work:  they do not know their limits.30 Although the boundary crossing that Herodotus explores is not exclusively of the literal, geographical sort, the violations by the kings Darius and Xerxes are indeed geographical. The former crosses the Bosporus (4.85–​91), in spite of his brother Artabanos’ warnings (4.83), and fails in his campaign against the Scythians. His son Xerxes’ bridging of the Hellespont en route to mainland Greece (7.54–​57), similarly discouraged by Artabanos (7.10), is similarly disastrous for the Persians. In the end, tisis is maintained in Herodotus’ text. The Flavian movement in Tacitus’ work is also predicated on acts of boundary crossing. As we recall from the summary in 2.6, the victory of an Eastern alliance against Western forces in Roman civil war is itself unprecedented, a novelty, a threshold crossed. Beyond that fundamental transgression, oaths  –​both to Otho and to Vitellius (2.73)  –​are broken; Italy and then Rome are entered with arms; and, in what Tacitus wordily calls “the most lamentable and disgraceful crime to happen to the republic of the Roman people since the founding of the city” (3.72.1: id facinus post conditam urbem luctuosissimum foedissimumque rei publicae populi Romani accidit), the Capitol is burned down. Unlike our other sources, Tacitus considers blaming this ultimate Roman transgression on the Flavians who were besieged there.31 A passage that vividly depicts the Flavian entrance into Rome as an act that tramples limits is Histories 3.80. At this point the burning of the Capitol has already taken place (3.71–​74), Vespasian’s brother and representative in Rome Flavius Sabinus is dead (3.74–​75), and Vitellius, who could not go through with an abdication (3.68), remains emperor. As the Flavian troops

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 79 fighting under the commander Antonius Primus loom outside the city, the senate attempts to resolve the situation peacefully (3.80.1-​2): Mox vocato senatu deliguntur legati ad exercitus, ut praetexto rei publicae concordiam pacemque suaderent. Varia legatorum sors fuit. (2)  Qui Petilio Ceriali occurrerant, extremum discrimen adiere, aspernante milite condiciones pacis. Volneratur praetor Arulenus Rusticus:  auxit invidiam super violatum legati praetorisque nomen propria dignatio viri. Palantur comites, occiditur proximus lictor, dimouere turbam ausus: et ni dato a duce praesidio defensi forent, sacrum etiam in exteras gentis legatorum ius ante ipsa patriae moenia civilis rabies usque in exitium temerasset. Soon a meeting of the senate was called and legates to the [Flavian] armies were chosen to urge concord and peace, in the name of the republic. The lot of these legates was various. Those who had gone to face [the Flavian general] Petilius Cerialis met an extreme moment of crisis, since his soldiers were spurning the conditions of peace. The praetor Arulenus Rusticus was wounded. On top of the violation of the titles of legate and praetor, the dignity in which he was held as a man increased the odium of the deed. His companions were wandering about, and the nearest lictor was killed after daring to disperse the crowd. And if they had not been protected by a convoy provided by the general, before the very walls of their country civil madness would have desecrated  –​all the way to the point of murder –​that sacred law of legates, which is honored even in foreign lands. In his description of the attack on the senatorial legate Arulenus Rusticus by the Flavian troops, Tacitus employs a rich array of images of transgression. He introduces the episode as an extremum discrimen, which I have translated as “an extreme moment of crisis.” But the primary definition of discrimen, from dis-​ + cerno, is “a separating line” (OLD 1a). So Tacitus marks this interaction, this moment, as a dividing line:  Will the Flavian troops listen to talk of peace? Or will they storm into the city? The answer to the former question is a resounding “no” (aspernante milite condiciones pacis). Rusticus is attacked, and the official titles of legate and praetor that he holds are violated (violatum). The historian saves his richest and most evocative language for the counterfactual sentence that runs from et ni to temerasset. If a protective convoy had not been there, Tacitus asserts, the Flavian soldiers –​or at least the civilis rabies that has overtaken them –​would have killed Rusticus. In doing so they would have committed, again, an act of violation (temerasset). And the object of the verb is now not just the titles of a magistrate, as above, but the sacred law of legates (sacrum … legatorum ius), honored in foreign lands, but nearly transgressed here “before the very walls of the fatherland” (ante ipsa patriae moenia). The juxtaposition of the phrases inter exteras gentis, where Roman law is respected, and ante ipsa patriae moenia, where it is quick to

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80 Timothy Joseph be trampled, brings out how topsy-​turvy and how irreverent of law or limit Roman conduct has become in this civil war. All of this last sentence (et ni … temerasset), let us recall, is counterfactual:  the Flavian troops did not go through with killing Rusticus, and thus did not violate that sacred law. But the near violation in 3.80 is representative of what is about to happen in reality shortly afterward. In 3.82 the Flavian armies do cross over the extremum discrimen of Rome’s city walls, and the closing chapters of Book 3 (3.82–​86) are committed to the final, gruesome, and entirely uninhibited fighting between the Flavians and Vitellians inside the city.32 Vitellius is killed in 3.85, and Book 3, as well as this year of civil war, ends with a Flavian victory. And so it appears that, for all of their transgressions in this war, the Flavians will suffer no punishment. This Eastern invader of the West, it seems, will not suffer the humbling defeats that Herodotus’ transgressive Persians did. The principles of tisis and of a necessary balance between East and West, introduced in Herodotus’ opening pages and then resonant across his work, do not seem to have held up in Tacitus’ narrative. Or did they? As readers of the Histories at the time of its publication (c. 110 C E ) knew, the Flavian victory in 69 C E was followed by ten years of Vespasian’s rule (69–​79 CE ), the short reign of Titus (79–​81 C E ), and then the 15-​year reign of Domitian (81–​96 C E ). From the perspective of Tacitus and his contemporary readers, then, the Flavian triumph and the period of relative calm under Vespasian and Titus ultimately led to the tyranny of Domitian. Above I  addressed in brief Vespasian’s reliance on the superstitiones of the East, a topic explored in depth by Holly Haynes. Andrew Feldherr has also discussed how the excursus on the Jews in Histories 5, when read alongside the account of Titus’ exploits there, serves to cast an “Eastern light on Rome’s new dynasty.”33 An additional “Eastern” characteristic of the Flavian dynasty, if we use Herodotus’ Persians as a benchmark, is that it turned its subjects into slaves. What survives of the Histories breaks off at 5.26, still in the year 70 C E . So we are missing most of Tacitus’ account of Vespasian’s reign and all of his narrative of Titus’ and Domitian’s years in power. But we get a powerful, if distilled, sense of how he depicted Domitian from the handful of chapters that he commits to that emperor’s reign in the earlier Agricola. Twice in the opening chapters of that work he flatly refers to Domitian’s reign as a period of slavery (servitus, 2.3 and 3.3), and in the concluding chapters (39–​ 46) Tacitus depicts the man in his full tyrannical monstrousness. So, whatever the relative stability and amity of the reigns of Vespasian and Titus,34 in the long view the Flavian victory in 69 CE led to Roman slavery under Domitian. The Flavian rise in the East in time spawned what was by Herodotus’ –​and Tacitus’35 –​standards a defining practice of Eastern rulers: the enslavement of their own. However, the tyrannical Domitian does fall. The accounts of Suetonius and Cassius Dio tell us that the later, especially bloody years of his reign led to a conspiracy within his palace, an assassination, and the end of the Flavian dynasty. With this long view of the house of Vespasian, perhaps we can read

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 81 the story of the Flavian movement as playing out like the Persian ones in Herodotus’ narrative:  a power from the East rises and experiences initial successes in the West, before overreaching and ultimately failing and falling spectacularly. Or, to align the Flavian arc with the fundamental principle that Herodotus introduces in his preface, perhaps we can view the Flavian dynasty’s rise in the East and fall in the West as another demonstration of the Halicarnassian’s theory of the ebb and flow of things –​of cities and of dynasties –​from inferior to great and from great to inferior.36 In this paper I have looked at Tacitus’ use of the rhetoric of East vs. West in his account of the civil wars of 69 CE in Histories 1–​3. I have compared the Roman historian’s employment of this dichotomy with Herodotus’ exploration of East versus West in his foundational work of historiography. My contention has not been that Tacitus is responding to Herodotus at every turn, or that other treatments of this same issue did not influence him.37 But I have suggested that Tacitus responds to Herodotus in a broad way, across the arc of Histories 1–​3, and perhaps into the lost Domitianic books. What fundamentally distinguishes the two treatments is that in Tacitus’ work the entire conflict between East and West is subsumed under the umbrella of Rome. The rise of the East over the West (the ascendancy of the Flavians over the pretenders Galba, Otho, and Vitellius) and the eventual fall of that same Eastern power (Domitian’s overreaching and consequent descent)  –​ these are all Roman events, acted out by Roman players, on Roman land. The Rome of Tacitus’ Histories emerges beaten up, bloodied, and bearing the bruises of enslavement. But in her containment of the Orient and Occident and all of their rising and falling rulers, Tacitus’ Rome also emerges bigger.

Notes 1 The full quotation at Ann. 4.33.2 reads: Sic converso statu neque alia re Rom quam si unus imperitet, haec conquiri tradique in rem fuerit, quia pauci prudentia honesta ab deterioribus, utilia ab noxiis discernunt, plures aliorum eventis docentur. Martin and Woodman (1989) print: neque alia rerum⟨salute⟩quam si unus imperitet. On the application of the views expressed in Ann. 4.32–​33 to Tacitus’ historiography broadly, see Moles (1998) 163, Sailor (2008) 262, and Levene (2009) 227, n. 3. Woodman (1988) 180–​186 reads the digression as relevant to our understanding of only the immediate context in Ann. 4. 2 The primary definition of conquiro is “to search out and collect” (OLD 1a). Martin and Woodman (1989) on Ann. 4.11.2 translate conquiro there as “to rake up” (so OLD 1c) and comment that Tacitus uses the verb “deprecatingly” there and at Hist. 2.50.2. In each of these passages, however, Tacitus himself chooses to report the rumors that he has “raked up.” On this verb, see also Ash (2007) on Hist. 2.50.2 and Kraus (1994) on Livy, 6.1.10, who writes that conquiro “connotes going out of one’s way to hunt out information, esp. of a verbal or documentary nature.” 3 The full opening sentence to Herodotus’ work reads:  Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ δι᾽ ἣν αἰτίην ἐπολέμησαν ἀλλήλοισι.

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82 Timothy Joseph 4 Pomeroy (2012) 144 makes this suggestion. See Tertullian, Apol. 16 and Ad. Nat. 11, with the discussion of these passages by Goodyear (1972) 86–​87. 5 At 1.5.4 Herodotus writes that “many of the cities that were great long ago have become inferior, and some that are great in my own time were inferior before.” Moles (1998) 118 suggests a debt of thought to this passage at Ann. 4.32.2. Martin and Woodman (1989) on Ann. 4.32.2, citing ancient comparanda, regard the idea as a commonplace. 6 Feldherr (2009) discusses the place of Tacitus’ ethnographical digressions in the Greek and Roman historiographical tradition, with a focus on his ethnography of the Jews at Hist. 5.2–​13. Tacitus was an old hand at ethnography: of his first two works, the Agricola includes an ethnography of the British peoples at 10–​12, and the Germania is in its entirety an ethnography of the Germanic tribes. 7 See Moles (1998) 118–​119 on the motif of “text as journey” in both authors, and Hornblower (2006) 315 on the authors’ shared interest in the three types of constitution, with an acknowledgment that the threefold division of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy went back at least to Pindar (Pythian 2.86–​88). 8 I have printed the Greek for this passage in note 3. 9 On the theme of tisis in Herodotus, see Marincola (2001) 48–​50, with further bibliography. 10 See Boedeker (1988) 42–​45 on the line that Herodotus draws between Europe and Asia in this passage and elsewhere in the Hist. At 42 she writes: “Within the Histories the most significant natural boundary is that between Europe and Asia; it is a Herodotean topos that this boundary has been repeatedly transgressed.” 11 Tuplin (2007) 796 addresses this dichotomy and refers to Persian slavery to the King at 3.31, 7.8.β.3, 7.11.4, 7.39.1, 7.135.3, and 8.102, and to Greek “slavery to the law” at 7.102–​104 (esp. 7.104.4–​5). See also Cartledge (1993) 59–​62 and 136–​145. 12 I thank Tom Martin for directing me to these passages. 13 Pelling (1997) 54. Pelling’s article is in many ways a response to Hartog’s The Mirror of Herodotus (1988), a reading of the “Other” in Herodotus as the mirroring opposite of the Greek “Self.” On the presence but frequent breakdown of polarities in Herodotus, see, for starters, Thomas (2000) 75–​101 and Marincola (2001) 52–​53; as well as Skinner (2012) and Vlassopoulos (2013) for broader reconsiderations of such categories. Almagor and Skinner (2013b) provide an overview of recent scholarship on ancient ethnography and on the constructions of “us and them” in ancient works. 14 Pelling (1997) 56. 15 Nicolet (1991) is an examination of the rhetoric and reality of global domination in the early Empire. 16 Nicolet (1991) 15–​27 reads the Res Gestae as Augustus’ announcement of global conquest. 17 Augustus chooses to conclude with Parthia, though India, whose delegations he mentions in 31, is in fact further East. 18 For more on Tacitus’ manner of arranging res externae and res internae in Ann. 1–​6, see Ginsburg (1981) 53–​79 and 131–​142. 19 For similarly pithy juxtapositions of East and West in references to Roman imperial sway, see Josephus, BJ 2.16.4 and [Sall.] Epist. Mithr. 17 (both noted by Ogilvie and Richmond (1967) on Agr. 30.4), as well as Vell. Pat. 2.91.1 and 2.126.3 (with Woodman (1977) ad loc.). And see Elliott (2014) for the argument

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 83 that Ennius, writing in the first half of the second century B CE , maps an East/​West dichotomy in the Annales. 20 Martin (1981) 69. At Joseph (2012) 42–​53 I compare Hist. 1.4–​11 to the catalogues of combatants included by the likes of Homer, Herodotus, Virgil, and Lucan. 21 See, e.g., 2.22.1, of the savage shout and nude bodies of Vitellius’ German troops; and 3.24.3, of the (Flavian) Syrian legionaries’ salutation of the rising sun, as well as the discussion by Ash (1999) 37–​55. 22 As well as the SPQR: note disiecta plebe, proculcato senatu, with further discussion at Joseph (2012) 88–​90. 23 Ash (2007) 12 notes this overshadowing. 24 Ash (2007) 73 discusses the differences between Tacitus’ account and the accounts of pro-​Flavian authors such as Josephus, who “had judiciously post-​dated the challenge as the only possible response to Vitellius’ ‘decadent’ principate.” Contrast esp. BJ 4.588–​604 with Hist. 2.7.1. 25 At 2.32.2, during an Othonian war council, Suetonius Paullinus lists as the forces prepared to back Otho:  Pannoniam Moesiam Dalmatiam Orientem cum integris exercitibus. 26 See also 3.1.2 (uenturum cum copiis Orientis Mucianum) and 3.46.3 (Mucianum uiresque Orientis). 27 4.82.2 reads: tunc diuinam speciem et uim responsi ex nomine Basilidis interpretatus est. See the discussion of the name Basilides by Ash (1999) 141. 28 Haynes (2003) 118, within her larger discussion (116–​147) of Vespasian’s un-​ Roman and in fact Eastern practices of superstitio. At 93 she specifies the East as “[i]‌deologically charged for the Romans as a place of superstitio and suspicion.” See also the discussion by Ash (1999) 67–​68 of the multilingual Flavian army, a hallmark of Eastern armies in the literary tradition. 29 See Herod. 1.131, where the omission of statues, temples, and altars, as well as anthropomorphism, from Persian religious practice is comparable to what Tacitus writes at Hist. 2.78.3 of the worship of the god at Mount Carmel. 30 On this Herodotean principle, see Boedeker (1988) in note 10 and Lateiner (1989) 126–​144, who writes at 130: “Limits ought not to be transgressed, yet they are, and their transgressions function as a cause, necessary and sometimes sufficient, of historically significant events.” 31 3.71.4: hic ambigitur, ignem tectis obpugnatores iniecerint, an obsessi, quae crebrior fama, nitentes ac progressos depulerint. This statement of uncertainty, which is complicated by the charge against the Vitellians at 3.73.2 and the Flavian Atticus’ admission of guilt at 3.75.3, is to be contrasted with the reports by Josephus (BJ 4.649), Suetonius (Vit. 15.3), and Dio (65.17.3) that the Vitellians alone were responsible for the fire. On the matter, see Wellesley (1972) 16–​18, who concludes that Tacitus’ account “suffers in clarity by concessions to literary and stylistic requirements” (18). 32 See esp. the carnivalesque description in 3.83 of the fighting and other activity in Rome. 33 Feldherr (2009) 308–​309. The quotation is from 309. 34 And, if we turn to our surviving sources, we see that those years were not without conflict and abiding manifestations of discordia. See Joseph (2012) 180–​187. 35 See Hist. 4.17.4, where the Batavian rebel Julius Civilis states in a speech of encouragement to his men: “Let Syria and Asia and the East, accustomed as they are to kings, be slaves” (seruirent Syria Asiaque et suetus regibus Oriens). See also Tacitus’

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84 Timothy Joseph reference at 5.8.2 to the Jews as the “most despicable of the enslaved” living under the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians: dum Assyrios penes Medosque et Persas Oriens fuit, despectissima pars seruientium. 36 Tacitus and his readers also knew that the Roman “West” would rise again: after the brief reign of Nerva (Sept. 96 to Jan. 98), the Westerner Trajan, a native of Spain and the former governor of Upper Germany, would ascend to power. 37 Virgil’s depiction on Aeneas’ shield in Aen. 8 of East and West at the Battle of Actium  –​a civil conflict, to be sure  –​is one additional passage that may have informed Tacitus’ approach to this theme in the Hist.

Bibliography Almagor, E. and J. Skinner, eds. 2013a. Ancient Ethnography:  New Approaches. London: Bloomsbury. Almagor, E. and J. Skinner, eds. 2013b. “Introduction.” In Almagor and Skinner 2013: 1–​22. Ash, R. 1999. Ordering Anarchy:  Armies and Leaders in Tacitus’ Histories. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ash, R. 2007. Tacitus: Histories, Book II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Boedeker, D. 1988. “Protesilaos and the end of Herodotus’ Histories.” Classical Antiquity 7: 30–​48. Cartledge, P. 1993. The Greeks:  A Portrait of Self and Others. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Dewald, C. and J. Marincola, eds. 2006. The Cambridge Companion to Herodotus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elliott, J. 2014. “Space and Geography in Ennius’ Annales.” In M. Skempis and I. Ziogas, eds., Geography, Topography, Landscape:  Configurations of Space in Greek and Roman Epic. Berlin: De Gruyter, 223–​264. Feldherr, A. 2009. “Barbarians II: Tacitus’ Jews.” In A. Feldherr, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 301–​316. Ginsburg J. 1981. Tradition and Theme in the Annals of Tacitus. New York: Ayer. Goodyear, F. R. D. 1972. The Annals of Tacitus, Volume I (Annals 1.1–​54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hartog, F. 1988. The Mirror of Herodotus. An Essay on the Interpretation of the Other. Translated by J. Lloyd. Berkeley: University of California Press. Haynes, H. 2003. The History of Make-​Believe: Tacitus on Imperial Rome. Berkeley: University of California Press. Heubner, H. 1978. P. Cornelii Taciti libri qui supersunt, Tom. II, Fasc. I: Historiarum Libri. Stuttgart: Teubner. Hornblower, S. 2006. “Herodotus’ Influence in Antiquity.” In Dewald and Marincola 2006: 306–​318. Hude, C. 19273. Herodoti Historiae. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Joseph, T. A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden: Brill. Koestermann, E. 1965. Cornelii Taciti Libri qui supersunt, Tom. I:  Ab excessu diui Augusti.Leipzig: Teubner.

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East and West in Herodotus and Tacitus 85 Kraus, C. K. 1994. Livy: Ab Urbe Condita, Book VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lateiner, D. 1989. The Historical Method of Herodotus. Toronto:  University of Toronto Press. Levene, D. S. 2009. “Warfare in the Annals.” In Woodman 2009: 225–​238. Marincola, J. 2001. Greek Historians:  Greece & Rome New Surveys in the Classics, no. 31. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Martin, R. H. 1981. Tacitus. Berkeley: University of California Press. Martin, R. H. and A. J. Woodman. 1989. Tacitus:  Annals, Book IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moles, J. L. 1998. “Cry Freedom: Tacitus, Annals 4.32–​35.” Histos 2: 95–​184. Nicolet, C. 1991. Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ogilvie, R. M. and I. Richmond. 1967. De Vita Agricolae. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pagán, V. E., ed. 2012. A Companion to Tacitus. Malden, MA: Wiley-​Blackwell. Pelling, C. 1997. “East Is East and West Is West –​Or Are They? National Stereotypes in Herodotus.” Histos 1: 51–​66. Pomeroy, A. J. 2012. “Tacitus and Roman Historiography.” In Pagán 2012: 141–​161. Sailor, D. 2008. Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, J. 2012. The Invention of Greek Ethnography:  From Homer to Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Strassler, R., ed. 2007. The Landmark Herodotus. New York: Anchor Books. Thomas, R. 2000. Herodotus in Context:  Ethnography, Science, and the Art of Persuasion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tuplin, C. 2007. “Herodotus on Persia and the Persian Empire.” In Strassler 2007: 792–​797. Vlassopoulos, K. 2013. “The Stories of the Others:  Storytelling and Intercultural Communication in the Herodotean Mediterranean.” In Almagor and Skinner 2013a: 49–​75. Wellesley, K. 1972. Cornelius Tacitus:  The Histories, Book III. Sydney:  Sydney University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1977. Velleius Paterculus:  The Tiberian Narrative (2.94–​ 131). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography:  Four Studies. London: Routledge. Woodman, A. J., ed. 2009. The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Part II

Historia and the ancient world

Homer stands at the very start of Greek literature, even if that identifying appellation is problematic in its implications and limitations, and especially if we consider in particular the problem of the dating of Hesiod. These caveats aside, there is no question that the ancient Greeks of the classical era and beyond considered Homer to be the source and summit of much of their identity as a people of a common, shared epic past. And Homer, as Herodotus knew so well, was the poet of the clash between East and West, the poet of the intersection of Greece and Troy. The epic verse of Homer was “historical” in ways that are very different from the work of Herodotus (let alone that of his successor Thucydides) –​and yet something of the same spirit of inquiry into the same problems and potential social and political crises remains. With Homer and his great epics of Troy and the aftermath of war, we have the opportunity to indulge in the study of the very same evidence that Herodotus possessed and that triggered the development of his vision of the clash between East and West. This second section is devoted in part to the Homeric world that Herodotus inherited and that his successor Thucydides took as the starting point for his own archaeology of the internecine struggle between Athens and Sparta that dominated his day –​a struggle that, especially in its last phases, returned the specter of conflict with the East to the forefront of the Greek military and political imagination. Having set certain methodological and narrative parameters on our investigation of the classical world, we step back to examine that rich world that constituted the nursery of the idea of Hellenic civilization. Mary Ebbott begins this section with an exploration of Thucydides’ use of Homer as historical “evidence” and the Homeric “texts” available to him in fifth-​century Athens. Olga M. Davidson next applies Marcel Mauss’ seminal work on gift-​exchange and the guest-​host relationship to early-​11th-​ century Islamic texts and the practices of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking. Stephen Tracy turns our attention to the modern period with his investigation into the reception of the decipherment of Linear B and the role of Michael Ventris and Sterling Dow in this crucial discovery. Neel Smith turns us back to the Homeric world by discussing the Homer Multitext project and

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88  Historia and the ancient world the undergraduate digital research collaborative that he has instituted at the College of the Holy Cross. In all of these chapters, the authors have employed some of the same timeless methods of investigation and inquiry into the past that might well have been familiar to Herodotus, as we see how closely allied are the worlds of prose history, epic verse, and the reception of these fields by later generations.

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6  Thucydides’ use of Homer in his Archaeology Mary Ebbott

There is no escaping Homer in fifth-​century Athens. Thucydides seeks to move out of the shadow of Homer by defining the war he is relating as greater than the Trojan War, as well as asserting that his account is truer, but even as he tries, he ends up demonstrating the deep influence Homeric epic and its narrative practices have on his own.1 What I  want to investigate here is a narrowly focused, yet significant aspect of Thucydides’ use of Homer: namely, what is Thucydides referring to when he cites “Homer” as his evidence? Because the details that Thucydides includes from “Homer” in his Archaeology accord with our Iliad (his direct references to Homer in the Archaeology agree with what we think of as Iliad 2), it might seem obvious or noncontroversial what he is citing  –​he is citing the same Iliad we know, just without our canonical book and line numbers. But should we unquestioningly assume that Thucydides is citing a text the way we do? Shouldn’t we instead consider how Thucydides expected his audience to know Homer and what they would find authoritative in citing Homer? By examining his direct references to Homer in Books 1, 2, and 3 as well as the contrasts he sets up between Homer’s “history” of the Trojan war and his own of the Peloponnesian war, I will argue that Thucydides thinks of Homeric epic as performed poetry, and particularly authoritative for him and his Athenian audience is the Panathenaic performance of the Iliad (and Odyssey). It is that performance tradition of Homer (in other words, the many performances at the festival over the years), I will claim, that Thucydides “cites” in his Archaeology. Important to my discussion is the fact that Thucydides does rely on Homer’s authority, even as he tries to undercut it in other ways. Although Thucydides questions the accuracy of Homer, he cites specific details from Homeric epic to support what he is saying when the evidence from Homer is useful to his own argument.2 The passages in which Homer is named as a source that I will examine, from the Archaeology but also from Books 2 and 3, can be contrasted with two others that mention what we, at least, think of as “Homeric” references but do not name Homer:  (1) the identification of the straits of Messina with “the Charybdis, the place where Odysseus is said to have sailed through” (4.24.5); and (2) the description of the Kyklopes and Laistrygonians as the earliest inhabitants of Sicily (6.2.1). In the latter passage

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90 Mary Ebbott Thucydides disavows any real knowledge of these peoples, so he leaves it to “the poets” and any individual who may have knowledge of it as the authorities on them.3 In these cases, Thucydides introduces what would be common “knowledge” about these places, but does not invoke Homer’s name, for he does not need the authority of Homer’s Odyssey (as we would cite in these cases) to demonstrate anything. In the Archaeology, by contrast, Thucydides cites Homer by name because he needs the authority of Homer to himself be persuasive. So Homer has authority, but how does Thucydides’ audience know what Homer says? Let me briefly establish what is known about the performance of Homeric epic at the Panathenaia, which has been well explored and demonstrated in previous scholarship. The evidence from ancient sources indicates that Homeric epic was performed by rhapsodes at the Panathenaia from at least the late sixth century through to the late fourth century BC E .4 Thus we can be sure that Thucydides and his fifth-​century Athenian audience experienced such performances. At the Panathenaia festival the performance of Homeric epic was one of the “musical contests” (mousikoi agones).5 For competition at the festival the Iliad and Odyssey were selected out from the wider epic tradition for performance, which had the effect, over time and especially for Athenians, of defining those epics alone as “Homer.” The competition also instituted the “Panathenaic Regulation,” in which each rhapsode was assigned a particular part of the epic to perform, and the defined portions were performed in a fixed sequence, with one rhapsode picking up from the previous. Thus the performance of the Iliad was regulated by the rules of competition, a process which created a more definitive version of the epic. The Panathenaia was “the single most important festival celebrated in ancient Athens,”6 and its prestige, combined with the Panhellenic prestige of Homeric epic, made these performances particularly prominent versions of the epics and closely identified them with Athens. Thus for Thucydides, an Athenian writing in the late fifth century BC E , the performance of the Iliad at the Panathenaia was familiar, authoritative, and stable. In what follows, I will demonstrate that Thucydides’ references to Homer in the Archaeology assume a Homer in performance (rather than in a text) and that his specific “citations” of what Homer says can best be understood as references to this performance tradition. Before we get to particular citations of Homer by name, I also want to look briefly at ways Thucydides defines both his subject and his work against the past, and creates a number of distinctions between his war and past wars and between his methods and earlier narratives about past events. This series of contrasts distinguishes Thucydides and his work from Homer. Because he defines the Peloponnesian war as greater –​larger, more momentous –​than any previous conflict, he must confront the Trojan war as a rival to such a claim (1.9–​11), creating an implicit contrast to Homer as the “reporter” for that war.7 He uses Peloponnesian “oral traditions” (λέγουσι δὲ καὶ οἱ τὰ σαφέστατα Πελοποννησίων μνήμῃ παρὰ τῶν πρότερον δεδεγμένοι, 1.9.2: “those Peloponnesians who have received the clearest account through tradition

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 91 from their predecessors say…”) and Homer together as sources for examining Agamemnon’s power (1.9.1–​4). He gives “poets and tradition” the benefit of the doubt about the size of the Trojan expedition (οἵ τε ποιηταὶ εἰρήκασι καὶ ὁ λόγος κατέχει, 1.10.1: “the poets have said and the tradition holds”), and in doing so discloses an association between poetry and what is spoken and heard. In describing his aims and methods (1.20–​22), Thucydides claims that oral traditions about the past (τὰς ἀκοὰς τῶν προγεγενημένων, 1.20.1) are usually accepted without careful examination (ἀβασανίστως),8 and that most do not make a painstaking search for the truth (οὕτως ἀταλαίπωρος τοῖς πολλοῖς ἡ ζήτησις τῆς ἀληθείας, 1.20.3). Due to his careful examination of evidence, Thucydides distinguishes his work from that of the poets and logographers, whom he then characterizes as putting together their compositions so that “they are more attractive to audiences than truthful” (ἐπὶ τὸ προσαγωγότερον τῇ ἀκροάσει ἢ ἀληθέστερον), “seeking a victory” (ἐκνενικηκότα, 1.21.1). The “competition” between his work and those performed for an audience appears also in his famous goal for his work which he “composes as a possession for all time rather than a contest piece for hearing in the moment” (κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται, 1.22.4). Homeric epic is no ephemeral composition, but the contrast here is between reception of a performed piece and a written text, and Homer as well as the publicly performed histories of Herodotus fall on the side of the agōnisma, “contest piece” that is heard (ἀκούειν), not read.9 In these various oppositions or contrasts that Thucydides draws, then, Homer is associated with poets in general (unsurprisingly), with oral traditions, and with public performance, especially performance in competitions. Those associations all point to a Homer who is experienced and known in performance, as an oral tradition rather than as a text, and especially one who looks to be pleasing in competitions –​in other words, a Panathenaic Homer. These associations are further confirmed by explicit references to Homer in Books 2 and 3. I start with Book 3, because this passage gives us also a chance to consider an example of Thucydides citing Homer with extensive quotation of his poetic lines. I will consider that act of verbatim quotation, as well as how it shows that Thucydides thinks of Homeric poetry in performance. In this passage (3.104.1–​6), Thucydides is describing an event from the winter of 426/​425 BC E , the Athenian purification of Delos and the (re)establishment of the Delian Games there, and he cites Homer as evidence that Delos used to host a Panionian festival “once long ago” (ἦν δέ ποτε καὶ τὸ πάλαι μεγάλη ξύνοδος ἐς τὴν Δῆλον τῶν Ἰώνων τε καὶ περικτιόνων νησιωτῶν, 3.104.3: “there was once long ago a great gathering at Delos of both the Ionians and the neighboring islanders”). In support of that statement, Thucydides offers two sets of Homer’s dactylic hexameters as evidence, quoting several lines in each to show that there was such a festival in the remote past –​in fact, he is showing that it was during Homer’s lifetime. The poetry Thucydides quotes belongs to the tradition of what we call the Homeric Hymn to Apollo; Thucydides himself calls it a prooimion of Apollo.10 Although there are fascinating variations in

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92 Mary Ebbott what Thucydides quotes and what our medieval manuscripts record for these lines, the variations themselves are not what I am concerned with here.11 I am equally not concerned here with the fact that Thucydides quotes as “Homer” a work that we no longer ascribe to “Homer.” Instead, I will focus only on the most significant difference in citing Homer here from citing Homer in the Archaeology: in this case, Thucydides is quoting several lines verbatim. Why does he do so, and how? Let’s take the second part of that question first. Since Thucydides quotes a total of 13 dactylic hexameters, it is likely that he had a text to refer to, due to his standard operating procedure of presenting only evidence that he can verify (1.22), if for no other reason. But what kind of text? Graziosi, noting the extraordinary nature of these quotations, explains that “Thucydides quotes very rarely and when he does so, it is usually from inscriptions rather than poetry. This choice is in agreement with his greater trust in the eye than the ear: inscriptions are read, whereas, at this time, poetry is principally heard. Moreover, inscriptions are read by experts, those who can read and travel, whereas poetry is accessible to all.”12 Graziosi explains that the “Contest of Homer and Hesiod” mentions an inscription of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo at Delos dedicated in the temple of Artemis13 and suggests “The lost inscription is usually dated to the archaic period: if this is right, Thucydides may be following his standard practice of lending more weight to inscriptions than to orally performed poems.”14 How much credence we should give to the reference to an inscription in the “Contest” is an open question, of course. But if Thucydides is quoting a public inscription that celebrates a performance of a hymn to Apollo at Delos, as the “Contest” indicates, then the means of such extraordinary quotation are also closely tied to the many possible reasons why Thucydides quotes the poetry. Graziosi’s argument is that Thucydides is willing to quote Homer here because he is a reliable source for the ancient festival. Homer can offer true testimony for this festival because he himself was an eyewitness to (indeed, a participant in) the event.15 Hornblower suggests the further possibility that Thucydides was himself an eyewitness to the festival in 426/​5, and so is presenting the full evidence to which he had personal access.16 Nagy argues that Thucydides here quotes extensively because his audience would have been less familiar with this poetry than they would be with the Iliad, less familiar because of the performance of the epic, but not this hymn, at the Panathenaia.17 The extensive verbatim quotations here reveal that Thucydides can and will quote Homeric hexameters when a text is authoritative. Perhaps an inscription of these lines aided in both the means of quotation and also in establishing their authority. Thucydides’ use of Homer here also reveals, however, that he imagines Homer as a performer of poetry, as a competitor in the mousikoi agones (3.104.3–​5) that were part of the ancient Delian festival, that are instituted by the Athenians as part of the re-​established festival, and that are parallel to the mousikoi agones at the Panathenaia. The text Thucydides

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 93 quotes, in whatever form it existed, actually confirms Homer as a performer of his poetry. It is the underlying assumption of the performance of Homeric poetry that connects this passage to the funeral oration attributed to Pericles in Book 2, in which Homer is famously, or perhaps infamously, mentioned (but his poetry is not directly “cited”). In that speech praising the war dead, Pericles rejects Homer as the appropriate praiser. This rejection of Homer gives us insight into how Thucydides considers and cites Homeric epic by illuminating some of his assumptions about what “Homer” is and about the experience of his own audience with “Homer.” Here is the relevant section of the speech where Homer is named (2.41.4): μετὰ μεγάλων δὲ σημείων καὶ οὐ δή τοι ἀμάρτυρόν γε τὴν δύναμιν παρασχόμενοι τοῖς τε νῦν καὶ τοῖς ἔπειτα θαυμασθησόμεθα, καὶ οὐδὲν προσδεόμενοι οὔτε Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέτου οὔτε ὅστις ἔπεσι μὲν τὸ αὐτίκα τέρψει, τῶν δ’ ἔργων τὴν ὑπόνοιαν ἡ ἀλήθεια βλάψει, ἀλλὰ πᾶσαν μὲν θάλασσαν καὶ γῆν ἐσβατὸν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ τόλμῃ καταναγκάσαντες γενέσθαι, πανταχοῦ δὲ μνημεῖα κακῶν τε κἀγαθῶν ἀίδια ξυγκατοικίσαντες. Through great signs and by exhibiting power that is not at all unattested, we will be an object of wonder both to men now and to those in the future; and we do not at all need Homer as our praiser nor anyone who will delight with words in the immediate moment, while the truth of our deeds will disable that interpretation, but rather we have compelled the whole sea and earth to be accessible to our daring and everywhere we have established perpetual memorials of our harmful and beneficial actions. Gary McGonagill’s careful and insightful reading of this passage clears up misunderstandings that have long plagued interpretation of it. He does so by recognizing the common Thucydidean contrast between words and deeds in ἔπεσι and τῶν δ’ ἔργων and, crucially, by realizing that ἡ ἀλήθεια, rather than ὑπόνοια, is the noun governing τῶν δ’ ἔργων.18 McGonagill also views the entire passage within a context of Homeric language and reception:  in other words, he attempts to recapture the ways that Thucydides’ audience would experience Homeric epic.19 His conclusions are wide-​sweeping in terms of how this section, and the funeral oration as a whole, upends the contemporary Athenian norm of viewing and making sense of the present in light of the past. For my purposes here, however, I want to draw out two of the particular points he makes within his larger argument. The first insight of McGonagill’s that I want to emphasize and build on is the resonant meaning of the phrase Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέτου. As McGonagill argues, the basic point of denigrating Homer is clear enough, but Thucydides is in particular evoking rhapsodic performance of Homeric epic with this phrase. In Plato’s Ion Socrates refers to Ion the rhapsode’s occupation as being a “praiser of Homer” (Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέτης, 536d), which seems to

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94 Mary Ebbott colloquially mean, simply, “a performer of Homer.” (Ion responds using the corresponding verb in the first person, Ὅμηρον ἐπαινῶ, “I perform Homer.”)20 If Athens needed Homer as a praiser, then that praise would be enacted by a rhapsode, a performer of Homer. This is the first point I  want to single out: Thucydides alludes to Homeric epic in the way that his audience would experience it: as a rhapsodic performance. That Thucydides himself has taken over, through this very speech, as the praiser of the war dead,21 is in line with the distinctions between himself and Homer that we saw earlier. For this war, a Thucydides is needed as praiser instead. That the truth of the Athenian deeds requires lasting memorials rather than words that delight for the immediate moment similarly recalls Thucydides’ description in 1.22 of his own work, as we saw above. But since this rejection and replacement of Homeric epic as praise implies that it is used for just such a purpose, we must then consider how a rhapsode performing Homeric epic would act as praise for the Athenian war dead. McGonagill explains that the past is conventionally used in just that way to interpret the present:  mythical paradigms are offered and then interpreted in light of their applicability to the current events. Narratives about past heroes, such as those in Homeric epic, can act as praise for the war dead of this year through an analogy of the two situations. Indeed, that process of connecting past and present is what ὑπόνοια involves, and why it is crucial to understanding this passage: “ὑπόνοια really describes an observer’s recognition of an event or narrative as a σῆμα by means of recognizing its applicability to his own situation and his induction from that significant event or narration to the agent’s or narrator’s mind. The agent’s or narrator’s mind, though, is more properly called διάνοια.”22 In connection with McGonagill’s argument I add here another description of the rhapsode from Plato’s Ion: Socrates also says the rhapsode as an interpreter of the poet’s διάνοια for the audience (τὸν γὰρ ῥαψῳδὸν ἑρμηνέα δεῖ τοῦ ποιητοῦ τῆς διανοίας γίγνεσθαι τοῖς ἀκούουσι, 530c:  “For the rhapsode must be an interpreter of the poet’s thoughts for the listeners”).23 That role is very much like the implications of ὑπόνοια in this passage of Thucydides.24 Here is the second point I want to separate out from McGonagill’s larger discussion: the audience wants to and is expected to (whether the performer helps them explicitly or implicitly) make connections between mythical narratives, like those performed in Homeric epic, and contemporary events. In other words, Thucydides here is assuming as typical a particular habit of listening to Homeric epic in fifth-​century Athens: to make comparisons and connections between that story and more recent events, to see recent events in light of the Homeric narrative as it is heard in performance. Because fifth-​century Athenians were experienced in this skill of listening to performances of epic poetry (among all kinds of performances) and seeing analogies to their present situation, Thucydides can count on them to apply these skills, even he seeks to do so for a different purpose. As we move to the citations of Homer in the Archaeology, we will see that Thucydides is asking his audience to use what is familiar to them from Homeric epic to draw

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 95 logical conclusions about realities underlying the poetic description. But he can perform that comparative analysis, and expect his audience to do so as well, without having another text to refer to, since they are accustomed to do so with various kinds of performances. Thucydides’ first mention of Homer in his Archaeology uses Homeric epic as evidence supporting his argument about the world in the era of the Trojan war and earlier. In this case, however, Thucydides is using Homeric epic for what it does not say, with the result that he need not qualify his use of the evidence in the same way he will when he needs to cite Homer as positive evidence. In 1.3, Thucydides is arguing that there was no collective identity among the Hellenes at that time, and his proof is that Homer does not refer to the Greeks fighting at Troy as Hellenes.25 As Thucydides observes, that name is applied in Homeric epic only to those from Phthiotis who follow Achilles, “the very ones who were the first Hellenes,” and in his epic verses Homer instead calls the Greeks collectively Danaans and Argives and Achaeans (1.3.3). None of what Thucydides is saying here comes as a surprise to us, for we are familiar with Homer’s names for the Greeks at Troy, and indeed in our Iliad the name Hellenes is used just once when Achilles’ followers “were called Myrmidons, Hellenes, and Achaeans” (Μυρμιδόνες δὲ καλεῦντο καὶ Ἕλληνες καὶ Ἀχαιοί, Iliad 2.684). Thucydides does not, and apparently need not, note that it shows up only once –​perhaps in the Iliad he knew, Achilles’ men were called Hellenes more than once. His argument from a negative means that I cannot determine much more about what Thucydides is citing here, other than Homeric epic as a whole as an authority on the ancient Greeks. My argument here, in other words, can also only be from a negative: Thucydides does not cite a specific line (as I have) to prove his point, which could indicate that he is not referring to a text, but it is difficult to say anything more than that. In the next reference to Homer, at 1.9, Thucydides relies on Homer’s testimony to support his assertion that Agamemnon was leader of the Achaean forces due to his own superiority in strength. In this inquiry into the source of Agamemnon’s power, Thucydides reasons out (twice he uses μοι δοκεῖ, “it seems to me,” 1.9.1 and 1.9.3) what the true source of Agamemnon’s power must have been.26 In support of his argument that the others followed Agamemnon out of fear (phobos) rather than as a favor (kharis), he cites three different pieces of evidence from Homer that lead to his conclusion that Agamemnon had a powerful navy:27 (1)  that Agamemnon himself brought the most ships and (2) that he also furnished the Arcadians with their ships (φαίνεται γὰρ ναυσί τε πλείσταις αὐτὸς ἀφικόμενος καὶ Ἀρκάσι προσπαρασχών, ὡς Ὅμηρος τοῦτο δεδήλωκεν, εἴ τῳ ἱκανὸς τεκμηριῶσαι, 1.9.4: “for it is shown in that he himself arrived with the most ships and furnished them to the Arcadians, which Homer has made clear, if such evidence is sufficient”); and (3) that Homer said “in the handing down of the scepter” that Agamemnon rules over many islands (καὶ ἐν τοῦ σκήπτρου ἅμα τῇ παραδόσει εἴρηκεν αὐτὸν πολλῇσι νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν, 1.9.4: “and in ‘the handing down of the scepter’ he [Homer] has said that he [Agamemnon] rules over many

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96 Mary Ebbott islands and all Argos”). Although Thucydides demurs about the sufficiency of Homeric evidence, he is, as I mentioned above, nevertheless relying on the authority of the Iliad to support his argument about Agamemnon’s power. Let’s consider further how he refers to the Iliad here. By saying simply that Agamemnon brought “the most” ships, Thucydides assumes his reader does not need him to cite the evidence to support that fact, such as citing how many ships Agamemnon brought (100 in our Catalogue, Iliad 2.576–​578, which also says that he brought “the most and best” warriors), or noting the sizes of other contingents. This assumption on his part suggests that this information is common knowledge, and something he can adduce without dispute. That Agamemnon supplied the Arcadians with their ships is also mentioned in our Catalogue, at Iliad 2.612–​614. In this case, too, Thucydides does not quote hexameters as he does when citing the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in Book 3. We saw there that the authority of that evidence needed to be established; here, it is taken for granted. That difference says something about the authority of the Iliad over the hymn to Apollo. Moreover, the way Thucydides uses his Homeric evidence reveals that Thucydides here is acting in place of a rhapsode: he is exploring the dianoia of these passages, explaining how they imply the phobos behind Agamemnon’s power, just as we have seen was the rhapsodic practice. Further inference from evidence is required with the third piece of evidence, the line from the passage about Agamemnon’s ancestral scepter. Thucydides here makes the argument that if Agamemnon ruled over many islands, he must have had a navy (οὐκ ἂν οὖν νήσων ἔξω τῶν περιοικίδων (αὗται δὲ οὐκ ἂν πολλαὶ εἶεν) ἠπειρώτης ὢν ἐκράτει, εἰ μή τι καὶ ναυτικὸν εἶχεν, 1.9.4: “being a mainland dweller, he could not have had power over islands beside those that are neighboring (and these would not be ‘many’), if he did not have some sort of navy”). Here too then, Thucydides takes on the role of “interpreter” of Homer, much as the rhapsode Ion claims to be in Plato’s Ion. The way Thucydides is dealing with the evidence from Homer seems to have more in common with the rhapsodic performance tradition of Homer than it does textual analysis, and even more so because he expects his own audience to follow his condensed arguments without elaborate citation of particular lines. In this case, however, Thucydides does seem to quote one hexameter, although he puts it in indirect speech: καὶ ἐν τοῦ σκήπτρου ἅμα τῇ παραδόσει εἴρηκεν αὐτὸν πολλῇσι νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν (1.9.4: “and in ‘the handing down of the scepter’ he [Homer] has said that he [Agamemnon] rules over many islands and all Argos”). The Homeric forms in the line indicate that Thucydides is quoting, and some of our oldest manuscripts of the Iliad have a very similar line at Iliad 2.108, different only in the addition of a nu-​movable on the first word (as also in modern editions): πολλῇσιν νήσοισι καὶ Ἄργεϊ παντὶ ἀνάσσειν.28 Whether or not that small difference can tell us anything, this quotation is different from those in Book 3 in more than just length. I discuss in more detail later in this chapter how the reference “in the handing down of the scepter” suggests performance. For now, I argue that the

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 97 structure of the indirect statement in which Thucydides has embedded this line represents them as spoken words, rather than as written lines of poetry. The infinitive ἀνάσσειν “to rule over” in the Homeric line is not in indirect statement. So although he “quotes” the line as it reads in the textual tradition, the way he incorporates it into his own syntax represents it as speech. Perhaps even more tellingly, in Book 3, he begins each quotation by referring to the hexameters as “epic poetic lines” (ἐν τοῖς ἔπεσι τοῖσδε, 3.104.4: “in the following epic poetic lines”; τάδε τὰ ἔπη, 3.104.5: “the following epic poetic lines”), a term he does not employ here.29 I  surmise that Thucydides has internalized these words about Agamemnon as what Homer “has said” from hearing them orally, rather than seeing them as a text, as he has the “epic lines” that he quotes in Book 3. The last passage in the Archaeology citing Homer by name that I  will examine is impressive it its specificity, earnestly using details from the Iliad to approximate the size of the expedition to Troy, as far as that is possible. After prefacing his calculations with the caveat that poets are likely to exaggerate, Thucydides asserts that he can show, even using the poet’s figures, that it was an inferior force. He then gives numbers provided in “the Catalogue of Ships” (ἐν νεῶν καταλόγῳ, 1.10.4): 1,200 ships, with the Boeotians’ ships having a complement of 120 men, while Philoctetes’ ships had 50 men each. These details mostly accord with our Iliad, which says that the Boeotians had 50 ships, and in each one 120 young men came (Iliad 2.509–​510), and that Philoctetes had seven ships, with 50 rowers in each, who knew well how to fight forcefully with bows and arrows (Iliad 2.718–​720). Thucydides uses that latter detail to argue that the numbers given present the total number of men on board –​that fighters were also rowers. Adding up the number of ships given in a standard modern edition of our Iliad (namely, Allen 1931) the ships total 1,186. How seriously should we push the discrepancy between Thucydides’ nice round 1,200 and that number? His number is much more “Iliadic” than that found in other ancient sources, such as Apollodorus, who provides a catalogue and totals it up himself as 1,013 ships (III.11–​14).30 The relatively small difference between 1,186 and 1,200 makes more sense in a performance tradition rather than a text, for with a text, Thucydides could (and perhaps would, in his quest for akribeia, precision)31 do just as I did and go slowly through it to add up the several numbers given. If he is citing performed poetry, the discrepancy could suggest either that perhaps the numbers were slightly different from those in our modern scholarly editions, or that perhaps the “round” number was general knowledge, and Thucydides did not bother trying, or was unable, to add up the numbers given in any particular performance. The near correspondence of his number to our Iliad, in addition, suggests the Panathenaic performance tradition in particular, which played a significant role in shaping the Iliad we have today.32 Because I am attempting to uncover Thucydides’ own assumptions about Homer, I have pieced together references from these several passages to create an integrated sense of his views. To review what we saw in the passages from

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98 Mary Ebbott Books 2 and 3: (1) Thucydides will quote text when it lends authority to his argument to do so, and he has a text available to him. (2) Thucydides conceives of Homer himself, while he was living, as a performing poet, with large, prestigious religious festivals as an occasion for performance of Homer’s poetry. (3) Thucydides also refers to Homer in a way that implies performance of his poetry by rhapsodes. From these passages in the Archaeology, we can add that Thucydides interprets Homer in a way that rhapsodes and audiences were expected to do while listening to a performance, and that he does not quote lines of poetry as he did in Book 3. We have also seen that Thucydides generally aligns Homer with oral traditions and prize-​winning performances. All of this evidence points to the historically attested Panathenaic Homer as Thucydides’ “source” in the Archaeology. If I am right that Thucydides is referring to the performance of Homeric epic in his Archaeology, and not a text, we can then consider, albeit speculatively, what he means by the “titles” he gives to certain sections that he is citing for evidence. In 1.9.4 he refers to the “handing down of the scepter” (ἐν τοῦ σκήπτρου ἅμα τῇ παραδόσει) when arguing for Agamemnon’s naval power. In 1.10.4 Thucydides cites a title familiar even to us, “the Catalogue of Ships” (ἐν νεῶν καταλόγῳ). Thucydides does not explain what he means by either title, suggesting that he expects them to be self-​explanatory to his audience. Hornblower comments that this title, which he calls an “academic-​ sounding expression,” indicates “that the Iliad was already the object of literary study in Th.’s time.”33 But just because we have a similar label for part of our text, is that necessarily what is implied by Thucydides? If instead we are thinking in terms of performance, could these titles be common labels for set pieces of performance, perhaps even those an audience member could request from a performer or that rhapsodes could refer to in their interpretations? We can consider for comparison that “in the handing down of the scepter” and “in the catalogue of ships” have a syntax similar to Socrates’ request for a particular passage from Ion, the Homeric rhapsode, when he asks him to quote Nestor’s advice to his son Antilokhos about negotiating the turning-​post “in the chariot race for Patroklos” (εἰπὲ δή μοι ἃ λέγει Νέστωρ Ἀντιλόχῳ τῷ ὑεῖ, παραινῶν εὐλαβηθῆναι περὶ τὴν καμπὴν ἐν τῇ ἱπποδρομίᾳ τῇ ἐπὶ Πατρόκλῳ, Ion 537a: “tell me what Nestor says to his son Antilokhos, advising him to take care at the turning post in the chariot race for Patroklos”). Another reference in the Ion (539b) that introduces a particular passage from the Iliad (this time, Socrates is performing it himself) is slightly different in its syntax, but also gives a title to a part of the poem for performance: πολλαχοῦ δὲ καὶ ἐν Ἰλιάδι, οἷον καὶ ἐπὶ τειχομαχίᾳ “In many places also in the Iliad, for example even in ‘the battle at the wall’,” that is, in our Iliad 12. Socrates then performs what we would refer to as Iliad 12.200–​207, which is about the bird-​sign of the eagle carrying the snake, and not a moment of actual fighting at the wall.34 Such a reference is explicitly tied in the Ion to the rhapsodic performance of the Iliad (and is a request

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 99 for an impromptu performance of that passage), and the parallel uses in Thucydides should be thought of in the same way. Although I cannot prove (at this point, at least) that these labels have to do with the Panathenaia specifically, it is clear that they are connected with rhapsodic performance. It is also clear that performance is both what Thucydides considers the “default” mode for Homeric epic, and that he uses that default of performance to create a contrast to his own writing, a contrast that is connected with several others at the heart of Thucydides’ own definition of what he is accomplishing in his history. The evidence in Thucydides’ words indicates that he envisions Homeric epic as a performance, and refers to it in ways that he and his audience would be familiar with. There is no evidence –​ only modern assumptions –​that the Homer referred to in the Archaeology is a text. With the other evidence we have about Homeric epic in the fifth century B C E in Athens, the Panathenaic performance of the Iliad and Odyssey is the most likely reference for the authoritative performance of Homer on which Thucydides is relying.

Notes 1 For recent explorations of the influence of Homeric epic on the narrative and/​or portrayals of individuals in Thucydides, see, e.g., Crane (1996) 209–​215; Mackie (1996), Zadorojnyi (1998), Rengakos (2006), and Gray (2011) 77–​82. 2 Gomme (1945, 109) observes on 1.9.4, “Thucydides is in fact relying on Homer’s authority both here and in 10.3.” Hornblower (1991, 17)  notes on 1.3.3 that Thucydides “cites Homer for detail, and is inevitably indebted to him for much of his material in these early chapters. But Thucydides’ own avowed rejection of “stories” (see nn. on 21.1; 22.4) explains his occasional use of distancing formulae like those at 9.4 and 10.3: “if Homer is sufficient evidence for anybody”; “if one may believe Homer.” Thucydides’ use of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is in strong contrast.” See also Graziosi (2002) 121 on Thucydides’ “distancing” clauses and on the difference with the Hymn to Apollo. I  examine this contrast later in this chapter. Gardner (2005) 394 sees Thucydides’ appraisal of poetry as a historical source a bit more positively: “Thucydides is always skeptical about the information provided in early poetry (e.g., 1.9.4, 1.10.3, 6.2.1) and believes that poets distort things in the name of art (1.21.1); however, as long as one applies critical tests concerning believability (1.20.1), the evidence of the poets can indeed be used as a foundation for a probable historical hypothesis.” Kim (2010) 29–​30 says that while both Herodotus and Thucydides “seem to demonstrate, in different ways, that Homer’s objective was not historical accuracy and that his account was not accurate, they nevertheless seem loath to wholly abandon the poet as a witness to historical truth.” See Kim (2010) 24–​27 also on Homer’s special claims to authority and historical reliability (as compared to other poets) among other ancient authors. 3 Gray (2011) 84–​85 discusses these examples under her category of “mythical proofs” that Thucydides employs to support his arguments. They fit her overall examination of Thucydides’ reporting of information that is simply “said” by unnamed others.

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100 Mary Ebbott 4 The ancient literary testimony for performance of Homeric epic at the Panathenaia includes Plato Ion (530b specifies that Ion is going to perform his Homeric poetry at the Panathenaia); the dialogue Hipparkhos 228b, also attributed to Plato; Isocrates Panegyricus 159; Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102; Diogenes Laertius 1.57. 5 The performance of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaic festival, its connection to Peisistratos and his sons in the sixth century BCE, the effects it had on shaping Homeric epic, and the political and cultural importance it had for the Athenians throughout these centuries have been studied most deeply by Nagy (1990, 1996a, 1996b, 2002, 2009a, esp. ­chapters 3 and 4, 2009b, esp. I§35–​I§54 and I§168–​I§187). Davison (1958) is an early study on the form of the festival. He discusses the musical contests (36–​41) and suggests that competitions of performing Homeric epic date back well into the sixth century BCE. Neils (1992) provides a detailed description of the Panathenaic festival and Shapiro’s article in the same volume outlines the performance of Homeric epic during the festival (1992, 72–​75). 6 Neils (1992) 13. Neils (1992, 15–​20) later supports this assertion by elaborating on the grandeur and political administration of the festival. 7 Nicolai (2001, esp.  267, 271–​272) also examines Thucydides’ attitude toward Homer as a source and Thucydides’ treatment of earlier “paradigms” of great wars (283). I disagree with Nicolai’s characterization of Homeric epic as a “written source” (268, 283). 8 Thucydides uses ἀκοαί, oral traditions, again at 1.73.2 as the “source” for the remote past (τὰ μὲν πάνυ παλαιὰ). 9 Nagy (1990) 169:  “Thucydides is here setting up a choice between a private possession of knowledge, on the one hand, which is in his power to transmit to the one who possesses the text, and, on the other hand, the public display or performance of such knowledge, which would be conditioned by the vicissitudes of public performance in the polis, and which he describes as a ‘competitive effort [agōnisma, derivative of agōn] meant for the hearing in the here and now’.” Crane (1996, xii–​xiii, 3–​9) argues that Thucydides’ work is shaped by being intended strictly as a written work, rather than one for reciting aloud. Nagy and Crane on 1.22.4, like Hornblower (1991, 61)  and many others, read the contrast as implying Herodotus. But in the Archaeology, Thucydides must promote this war as greater than both the Trojan war and the Persian wars, and so his account as more important than those of either Homer or Herodotus. As Graziosi (2002, 118)  points out, “Thucydides defines himself simultaneously against Homer and against Herodotus, although he explicitly mentions only Homer.” See also Crane (1996) 209–​215 for Thucydides’ claim to authority as a claim “to beat Homer at his own task” (212). 10 See Nagy (2009a) 2§89–​2§95 for the key implications of the word prooimion, which overlaps etymologically with humnos “hymn” but also has strong connections to rhapsodic performance of Homeric epic. 11 Nagy (2009b) I§24–​I§34 discusses these variations in detail. 12 Graziosi (2002) 120. 13 See Certamen lines 315–​320 (in Allen 1912). Nagy (2011) 295–​298 examines the relationship between the Contest and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. 14 Graziosi (2002) 121. 15 Graziosi (2002) 121; see also Graziosi (2002) 63–​66. 16 Hornblower (1991) 524.

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 101 17 Nagy (2009b) I§181–​I§182. In a greater diachronic sense of what is happening by means of this quotation, Nagy also demonstrates how the Panionian Homer, identified as the man from Chios in this hymn, is a precursor to the Panathenaic Homer, and that the Athenian re-​founding of the Delia, at which that Homer performed, is part of the initiative of appropriating Homer as Athenian (see esp. 2009b, I§25, I§138). Graziosi (2002, 118–​123) similarly argues that Thucydides’ treatment of Homer makes him “implicitly, an Athenian” (118). 18 McGonagill (2004) 10. 19 McGonagill (2004) 10–​15. 20 Plato Republic 606e could similarly be interpreted as referring to “performers of Homer” (Ὁμήρου ἐπαινέταις). See also Nagy (2002) 27–​28 for his discussion of Ὅμηρον ἐπαινῶ meaning “to quote Homer.” 21 Cf. Graziosi (2002) 122–​123. 22 McGonagill (2004) 13. 23 Nagy (2002) 29, about this passage of the Ion: “To be able to join the Homeric narrative in progress is to know the dianoia of Homer.” 24 McGonagill’s point (2004, 13–​15) is that the clause should be understood as: “The truth of their deeds will spoil that interpretation (of the Homeric or other poetry)”; that is, the poetry and its mythical paradigms are no match for their accomplishments. Graziosi (2002) 123 observes that “The phrasing of this passage is designed to discard not only Homer but also the sophistic interpretations of Homer which try to defend his poetry by revealing its ὑπόνοιαι, its ‘hidden meanings’, or ‘underlying accounts’.” See also Kim (2010) 36–​37, 44 on ὑπόνοιαι as “hidden” meanings in Homeric poetry that require a skilled interpreter. 25 Kim (2010) 38–​39 points out Thucydides’ use of the verb τεκμηριοῖ “provides evidence” in this passage and notes that “for the historian, Homer ‘provides evidence’ ... of historical data.” That evidence then “allowed the historian to gain a foothold into the past by enabling a process of inference.” 26 Nicolai (2001) 271n18 similarly states: “Thucydides seems to intend to show, particularly in the Archaeology, how to make good use of poetic texts, especially some particular examples which lend themselves to inductive reasoning –​as is the case with the Catalogue of Ships.” 27 Nicolai (2001) 257 notes that the Archaeology as a whole “emphasizes the control of the sea.” So this investigation into Agamemnon’s source of power fits that larger theme. 28 The Venetus A  (Marcianus Graecus Z.  454 [=822]), Venetus B (Marcianus Graecus Z. 453 [=821]), and Escorial Υ.1.1 all share this reading, as seen in the digital photography of the manuscripts available on the Homer Multitext (www. homermultitext.org). 29 Thucydides does, however, use the term in 1.3.3 to refer to Homeric poetry. 30 When I add up the number of ships per contingent given by Apollodorus, the total I get is 1,023. I am not sure how to account for this discrepancy, but in either case, it is a much different number from that found in the Iliad’s Catalogue. 31 See 1.22.1–​2 and Crane (1996) 50–​65 for Thucydides’ goal of akribeia. 32 Nicolai (2001, 271)  suggests that Thucydides’ direct citation of the Catalogue “could be explained from its political use –​e.g., in the controversies concerning Salamis or Sigeum –​which made it a sort of authority which could be called upon as evidence.” If there is a political motivation here, it makes it all the more likely to

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102 Mary Ebbott my mind that Thucydides is citing the Panathenaic Iliad, which would be the most “official” Athenian version that could be cited in political disputes. 33 Hornblower (1991) 35. 34 Compare also Hippias citing lines from our Iliad 9, but referring to the passage he quotes as “in the Prayers” ἐν Λιταῖς, (Hippias Minor 364e). Cratylus likewise uses this title to refer to what we think of as Iliad 9: ἐκεῖνος ἐν Λιταῖς πρὸς τὸν Αἴαντα λέγει (Cratylus 428c). These dialogues quote hexameters as part of their citations, but because they are in a “dialogue” they are also represented as being shared in a kind of performance.

Bibliography Allen, Thomas W. 1912. Homeri Opera, vol. V. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Allen, Thomas W. 1931. Homeri Ilias. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Crane, Gregory. 1996. The Blinded Eye:  Thucydides and the New Written Word. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Davison, J. A. 1958. “Notes on the Panathenaea.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 78: 23–​42. Gardner, R. Scott. 2005. “Epic and Other Genres in the Ancient Greek World.” In J. Foley, ed., A Companion to Ancient Epic. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 386–​396. Gomme, Arnold W. 1945. A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Gray, Vivienne. 2011. “Thucydides’ Source Citations: ‘It is said’.” Classical Quarterly 61: 75–​90. Graziosi, Barbara. 2002. The Invention of Homer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hornblower, Simon. 1991. A Commentary on Thucydides, vol. 1. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kim, Lawrence. 2010. Homer Between History and Fiction in Imperial Greek Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mackie, C. J. 1996. “Homer and Thucydides: Corcyra and Sicily.” Classical Quarterly 46: 103–​113. McGonagill, Gary. 2004. “A Note on Thucydides 2.41.4, ὑπόνοια, and Conceptions of History.” Dionysius 22: 7–​18. Nagy, Gregory. 1990. Pindar’s Homer. Baltimore, MD:  Johns Hopkins University Press. Nagy, Gregory. 1996a. Poetry as Performance. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Nagy, Gregory. 1996b. Homeric Questions. Austin: University of Texas Press. Nagy, Gregory. 2002. Plato’s Rhapsody and Homer’s Music:  The Poetics of the Panathenaic Festival in Classical Athens. Washington, DC:  Center for Hellenic Studies. Nagy, Gregory. 2009a. Homer the Classic. Washington, DC:  Center for Hellenic Studies. Nagy, Gregory. 2009b. Homer the Preclassic (Digital Version). Center for Hellenic Studies. http://​chs.harvard.edu/​CHS/​article/​display/​4377. Accessed 31 March 2017. Nagy, Gregory. 2011. “The Earliest Phases in the Reception of the Homeric Hymns.” In A. Faulkner, ed., The Homeric Hymns:  Interpretive Essays. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 280–​333.

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Thucydides’ use of Homer 103 Neils, Jenifer, ed. 1992. Goddess and Polis: The Panathenaic Festival in Ancient Athens. Hanover, NH, and Princeton, NJ: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College and Princeton University Press. Nicolai, Roberto. 2001. “Thucydides’ Archaeology: Between Epic and Oral Traditions.” In N. Luraghi, ed., The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 263–​285. Rengakos, Antonios. 2006. “Homer and the Historians:  The Influence of Epic Narrative Technique on Herodotus and Thucydides.” In F. Montanari and A. Rengakos, eds., La Poésie Épique Grecque: Métamorphoses d’un Genre Littéraire. Geneva: Fondation Hardt, 183–​209. Shapiro, H. A. 1992. “Mousikoi Agones:  Music and Poetry at the Panathenaia.” In Neils 1992: 53–​76. Zadorojnyi, A. V. 1998. “Thucydides’ Nicias and Homer’s Agamemnon.” Classical Quarterly 48: 298–​303.

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7  Models of gift-​exchange and practices of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking in classical Persian poetry Olga M. Davidson

The seminal study of Marcel Mauss on the concept of the gift (Essai sur le don), which appeared in 1923–​1924, has since generated a wealth of research on practices of gift-​exchange from different vistas and disciplines. His vast range of reading and linguistic skills in this short monograph has led other scholars to venture into even more wide-​ranging explorations of the vocabulary of exchange and of the ways in which this vocabulary informs notions of societal values, ties of kinship, and scales of power in different societies. A  particularly fruitful application is the work of Claude Lévi-​Strauss on the “potlatch” mentality of gift-​exchange in the guest-​host relationships of societies in Northwest America, and that of Emile Benveniste on comparable mentalities of reciprocity that are implicit in Indo-​European languages. Benveniste’s pioneering Le Vocabulaire des institutions indo-​ européennes (1969) placed the vocabulary of gift-​giving in the context of other related notions –​including ties of personal loyalty, friendship, and hospitality. It is on the basis of this vocabulary, analyzed with his characteristic erudition and commendable clarity, that he undertook his study of these complex economic notions, which are, as he says, “difficult to define otherwise than by the sum of their peculiarities” (in ch. 5, “Gift and Exchange”). This chapter is a further exploration of such peculiarities, through a close study of the concept of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking in early-​11th-​century Islamic contexts as attested in historical accounts and in poetry. A closer study of these seemingly antithetical notions of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking will show the interconnectedness of these two practices as an overall model of gift-​exchange. Our point of departure will be the Ghaznavid court in the 11th century, for which we have as our main sources (1) the monumental and richly detailed history of Beyhaqi, as well as other historical narratives, and (2) a wealth of descriptive poetry, especially the Shāhnāma of Ferdowsi, a poet whose patron was the sultan Maḥmud of Ghazna. To introduce the basic historical facts of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking, I start with an explicitly descriptive piece of testimony from an 11th-​century treatise known as the Siyāsat-​nāma, by Neẓām al-​Molk. I quote from the relevant chapter, following the translation of Hubert Darke (1960 [1978]). In this chapter, we read that Neẓām al-​Molk advocates the practice of hostage-​taking

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Models of gift-exchange 105 for his Seljuq masters in order to secure the loyalty of dependent populations like the Arabs, Kurds, Deylamites, and Caspian peoples: “On taking hostages and keeping them at the court” The rulers of the Arabs, Kurds, Deylamites, Rumi-​s and others who have only recently come to terms of submission must be told that each of them should keep a son or brother resident at the court; there should be, if not a thousand, never less than five hundred of them. At the end of the year they can send replacements and the first ones can go back home, but they are not to start back until their replacements arrive here. In this way no one will be able to rebel against the king because of the hostages. In the case of the Deylamites and the people of Kuhistan, Tabaristan, Shabankara and suchlike who hold assignments and grants, similarly five hundred of them should reside at the court, and then if need arises the court will never be lacking in useful men. [end of chapter] Siyāsat-​nāma, ch. XXV 128 (Darke 101) The next chapter is relevant as well: “On keeping Turkmans in service like pages” Although the Turkmans have given rise to a certain amount of vexation, and they are very numerous, still they have a long-​standing claim upon this dynasty, because at its inception they served well and suffered much, and also they are attached by ties of kinship. So it is fitting that about a thousand of their sons should be enrolled and maintained in the same way as pages of the palace. When they are in continuous employment they will learn the use of arms and become trained in service. Then they will settle down with other people and with growing devotion serve as pages, and cease to feel an aversion [to settled life] with which they are naturally imbued; and whenever the need arises 5,000 or 10,000 of them, organized and equipped like pages, will mount to perform the task for which they are detailed. In this way the empire will not leave them portionless, the king will acquire glory, and they will be contented. [end of chapter] Siyāsat-​nāma, ch. XXVI (Darke 102) With this introductory text in place, I will now proceed to analyze the text of a remarkable letter as recorded by the 11th-​century historian Beyhaqi (ed. Fayyāż, Mashhad 1971). It is addressed to a Ghaznavid monarch (Amir), named Mas‘ud, and it is written in the name of three royal brothers, Yabghu, Toghrul, and Davoud, who were the original Seljukids. What is most remarkable about this letter is that the three Seljukid brothers themselves offer to give to the Ghaznavid monarch Mas‘ud one brother as a hostage. Here is the historical background of the letter: the Seljuks have crossed over to Khorasan

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106  Olga M. Davidson and have sent a letter to the Ghaznavid ruler Mas‘ud (the son of Sultan Maḥmud), who as we will see is intimidated in spite of the seemingly submissive tone of the letter. Now I quote the relevant portion of this letter, where the three Seljukids make their offer to give a hostage. My quotation follows a translation that has been generously shared with me by my colleague and friend Mohsen Ashtiany (adapted from Bosworth/​Ashtiany 2011): We have come for protection to the Lord of the World, the Great Sultan, the Dispenser of Favors, so that the Khvāja, Suri, might act as a mediator and might write to the Grand Vizier Aḥmad, son of ‘Abd al-​Ṣamad, and intercede with him, since there is a bond of friendship between him and us. Every winter, the Khwarazm Shah Altuntāsh, may God have mercy on him, used to allot us, our families and our beasts a place within his province until springtime, and the Grand Vizier used to act as intercessor. If the exalted judgment sees fit, we can be admitted as submissive vassals in such a way that one of us three leaders [F 612] could be serving at the exalted court, while the others could undertake whatever task the lord may command; and we shall be able to shelter beneath his mighty shadow. The district of Nasā and Farāva, which border the desert, could be bestowed on us so that we may deposit our baggage and impedimenta there and feel free from cares and worries. We will not allow any evildoer from Balkhān Kuh, Dehestān, the fringes of Khwarazm, or the regions adjacent to the Oxus to cause trouble, and we will drive away the ‘Erāqi and Khwarazmian Turkmens. If, God forbid, the lord does not give us a favorable answer, we do not know what will happen to us since we have no place on earth and there is nowhere left for us [This is the only hint of a threat in the whole letter]. We did not dare to write anything directly to that august court, for it is overpowering in its splendor, so we wrote to the Khvāja in order that he might bring this matter to a conclusion in a masterful fashion, if God, He is exalted and magnified, so wills. Beyhaqi 611–​612 (ed. Fayyāż) Let us now take a closer look at the dialectic of hostage-​giving and hostage-​ taking, charading as gift-​exchange. The passage I choose for illustration comes again from Beyhaqi 349–​355 (ed. Fayyāż). I will summarize some parts of the passage and quote directly other parts that have a direct bearing on the theme of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking. We join the narrative in progress. What has happened so far is that the Ghaznavid Shah Mas‘ud calls on his Vizier to arrange for the appointment of Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin as military commander over India. The Vizier’s feelings about this appointment are conflicted: The Vizier thought for a while, for he had been on bad terms with this Aḥmad. The latter had made much mischief at the time when the Vizier was on trial and his possessions put up for auction, and he exploited the situation and was buying up the Vizier’s goods and effects at very low

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Models of gift-exchange 107 prices. Then the Vizier had been imprisoned, and had not been able to secure any requital and compensation until now when he ordered that an audit should be made of the possessions of Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin. He pressed him hard and relentlessly until a sum of money was extracted from him. But now, since the Amir had preferred and chosen him, the Vizier sought to mollify him and pour balm on his wounds. The other point was that the Vizier was on very bad terms with the Qazi of Shiraz, Bu’l-​Ḥasan-​e ‘Ali, because on several occasions Amir Maḥmud had said, as was his wont, “How much longer do we have to put up with these airs and graces of Aḥmad? It’s not as if there is a dearth of potential viziers: Here’s one for the start, the Qazi of Shiraz!” [F 350] This Qazi was in no way comparable to such a great and eminent figure as the Grand Vizier, but kings can say whatever they like, and it is never any good arguing with them and offering proofs and reasons. The Grand Vizier, therefore, went along in this court session with the idea of pitting such a formidable figure as Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin against the Qazi of Shiraz and seeing the latter discredited. The Vizier said, “May the lord live a long life! This has been extremely well thought out, and there is no one suitable except Aḥmad. But in his case we need safeguards through a formal oath and through an arrangement with him to leave a son here as a hostage.” The Amir replied, “Exactly so. Let the Vizier summon him, and let him give orders and carry out whatever is required in this respect.” The Vizier came to the chancellery [divān-​e vezārat], and Aḥmad was summoned. He came, but was very apprehensive in case this was another possible unpleasant surprise. The Vizier sat him down and said, “You know that there has been a settling of accounts with you going back several years now, but you must also know that I have made a solemn oath to do my best in matters of royal concern and therefore you should not be under the misapprehension that I harbor a grievance against you and bear you evil intentions, and accordingly adopt a weary and discontented stance. For where it is a question of royal interest and welfare, as a servant of his realm I can offer only sound advice and solicitude.” Aḥmad kissed the ground and said, “Such baseless ideas would never cross my mind. It is not as if I am seeing today the Grand Vizier for the first time, for I have known his highness for years. The wisest course for this humble servant is to follow what the lord Sultan commands and what the lord the Grand Vizier advises. Beyhaqi 349–​350 (ed. Fayyāż) We see here a strong undercurrent of irony if not downright sarcasm beneath the veneer of high civility. Both parties know and despise each other but both are accomplished enough politicians to bury the hatchet and act their parts regardless. I now quote further from the passage:

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108  Olga M. Davidson The Vizier said, “The Sultan held a private audience today, [F 351] and many topics were discussed, the most important being the matter of India, concerning which he said, ‘There is a man there who is from the learned and secretarial classes, namely the Qazi of Shiraz, but he is hardly the man to lead an army. What we need is a commander of great fame and stature to go there, lead expeditions against the infidels and collect the tributes, just as the Qazi is in charge of collecting the regular taxation and wealth due. That commander should venture out against the infidels when he thinks fit, extract the tribute and appropriate elephants, and smite the heads of any rebellious Indians.’ When I asked, ‘The lord is familiar with all his servants, so whom has he in mind to be the Commander-​in-​ Chief ?’, he replied, ‘My mind is fixed on Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin.’ I saw that the lord thought very highly of you, and I also recounted what I knew of your bravery and your capabilities. He ordered me to summon you and convey to you the encouraging words from the exalted court session and to take charge of all the preparations for your departure. What is your response to all this?” Aḥmad kissed the ground, rose to his feet and said, “I, servant that I am, cannot find the words to express my gratitude for this favor, and do not consider myself worthy of such a high status. I remain an obedient servant and will obey whatever has been ordained and will do my utmost, so that it will become evident that nothing in the way of solicitude and wise counsel will remain undone.” The Vizier gave him encouragement and spoke to him kindly, and sent him away. Beyhaqi 350–​351 (ed. Fayyāż) The narrative goes on to describe in great detail the ceremonial investiture of Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin as commander over India. Then the Vizier gives Aḥmad elaborate instructions on how to comport himself as the commander. Here is part of the wording: You, as the Commander-​in-​Chief, must operate in accordance with the contractual agreement and the responses to it. Certainly, don’t meddle in the fields of collecting the regular taxation and extracting wealth, so that tongues cannot wag against you; but carry out your duties as a Commander. […] Bu’l-​Qāsem-​e Bu’l-​Ḥakam, who is the Postmaster and intelligences agent [F  353], and a trustworthy person, will send news of the current events when he thinks fit and will also see to it that the ordinances of the Sultan and of the Divān are delivered. Neither of you should bother His Majesty directly; whatever needs a written answer should be sent to me in full, and you will be furnished with firm answers. The exalted judgment has laid down the requirement that several persons from the leading figures of the Deylamites, such as Bu Naṣr-​e Ṭeyfur and others, should be dispatched with you so that they may live far away from

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Models of gift-exchange 109 the court, since they are aliens [with no ties to the court]; also, several persons who have been involved in factional and partisan behavior in their own regions, like Bu Naṣr-​e Bāmiyāni and the brother of the chief of the notables of Balkh, and the chief’s paternal cousin. Also, a bunch of unruly and factious palace guards who had carried out and been convicted of acts of treachery will be set free and given presents and given the impression that they have been accepted back into the fold. You must take them along with you and treat them with great care and kindness, but not one of them is to cross the Chandrāha river without the Sultan’s command and your own knowledge and permission. When you go out on raiding expeditions, you are to take this bunch with you, and take great care that there is no fraternization with the army of Lahore and no communal wine-​ drinking or polo-​playing. Keep spies and watchmen over them, for this is one of the important priorities that must be attended to at once. Bu’l-​ Qāsem-​e Bu’l-​Ḥakam is a dab hand at this. He will receive instructions to join forces with you and carry out whatever is necessary in this matter. The royal commands on other matters and the investiture patent and the responses to the contractual agreement have been prepared. Regard all that you have just heard in confidence as royal commands and keep them to yourself. When you have all arrived there at your posts, you will report new developments as they occur, [F 354] with each person having regard for matters directly relevant to him, so that necessary orders are given and each person can act upon the instructions received. Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin replied, “Everything is clear to me, and I shall do my utmost to see that things run smoothly,” and he returned home. Beyhaqi 352–​354 (ed. Fayyāż) Almost as an afterthought, the Vizier then sends word to Aḥmad, after they had already parted company, that he must leave behind his son as hostage. I now resume the quotation: The Vizier sent a message after him through his personal chamberlain Ḥasan, to tell him in person that “The exalted command is that your son, should remain here, although of course you will be able to take your family and daughters with you. Make arrangements for your son to remain at your residence with a tutor and overseer and guardian, since he will have more space and freedom there, for the lord, solicitous of your feelings, did not wish your son placed in the barracks of the palace guards. I  was too embarrassed to tell you this myself, and one should not require a hostage from you; and although the Sultan has not issued any specific order regarding this, one cannot dispense with customs and traditions, and I have no choice but to safeguard the interests of the state in matters great and small, and likewise the good interests of you and your likes. Beyhaqi 354 (ed. Fayyāż)

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110  Olga M. Davidson The requirement that Aḥmad’s son should remain in Mas‘ud’s palace at Ghaznin is presented as not falling into the category of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking. The Monarch and the Vizier had already agreed on the necessity for keeping the son as hostage, and the Commander-​in-​Chief knows that, too, but appearances must be kept up and the pretense made that all three trust each other wholeheartedly. Nevertheless, the taking of hostages for the good behavior of governors, dependent rulers, and so on, was an age-​old one in the Middle Eastern empires. In Persia, the practice dates at least as far back as Sasanid times. Here I cite again the first passage in this presentation, where Neẓām al-​Molk advocates this practice for his Seljuq masters in order to secure the loyalty of dependent populations like the Arabs, Kurds, Deylamites, and Caspian peoples. In reply to the Vizier, Aḥmad accepts the terms, and at this point I resume the quotation: Aḥmad answered, “I will obey the command, and my personal interest, today and in the future, lies in whatever the Grand Vizier deems correct and commands.” He rewarded the chamberlain lavishly and sent him back on his way, and made the necessary arrangements for the son. All the other affairs connected with the position of Commander-​in-​Chief, including equipment, weapons, gholām-​s, and so on, he arranged in the way he had seen done in the past and had committed to memory, for he was a marvel at organizing such things. When he had completed all the preparations, he asked for, and received, the permission to depart. On Saturday, 24 Shabān [422 /​16 August  1031], the Amir mounted and, with a great retinue of people, came to the plain of Shābahār seated on the traveling throne on an elephant; and stopped on the dais. Aḥmad-​ e Ināltegin came into his presence, dressed in a ruby-​colored coat and offered up obeisance. A very splendid procession, with numerous troops bearing their complete set of arms, went past, comprising the troop leaders (sarhangs), Deylamites and [F 355] other [ethnic] groups who had been designated to accompany him. After them came one hundred and thirty royal gholām-​s, most of them youths whose beard and body hair had begun to grow, whom the Amir had liberated from their slave status and who were now entrusted to Aḥmad. Accompanying them were three leaders of the palace guards with three lion-​emblazoned banners and short spears in the tradition of the guards. Large kettledrums, Aḥmad’s own banner of red brocade with a crescent-​shaped finial on top, seventy-​ five gholām-​s, and a number of pack and riding camels followed suite. The Amir said to Aḥmad, “Go forth with pride and joy, be on your guard, acknowledge the worth of all this magnificence, keep our own person before your eyes and show praiseworthy service, and you will find yourself worthy of even greater favor.” He replied that, whatever was incumbent by way of service, he would do. He made obeisance, the horse for the Commander-​in-​Chief of India was summoned, and he mounted and rode off.

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Models of gift-exchange 111 It was the last encounter with him [written in Arabic], for he was led astray by malicious and corrupting influences and forsook the path of rectitude, as will be subsequently related in its place. Beyhaqi 354–​355 (ed. Fayyāż) After Aḥmad-​e Ināltegin had been sent out, events in northern India were to be characterized by friction and disputes between the commander-​in-​chief and the Qazi, culminating in Aḥmad’s rebellion in the year 424/​1033. What we see from this narrative is that the interconnectedness of gift-​ exchange with practices of hostage-​giving and hostage-​taking can even lead to exchanges of roles. Paradoxically, sometimes it is the giving of gifts that becomes the source of diplomatic anxieties and tensions, whereas hostages can bring conflicting interests together. As we have seen from the text that I have quoted at length, the gifts sent by the envoy fall short of the recipient’s wish list, and the gesture backfires, becoming a source of grievance and a testament to overall decline, while the young son of a potentially unruly distant governor, kept at the court to check a dangerously ambitious father, metamorphoses into an acceptable boon companion for that very same apprehensive monarch. Finally, I  proceed to consider the dialectic of gift-​exchange and guest-​ friendship as an alternative to hostage-​ giving and hostage-​ taking. I  will examine the story of Siyāvash as retold by the poet Ferdowsi in his 11th-​ century epic known as the Shāhnāma. What I will quote here is my paraphrase of the narrative that contains the key wordings that I am about to examine (Shāhnāma vol. III, 39–​250, ed. Bertels; all translations of the key wordings, as embedded in this paraphrase, are mine): Key Kā’us sends Siyāvash with a massive army to wage war with Afrāsiyāb, king of Turan, on a sort of pre-​emptive strike mission, for Afrāsiyāb had amassed his troops on Iran’s borders, ready to invade. Siyāvash sets out and easily conquers and occupies Balkh, humiliating Garsivaz, brother of Afrāsiyāb and great grandfather of Siyāvash. When Afrāsiyāb hears of the defeat of Garsivaz, he goes into denial and orders a large and extravagant feast. He then experiences a terrifying dream, which, once interpreted, cautions him against fighting the forces of Kā’us –​for it will only lead to total devastation of his land and people, leaving him alive but ruling over nobody. As a result, Afrāsiyāb sues for peace and sends Garsivaz with a vast amount of gifts to Siyāvash, along with a declaration that he means no quarrel and is quite content ruling just Soghdiana. After some thought, Siyāvash accepts the concession of Afrāsiyāb under the condition that he give 100 of his own kin as hostages, since “there must not be for us any worry or suspicion that he [Afrāsiyāb] would beat the war drum hidden under a gelim rug” (p.  56 line 850). Siyāvash tells Garsivaz, who is serving as emissary of Afrāsiyāb:  “if there is no hidden poison infusing your honeyed draught, and if your

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112  Olga M. Davidson heart harbors no feelings of anger or vengeance, and if you sincerely want an agreement that brings to an end our animosity and hatred, then, as hostages, warriors whom Rostam knows and whose names he reads out you must send to me as a guarantee of your promise. Next from the land of Iran, you must evacuate from whatever cities of ours that you hold in your hands and withdraw to within the borders of Turan and take a rest for awhile from anger and vengeance” (p. 57 lines 861–​866). Afrāsiyāb, when he hears such conditions, is aghast, saying:  “if I  lose now one hundred from among my relatives in this assembly, then my whole court will fragment and no one who is loyal to me will remain” (p.  58 lines 875–​ 876). Still, he complies. Siyāvash dispatches to his father Key Kā’us the hero Rostam, who is instructed to deliver a letter that explains the arrangement. Key Kā’us is furious, blaming Rostam for allowing Siyāvash to make such a naïve decision. Then Key Kā’us disenfranchises Rostam and sends Tus as emissary to Siyāvash with the instructions that he should burn all the wealth of the hostages and then enchain them and send them to Kā’us on the backs of donkeys, since they are “a miserable lot who do not know their fathers’ names” (p. 62 line 939). Further, Kā’us declares that he will then cut off all their heads. Rostam implores Kā’us not to force Siyāvash “to break the oath he has made” and not “do what is unworthy of the crown” (p.  63 line 962), since “prince Siyāvash will not go back on his word, and what the king suggests he do will horrify that noble hero” (p.  63 lines 63–​64). When Siyāvash hears his father’s order he says to himself: “[here are] a hundred Turkish horsemen, all illustrious men, all noble kinsmen to their king, all well intentioned and blameless. If I  should send them to the Shah [Kā’us], he will not make any inquiries or care to know anything about them, but immediately string them up alive –​and then what excuse can I bring before God?” (p. 66 lines 1012–​15). Siyāvash returns all the gifts and the hostages to Afrāsiyāb with the message that “I won’t violate the treaty with you, even though it may mean that I will lose the royal throne: God who rules the world is my refuge, the ground is my throne, the turning heavens my crown” (p. 71 lines 1087–​88). Upon seeing all the gifts and hostages returned, a worried Afrāsiyāb is counseled by Piran to “prepare a place for him to live within our borders and provide for him according to his social position; adorn him with a daughter in marriage, treat him with dignity and see that he saves face. And if he stays here as our sovereign guest [literally, “if he stays near”], your lands and borders will be at peace; if he returns to his king, you will still be better off –​it would be as a favor to the king, and the noblemen would congratulate him. If God should give this prince to us, both countries will no longer be at war” (p. 73 lines 1123–​28). Afrāsiyāb gives his daughter, Farigis, to Siyāvash in marriage –​along with some land upon which to build a city. Even though the site for the future

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Models of gift-exchange 113 city is deemed inauspicious, Siyāvash goes ahead and builds a city that quickly becomes renowned for its splendor. Afrāsiyāb sends Garsivaz to visit this city, Siyāvashgerd, and report back to him. Garsivaz, holding a grudge against Siyāvash for besting him in battle and sport and thereby gaining Afrāsiyāb’s love, uses this opportunity to pit both Afrāsiyāb and Siyāvash against each other by fanning flames of distrust and suspicion. Afrāsiyāb muses aloud to Garsivaz: “when he let go the imperial throne, he made wisdom the warp and me the weft. He never once declined to do anything that I  commanded and he valued all that I  did for him. I entrusted him with a province and my own wealth; I never noted any trouble or underhandedness. And then I made a blood alliance with him, abandoning all thought of vengeance on Iran. I  obligated him to me through my treasure and my child, who is the dearest delight of my eye. If now I were to be suspicious of this man, the world would be filled with murmurings against me” (pp. 125–​126, lines 1934–​40). But Garsivaz convinces Afrāsiyāb that Siyāvash is a threat, and so Afrāsiyāb orders that Siyāvash be publicly humiliated and beheaded. After the execution of Siyāvash, Afrāsiyāb commands that his own daughter, Farigis, be dragged out by her hair from her private quarters, naked, and he intends to cleave her in half in order to destroy the child of Siyāvash in her womb. When Piran hears of this, he intercedes on her behalf, saying: “How has a devil triumphed over your heart and rendered you so shameless before God? You’ve killed the blameless Siyāvash and hurled his noble name and glory into the dust. When news of this vile act has reached Iran, when they learn that the gracious one, pride of the orchard, cypress tree, has withered, how many lords of Persia will lead out their armies here, intent on war and vengeance (p. 157 lines 2400–​2404) … You will regret this act for endless days; how long will you writhe in sorrow and in anguish over this!” (p. 157 line 2407). Faragis is saved and gives birth to Key Khosrow. He is raised by shepherds and, once grown, escapes to Iran, assumes the throne, and demolishes Turan, killing Afrāsiyāb in vengeance for his father. As we have seen from this paraphrase of the narrative about Siyāvash, this hero of Iranian epic treats a hostage agreement in good faith as a genuine treaty, and he expresses his resolve to stand by the original agreement. He is thus an exponent of good faith toward both sides, that is, to the Turanians as well as the Iranians. But that stance leads to a shift in his own status: now he will become a hostage himself, since his own side decides not to honor the good-​faith agreement that Siyāvash had negotiated. As a figurative hostage, Siyāvash is treated at first as a guest by the Turanians, just as he had expected his own people to treat the hundred Turanian hostages as guests,

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114  Olga M. Davidson but the realities of his becoming a de facto hostage will now supersede the rhetoric. Because Siyāvash’s own people, the Iranians, have defaulted in their good faith, the Turanians will no longer be bound by good faith to the Iranians. They are bound only to Siyāvash himself, not to Key Kā’us. But this new tie that binds is no longer between Siyāvash as conqueror and the Turanians as the conquered. Siyāvash, by virtue of being true to the agreements he made, is no longer the conqueror: he is now the de facto hostage, and the Turanians have become his de facto hostage-​takers. At the start, the status of Siyāvash as de facto hostage is equated with the status of a most honored guest. With the passages of time, however, the status of Siyāvash changes from guest to persona non grata: the Turanians lapse into bad faith, and Afrāsiyāb executes Siyāvash, as if the hero had defaulted as a hostage. The exponent of good faith is in the end a victim of both sides.

Bibliography Benveniste, E. 1969. Le vocabulaire des institutions indo-​européennes. Paris: Le Monde. Translated 1973 by E.  Palmer as Indo-​European Language and Society. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press. Published online at http://​nrs.harvard.edu/​ urn-​3:hul.ebook:CHS_​Benveniste.Indo-​European_​Language_​and_​Society.1973. Accessed 18 August 2018. Bertels, Y. E., et al., eds. 1960–​1971. Ferdowsi: Shāhnāma I-​IX. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Bosworth, C. E., trans., M.  Ashtiany, rev. 2011. The History of Sultan Mas‘ud of Ghazna, 1030–​1041, by Abu’l Fażl Beyhaqi. Boston, MA, and Washington, DC: Ilex Foundation. Darke, H., trans. 1960. The Book of Government or Rules for Kings. The Siyar al-​ Muluk or Siyasat-​nama of Nizam al-​Mulk. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. (2nd ed., 1978. London and Boston: Routledge.) Fayyāż, ‘Ali Akbar, ed. 1971. Tārikh-​e Mas‘udi. Mashhad. Lévi-​ Strauss, C. 1947 [reissued  1967]. Les structures élémentaires de la parenté. Paris: The Hague, 3–​13, 548–​570. Mauss, M. 1923–​1924. “Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés primitives.” L’Année Sociologique, seconde série.

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8 Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow, and the initial reception of the decipherment of Linear B* Stephen Tracy

Accounts of Michael Ventris’ decipherment of Linear B as an early form of Greek are many1; all recognize what a tremendous achievement it was to accomplish it without the aid of a bilingual text. The present essay, in addition to examining Ventris’ actions in detail, highlights a heretofore untold part of the story, the role of Professor Sterling Dow of Harvard University.2 Above all, the challenge of reading the Linear B tablets found at Knossos and Pylos fired Dow’s imagination, just as it did many others. After initial skepticism on hearing a report that a British amateur named Michael Ventris had claimed that the language was Greek, Dow, in contrast to most others at the time, attacked the problem and took great pride in his deduction using purely historical reasoning that the language of the tablets must have been that of the mainlanders, that is Greek.3 Indeed, his obituary in the New York Times of 14 January 1995 lists among his scholarly accomplishments “he was able to suggest  –​accurately as it turned out  –​that the ancient tablets found at Knossos, Mycenae, and Pylos had been written in an early form of Greek.” But Dow was not the only one to have seen this4 and, in any case, it is not for this that he was significant, but rather for his voice heralding at a crucial point and in an influential scholarly venue the correctness of Ventris’ solution. But we get ahead of our story. Let us turn to Michael Ventris in the crucial months of the spring and summer of 1952. Ventris’ decipherment of Linear B as an early form of Greek in the summer of 1952, now just over 65  years ago, stands as one of the greatest accomplishments in our field.5 Indeed, in October 1953, R. D. Barnett of the *  I am indebted to T. Brogan, E. Hallager, and T. Palaima for sharing their expertise with me on matters related to Crete and to Linear B. Abbreviations of works cited frequently: Documents = M. Ventris and J. Chadwick, Documents in Mycenaean Greek (Cambridge 1956, reprint 1959, 2nd ed. 1973) “Evidence”  =  M. Ventris and J.  Chadwick, “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives,” JHS 73, 1953, 84–​103. Man = A. Robinson, The Man Who Deciphered Linear B (New York 2002). “Minoan Writing” = S. Dow, “Minoan Writing,” AJA 58, 1954, 77–​129.

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116 Stephen Tracy British Museum not only accepted it, but, inspired by Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay’s scaling of Mt. Everest on 29 May 1953, characterized it as “surely the Everest of Greek archaeology.”6 The man who scaled those heights of linguistic brilliance was killed a little over four years after his initial announcement in an automobile accident on 6 September 1956. He was 34  years old. That tragic loss somehow magnified his achievement. Opposition that he may have faced in arriving at the solution, disagreements that may have existed were naturally played down or glossed over. This was easy to do, especially since the man in question was unassuming and, as his mimeographed Work Notes attest, generous in sharing his work with others. Indeed, he championed the idea of international cooperation in solving the difficult problems posed by the language(s) of the tablets. This came to him naturally because, as an architect, he was accustomed to working groups formed for a particular building project. He closed Work Note 7 of 1 May 1951 (p.  19 [160]), the first in response to the publication earlier that year of Emmett Bennett’s The Pylos Tablets, a preliminary transcription, with this exhortation: “Let us regard our previous research as only preliminary to the stage now beginning; and let us work together to provide an elegant and economical solution with the limited evidence and techniques available.” But, human nature being what it is, we may suspect that the almost universal spirit of cooperation purported to exist among those working on the problem is to some degree a fiction.7 We know, for example, that Sir Arthur Evans did not take lightly challenges to his cherished belief in the Minoan domination of the mainland Greeks. He famously drove A.  J. B.  Wace for opposing him on this fundamental issue from his position as Director of the British School at Athens.8 And, busy as he was with publishing the results of his huge excavation at Knossos, he made available only a small number of the Linear B tablets and restricted access to the rest. Some, at least, surely felt resentment about this.9 Sir John L. Myres, who finally published the Knossos Linear B tablets in 1952, took the American scholar Alice E. Kober into his confidence and made the material available to her in 1947 and 1948. Kober had a no-​nonsense approach that avoided theorizing, but rather sought to establish in rigorous fashion the facts so far as they could be established.10 She made a number of real advances, especially isolating groups of signs that were the same but with different endings. “Kober’s triplets” they came to be called. Kober herself recognized that the language represented by the B script was highly inflected, a very important observation that was later crucial to the decipherment. She also came to the conclusion that the A and B scripts represented different languages.11 A meeting at Oxford in late August 1948 of Myres, Kober and Ventris to work out the details of Ventris’ role in preparing the Knossos Linear B material for publication did not go well.12 Moreover, Kober thought that the questionnaire for the Mid-​Century Report (see later in this chapter) that Ventris sent out to those working on the problem at the end of 1949 was not worth answering.13 Unfortunately, she died of cancer at age 43 on 16 May 1950. Her curt dismissal of the questionnaire was perhaps

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 117 her illness speaking, but it seems clear that she and Ventris did not hit it off. At the least, there must have existed some natural rivalry among those working on the problem, each hoping to be the one to make the breakthrough. In this light, the present piece examines the fascinating story of the decipherment as it unfolded in the critical period from May/​June 1952 to April 1954; these months cover the period from Ventris’ first assignment of phonetic values based on Cretan place names and the rapidly cascading evidence, unbelievable to all (including, initially, Ventris himself), that the language was Greek up to the time of the wide dissemination of the proof offered by Pylos tablet Ta 641, the so-​called tripod tablet. This cannot have been an easy time for Ventris. Most colleagues, in fact, were initially disposed to think his suggestion of the Greek solution impossible, even preposterous. On 1 July 1952, just 11 days short of his 30th birthday, Michael Ventris announced on the Third Programme of the BBC radio his decipherment of Linear B. His address, “Deciphering Europe’s Earliest Scripts,” was published on pages 57–​58 of The Listener of 10 July 1952 [text in Sacconi pp. 363–​367].14 After reviewing the discovery of the tablets at Knossos and Pylos and their publication in early 195115 and early 1952,16 Ventris outlines the way to go about deciphering “a set of inscriptions where both the language and the writing are unknown quantities and where there is no bilingual to help us” (p. 58 col. I top [365]), explains that the number of signs shows that it was a syllabary and reviews the opinions of others on the language. He then drops his bombshell: “[d]‌uring the last few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that the Knossos and Pylos tablets must, after all, be written in Greek –​a difficult and archaic Greek, seeing that it is 500 years older than Homer and written in a rather abbreviated form, but Greek nevertheless” (p.  58 col. II middle [366]). Ventris saw clearly the historical implications:  “… if my suggestion is right, the Greeks must in fact have arrived in Crete at its building [scil. the last palace at Knossos] and not merely been its destroyers; and it must have been they who devised the new Linear Script B for their own purposes” (p. 58 col. II near bottom [367]). He ends on a characteristically diffident note: “… there is evidently a great deal more work to do before we are all agreed on the solution to the problem.” Ventris first became interested in the tablets when as a 14-​year-​old he attended with his school group an exhibition in London in 1936 celebrating the 50th anniversary of the work of the British School at Athens.17 Sir Arthur Evans was present and talked on his finds from Knossos including the tablets. The young Ventris was fascinated by Evans and by the challenge of deciphering the unknown writings. Evans was thus the inspiration but also, as it turned out, a real impediment to progress. He strongly believed that his Minoans were the dominant culture and that they had colonized the mainland. He also asserted that Linear A and B were two manifestations of the Minoan language, B being developed from A.18 Indeed, the discovery of Linear B at mainland sites seemed to confirm Evans’ arguments for Minoan control of the mainland palaces. His powerful influence made it almost

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118 Stephen Tracy unthinkable for anyone in Minoan studies to believe that the language of the B script could be Greek. To return to Ventris. Just four years after he met Evans he published in The American Journal of Archaeology a first article on the problem leaning toward Etruscan as providing the key.19 That same year he entered a course of study to become an architect. In August 1942 he was called for military service and joined the Royal Air Force where he served as a navigator. Nevertheless, he maintained his interest in the Minoan writings and kept in touch with Sir John Myres on whom after Evans’ death in 1941 fell the heavy responsibility for preparing Scripta Minoa II, the publication of the Linear B script tablets from Knossos. Ventris was discharged from military service in 1946 and completed his architectural degree at age 26 in 1948. Just after he left the military in 1946 Ventris visited Myres at Oxford and was invited by him to help publish the Knossos tablets. In the midst of completing his studies to be an architect, he could make no commitment, but did manage to continue his own interest in Minoan circulating on 7 March 1950 a report entitled “The Languages of the Minoan and Mycenaean Civilizations:  New Year 1950” [pp.  31–​132]. This is often referred to as the “Mid-​ Century Report.” The next year Bennett’s publication of his transcription of the Pylos tablets gave the entire study new impetus and spurred Ventris to devote even more time to the project of decipherment. He recorded his progress during 1951 and the first half of 1952 in a series of 20 mimeographed “Work Notes.” Work Notes 7 to 15, dated 1 May to 3 September 1951 (pp. 18–​145 [159–​294]), present his preliminary analysis of the Pylos tablets. As he closed this phase of his analysis he observed “… I am convinced that a decipherment of Minoan “B” will be possible within 2 years of the publication of the Knossos tablets” (p. 145 [294]). It did not require half so long! By 15 February 1952, the date of Work Note 17, Scripta Minoa II has appeared or is about to appear from Clarendon Press (p. 162 [315]). However, on 20 March 1952, the date of Work Note 19, Ventris still has not seen it (p.  171 [326]). The next and, as it turned out, the final Work Note is no. 20 dated 1 June 1952 (pp. 172–​176 [327–​331]); it is entitled “Are the Knossos and Pylos tablets written in Greek?” Ventris immediately undercut this daring title by writing (p. 172 [327]) “The Note which follows is in the nature of a frivolous digression …” Clearly, he had been working assiduously on the new material and much had started to fall into place, but he was still genuinely concerned that the Greek solution “would sooner or later come to an impasse” (p. 176 [331]). However, the real doubt that he expressed at the end of Work Note 20 very soon gave way to certainty, so that by 1 July he was prepared to announce the decipherment as Greek in the very public forum of a BBC radio broadcast. When did he arrive at this point of certainty and what led him to it? When he applied the phonetic values that he had reached for the grid of B signs, they gave again and again intelligible Greek, so often as to rule out coincidence; the values worked and Ventris, once he got over his astonishment at finding exactly the opposite of what he expected, very quickly realized it. That

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 119 is the simple answer to the second question. The first, too, has a fairly precise answer. Prudence Smith, who was a close friend and a producer at BBC radio, was invited with her husband Michael to dinner in early June at the Ventris’s. She reports that their host, the other Michael, was holed up in his study when they arrived and rather rudely let his wife entertain their guests for quite some time. When Ventris finally appeared he excitedly said “I know it, I know it. I am certain of it –​.” After dinner he showed Prudence, who had done Classics at Oxford, into his study and shared enough of what he was doing with her to convince her that the language was a form of Greek. She realized she had the possibility of a real scoop and persuaded the BBC to put him on the Third Programme.20 So, early in June he was in fact already certain that the Greek solution was correct. Why did he agree to announce it on the BBC? The answer to that is, I think, rather obvious. Thanks to his friend Prudence Smith the opportunity was available to him and it had the great advantage of immediacy. He could announce his exciting discovery almost at once and be clearly recognized as the one who had found it.21 His achievement would have been greatly diluted or obscured if he had shared the solution first in other Work Notes and then waited the year or two it would have taken for a scholarly article to appear, presuming that he could have (as one outside the academic establishment) gotten it accepted in the first place.22 Having committed to doing the BBC program, about the middle of June he wrote quite lengthy personal letters to both Myres and Bennett, the two scholars who had published the tablets, informing them of the Greek solution. He knew that this decipherment would meet with doubts and with ingrained scholarly caution. He also recognized that there was much in the tablets that defied interpretation and that the syllabary itself was imprecise enough to allow multiple interpretations. His letters to these two scholars reflect both his conviction that Greek was right and at the same time some underlying apprehension that he might have deluded himself. To Myres he wrote, “I’m now almost completely convinced that the Pylos tablets are in GREEK.” He adds, “I’ve isolated about 60 Greek words on the Pylos tablets in the course of yesterday evening & it seems too much to be a coincidence.” He then proceeds to give more than two pages of “samples.” He closes: “But the thing that staggers me is that whenever I go to the Greek dictionary to check a word I seem to have found but which is unfamiliar to me, it generally seems to exist & to make sense.”23 To Bennett on 18 June 1952, a Wednesday, he writes similarly, but with a significant addition, “You must judge for yourself, but I think I’ve deciphered Linear B, & that Knossos and Pylos are both in Greek” (underlining Ventris, italics mine). He then presents more than three and a half pages of tablets transliterated according to the phonetic values that he provided on an attached table pointedly labeled “Mycenaean Syllabary.”24 He followed these up with two additional letters, one to each, and a postscript to Myres. The first is a two-​page letter to Myres of Friday 20 June that begins: “Frankly, I felt a little apprehensive of the Knossos material, but

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120 Stephen Tracy I spent almost the whole of Wednesday night working through it for Bennett’s benefit, and I am now certain beyond any possibility of doubt that the thing [viz. the Greek solution] works.” He then gives examples of “the phrases which have convinced me” from one Pylos and from four Knossos tablets. The postscript of the next day (21 June) begins “P.S. I can’t resist letting just one more cat out of the bag.” He then gives a transcription of two lines of Pylos tablet An42 (= Documents 28 5–​6) with his Greek equivalent below. This text deals with female workers and their parents. The words for slave, father, mother and bronze worker stand out. In his second letter to Bennett dated Thursday 26 June 1952 he includes a 60-​entry-​long list of “names of professions at Knossos and Pylos with tentative Greek readings” and suggested English translations. To the reserved and cautious Bennett, he allows: “I’m now suffering from a rather painful reaction from my optimism: one seems to find so many things still incomprehensible that one begins to doubt the whole system. However, provided one sticks to the clearly vocabulary parts, it seems to work reasonably well; and the 60-​odd ‘names of professions’ … are my biggest consolation.” The writing of these letters was surely a courtesy to these two important colleagues before he went public with his announcement on the BBC. In addition, he may have been hoping to gain their early support for the Greek solution and also perhaps wanted to ward off criticism that he had sprung it on them without warning.25 The radio address for a general audience necessarily gave needed background but could offer no real argument or proof. It had to be mainly an announcement. Predictably, immediate reactions from scholars to the broadcast were not positive. Dow’s seems to have been typical; he confesses to Ventris in his letter of 1 July 1953: “Your BBC announcement, which Mrs. Conant [wife of James B. Conant, then President of Harvard University] gave me last summer, had had rather a negative effect, & I had a good firm idea that Linear B, whatever it was, was not Greek.”26 Myres sent Ventris a polite letter and, crucially, put him in contact with Chadwick. He made no public reaction; out of loyalty to Evans Myres must have found it very hard to accept Greek. It is clear that Ventris spent the days immediately after the broadcast putting together more evidence in an effort to dispel the doubts of his academic colleagues. In a long letter to Myres written on 3 July (two days after the broadcast) he thanks him for his letter. “I’m glad you thought the BBC talk was all right …” He continues: “against a large number of forms which seem to resist any interpretation … there are some basic tablets which, it seems to me, could only yield Greek the way they do by some astronomical coincidence, and I think the best is that we should enter a period of ‘incubation’ in which we feel our way forward gradually, without too many preconceptions, and not being dismayed by being unable to understand the whole lot in a month.” He adds nearly three and a half pages of further examples plus the list of professions at Knossos and Pylos that he had sent to Bennett on 26 June. A few days after this he brought to completion from the tablets a list of 553 Mycenaean words with transliterations followed by their ancient Greek

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 121 equivalents and English translations; he entitled this 12-​page-​long list “experimental Mycenaean vocabulary.”27 As he fully realized, this massive vocabulary constituted clear proof that the phonetic values he had assigned were in the main correct. Wednesday 9 July was a particularly busy day for Ventris. He replied to Bennett who in a hurried note from Yale dated 6 July 1952 [Sacconi p. 351] had apologized for not testing the Greek solution and said in so many words that he was too occupied with his own work to examine it properly. He continued:  “Partly I  think any scheme you produce has to conform to your grid, and in conforming will look right, so it may seem like confirmation when it is not really.” In short, he is skeptical and implies that Ventris may be indulging in circular reasoning. Ventris countered in his note of reply: “I agree about the GRID: –​but do you disagree about the evidence on which the GRID is built up?” In addition, he informs him that he has sent “by separate post” the experimental Mycenaean vocabulary and adds “it contains far too many coincidences not to contain some germ of truth, but how big that is remains to be seen.”28 He also mentions that he has sent two copies to Blegen in Athens. Most importantly, it was on this same day that he wrote Chadwick for the first time; this rather momentous, if low-​keyed, note reads29: Dear Sir,    Sir John Myres gave me your address & asked me to send you copies of some notes of mine on Minoan research, as I gather you have been working for some time on the same problem.    During the last month I’ve been trying out the possibility that the Pylos tablets are written in Greek: & I’ve made the enclosed list of experimental readings, largely for the benefit of Blegen in Athens, who is rumoured to have found a new set of tablets in his dig at Pylos this spring.    If you find any points of contact between your work & mine it would be very interesting to have the opportunity of exchanging views.               Yours sincerely,               Michael Ventris PS:  I’ve just heard from Bennett that Blegen has found new tablets at Pylos. Till we have a chance of checking them, please treat the enclosed vocab. with all due skepticism. The “enclosed vocab.” is the experimental Mycenaean vocabulary. Clearly, Ventris considered it a very significant document and wanted others to have access to it. John Chadwick was at the beginning of his scholarly career in the summer of 1952; indeed, he had just turned 32 in May. He was living in Oxford where he was working on the Oxford Latin Dictionary project and had just been appointed to a university assistant lectureship in classical philology at Cambridge. Right after the war, he and some fellow students at Cambridge

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122 Stephen Tracy had done some work on the Minoan tablets, but gave it up because of the lack of available material.30 So, he was more than a little conversant with Linear script B. Moreover, he had actually listened to the radio broadcast. Like Dow, his first reaction was to think it highly improbable, the flawed work of an amateur.31 He was not a recipient of Ventris’ Work Notes but contacted Myres almost at once for information about the grid values. On trying Ventris’ phonetic values from the latest grid, Chadwick soon realized that Ventris had done it. In fact, on the same day that Ventris first wrote him, namely Wednesday 9 July, Chadwick had written Myres informing him that it was his considered opinion that Ventris’ solution was in essence sound.32 Unfortunately, Chadwick did not receive Ventris’ note of 9 July until Saturday 12 July or Sunday 13 July because Ventris had posted it to the wrong street number, to 56a Banbury Road rather than to 86a, Chadwick’s correct address. Once he received it, Chadwick wasted no time in replying; his letter dated 13 July 1952 [Sacconi pp. 352–​353] begins: “Let me first offer my congratulations on having solved the Minoan problem; it is a magnificent achievement …” He ends by hoping they can meet and offers his help as a “mere philologist.” Chadwick was far the first to accept without reservation the decipherment as Greek33 and Ventris’ relief is palpable in his immediate reply [Sacconi pp. 354–​356].34 “It is very encouraging to hear from someone who has been working on the Minoan problem that they agree with the Greek approach; because frankly at the moment I feel rather in need of moral support.”35 He goes on to say that he has “sounded JHS” on an article and asks [p. 355] “would you be willing to collaborate in this article?” Clearly Chadwick was! The two of them worked through the rest of that summer and fall finishing the article in November 1952.36 Carl W. Blegen, the excavator of Troy and of the palace at Pylos, was at the time the preeminent American archaeologist of the prehistoric Aegean; it was he who uncovered the tablets at Pylos and gave them to Bennett to publish. He had just turned 65 at the beginning of 1952. Like Bennett he remained cautious of the initial news of the decipherment as Greek. Blegen was preoccupied during the spring and summer of 1952 with restarting his excavation at Pylos that had been interrupted for 13  years by World War II and the bloody civil war that followed in Greece. Indeed, Blegen and the renewed excavations at Pylos in the area of the archive room were very much on Ventris’ mind, for he now realized that the best hope of putting to rest any fears, both his own and others’, that the decipherment was flawed by circular argumentation was to have new material on which to try his phonetic values. Fortunately the 1952 campaign turned up more than 300 additional tablets.37 In any case, Blegen’s opinion clearly meant a lot to Ventris, for in his July 13 reply to Chadwick, he suggests: “… I propose to leave the problem alone for a month or so, and let reactions to it solidify: and in particular to see what Blegen says about it” [p. 356]. A similar, if smaller, find of precious Linear B tablets was also made that same summer at Mycenae. Alan J. B. Wace, the leading British figure in Aegean archaeology and longtime excavator of Mycenae, then in his early 70s was in

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 123 the United States on a multiyear research appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He had restarted his excavations at Mycenae in 1950. He spent the winter months writing in the incomparable working conditions at the Institute and the summers at Mycenae excavating. During the 1952 season he uncovered 38 Linear B tablets in the “House of the Oil Merchant” not far from the palace. These were the first tablets found outside a palace. From many years of digging at mainland sites he and Blegen had come to the conclusion that no evidence supported Arthur Evans’ cherished belief that the Cretans controlled the palaces on the mainland. Already in 1939 they had collaborated on an article arguing that the archaeological evidence, mainly pottery, revealed that the mainlanders had not been subject to foreign domination.38 Because Wace believed that the Mycenaeans, that is Greek speakers, were controlling the mainland sites, he was disposed to think that the language used on the tablets was probably some form of Greek. But he remained cautious initially of endorsing Ventris’ decipherment.39 Blegen was not able to study the new cache of tablets he had found in the palace at Pylos until the spring of 1953 when he returned to Greece from his teaching duties at the University of Cincinnati. By then he had received Ventris’ grid of phonetic values and tried it on recently found Pylos tablet no. Ta 641, the now famous tripod tablet. Here is how Blegen described this tablet in his editio princeps of it. “The ideograms in the summations before numbers indicate clearly that the document is concerned with a record of pottery of various shapes:  tripod-​vessels of two categories, and jars of six varieties, each simply but effectively illustrated with its salient characteristics clearly shown in the accompanying ideogram… The words found on Tablet 641 from Pylos and which, when transliterated in accordance with Ventris’ system of phonetic equivalents, look as if they bear a close relationship to some early stage of Greek, are at all events so numerous as to rule out mere coincidence… to me it seems to provide strong support for the view that the language of the Linear B script is Hellenic in a pre-​Homeric stage.”40 Here was virtual proof that the decipherment was correct. Ventris only learned of this tablet when Blegen sent him a copy of it in a letter dated 16 May 1953; at this time “Evidence” was already in page proof.41 The tablet could not have been referred to in any case until Blegen had published it. To his great credit, Blegen did move to make this important document available quickly by placing it in the Oikonomos Festschrift, which was published in Athens and available there in early 1954. This then opened the way for Ventris to publish that same spring an article studying it and a few other tablets in a much more accessible venue, the newly-​created semipopularizing American journal Archaeology.42 How appropriate in the circumstances that Sterling Dow was the principal founding force behind this periodical.43

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124 Stephen Tracy Dow’s initial doubts in the summer of 1952 when he was first given a copy of the BBC announcement by Mrs. Conant were a natural, almost visceral, reaction. The language couldn’t be Greek. Everyone knew, or thought they did, such was Evans’ hold on the field, that the Minoans had controlled the mainlanders. Dow now began to rethink the whole matter by formulating an argument taking the opposite position, namely that Greeks had taken over Knossos in the final phase; he was astonished to see how well it agreed with Ventris’ “preposterous” Greek solution.44 In the summer of 1952 he was in his 49th year; he had taught at Harvard since 1936 and in 1949 had been appointed John E.  Hudson Professor of Archaeology. In his case, historical instinct from long considering questions of literacy in Greece and of the relationships between the mainland Greeks and the Minoans guided him. However, Dow only came actively into the picture after he accepted in April 1953 an invitation to review Bennett’s 1951 volume on the Pylos tablets for The American Journal of Archaeology. As Dow worked on it, that review grew into a study of the entire history of Bronze Age writing. He wrote to Ventris for the first time on 2 June 1953 seeking recent bibliographical items especially those of Ventris and, in particular, a copy of the Mid-​Century Report, “which is not in the Harvard Library, & seems not to be mentioned in the publishers’ catalogues for 1950 or 1951.” (Dow at this point clearly did not realize that Ventris had not published these works, but only circulated them in mimeographed form to a select few.) Ventris responded generously by sending materials; Dow wrote on 1 July: “How kind you are! The letter has reached me, and with it, equally welcome, the Report of 1950; and Notes 14, 14B, 15, 16, Addenda, 17, 18, and 20.” At the end of the summer Dow sent Ventris parts of his article and Ventris shared with him page proof of “Evidence,” his and Chadwick’s forthcoming article.45 Dow’s article entitled “Minoan Writing” was finished in December 1953, three months after “Evidence” appeared in JHS, and was published in AJA 58, 1954, 77–​129. Dow stated decisively right at the opening of his lengthy article “that Linear B has been proved, by actual translation of at least four words, to be Greek” (p.  78) and referred to Blegen’s confirming evidence (p.  99). He added: “No possible alternative explanation, so far as I can judge, will avert the conclusion that Linear B is Greek” (p. 99). At the time, Dow’s was a new and authoritative voice. He had not, as Blegen and Wace had, been involved in the contentious archaeological differences with Evans about whether or not Minoans from Knossos had dominated Mycenae in the Late Minoan period. Dow had no vested interest in these archaeological arguments nor, for that matter, did he have a stake as a linguist. As an historian he asserted (pp. 78, 117–​120) that historical arguments showed that the language of the Linear B tablets must be Greek. Dow’s article was timed perfectly to take advantage of the, as it were, “breaking news” of the confirmatory evidence of Pylos tablet Ta 641. His unhesitatingly positive verdict on the decipherment and his prompt citation of confirming evidence in the leading American scholarly journal devoted to archaeology did much to make the decipherment

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 125 widely known to general classicists and to the lay public, especially in North America. (The complicated linguistic arguments of “Evidence” published the previous autumn were hardly so approachable.46) By a most happy coincidence, Ventris’ article on the tripod tablet in Archaeology appeared at almost exactly the same time as Dow’s AJA piece. Dow’s is dated “April 1954” and Ventris’ “Spring 1954.” Ventris’ article actually appeared before the 15th of April and made quite a splash, for it received substantial coverage in the “education” section of Time magazine dated 19 April 1954.47 (Time was then the most popular weekly news magazine published in North America.) For once, Ventris stifled his usual caution to write on page 19 of his article: “In this short but detailed inventory from the Pylos kitchens, we have at last a Mycenaean inscription whose meaning is transparent, and which proves that the language really is some kind of Greek.” Once this evidence was seen and understood –​and these two articles were largely responsible for making this tablet widely known –​the doubters soon disappeared.48 Tragically, Michael Ventris died in an auto accident in the early morning hours of 6 September 1956. Before that happened he and Chadwick had completed and seen through the Cambridge University Press Documents in Mycenaean Greek, their magisterial book on the tablets. Ventris’ and Chadwick’s works on Linear B, which are primarily linguistic in nature, remain at the core of Linear B studies. By contrast, Dow’s interpretive historical studies of Minoan writing and the Greeks in the Bronze Age are not much read these days49; as was to be expected, they have been rendered largely obsolete by new discoveries over the last half century. (Dow would have been the first to welcome this. He was all for progress and always relished “new stuff.”) For examples when he wrote his studies, Linear B tablets on Crete were confined to the palace at Knossos; they had not been found elsewhere on the island. Furthermore, the tablets found at Knossos were dated to circa 1400, the date then assigned to the destruction of the last palace there, while those uncovered at the palace of Pylos date to its destruction by fire just about 200 years later in 1200 BC E . Yet all recognized that the tablets from the mainland and from Crete were nearly identical. This was not easy to explain, but Dow produced an ingenious explanation based on the limited and difficult nature of the writing.50 Moreover, the explosion of interest in the eruption of the Santorini volcano and its role in the destruction of the Minoan palaces had not yet occurred; it began in the summer of 1967 with S. Marinatos’ spectacular finds in his excavations on the island at the site of Akrotiri.51 A small number of Linear B tablets have now been found at Khania, including three in a stratified context indicating a date towards the end of LM IIIB 1, that is, not long before 1250 BC E .52 The dates for the various destructions of the palaces on Crete have been revised and refined.53 Most importantly for the study of Linear B, the final destruction of the palace at Knossos has been moved down and is now placed by many in the first half of the 13th century.54 A number of the tablets from Knossos, therefore, are likely to date from this period. Some however may come from earlier burning

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126 Stephen Tracy levels.55 The date of the eruption of the volcano on Thera and its impact on Crete are, as almost everything in Cretan studies, a matter of ongoing discussion. There seems to be an emerging consensus based on dendrochronology and carbon 14 dating that the eruption occurred in the late 17th century, say circa 1615 B C E .56 What remains true is that the presence of Mycenaean Greek (Linear B) at Knossos and Khania, important palatial sites in central and west Crete, reveals that Greeks were in control when it was in use.

Notes 1 The best known, although not the best account, is Chadwick (1958). Robinson, Man 60–​152, gives a full and balanced account. See also Singh (1999) 217–​242. 2 I am indebted to Dr. O. H. Krzyszkowska, Deputy Director of the Institute of Classical Studies at the University of London, for searching out in the Ventris Archive there and sending me Xerox copies of three letters that Dow sent to Ventris, dated, respectively, “2 June 53,” “1 July 53,” and “17 Oct 53.” There are no others from Dow in the archive. 3 An essay that deals with S. Dow in a volume for Professor Blaise Nagy will surely not be amiss. Dow after all was Blaise’s Doktorvater, as he was mine; we were “Dow students.” Moreover, SD, as we called him, was an extraordinary scholar/​teacher with a broad range of interests. As a dissertation adviser, he had an uncanny ability to ask the right questions, to zero in on areas you had neglected or not done enough with. Above all, he had a knack, when things were not progressing well and you were a bit discouraged –​what dissertation writer has not felt this? –​for charging you up and making you believe genuinely in the importance of what you were doing. It was exhilarating. 4 Wace thought as much and Blegen strongly suspected it (see infra and Documents 24). 5 Much of Ventris’ preliminary work on the problem of the decipherment was not published; rather he produced sequentially paged mimeographed Work Notes, which he circulated to a select group of fellow scholars in the field. For these notes and papers plus a few letters, see M. Ventris (1988). In the rest of this article page numbers enclosed by square brackets refer to this collection edited by A. Sacconi. 6 In a review of “Evidence,” The Manchester Guardian Weekly (Thursday 15 October 1953) 7. 7 See Dow (1968) 135:  “Until the time when Ventris died, his own generous and charming kindness, and that of his associates, dominated the field, making Linear B studies one of the happiest of all fields.” 8 Documents 14. 9 For the few he published, see note 18. The failure to get them out meant, as Ventris and Chadwick bluntly put it (Documents 11): “Two generations of scholars had been cheated of the opportunity to work constructively on the problem.” 10 See the eminently sensible first sentence of her groundbreaking article, “Evidence of Inflection in the ‘Chariot’ Tablets from Knossos”: “In attempting to decipher documents written in an unknown language with an unknown script, the first step is to establish the facts that are obvious from an inspection of the available documents” (Kober 1945). 11 See her important articles, Kober (1946) and Kober (1948), especially pp. 96–​97 for the triplets, p. 102 for the conclusion that A and B are different languages. She

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 127 ends this piece with the abrupt epigrammatic statement: “When we have the facts, certain conclusions will be almost inevitable. Until we have them, no conclusions are possible.” It seems noteworthy that she does not cite anywhere in this article, which is in fact a rather full survey, Ventris’ youthful 1940 article also in the AJA (see n. 19). For a list of Kober’s publications, “Minoan Writing” 83–​84. 12 What happened at this meeting is not clear. Ventris described to his wife a “row” of some kind. In any case, it is clear that he had committed to helping Myres in this important, but onerous, task by agreeing to transcribe for publication the Knossos Linear B tablets. After the meeting he found that he just could not continue in the collaboration probably because he harbored fundamental misgivings about the way Myres was going about it. Moreover, it seems quite likely that Myres and Kober would have viewed him as primarily a technician, a draftsman making the transcriptions that were needed, whereas he, by contrast, surely would have wanted to have some input into how the tablets were to be presented. After all, he had worked on the material for a long time and knew it well. He did not inform Myres of his decision face-​to-​face but wrote him that evening withdrawing from the project on the rather flimsy grounds “that I shall not be able to stand 6 weeks’ work alone in Oxford, and that I am an idiot not to stick to my own last.” By this last statement he meant his work as an architect, the reason he had given to Myres in 1946 for not joining in the effort at that time (see later in this chapter). On this letter and meeting, see Man 60–​62. 13 “I have no intention of answering the questionnaire. In my opinion it represents a step in the wrong direction and is a complete waste of time” (Mid-​Century Report 37 [67]). 14 Inexplicably, since The Listener prints the date “July 10 1952” at the top left of the page, Sacconi (above n. 5) wrongly records the date as 10 June; see her preface p. vii and n. 1 on p. 363. She also incorrectly states on p. vii that the radio broadcast was given “in June 1952.” 15 Bennett (1951). 16 Evans (1952). 17 Man gives the best account of Ventris and his achievements. 18 For Evans on Linear B, The Palace of Minos IV, Part II (1935) 666–​736, especially 682–​684 and Scripta Minoa I (1909) 38–​54. Of the more than 3,000 fragments of linear B tablets uncovered in the palace, he illustrated just 14 in Scripta Minoa I and 120 in Palace of Minos IV. (I have made no independent count but am relying on the figures given in Documents 10–​11.) 19 “Introducing the Minoan Language,” AJA 44, 1940, 494–​520. Deeply influenced by Evans whose help he acknowledges in a final footnote, he wrote: “The theory that Minoan could be Greek is based of course on a deliberate disregard for historical plausibility, and the wonder is that the Greek readings have been got into publishable form at all” (494). 20 For this dinner and its important aftermath, see Smith (2000) 240–​242. Smith gives the date simply as “one evening early in June 1952” on p. 240. 21 Indeed, there can be no doubt that the essentials of the decipherment were his and his alone. Alice Kober and Emmett Bennett had each made advances that were of crucial help (detailed and acknowledged at Documents 15–​18), but by 1 July 1952 Ventris had found the correct phonetic values for the majority of the signs and assembled on his own overwhelming evidence for the correctness of the Greek solution.

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128 Stephen Tracy 22 In any event, John Chadwick’s collaboration smoothed the way for the rapid acceptance and publication of “Evidence” in the prestigious Journal of Hellenic Studies. 23 Ventris failed to date this letter, but Myres made a note on it “rec. 18.6.52,” so it was undoubtedly posted from London on 16 or 17 June. I am greatly indebted to Dr. Yannis Galanakis, Curator for the Aegean Collections, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford for sending me copies of Ventris’ 18 June letter and 21 June postscript to Myres, as well as Chadwick’s to Myres dated 21 August 1946 and 9 July 1952. For a somewhat different slant on Ventris’ 18 June letter to Myres, Smith (2000) 242. 24 Much of Ventris’ correspondence resides in the Michael Ventris Papers of the Program in Aegean Scripts and Prehistory at the University of Texas at Austin. I thank Professor Thomas G. Palaima for making available to me Ventris’ correspondence with J. L. Myres and E. L. Bennett for June and early July 1952, especially the letters to Myres of 20 June and 3 July 1952 and those to Bennett of 18 June, 26 June, and 9 July. For the Bennett letter of 18 June, see also T. Palaima’s popularizing article, “Michael Ventris’s Blueprint” (1993). 25 Robinson, Man 103–​104, is wrong, I think, to consider these letters primarily as signs of Ventris’ confidence in his solution. 26 In 1968 Dow, reflecting a transatlantic perspective, wrote of the BBC broadcast: “Ventris’ first public announcement, however, was so feeble that I think no one paid much attention to it” (A Land Called Crete: A Symposium in Memory of Harriet Boyd Hawes, 114). 27 Sacconi (see earlier, n. 5) reproduces this vocabulary on pp. 337–​348 but unaccountably in her preface on p. vii dates it to July 1953 in spite of the fact that it is dated “7.52” at the top of the first page. 28 Despite this, Bennett continued to remain skeptical, for, nearly five months later in a 20 November interview, he is quoted (Documents 24–​25): “I think there is not yet enough material available to make a deciphering of these tablets certain one way or the other. Michael Ventris’ theory that the language of the Minoan tablets is very early Greek is a tempting possibility; that is all I would say at this stage.” 29 I thank Dr. Torsten Meissner in charge of the Chadwick papers at Cambridge for providing me with the text of this very interesting short letter. 30 Among the Myres archive at the Ashmolean is a letter from Chadwick dated 21 August 1946, in which Chadwick states that he is studying “the Minoan script” but “I find my researches much hampered, and indeed impossible to prosecute, owing to the paucity of published material.” He seeks unpublished material such as “the manuscript notebooks of Sir Arthur Evans.” Myres’ reply is not extant, but he must have informed him that the material was assigned to others. 31 Based on a personal interview with Chadwick during which he directly asked him what his reaction to the broadcast was, Simon Singh (1999) reports:  “When he heard the radio interview, he was completely taken aback by Ventris’s apparently preposterous claim” (238). I am indebted to Mr. Singh for this information. 32 The first paragraph of that letter reads: “I think when I saw you on Monday night [July 7] you were somewhat skeptical about Mr. Ventris’ solution of the Minoan script. I have approached the matter very cautiously, but I am already convinced that the identifications [the phonetic values of the signs] are in the main sound. I have been testing out these identifications on the two vocabularies [probably the 60+ words in Ventris’ June 18 letter to Myres and the list of professions sent on 3

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 129 July], and have collected a large enough list of plausible Greek words, with sufficient interlocking, to make it impossible that this should be an accident. I think we must accept the fact that a new chapter in Greek history, philology and epigraphy is about to be written.” 33 The reluctance of Myres and Bennett to acknowledge the strength of the evidence that Ventris had shared with them in his private letters of mid-​June to early July 1952 is easy in hindsight to criticize. But, at the time, it went so against what they had all believed for so long that they were unable to come to grips with it. 34 His reply is dated 13 July 1952, i.e., the same day as the date of Chadwick’s letter, but it is doubtful that the British post was so efficient and probably the letters were separated by a day. Sacconi noted this [p. 354 n. 1] and quotes Chadwick who came to the same conclusion. 35 Was his need for moral support caused by Myres’ and Bennett’s less than positive reactions? No matter how elated he was at his success in solving the puzzle, the doubts or silence of others should neither have surprised nor bothered him much. 36 The result was the seminal joint article “Evidence” which did not actually appear until September 1953. For the date of completion, Documents 22. 37 In his note of 9 July to Bennett Ventris in fact had observed in his characteristically understated manner: “The main test is of course, the new Pylos tablets so I’ve sent 2 copies of the wordlist [viz. the experimental Mycenaean vocabulary] to Blegen & I hope he’ll try it out. If it shows some sense on virgin material, there may be something to it.” 38 See Wace and Blegen (1939). They write on p. 138: “The theory of a Cretan conquest or colonization of the Mainland has been taken too much for granted.” Here, of course, without directly naming him, they take exception to Evans’ cherished belief in Cretan domination of the mainland. On this disagreement with Evans, Documents xxv–​xxvi, 13–​14. 39 For these tablets and his tiptoeing around the Greek solution, see Wace (1953a). See also his mentions of the tablets in Wace (1953b, 1953c, 1953d). He entrusted them to Bennett for publication who brought them out with commendable speed in September 1953; see Bennett (1953). 40 Blegen (1953), especially 61–​62. 41 For the date, Documents 25. 42 Ventris (1954). The authoritative edition of the tripod tablet is Documents 236. 43 See Archaeology 1 (1948) 5–​6 for his introduction of this new journal. 44 He writes to Ventris in his letter of 1 July 1953: “My own ‘approach’ is … wholly historical; but the outcome seems to be a pleasing, perhaps an astonishing, agreement.” According to Ventris and Chadwick (Documents 24), G. Björck and A. Furumark at Uppsala and L. R. Palmer at Oxford, based on lectures and summaries available to them, had accepted the Greek solution before the appearance of “Evidence” (September 1953). 45 Dow’s final letter to Ventris dated “17 Oct 53” begins “The article, of which you so kindly sent me proof, is itself here” and ends “Again with thanks & admiration –​few people I daresay have built a new house & deciphered Minoan at the same time!” 46 In 1987 John Chadwick assessed the impact of “Evidence” in these words: “The theory was so unexpected, and its testing demanded so much technical and archaeological knowledge, that its reception was at first mixed” (Reading the Past: Linear B and Related Scripts, 19–​20).

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130 Stephen Tracy 47 Time 63.16 (19 April 1954) 72. 48 Chadwick (1987) 20 similarly concluded, “As soon as the ‘tripod’ tablet became known, most scholars accepted the validity of the decipherment.” 49 In addition to “Minoan Writing” of 1954, he published:  “The Greeks in the Bronze Age” (1960); “The Minoan Thalassocracy” (1967); “Literacy: The Palace Bureaucracies, The Dark Age, Homer” (1968); “Documents, Decipherment, Nestor, Bibliographie” (1969); “Literacy in Minoan and Mycenaean Lands” (1973). 50 “Minoan Writing” 122 and, with slight modifications 19 years later based on more recent studies, CAH3, II, pt. 1 602–​603. 51 See S. Marinatos’ reports of the 1967 to 1972 seasons, Excavations at Thera I-​VI (1968–​1974). For an overview, Doumas (1983). 52 E. Hallager, Vlasakis, B. P. Hallager (1992), especially for the find context 63–​67; see also by the same authors (1990) “The First Linear B Tablet(s) from Khania,” Kadmos 29, 24–​34. 53 For recent developments, E. H. Cline (2010) 149–​159; see also Rehak and Younger (1998), especially the chronological table on p. 99 and the discussion of the Linear B tablets on pp. 159–​161. 54 An LM IIIB date was strongly championed by Palmer (1963) xiii–​xvi, 204–​231 and more recently advocated by Hallager (1977), especially 8–​10, 89–​94. Moreover, the administrative organization seemingly attested in the inscriptions painted on stirrup jars  –​see van Alfen (1996–​1997)  –​would appear to indicate continued central control of production in the thirteenth century and thus support the later destruction date. 55 On the dates of the Linear B tablets, Driessen (2008). See also Cline (2010) 361–​362. 56 Rehak and Younger (1998) 97–​100.

Bibliography Bennett, Jr., E. L. 1951. The Pylos Tablets:  A Preliminary Transcription. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bennett, Jr., E. L. 1953. “The Mycenae Tablets.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97: 422–​470. Blegen, C. W. 1953. “An Inscribed Tablet from Pylos.” In Festschrift in Memory of George P. Oikonomos. Athens: PAAH, 59–​62. Chadwick, J. 1958. The Decipherment of Linear B. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Chadwick, J. 1987. Reading the Past: Linear B and Related Scripts. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cline, E. H., ed. 2010. The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Doumas, C. 1983. Thera: Pompeii of the Ancient Aegean. London: Thames & Hudson. Dow, S. 1954. “Minoan Writing.” American Journal of Archaeology 58: 77–​129. Dow, S. 1960. “The Greeks in the Bronze Age.” XIe Congrès internationale des sciences historiques, Stockholm, 1–​34. Reprinted in G. S. Kirk ed., The Language and Background of Homer. Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1964, 140–​173. Dow, S. 1967. “The Minoan Thalassocracy.” Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 79: 3–​32.

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Michael Ventris, Sterling Dow 131 Dow, S. 1968. “Literacy: The Palace Bureaucracies, The Dark Age, Homer.” In A Land Called Crete: A Symposium in Honor of Harriet Boyd Hawes. Smith College Studies in History Number 45. Northampton, MA: Smith College, 108–​147. Dow, S. 1969. “Documents, Decipherment, Nestor, Bibliographie.” American Journal of Archaeology 73: 362–​367. Dow, S. 1973. “Literacy in Minoan and Mycenaean Lands.” Ch. XIIIa. In The Cambridge Ancient History3, II, pt. 1.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 582–​608. Driessen, J. 2008. “Chronology of the Linear B Texts.” In Y. Duhoux and A. Morpurgo Davies, eds., A Companion to Linear B. Louvain: Peeters. Evans, A. 1909. Scripta Minoa I. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, A. 1935. The Palace of Minos IV, Part II. London: Macmillan. Evans, A. J. 1952. Scripta Minoa II The Archives of Knossos: Clay Tablets Inscribed in Linear Script B. Edited from notes and supplemented by J. L. Myres. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hallager, E. 1977. The Mycenaean Palace at Knossos. Stockholm: Medelhavsmuseet. Hallager, E., M. Vlasakis, and B. P. Hallager. 1990. “The First Linear B Tablet(s) from Khania.” Kadmos 29: 24–​34. Hallager, E., M. Vlasakis, and B. P. Hallager. 1992. “New Linear B Tablets from Khania.” Kadmos 31: 61–​87. Kober, A. 1945. “Evidence of Inflection in the “Chariot” Tablets from Knossos.” American Journal of Archaeology 49: 143–​151. Kober, A. 1946 “Inflection in Linear Class B: 1 –​Declension.” American Journal of Archaeology 50: 268–​276. Kober, A. 1948. “The Minoan Scripts:  Fact and Theory.” American Journal of Archaeology 52: 82–​103. Marinatos S. 1968–​1974. Excavations at Thera I–​VI. Athens: Archaiologike Hetaireia. Palaima, T. 1993. “Michael Ventris’s Blueprint.” Discovery 13.2:  20–​26. Available online as a PDF file at www.utexas.edu/​research/​pasp/​. Palmer, L.R. 1963. On the Knossos Tablets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rehak P. and J. G. Younger. 1998. “Review of Aegean Prehistory VII: Neopalatial, Final Palatial, and Postpalatial Crete.” American Journal of Archaeology 102: 97–​173. Robinson, A. 2002. The Man Who Deciphered Linear B. New York: Thames & Hudson. Singh, S. 1999. The Code Book. New York and London: Doubleday. Smith, P. 2000. The Morning Light:  A South African Childhood Revalued. Cape Town: David Philip. van Alfen, P. 1996–​ 1997. “The Linear B Inscribed Stirrup Jars as Links in an Administrative Chain.” Minos 31–​32: 251–​274. Ventris, M. 1940. “Introducing the Minoan Language.” American Journal of Archaeology 44: 494–​520. Ventris, M. 1954. “King Nestor’s Four-​Handled Cups.” Archaeology 7: 15–​21. Ventris, M. 1988. Work Notes on Minoan Language Research and Other Unedited Papers:  Incunabula Graeca XC. Edited by Anna Sacconi. Rome:  Edizioni dell’Ateneo. Ventris, M. and J. Chadwick. 1953. “Evidence for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean Archives.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 73: 84–​103. Ventris, M. and J. Chadwick. 1956. Documents in Mycenaean Greek. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Reprint 1959, 2nd ed. 1973.]

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132 Stephen Tracy Wace, A. J. B. 1953a. “The Discovery of Inscribed Clay Tablets at Mycenae.” Antiquity 27: 84–​86. Wace, A. J.  B. 1953b. “New Light on Homer  –​Excavations at Mycenae, 1952.” Archaeology 6: 78–​80. Wace, A. J. B. 1953c. “Mycenae, 1952.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 73: 131–​132. Wace, A. J. B. 1953d. “Excavations at Mycenae, 1952.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97: 248–​253. Wace, A. J. B. and C. W. Blegen. 1939. “Pottery as Evidence for Trade and Colonisation in the Aegean Bronze Age.” Klio 32: 131–​147.

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9  Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project* Neel Smith

Who has access to the past? The oldest complete manuscript of the Iliad A revolutionary discovery Our understanding of how the Iliad has come down to us changed in 1788 when Jean-​ Baptiste Gaspard d’Ansse de Villoison published his Homeri Ilias ad veteris codicis veneti fidem recensita. The “ancient Venetian book” of the title is a 10th-​century manuscript known to Homerists as the “Venetus A.” It includes the oldest complete text of the Iliad to survive today, and is still in the Marciana Library where Villoison found it (Marcianus Graecus Z. 454 = 822). More surprising than the Iliad text were the contents Villoison highlighted in his lengthy subtitle: scholia in eam antiquissima ex eodem codice aliisque nunc primum edidit cum asteriscis, obeliscis, aliisque signis criticis The scholia in the Venetus A cited ancient authorities for readings differing from anything known from other medieval manuscripts; the critical signs directly reflected a practice elsewhere attributed to the Alexandrian editor Aristarchus of Samothrace. Could the newly discovered material in the Venetus A  show us what the “true,” or “original” Iliad was like before its corruption by editors and copyists? The reaction to Villoison’s discovery was immediate. By 1795, Friedrich Wolf responded with his monumental Prolegomena ad Homerum, a work often singled out as the starting point for all subsequent scholarship on Homer, but readers outside the academy were equally interested. The catalog of books Thomas Jefferson sold to Congress to form the core of its new library included * It gives me special pleasure to offer this token of gratitude to Blaise Nagy. For two decades, he has inspired me not just with his commitment to his students but also with the obvious joy he fi nds in the time he spends with them. His enthusiastic support for the development at Holy Cross of a unique undergraduate club devoted to the study of manuscripts helped make possible the research by Holy Cross students described in this chapter.

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134 Neel Smith an entry for Homeri, secundum codicem Veneti, scholiis indeditis Villeoison [sic]. The manuscript had in fact been in Venice since the 15th century1 but remained unknown to the rest of Europe. Only with Villoison’s published announcement of his discoveries could the Venetus A excite the interest of the professor at Halle and the United States Minister to France alike. Digitizing the Venetus A In 2007, I  was part of a team that documented the Venetus A  manuscript with high-​resolution digital images for the Homer Multitext project (HMT).2 On completion of our photography, I  briefly examined a number of other manuscripts in the Marciana Library to see if they were in a condition to be photographed by future scholars without special conservation. Manuscripts in the Marciana Library have a sign-​out card, usually in a pocket in the back cover of the codex. When a manuscript is brought to you, you date and sign the card, which the librarian takes, and replaces in the pocket when you return the manuscript. The system is very similar to most libraries I used before digital record keeping became common, with one difference: the sign-​out cards are 200 years old. As I checked out one manuscript after another, I lingered over the list of names on each card: they were a roster of famous editors and scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries. Only gradually did I begin to appreciate that the cards also recorded the limitations of physical access. This editor had spent a total of three days in Venice; that scholar had a week; now multiply those figures by the opening hours of the Marciana. Even the elite few privileged with admission to the Marciana’s manuscript reading room often had been able to devote only a few dozen hours to complex manuscripts running to hundreds of pages in length. For the Venetus A, that was about to change forever. Less than a week after my return from Venice, the Homer Multitext project released 980 images of the manuscript online under a Creative Commons license allowing noncommercial reuse.3 A new community of editors Working from the new digital images, the faculty members of the Homer Multitext project began the slow task of learning to read the manuscript’s scholia written in a minute hand and dense with abbreviations. Whereas conference papers and presentations about the project at professional meetings were well received, my expectations that the freely available images would be immediately valued by Greek scholars were disappointed: access logs showed that, apart from the HMT project leaders, the images remained almost completely ignored. Even a program offering to install a complete set of the images on hard disks and mail them gratis found no takers. I could not yet imagine that open access to our images could bring the Venetus A  to an entirely new community of editors. I  failed to recognize the many Thomas

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Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 135 Jeffersons –​curious, energetic, and capable nonspecialists –​who were already in my undergraduate classes. The scales fell from my eyes in the summer of 2010. Thanks to a new program at Holy Cross, HMT editor Mary Ebbott and I collaborated in nine weeks of intensive work with two Holy Cross students, Melissa Browne and Frank Hartel. Browne and Hartel mastered the manuscript’s hand; devised new methods for working with digital diplomatic editions in relation to canonically citable documentary images; and produced the first complete edition of all the scholia to Iliad 3 and 4 in the Venetus A.4 Their work was such a dramatic advance that in 2011, with the support of Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, the HMT project inaugurated a series of summer seminars bringing together faculty-​student teams from a variety of colleges and universities for a fast-​paced introduction to editing the Venetus A manuscript. The seminar has continued each summer since then. Without any faculty planning, however, an equally important new venue for contributions to the Homer Multitext project emerged in 2010–​2011. Browne wanted to share the excitement of her summer research experience, and with a group of like-​minded students at Holy Cross founded a new registered student organization dedicated to the study of manuscripts and other primary-​source documents, the Holy Cross Manuscripts, Inscriptions and Documents Club (HCMID).5 The group has met every Friday during the academic year since then, and alongside work on a wide range of Greek inscriptions, papyri, and manuscripts (not to mention manuscripts in Latin and Middle English), has made substantial contributions to the Homer Multitext project. At the current rate of work, we estimate that sometime soon, the Homer Multitext project will release a complete edition of the Venetus A manuscript. When the promise of Villoison’s discovery is at last realized in the first publication of all the scholia of the Venetus A, the contributors’ names will number more than 100. At the time of their contribution, more than 90 percent of those editors will have held no degree higher than a high school diploma.

Challenging unexamined assumptions Working with these young scholars exposed a number of assumptions about the study of ancient Greek that I had unthinkingly internalized. Of course, physical use of fragile artifacts must be limited, and in those circumstances it is reasonable to restrict access to advanced scholars with a well-​established professional record. Like all the professional classicists I knew, I therefore inferred that only such advanced classicists were capable of working with manuscript evidence: certainly it would be beyond the capabilities of undergraduates at the very beginning of their study of Greek. I had been accustomed to think of editing as the solitary work of a senior scholar who would sort through the confusion of diverse witnesses and publish a reliably reconstructed text with all necessary supporting evidence in a critical apparatus.

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136 Neel Smith For the purposes of the Homer Multitext project, we wanted to record the unique text of the Venetus A’s Iliad, as we would record the unique text of each individual Iliad we edit, but I  expected that we would readily reconcile our digital edition of the scholia with existing critical editions. I was familiar with the argument from some Homerists that “enough” of the Iliadic scholia had been published for us to learn anything they have to offer, and while I knew that having an openly licensed and searchable digital text would be valuable, I did not foresee any particular need for diplomatic editions of the scholia. Each of those assumptions was wrong It immediately became clear that undergraduates could readily master the paleography of medieval manuscripts. Their eyes were not yet refocused by presbyopia, and they were of course working with superb photography: shot under perfect lighting conditions through lenses far sharper than my bifocals, the images were more legible than the physical manuscript in Venice. At HCMID work sessions in the Classics Department’s research lab, the chatter sounded nothing like the hushed silence of the Marciana reading room. A  team crowded around a large monitor might call for help from another group, when confronted with an unfamiliar letter form. Cheat sheets with difficult abbreviations were soon taped to the walls, and project wikis organized fuller guides to the paleography of the Venetus A. Their collective expertise rapidly reached the point where faculty members, too, would seek advice from college sophomores or juniors, as no graduate seminar or PhD course in paleography or papyrology based on books and libraries could offer the uninterrupted hours engaged with ancient documents that these students eagerly invested. These new undergraduate editors had not been conditioned to trust the authority of a printed critical apparatus: perhaps it takes long training to turn a blind eye to its inherently circular logic. Indeed, like our undergraduates, others outside of our narrow scholarly tradition might find it worrisome that the critical apparatus claims to provide all the evidence for an editor’s reconstruction while simultaneously selecting only the most important or relevant evidence for publication. (I doubt there is another scholarly field where the normal practice is to publish evidence supporting the author’s conclusions while omitting other evidence on the grounds that it is insignificant or irrelevant.) As the undergraduate editors struggled to ensure that their digital work was formatted to rigorous standards (discussed in more detail later in this chapter), they were further frustrated by the ambiguity that is unavoidable in the conventions we follow for a printed apparatus.6 They were awed by the productivity of 19th-​century scholars working without benefit of photographs, and admired Wilhelm Dindorf’s efforts to create a full record of major portions of the Venetus A scholia without forcing them to fit the into a rigid critical stemma.7 They respected the medieval

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Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 137 scribes, and as they recognized the manuscripts’ evidence for deliberate editorial decisions came to see the scribes as far more than mere copyists. The editorial directors of the Homer Multitext project worked closely with the student volunteers to define an approach the students began to call “total editing”:  every mark on a manuscript page would be digitally represented, and backed by a citation of visual evidence that anyone could check in our digital image library.

Citizen scholarship: A new model Undergraduate contributors to the HMT project have done more than challenge the assumptions of an older generation. They have provoked and contributed to a unique multigenerational experiment in collaborative scholarship. That experiment presents a new model of citizen scholarship, founded on explicitly stated values, carried out through a distinctive set of practices, and made possible by a carefully designed legal and technical architecture. Values The citizen scholars of the Homer Multitext start from an understanding of scholarship as a fundamentally democratic enterprise. (How could they think otherwise?) Their view is reflected already in the famous anecdote often repeated in antiquity about Euclid. When asked by his patron, Ptolemy I of Egypt, whether there was not some shorter route to geometry than the Elements, Euclid replied, “There is no royal shortcut to geometry.”8 Implicit in this story is the understanding that political or even academic status carries no weight in scholarship:  the method of scholarly demonstration, superlatively illustrated by Euclid’s ordered propositions, alone confers authority. Scholarly demonstration happens in a community that, for classicists, already stretches across millennia. In editing a manuscript, we therefore want to ensure that we produce a full record of its evidence, in a form that will endure as long as possible:  our work should form a foundation for future work. For other scholars to make use of our work, today or in the future, we must further ensure that it can be fully replicated. One particularly important reason to replicate our work is to subject it to rigorous evaluation. These statements may appear unremarkable or bland in the abstract, but in the student-​faculty collaboration of the HMT project, the challenges are dauntingly concrete. How can you adhere to these ideals while working with scores of collaborators scattered across the US and Europe and still ensure the quality of the resulting work? A distinctive practice: Dialectic editing with automated validation Today’s Internet abounds with examples of “crowdsourcing,” but we could find none that offered a satisfactory model for the challenges of the HMT

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138 Neel Smith project. One form of crowdsourcing uses volunteers as “mechanical Turks,” who contribute labor to projects that then assume control of the results, cutting the volunteers out from further participation and reserving the tasks of evaluation and understanding the material to the organizers or insiders.9 Another approach applies some variation of a “majority rule” or “consensus” principle to decide which of possibly conflicting contributions to accept. Wikipedia is certainly the best known such project, and very effectively provides ready access to consensus views on uncontroversial subjects (although editing wars on hot-​button political topics illustrate how the principle can break down for controversial content). Believing that enough eyes can reliably turn up problems in the editorial work required by the HMT project (including mark up of editions in TEI XML, disambiguation of named entities, and indexing of texts to regions of a citable image, for example) is not just optimistic, however: it is unfalsifiable. It wonderfully illustrates the fallacy of “survivor bias” as there is no way of identifying unnoticed errors. The working practice that grew organically out of the efforts of volunteers on the HMT project differs from other approaches to “crowdsourcing” in two important ways.10 First, as other projects show, the internet can certainly connect geographically scattered volunteers, but it can also connect geographically scattered teams of volunteers: remote collaboration does not have to mean “collaboration among isolated individuals.” Second, digital data structures should be digitally evaluated where possible. As our volunteers helped articulate this point, they were in fact addressing one of the central challenges of digital scholarship:  how to understand the implications of machine processing, and find the right balance of machine output and human contribution. All work on the HMT project proceeds in teams. At any moment, at least two sets of eyes are working through the same section of manuscript material, so that within a team, collaboration happens simultaneously, not sequentially. Editors do not work in isolation but are always in conversation with one or more fellow team members. The process is dialectic (and sometimes voluble). It is also educational. New volunteers can be matched with experienced editors, and gradually learn the skills needed for each step of the process. When a team completes a section of a manuscript, they subject their work to two levels of review before submitting it for inclusion in the central archive for the project. We refer to the first level of review as validation. This is a fully automated process checking that their digital work satisfies the structural, or syntactic, requirements of the HMT editorial guide. We use the term verification for the second level of review. In this phase, teams reach a consensus on material that they examine manually. In a more familiar context, spell-​ checking a paper could be an example of automated validation: it validates that every word is a possible spelling of an English word. Proofreading a paper to see if word usage is correct would be an example of (human) verification. In the verification phase of review, we never simply repeat an activity. Some errors, for example, would slip past even the best proofreaders because

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Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 139 proofreading is too similar in nature to the author’s own activity, and therefore prone to the same kinds of errors. That is why some especially diligent proofreaders will try to proof a text by working through it backward. This strategy in effect “reformats” the text so that the proofreader’s review is not simply another iteration of the same kind of reading. In similar fashion, we verify contents of our editions by reformatting them to present them in a new context for teams in the verification phase. For example, editors assign to every personal name in their texts an identifier drawn from an authority list specific to the HMT project. These identifiers are automatically validated: they only pass the validation if every identifier in fact appears in the authority list. For the verification phase, the project’s software extracts a list of all personal names from the text being reviewed, and then sorts and groups the names by identifier. Under the identifier urn:cite:hmt:pers.pers1, for example, you might find instances of “son of Peleus” or “Achilles,” because both refer to the same person, while the identifier urn:cite:hmt:pers.pers22 might include instances of “Agamemnon” or of “son of Atreus.” The identifier urn:cite:hmt:pers. pers119 might also include instances of “son of Atreus” because it refers to Agamemnon’s son Menelaos, but if “son of Atreus” showed up in the list alongside Achilles, it should stand out in the team’s verification review. Having immediate feedback about the syntactic correctness of their digital work and immediate formatting of material for verifying its contents further accelerates the learning process for individuals and for teams. One outcome of this workflow that I did not foresee is that teams rapidly build up a corporate expertise that far surpasses the talents of even the most gifted team member. Our volunteers have achieved these remarkable results in part because from 2010 onward they have fearlessly experimented with a continuously developing technological infrastructure. This has made it possible to fold the project’s automated validation and computer-​assisted verification into the workflow of dialectic editing. By 2015, the HMT project had settled on a unique technical infrastructure composed entirely of software licensed for free reuse. A legal and technical architecture Technical design and licensing cannot be separated. All of the HMT project’s data are freely available; so too is all of the software we use. The project’s data and software archives are available on github, the most widely used host for free software and data.11 Although the focus of this discussion is not a full technical description of the project, it is worth highlighting some key technical choices that have made the unique approach of the project’s citizen scholars possible. Teams may use almost any hardware made within the past five to eight years running almost any operating system. On the machine of their choice, they install a virtual machine where they can do all of their editorial work, so that all teams work in an identical environment. The current HMT virtual

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140 Neel Smith machine for editors has been tested on many versions of Macintosh OS, Windows, and Linux operating systems,12 and creates a Linux virtual machine with all necessary software preinstalled, including a validating XML editor, and the project-​specific validation and testing system. Within the virtual machine, teams create a variety of documents in archival formats. Editions of texts are stored as XML files; indexing and tabular compilation of other kinds of data are recorded in simple comma-​delimited text files. When it is time to work with or test their editing, the teams can use a build system13 to unify their work in a single representation. Every bit of information that can be derived from their work is expressed in a long series of “subject-​verb-​object” statements.14 In mathematical terms, these statements define a graph of all of the team’s work. Both generic software and project-​specific software installed in the HMT VM can work with this graph. Editors share and manage their work on a particular section of a manuscript through a git repository. Like the project’s permanent repositories, it is hosted on github, but may be deleted when a team’s work has been completely incorporated into the permanent archive. Because git is a distributed version control system, multiple teams can even work on the same repository:  git makes it possible to track the entire history of changes to the repository, and reconcile any conflicting changes that were simultaneously made at different locations. Alongside every git repository hosted on github, teams have access to an issue tracking system, a kind of collaborative “to do” list where members can register tasks or problems to address, assign them to members of the team, or comment on them. The HMT project has a series of repositories for shared material like authority lists, where any github user can file an issue. If editors find a new personal name, for example, they file an issue with the repository where the authority list for personal names is maintained. One of the small number of editors with permission to edit the authority list will consider the issue; when it is resolved, the person who originally filed the issue is automatically notified by email. Our teams follow a similar process for submitting their work to the project’s central archive. They file an issue indicating that a specified page or pages have passed all validation and verification tests. One of the project editors with permission to edit the central archive will attempt to replicate the validation and verification testing. If the 100 percent success rate is replicated, the new material is added to the archive, and the team receives an automated notification by email. This architecture maps directly onto the values described above. Its simple data formats are chosen for the longest possible life, and record every observation made by HMT editors. Every step of our work is publicly visible in the history of our git archives, and our licenses guarantee access to any scholar. A single graph representing the entire archive can be automatically assembled, so anyone wanting to test or reuse our data has the option of doing so from a

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Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 141 single point of access. We also make freely available the virtual machines that anyone could use to replicate our editorial process. Because our editorial guidelines require a full diplomatic edition tied to citable regions of images, this technological infrastructure provides the most thorough record I  know of for tracing a normalized text to the record of its diplomatic text and on to the visual evidence the editor worked from. Because we not only represent digitally every mark we see on a page but apply automated validation and computer-​assisted verification to the record of every mark, this infrastructure supports the most thorough testing of any electronic editions I am familiar with.

Concluding observations: Citizen scholars The volunteers of the Homer Multitext have gone far beyond thinking of “citizen scholarship” as connecting individuals to work on traditional problems. They are redefining how we approach fundamental questions of scholarly editing, and in their model of collaborative and rigorously tested scholarship, they are challenging us to consider what it means to be engaged in research. Their work shows that important scholarship can happen outside our familiar institutional settings of curricular work or paid assistantships. We do not always recognize the limitations those settings impose, but the example of the HMT volunteers suggests what can take place when scholars are freed from them. Almost without exception, our nearly 100 undergraduate editors have no careerist distractions. If their work on manuscripts excites some angst among traditionally minded classicists, it will be no obstacle to their applications to medical school or law school, or to job interviews for positions in marketing or teaching Latin in secondary schools. They work without pressure to compromise the quality of their work in order to meet a deadline. If they only edit one page of scholia that have never been edited before in the course of a semester, that is still a permanent contribution, and the manuscript will still be there waiting for them after exams are over. They are sustained by their passion for their work, and by the joy they find pursuing it in community with other passionately committed scholars. I see it every Friday afternoon when HCMID meets: I now expect to be the last faculty member to leave campus on the Friday before fall and spring break, because there is always at least one team that wants to keep working. I am no longer surprised by their accomplishments, although I continue to marvel at them. In barely five years, the student editors of the HMT project have brought us within sight of a goal that has been unattainable since 1788. When a complete publication of the manuscript that ignited the modern discussion of Homeric poetry will first be published sometime around 2017, I think it is entirely appropriate that it will be made accessible primarily by, as well as for, citizen scholars.

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Notes 1 Blackwell and Dué (2009) 3–​6. 2 For a technical description of the photography, see Blackwell and Dué (2009) 14–​18. 3 The images are the basis for the Homer Multitext project’s facsimile browser (http://​www.homermultitext.org/​hmt-​digital/​). The full set of archival images with md5 checksums is available for download at http://​www.homermultitext.org/​hmt-​ image-​archive.html. 4 Approximately 20 percent of the text content in Browne and Hartel’s digital work is not included in the selection of scholia most widely used today: Hartmut Erbse (1969–​1988), Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera). 5 For current information about the Holy Cross Manuscript, Inscriptions and Documents Club, see its website at http://​hcmid.github.io/​. 6 In this context, it is worth noting the work of Federico Boschetti (2007) on automated parsing of a critical apparatus of Aeschylus. Boschetti found that more than 10  percent of the entries in the apparatus were not clearly enough expressed to be correctly mapped on to the section of the main text they annotate. Significantly, this ambiguity does not result from errors of the editor, but from the notational ambiguity of the apparatus. 7 Dindorf (1875) had begun the series Scholia Graeca with the intention of providing a full record of the major scholia, and succeeded in publishing most of the scholia of the Venetus A  and Venetus B manuscripts (also in the Marciana, Graecus Z. 453 = 821) before his death. Of the five visually distinct groups of scholia in the Venetus A, Dindorf focused on the scholia we now call the main, intermarginal and interlinear scholia, omitting the interior and exterior scholia. When Paul Maas continued the series with the publication of the British Museum’s Townley manuscript, on the other hand, he despaired at the complexity of working with so much information in printed volumes; see his prefatory comments in volume 3 of the Scholia Graeca series, xiv. 8 Told, among others, by Proclus, Commentary on Book 1 of Euclid, prolog, 2.4 (p. 68 in the Teubner edition of Friedlein). 9 The Ancient Lives Project at Oxford is a frequently cited example of crowd sourcing in the field of Classics. Volunteers try to transcribe fragments of the exceptionally important collection of papyri from Oxyrhynchus; the FAQ explicitly warns them that “publishing any part of them online is prohibited. You can post links only within ‘Talk’. Images cannot be copied or offloaded. All digital images of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are (c) Imaging Papyri Project, University of Oxford.” The response to the question “How do I know if I am transcribing correctly?” states “Unfortunately, we cannot address user performance on an individual basis.” 10 A current version of the HMT project’s documentation for contributors is maintained at http://​homermultitext.github.io/​hmt-​docs/​. In addition to technical information, it includes step-​by-​step guides to each stage of the editorial process that teams follow. Readers interested in more details about the HMT project’s can consult these public documents. 11 http://​homermultitext.github.io/​. 12 The 2015 release of the VM for editors: http://​homermultitext.github.io/​hmt-​docs/​ vm/​.

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Citizen scholarship in the Homer Multitext project 143 13 The HMT project testing system uses the gradle build system (http://​gradle.org/​). 14 The result is an RDF graph (https://​www.w3.org/​RDF/​), expressed in TTL notation, a “general-​ purpose language for representing information in the Web” (https://​www.w3.org/​TeamSubmission/​turtle/​).

Bibliography Blackwell, Christopher W. and Casey Dué. 2009. “Homer and History in the Venetus A.” In Recapturing a Homeric Legacy. Edited by Casey Dué (= Hellenic Studies 35). Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Boschetti, Federico. 2007. “Methods to Extend Greek and Latin Corpora with Variants and Conjectures: Mapping Critical Apparatuses onto Reference Text.” In Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics Conference CL2007. University of Birmingham. http://​ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/​publications/​CL2007/​paper/​150_​Paper. pdf. Dindorfius, Guilelmus. 1875. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem: Ex codicibus aucta et emendate. Volumes 1 and 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Erbse, Hartmut. 1969–​1988. Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem (Scholia Vetera). 6 volumes. Berlin: De Gruyter.

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Part III

The development and reception of historical exempla The line between history and biography is difficult to plot precisely; the degree to which ancient lives or biographies of famous (and infamous) individuals constitute historical inquiry depends in large part on the intention and skill of the biographer. Ancient literature is replete with both “lives” of celebrated figures and memorable episodes of the deeds and events of classical lives that constitute exempla for diverse audiences. More broadly, the reception of classical literature in a dizzying array of modern media has transformed the ancient image of exempla by expanding its scope to include all manner of imitations and artistic hommage. Part III of our collection is concerned with the phenomenon of exempla, as defined in its most inclusive sense. Various representative models from the literary and artistic realms provide the raw material for a critical investigation of how historical and moral ambiguities have been confronted by learned and creative minds from antiquity to the present day. To begin, Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott examine the story of Othryadas, both in Herodotus and in later sources, and trace how the story of this Spartan became more heroic in the genre of the epigram. Next, Joseph Falaky Nagy considers the return of Alcibiades to Athens and his subsequent profanation of rites associated with the Plynteria, and how this offense to the goddess Athena haunted Alcibiades and defined his political reputation. Turning to Rome, Lee M. Fratantuono investigates the connection between Vergil’s portrayal of Camilla in Book 11 of the Aeneid and Livy’s account of Marcus Furius Camillus in Book 5 of ab Urbe Condita. In the following chapter, Matthew M. McGowan deconstructs the art of poetic autobiography and looks at the Ovid’s self-​portrait in Tristia 4.10. Finally, Jill A. Coyle explores the world of the contemporary poet Billy Collins and links his recent work to Ovid’s countercultural verses. In all of these chapters, the reinvention and reimagining of a diverse spectrum of ancient problems, both private and public, are shown to be at the heart of historical inquiry. By embracing the ancient construct of exempla and using it to investigate figures, familiar and obscure, the authors delve into the field of ancient biography to highlight new aspects of the individuals in question.

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10 Othryadas: The development of a historical and literary exemplum* Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott

The Othryadas tale presents a problem to both the historian and literary critic. Taking a notable place in Herodotus’ history it is a well-​known story thickly shrouded in legend.1 Its interpretation in Herodotus has proved difficult, and its various versions do not exhibit a linear development. In this chapter, we explore the variant traditions of the story and offer an alternative understanding of the story in Herodotus. Further, we suggest that the non-​ Herodotean version of the tale derived from the literary reworkings of it in the Hellenistic period, which were predicated on the interests of genre and literary milieu rather than on any sense of historicity. Herodotus’ description (1.82) of the Battle of Champions (mid-​ sixth century BC E ) is the most well-​known account of this event. The battle was fought over control of the Thyreatis, which Sparta had lost at Hysiae in the mid-​seventh century, although Herodotus does not include this detail here.2 The battle was fought by 300 men, chosen from both sides, almost entirely to the death.3 After the battle, there remained only three survivors: two Argives (Alcenor and Chromios) and one Spartan (Othryadas). The Argives claimed victory and left the battlefield for Argos. Othryadas, however, remained in his armor, stripped the bodies of the dead Argives, and brought the spoils back to his camp. On the next day, both sides claimed victory: the Argives, because more survived, and the Spartans, because Othryadas had stripped the dead. Herodotus, however, makes it clear that the initial battle was indecisive. A second battle was fought to settle this dispute, and the Spartans were victorious, despite severe losses on both sides. Afterward, new customs were established for each city-​state. It became illegal for the Argives to wear their hair long, or for their women to wear gold, until Thyrea was regained. By contrast, Spartans began to wear their hair long. Herodotus’ final sentence in this section concerns the fate of Othryadas. They say (λέγουσι), Herodotus relates, that Othryadas killed himself because he was ashamed to return to Sparta after the death of his companions.

*  We hope that this chapter pays adequate tribute to Prof. Nagy’s historical and literary interests, and we humbly thank him for his dedication and support, both at Holy Cross and afterward.

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148  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott Herodotus’ source here, although unnamed, suggests a Laconian provenance, especially because Spartans would be in the best position to tell of Othryadas’ fate. If Herodotus’ source was in fact Spartan, then the entire account is likely the version of the event current at Sparta in the second half of the fifth century B C E , when Herodotus was carrying out his research.4 More specifically, it is a Spartan interpretation of the event, and to the Spartans of that period Othryadas’ suicide would have come as no surprise. Herodotus’ account, however, is not the only one that survives from antiquity. Two other historians, Chrysermus and Theseus, also record the event, although these authors are difficult to date.5 We have no date for Chrysermus, and Theseus likely dates to the Roman period.6 According to pseudo-​Plutarch (Mor. 306a-​b = FGrH 3a 287 2[2]‌a), Chrysermus described the event in his third book of Peloponnesian History. In his account, Othryadas, serving as general of the three hundred Spartans,7 revived, supported himself on spears, stripped the corpses of their shields, and set up trophy that read “To Zeus, Guardian of Trophies,” with the inscription made in his own blood. Chrysermus does not discuss Othryadas’ death (although it seems assumed that he died because of his wounds). He also includes the detail that an inspection of the battlefield showed the Spartans to be the winners, which is also implied by Othryadas’ setting up of a trophy. In Theseus’ account, recorded by Stobaeus (Flor. 3.7.68  =  FGrH 3b 453 2[3]‌), Othryadas took many spoils and set up a trophy, and using blood from his wounds, inscribed it with “Spartans over the Argives.” He then died (presumably from wounds, not suicide). This general version of the story also appears in the Suda (s.v. Ὀθρυάδας). There, Othryadas, one of the picked men, once Alcenor and Chromios had left the battlefield, stripped the dead and set up a trophy inscribed in blood. Once he had done this, he died. In this entry, Othryadas is cited as the reason why the Spartans could claim victory and the Thyreatis for themselves. The accounts of Chrysermus and Theseus, along with others, both poetry and prose, in Greek as well as Latin, are evidence of Othryadas and the Battle of Champions having become a favorite topic of rhetorical declamation.8 As such, these versions are better viewed as rhetorical embellishments, rather than “historical” accounts. Pausanias also includes several references to this event. At 2.20.7 he mentions Othryadas specifically, describing a monument in Argos that depicts the slaying of Othryadas by the Argive Perilaus. Interestingly, Perilaus is the son of Alcenor, one of the two Argive survivors of the Battle of Champions. Whereas in Herodotus’ account the source appears to have been the Spartans, it seems that in this notice from Pausanias we meet an Argive version of the story. It is interesting that Othryadas remains the focal point of the Argive version of the event, which clearly had a much different interpretation at Argos than at Sparta. Our understanding of this monument, however, is impaired by a lack of source information. Elsewhere Pausanias discusses the battle itself. At 2.38.5 he records a brief account of the conflict, including the main details of the battle being fought

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Othryadas 149 by 300 men, chosen from both sides, over control of the Thyreatis. He also states that graves for the dead were erected at the location of the battle. He concludes his description with the notice that in a battle of full forces the Lacedaemonians defeated the Argives. This version is in general agreement with Herodotus’ account, in that it references an initial battle of three hundred on both sides (indecisive), followed by a battle of full forces (won by the Spartans); Herodotus, however, does not mention the setting up of graves. At 10.9.6 Pausanias writes of the Sibyl’s prediction of the battle over Thyrea ending in a draw. The Argives, however, claimed the victory, sending to Delphi a wooden horse that was the work of Antiphanes. Frazer (1965, v5, 262–​263) notes the chronological incongruity; Antiphanes was likely working from about 414 to about 369–​368 BC E , and it would have been strange for the Argives to commemorate a battle that had occurred 150  years earlier. Therefore, it is probable that the wooden horse commemorated an Argive raid on Thyrea in 414 BCE , during which they stole booty sold for at least 25 talents from the Lacedaemonians, as Thucydides (6.95) describes (Frazer 1965, v5, 265). This overview reveals the dissimilarities among the various accounts, and in fact it seems that Herodotus’ version of the tale included a significantly different interpretation of Othryadas’ actions. Herodotus’ (or the Spartans’) understanding of Othryadas seems to have been greatly influenced by the events of the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC E , and in fact it appears that Herodotus meant for his reader to connect these two events.9 Herodotus’ depictions of these events have much in common, including the number of Spartan combatants (300), outcome (complete, or almost complete, devastation), and “hair behavior.”10 On this latter point, we can cite the origin of the Spartans growing their hair long after Thyrea, and the attention paid to hair prior to Thermopylae. Other than both stories fulfilling Herodotus’ goal of recording the great deeds of men, in both battles the annihilation of the entire Spartiate force illustrates the Spartan ideological imperative of self-​sacrifice on behalf of the state. With this imperative made clear, the survivors of the contest come to the fore. Returning home alive after battle was a risky proposition, at least according to Spartan ideology of proper comportment in battle. The general concept of the risk of survival appears to have become crystallized in Spartan thought after Thermopylae, after which its ideological intensity grew. When the Spartans surrendered at Sphacteria, Thucydies (4.40) notes the surprise of the rest of the Greeks that the Spartans were not fighting to the death. The imperative is observed in Xenophon’s treatment of the Spartan constitution, when he discusses Lycurgus’ exhortation to die bravely rather than live as a coward and in his review of the penalties that faced cowards at Sparta (Lac. 9). The ideology can also be observed in the apophthegms contained in Plutarch’s Moralia.11 The acceptance or rejection of a survivor is attested frequently in these sayings, with the situation usually mediated through the view of the mother (and, less frequently, the father). For example, at Plut.

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150  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott Mor. 241a a mother, upon hearing that her son had not perished in battle and in fact had run away, demands that he either clear his reputation or kill himself. Similarly, and even more intensely, Plut. Mor. 241b records the story of mother who asked her son, when he had returned from battle, how things had turned out. When he responded that all had perished, she killed him by striking him with a thrown tile.12 By contrast, several sayings report a mother’s happiness at her son’s death. At Plut. Mor. 214c, a mother of five sons awaited news of the battle at the boundary of the city. When a messenger told her that all of her sons had died, she insists on not caring about that but wishes to know if Sparta had been victorious. When she learns that it had, she happily receives the news of her sons’ deaths. In this same section of the Moralia a mother is comforted while burying her son. In response she states that she had bore him to die for Sparta. These apophthegms transmit an ideology of death in battle: in an idealized view, survival in battle was not acceptable. To return to Othryadas’ suicide, we are told that he killed himself because of a sense of shame. In the Spartan mindset, Othryadas showed an inferior amount of courage, thus making his return home impossible.13 Suicide became his only option because it made up for his inability to have died for his state. The suggestion that Othryadas functions as a hero in Herodotus’ text cannot be accepted.14 In addition to there being no evidence for Othryadas treated as such at Sparta, internal to the text itself his end is parallel with two survivors at Thermopylae. After Herodotus’ description of Thermopylae, we find that two of the Spartan 300, Eurytus and Aristodemus, suffering from inflammation of the eyes, were dismissed to Alpeni by Leonidas before the battle. Their fate diverged when Eurytus decided to have his helot lead him into battle, where he was killed (Hdt. 7.229). Aristodemus, however, decided to stay at Alpeni. An alternative story, also recorded by Herodotus (7.230), stated that Aristodemus intentionally delayed while delivering a message, thus missing the battle and saving himself. Whatever the true story, when he returned to Sparta he was branded a “trembler” (τρέσας) and charged with atimia (Hdt. 7.231).15 Additionally, a certain Pantites also missed the battle and his chance to die courageously, as he had been sent out as a messenger to Thessaly. When he returned to Sparta, he was met with such disgrace that he hanged himself (Hdt. 7.232). As David (2004, 29) has noted, Pantites’ only fault was his survival. Surely this treatment was what Othryadas would have feared (hypothetically, and according to normative behavior at Sparta in the second half of the fifth century). Othryadas was not a hero of any sort at Sparta, but rather his story functioned as a cautionary tale.16 His shame of survival, in a battle in which the rest of his peers fought to the death, forced him to take his own life.17 A question that remains is how Othryadas’ portrayal in Greek literature changed so significantly, either chronologically (from the Classical to the Hellenistic period) or by genre (that is, moving from a “historical” account in Herodotus to a rhetorical exercise). If we accept that the Herodotean version of the story did not heroize Othryadas, we must also observe a break

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Othryadas 151 between this version and the alternate tradition that arose later. In this alternate tradition, Othryadas plays the part of the hero, claiming victory for Sparta through the erection of an inscribed trophy and dying on the battlefield, a version that gained great popularity in the Hellenistic period.18 It is likely that the revival and modification of this story dates to the third century “Lycurgan” revolutions of Agis and Cleomenes.19 Kennell points out that the reinvention of Spartan tradition began under Cleomenes in the third century, amidst a general and conscious archaizing of Greek culture during the Hellenistic and Roman periods.20 For Sparta, this meant harkening back to its “apogee,” meaning the archaic period down through the Persian Wars.21 From this period, examples such as Othryadas at the Battle of Champions and Leonidas at Thermopylae presented themselves. In fact, these two were often paired, in some ways suggesting a reunderstanding of a pairing made in Herodotus. In this later interpretation, however, Othryadas became the hero, just like Leonidas, presenting a departure from the interpretation of that tale in the classical period.22 The interest in Othryadas by Hellenistic poets appears to have had a significant impact on the development of this alternate version of the tale. As has been suggested, the poets might have been responding to a specific propaganda campaign by Sparta in the third quarter of the third century that envisioned Othryadas as a hero of “Lycurgan” Sparta. Their interest in Sparta may also have derived from the production of collections of Spartan aphorisms in this period,23 which would have widely disseminated a highly idealized version of Spartan valor. These aphorisms, which transmit various aspects of Spartan ideology, were well suited to the genre of Hellenistic and later epigrams.24 The deviations from the main tradition regarding Othryadas found within these epigrams may also have been affected by considerations of genre and the aesthetic of the poetry of this age. Although it is speculative, it is possible to suggest that the Hellenistic epigrammatists may in fact be responsible for, or at least be embellishers of, an alternate version of the Othryadas tale through their penchant for fictionality and self-​reference.25 From these poems we can also suggest that the subject became suitable for rhetorical exercise, the final stage of the development of the tale.26 Hellenistic epigram presents an idealized view of Spartan ideology in its treatment of Sparta overall. Doricizing, heroic language,27 elements of poetic performance, and the self-​awareness of epigram in its role as a memorializing genre elevate the history of the battle to that of an “invented tradition.”28 The accounts of the Battle of Champions show that the role of epigram is more significant in preserving received legacy than in presenting historical report, as the epigrams manipulate the story to suit the parameters of their refashioning of the once-​inscribed genre. Through fictionalization of Spartan honor, the reception of Thyrea transforms the event into a literary trope that immortalizes Othryadas as hero; as authors describe him as marking himself as an exemplum of Spartan glory by means of inscription, however, the trope conflicts with Spartan egalitarianism. Nevertheless, the Hellenistic epigrams

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152  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott reflect the preservation of two accounts, Argive and Spartan, as they dramatize Othryadas as an iconic image of Spartan heroism. This idealized view of Spartan ideology is resonant in other epigrams in the Greek Anthology and Hellenistic literature in general outside of the epigrams concerning the battle over the Thyreatis.29 The Battle of Champions was a theme common among Hellenistic epigrammatists who were particularly fond of treating Spartan glory, as many scholars have recognized,30 and the textual interplay among the epigrams present the theme as literary exercise. The epigrams by Chaeremon (2), Dioscorides (2), Damagetus, “Simonides,” Nicander, Gaetulicus, Criangoras, and Lucillius present an idealized view of Spartan glory through the authors’ literary technique in each individual version.31 The building up of Othryadas at Thyrea to become a central point of reference to Spartan valor in later epigram shows his literary quality as exemplum instilled by Hellenistic epigrammatists. In two poems of Chaeremon, the battle over the Thyreatis is clearly central to the epigrams, yet Othryadas is not mentioned. Nevertheless, the valor of Sparta is the epigrammatic salt of the poems (2 G-​P = AP 7.720): Κλεύας οὑτυμοκλεῖος ὑπὲρ Θυρεᾶν δόρυ τείνας

  κάτθανες ἀμφίλογον γᾶν ἀποτεμνόμενος. Cleuas, son of Etymocles, after stretching out a spear on behalf of Thyrea, /​you died as you cut out a portion of the disputed land for yourself. The Spartan Cleuas ensured his stake in Spartan success by dying in the Thyrean land and so claiming it as Spartan. The ἀποτεμνόμενος reflects Herodotus’ use in 1.82;32 beyond the lexicographical relationship that assists in pointing out Cleuas’ Spartan origin, the Spartans are the historical victors of the land, and so the use of the spear dramatizes the cutting of land performed by the Spartans. The epigram is a dramatic retelling of Herodotus’ account that reinforces an ideological presentation of Spartan victory, as the rare ἀμφίλογον intensifies the rivalrous argument between the two sides. Nevertheless, the Spartans win the Thyreatis by physical force of the spear, not words.33 Cleuas vindicates his and his father’s etymological namesake with the glory won by the spear, and the physical force by which Sparta has obtained victory.34 The seemingly dedicatory spear becomes the means of achieving the sepulchral form of the epigram, as the Spartan symbolically cuts out his own graveyard plot, Sparta’s conquest and the perfect Spartan glory, according to literary trope. Chaeremon emphasizes the two sides of the argument in another sepulchral epigram that coordinates with the previous (3 G-​P = AP 7.721): Τοῖς Ἄργει Σπάρτῃ35 τ’ ἴσαι χέρες, ἶσα δὲ τεύχη

συμβάλομεν· Θυρέαι δ’ ἦσαν ἄεθλα δορός. ἄμφω δ’ ἀπροφάσιστα τὸν οἴκαδε νόστον ἀφέντες οἰωνοῖς θανάτου λείπομεν ἀγγελίαν.

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Othryadas 153 For these men in Argos and in Sparta, both equal hands, and equal arms /​we dashed together; Thyrea was the prize of the spear. /​And both sides unhesitating cast away their journey homeward /​as we leave [this] report of death for the omens. As in the previous poem, the delay in revelation of the voice to the second line with συμβάλομεν emphasizes the contest of equal effort on both sides (τ’ ἴσαι χέρες, ἶσα δὲ τεύχη). Through the two tales that arrive by means of birds to their respective homes after the battle, the epigram shows its own self-​ awareness as a representation that preserves the story as legend, a νόστος. Although the epigram does little to settle the dispute of possession of the Thyreatis, the report (ἀγγελία) with which the epigram concludes hints at retelling of the events at the Battle of Champions based not on inscriptions, but instead on oral report. The ambiguous first-​person plural voice suggests the ambiguity of tradition handed down about the battle; the epigram presents itself as self-​aware of its ironic existence as a monument meant to represent a record of history, yet the only element of historical record is the contention and death shared by the two sides. The general contention between the two sides in epigram, that both were unhesitating (ἄμφω δ’ ἀ προφάσιστα), later shifts toward emphasizing the traits typical of Spartan strength, and the legacy of a Spartan ideology, particularly surrounding heroes of the battle. What Chaeremon’s epigrams lack, regarding the description of the Battle of Champions, is any mention of Othryadas. The epigrams that follow transform the event from quasi-​report of rivalry between Sparta and Argos into the legend of Othryadas. In an epigram ascribed to Simonides, the portrayal of Spartan ideology distinguishes itself in the figure of Othryadas (5 G-​P = AP 7.431)36: Οἵδε τριηκόσιοι, Σπάρτα πατρί, τοῖς συναρίθμοις

Ἰναχίδαις Θυρέαν ἀμφὶ μαχεσσάμενοι, αὐχένας οὐ στρέψαντες ὅπᾳ ποδὸς ἴχνια πρᾶτον ἁρμόσαμεν ταύτᾳ καὶ λίπομεν βιοτάν. ἄρσενι δ’ Ὀθρυάδαο φόνῳ κεκαλυμμένον ὅπλον καρύσσει· “Θυρέα, Ζεῦ, Λακεδαιμονίων.” αἰ δέ τις Ἀργείων ἔφυγεν μόρον, ἦς ἀπ’ Ἀδράστου· Σπάρτᾳ δ’ οὐ τὸ θανεῖν, ἀλλὰ φυγεῖν θάνατος. We these three hundred men, o Sparta our homeland, with those in the count together /​the sons of Inachus fighting around Thyrea, /​not turning our necks we, in the place where with our footsteps in the very front, /​we stood together and in this place left life behind. /​So the shield covered by the manly blood of Othryadas proclaims, “Thyrea, Zeus, belongs to the Lacedaemonians.” /​And if someone of the Argives fled fate, he was of Adrastus’ line; /​since in Sparta it is, not dying, but fleeing that is death.

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154  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott The speakers, entombed Spartans, suggest that an Argive survivor, of the line of Adrastus, behaves as a counterarchetype to Othryadas, as he was a deserter of his fellow Argives.37 Any survivor from the Argives only proves Spartan courage, as Othryadas died to mark the Thyreatis as the prize of Spartan victory. Significantly, the author presents an idea that varies from Herodotus’ account: that Othryadas inscribed Spartan victory on a shield. What is the relationship between the shield and the inscription? The epigram bridges the categories of dedicatory and sepulchral, as it presents itself through voice of Spartan dead at Thyrea,38 within which it reports a story of Othryadas’ victory through an inscriptional, ecphrastic dedication on a shield. Through typical assumption of Spartan ideology of death in battle, and through its literary devices, the epigram reveals its fictionalizing of historical report. There are a few aspects that convey the fictionality of this epigram. First, its performative quality—​not anywhere else in our historical sources is Othryadas, or any of the Spartans, given voice, through either an address to a divinity (as here to Zeus), inscription, or performance, although addressing a divinity is a convention common to dedicatory epigram.39 Second, the allusion to mythology places Othryadas in the world of legend, and so shows Othryadas as representative of aggrandizing mythological trope in literary exposé. Mythologizing is clear in the Argive legendary lineage, who are presented as relatives of the Inachus, chief river at Argos and legendary founder of the city,40 and in Adrastus,41 and so in Adrastus’ damning, solitary escape from the assault on Thebes. Adrastus’ shameful flight counters the persistence of a victorious Othryadas and his inscription at Thyrea. Finally, there is the manipulation of genre –​the means by which the author refashions the story of Othyradas to fit the confines of his/​her literary work,42 as the epigram here fits the dedicatory address to the divinity on the shield within a sepulchral epigram. For the genre of epigram, affectations on traditional categories (namely, sepulchral and dedicatory) and an epigram’s innovative poetic technique in changing voice, while manipulating the usual conventions of archaic and classical epigram, allude to a poetically-​enhanced, fictional quality. The inscription within the epigram –​the dedicatory address on the shield –​poetically reinforces the endurance of Spartan victory. Nevertheless, there are additions made to the legend of Thyrea, which may or may not have root in historical sources, and which we will investigate here. An address to Zeus is typical of both inscriptional and epideictic epigram,43 and also in performance,44 but this addition to the story is an effect of the genre-​mixing of the epigram. Here the blood on the shield is most certainly the speaker of the address to Zeus, meant to proclaim the victory of the Lacedaemonians. That the blood is the speaker of this ecphrasis, rather than a speaking Othryadas, accentuates the sacrifice of Othryadas and memorializes his devotion to idealized egalitarianism among Sparta’s military. The de facto steadfastness of the immobile inscription of Othryadas is like the footprints that show the valor of the Spartan soldiers (ὅπᾳ ποδὸς ἴχνια), enhanced by the phonetic similarity of the first syllables of each ἁρμόσαμεν and ἄρσενι, and

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Othryadas 155 by the metrical parallel between ἁρμόσαμεν, ταύτᾳ and ἄρσενι δ’ Ὀθρυάδαο, in which there are two and a half feet comprising each phrase; both the inscription and the footprints imprint a memory that no Spartan left the battle alive (ταύτᾳ καὶ λίπομεν βιοτάν), and so should be remembered for his manly sacrifice (ἄρσενι…φόνῳ).45 The position of Othyradas’ name (δ’ Ὀθρυάδαο) between ἄρσενι…φόνῳ indicates that the blood is his own. Othryadas is shown to be both united with his fellow soldiers, and simultaneously apart from them, idolized for outstanding service to his city. Noticeably, the epigram avoids any etiology concerning the death of Othryadas. Instead, the voice of the deceased establishes the epigram as sepulchral and explains the cause of the speakers’ deaths, so making a description of Othyradas’ death superfluous. Othryadas is both outstanding in his heroism, but also one in the same as those other Spartans who died at Thyrea in devotion to Sparta. The dialogue epigram of Dioscorides (31 G-​P = AP 7.430) pushes the traditional limitations of the genre even further with its format, as dialogue is a technique natural for displaying etiological inquiry46: –​ Τίς τὰ νεοσκύλευτα ποτὶ δρυὶ τᾷδε καθᾶψεν

  ἔντεα; τῶ πέλτα Δωρὶς ἀναγράφεται; πλάθει γὰρ Θυρεᾶτις ὑφ’ αἵματος ἅδε λοχιτᾶν,   χἀμὲς ἀπ’ Ἀργείων τοὶ δύο λειπόμεθα. –​ Πάντα νέκυν μάστευε δεδουπότα, μή τις ἔτ’ ἔμπνους   λειπόμενος Σπάρτᾳ κῦδος ἔλαμψε νόθον. –​Ἴσχε βάσιν, νίκα γὰρ ἐπ’ ἀσπίδος ὧδε Λακώνων   φωνεῖται θρόμβοις αἵματος Ὀθρυάδα, χὠ τόδε μοχθήσας σπαίρει πέλας. –​ Ἄ πρόπατορ Ζεῦ,   στύξον ἀνικάτου σύμβολα φυλόπιδος. Who fastened these arms newly taken as booty to this tree? /​By whom is this Dorian shield inscribed? /​For the Thyreatis is running with the blood of fellow-​soldiers, /​and we from Argos are the only two left. /​ –​It bore witness to the loud thudding of the corpse, although there is not someone still living that is left from Sparta who illuminated the glory that is illegitimate. /​ –​Stop your tracks, for victory of the Laconians is here upon this shield, [as] Othryadas is proclaimed in drops of blood, /​and after having struggled he gasped this out nearby. –​Forefather Zeus, /​reject with disgust this symbol of a battle not won. Dioscorides, as in the previous epigram, portrays Herodotus’ version of the event with a few changes, particularly the addition of and emphasis on an inscriptional dedication. This version may be the earliest of all of these epigrams to bring an inscription into the story to verify Othryadas’ valor.47 This epigram is part of a series that emphasizes Spartan heroic virtue, and so it is clearly an ironical inquiry into the victory and courage of Spartans at Thyrea. The vivid, visual image of the inscription with drops of blood

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156  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott attests that Othryadas died on the battlefield and so declares Thyrea to be Lacedaemonian.48 The blood appears twice in the epigram, and each occurrence triggers mimetic dialogue; the reader is not supposed to just read the epigram, but with the word blood, the reader is to experience the image of it, as witness to the dialogue in the epigram, and to the image that the dialogue recalls. The first “blood” in line three (Θυρεᾶτις ὑφ’ αἵματος) locates the reader in the Thyreatis running red with blood, whereas the second “blood” in line eight (νίκα γὰρ ἐπ’ ἀσπίδος ὧδε Λακώνων /​ φωνεῖται θρόμβοις αἵματος Ὀθρυάδα) locates the blood on the shield belonging to Othryadas. The parallel phrasing guides the reader toward understanding that he/​she is to imagine reading an inscription on an image and Othryadas as inseparable from the battle at Thyrea. The relationship between each occurrence of “blood” and “Othryadas” is clear, since all are in the genitive, and so show the blood as the medium for the picture of Thyrea and of the inscription of Othryadas.49 The unnamed, therefore not noteworthy, personae loquentes enliven the image by providing the emotional response expected of its bastardry and so falsehood (κῦδος ἔλαμψε νόθον), yet what ironically permeates is the blood and victory of Othryadas. The text and image coordinate to create a fictional scene celebrating Spartan valor, through the entire performance of the dialogue epigram.50 The dialogue format of the Othryadas epigram mixes dedicatory and sepulchral formats, presenting itself in the first four lines as either a tomb inscribed for the speakers, or for those described by the speaker while it guides the reader into an etiological enquiry of how the epigram should be presumed to be an object written upon.51 The reader is left to discover that his/​ her role is to witness another poetic plain in the inscription of blood on the shield of Othryadas. The sepulchral format is interrupted with the mention of the inscribed arms of Othryadas, provoking the reader to identify that the epigram’s essence rests in Sparta’s glory. This epigram indicates a significant amount of self-​awareness, because it presents an understanding of how epigrams do not actually speak, but that, as Tueller succinctly asserts, “their speech is conjured by the technology of writing and the participation of the reader.”52 The inquisitional dialogue in Dioscorides 31 G-​P  =  AP 7.430 asks two questions, both answered by the name Othryadas, and so Othryadas is both the dedicator of the newly-​stripped arms and the Dorian who inscribed them. Although the verb φωνεῖται is passive here, and so only indirectly shows that Othryadas’ blood is the “speaker,” the verb φωνέω is often a means of introducing a different speaker in literary epigram, sometimes with the inscription itself as subject, and so it follows suit in introducing Othryadas’ bloody proclamation of victory.53 The addition of the inscription elevates Othryadas to the ranks of legendary, likened to Leonidas or those Spartans fighting at Thermopylae,54 or other Spartan topoi.55 Othryadas then becomes an archaic exemplum of Spartan virtue, and this archaizing is much like the others in Dioscorides’ series of epigrams that extol the virtue of preclassical drama and

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Othryadas 157 its archaizing revival in the third century.56 The very writtenness of the epigram bears witness to Spartan glory attached to Othryadas, without any hint at the cause of his death, whether suicide or otherwise. This idealized image of Sparta was adopted by later epigrammatists, such as Nicander, who does not sidestep the suicide as Simonides and Dioscorides do (2 G-​P = AP 7.526)57: Ζεῦ πάτερ, Ὀθρυάδα τίνα φέρτερον ἔδρακες ἄλλον,

  ὃς μόνος ἐκ Θυρέας οὐκ ἐθέλησε μολεῖν πατρίδ’ ἐπὶ Σπάρταν, διὰ δὲ ξίφος ἤλασε πλευρᾶν   δοῦλα καταγράψας σκῦλα κατ’ Ἰναχιδᾶν; Father Zeus, did you look upon some other braver than Othryadas, who did not wish to come from Thyreas alone to the country of his father –​ Sparta, and so drove a sword through his side/​after inscribing servitude for the sons of Inachus on a shield? By means of the rhetorical question, the bravery of Othryadas culminates throughout the four lines of the poem; the repetition of κατ … κατ’ in synchysis with the assonant δοῦλα … σκῦλα emphasizes the heroism of Othryadas over the fading memory that remains of the Argive line conquered by Spartans. Although the addressee is Zeus, the epigram mimics those accompanying statues or works of art. The vivid scene of the suicide of Othryadas also seems representative of a picture, though the prayer, the act of inscribing (καταγράψας σκῦλα, like πέλτα … ἀναγράφεται in Dioscorides 31.2 G-​P), the mythological reference to the Argive line (Ἰναχιδᾶν, like τοῖς συναρίθμοις Ἰναχίδαις in ‘Simonides’ 5.1–​2 G-​P), and invocation of an onlooker (Ζεῦ πάτερ, … ἔδρακες, like Τίς… ἀναγράφεται in Dioscorides 31.1–​2) reflect the poems of “Simonides” and Dioscorides, making it seem more likely that Nicander is innovating upon the works of the epigrammatists. What permeates is the glory of Othryadas enabled by a reader’s gaze, as the medium of epigram retains Othryadas as an exemplum of an overly positive portrayal of a hero’s victory. The heroic portrayal of Othryadas persists in other epigrams as well, along the same lines.58 From this examination we understand that the legend of Othryadas shifted its meaning over time. In the late fifth century, Othryadas stands as a parallel to the survivors of Thermopylae, who did not share in the victory of their peers and either suffered dishonor or took their own lives. In later periods Othryadas was transformed into a Spartan hero and repository of old Spartan virtue. The medium of epigram, as it was understood in the Hellenistic period, found in the tale of Othryadas a rich subject. Although the main motivation of reworking the story may have derived from Spartan politics of the third century, the manipulations of and additions to the story can be seen as deriving from the genre of Hellenistic epigram itself. As Othryadas was transformed from trembler into hero, his actions in epigram mirrored

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158  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott many of the devices that are commonly found in poems of that genre in the Hellenistic age.

Notes 1 Studies of various aspects of the tale include Kohlmann (1874) and (1876); Guépin (1966); and Dillery (1996), among others. 2 A description of the battle is found only in Pausanias (2.24.7), and its historicity has generally been accepted. Kelly (1970) presents a dissenting view. See further later in this chapter. 3 There has been speculation that this group of chosen men was in fact the Spartan hippeis; for a review of previous arguments and recent analysis, see Figueira (2006). 4 Cf. Tigerstedt (1965) 105:  “Herodotus’ picture of Sparta, as we have often stressed, depends to a great extent on Spartan sources. It is thus in no small degree a self-​portrait.” 5 Although we cannot date Chysermus or Theseus with much certainty, their account, specifically with regard to the setting up of a trophy and its inscription written in blood, is echoed by several epigrams (to be discussed later in this chapter). Several of these epigrams date to the Hellenistic period, which suggests that it was in this period, at the very latest, that this alternate version of the Othryadas tale emerged. 6 Jacoby, FGrH 3b 453. 7 This detail is also included by Strabo (8.6.17) and the Suda (see later in this chapter). 8 Kohlman (1874) 470ff; Frazer (1965, v3) 196–​197. 9 The similarity of narrative pattern between these two stories has been examined by Dillery (1996). Cf. also Loraux (1977) 118; Thommen (1995) 58, 113. 10 David (2004, 29–​30) cites the three major similarities as number of men (300), suicide, and “reference to hair behavior.” We are in general agreement, though the issue of suicide is debatable and will be discussed later in this chapter. 11 Although these aphorisms should be treated with caution, their content provides a basis for understanding Spartan ideology. Spartan apophthegms were likely collected as early as the fifth century, as Herodotus seems to suggest at 7.226 (cf. Rawson [1969] 87–​89; Tigerstedt [1974] 24; Santaniello [1995] 8–​9; Figueira [2010] 274–​275). Interest in these sayings increased in the fourth century and later in the Hellenistic period, and were likely transmitted as collections through Cynic and Peripatetic sources. It seems that Plutarch would have been drawing on these collections, some of the source material for which can be traced back to the classical period. The aphorisms, therefore, attest to the development of an ideology over time that expressed Spartan outlook and apprehension with respect to what was considered normative behavior (Figueira [2010] 265–​266, 275; cf. Tigerstedt [1974] 18). 12 Similar content can be found at Mor. 240f (Damatria). 13 David (2004, 30) assigns Othryadas’ suicide to the “altruistic type” on the basis that his suicide was meant to “stress the importance of group solidarity for the Spartans: adhesion to the group was more important than life itself.” Furthermore, he does not see any sense of guilt associated with the action. This may be true, but it is also important to stress the sense of shame and perception of not being able to return home. 14 Dillery (1996) 228; Thommen (1995) 113.

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Othryadas 159 15 Aristodemus later fought bravely at Plataea, although his courage was not formally recognized by the Spartans because it had been his express intention to die in battle (Hdt. 9.71). The major studies of τρέσαντες are Ehrenberg (1936) and Ducat (2006). For Aristodemus in particular, see Ducat (2005). The status and punishments of cowards is also described at Xen. Lac. 9.4–​5. 16 A further consideration toward a better understanding of the Othryadas tale is the event’s interpretation at Sparta in later periods. According to Spartan thought, the Battle of Champions may have been the origin for the heroization of the dead at Sparta. Sosibius (FrGH 595 F 5 = Athen. 15.678b-​c) relates that paeans for those who died at Thyreae were sung at the Spartan festival of the Gymnopaidiai and that the chorus members wore Thyrean garlands. The Gymnopaidiai itself was first celebrated in the seventh century, supposedly after the Spartans lost the Thyreatis to Argos at the battle of Hysiai in 669 B C E (Paus. 2.24.7). The celebration of the battle of Champions seems to have been instituted after the recapture of the Thyreatis in the mid-​sixth century (Wade-​Gery [1949] 80). Therefore, we can see this type of behavior in battle associated with the Spartan concept of a hero, furthering our understanding of why Othryadas was understood as not being able to return home alive. Because he had not sacrificed himself in battle for the state, he was obligated to end his own life over the shame associated with his survival. 17 A similar interpretation was formed even in antiquity by Plutarch in his de malignitate Herodoti (Mor. 858c-​d). Plutarch is in error in this passage when he states that Othryadas killed himself because the Spartans had been defeated, and he understands Othryadas’ death as shameful because the Spartans had been defeated. Had they been victorious, his survival would have been glorious. 18 Rawson (1969) 89, including note 1 with citations. Based on a number of carved gems that appear to depict Othryadas, Guépin (1966, 57–​59) has argued the tale developed sometime between 366 and 225 B C E . The first of these dates derives from a reference to the Battle of Champions in Isocrates’ Archidamus, which dates to 366, which does not mention Othryadas at all. The second is the traditional dating of the poem of Dioscorides that includes the alternate, non-​ Herodotean version of the story. Guépin, employing artistic comparanda, dates the earliest of a number of gems that appear to depict Othryadas inscribing a shield in victory to circa 335 B C E . To the contrary, Furtwängler (1900, v3, 236)  sees the gems as derivative of the variant tradition present in Hellenistic literature. Because a firm interpretation from the gems is not possible, we follow Furtwängler. 19 On these revolutions, see Cartledge and Spawforth (2002) 38–​58; for the Ptolemies’ support of Cleomenes III, see Tigerstedt (1974) 86–​87 and Legrand (1901) 189. 20 Kennell (1995) 96–​97. 21 As Wibman (2002, 220) points out, even though the idealization of Sparta had been around long before the Hellenistic period, such idealizing nostalgia before the Hellenistic period had been placed in context of opposing oligarchic and democratic values; such an antithesis became meaningless in the Hellenistic kingdoms (as Tigerstedt [1974] 14 shows), but the political climate of the Hellenistic period provided fertile ground for reinvigorating Spartan legend in a new way. 22 Rawson (1969, 113) notes that this pairing became so popular under the Empire that Lucian (Teacher of Rhetoric 20, Anacharsis 920–​921) mocked it. 23 See note 11.

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160  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott 24 Figueira (2010) 274: “The Hellenistic epigrammatists also saw the kinship of such ‘laconic’ khreiai with the tightly focused occasions they sought for their poems, and exploited this affinity.” Cf. Legrand (1901) 189. 25 By “penchant for fictionality and self-​reference” we mean the exposition of particular poetic character attached to a theme, in this case historical; the poeticizing then categorizes the poetry as μυθώδες, which Calame (2003, 22) argues is characteristic of legendary history. The Hellenistic Age was rife with precipitous societal change, which inspired many “invented traditions.” As new systems of political authority sought to legitimize and establish their power during this period, poets too sought to establish their own authority within the cultural memory of Greece by means of incorporating the distant past to fit their innovative poetry. In their memory of or focus on particular aspects of the past, poets both sought to preserve it, but also changed it, and so created a fictional version of it; Tigerstedt (1974) 86–​87; Fantuzzi (2004) vii–​viii; Klooster (2011) 1–​14, 75–​81. 26 See Wibman (2002) 215–​230, especially 218, on “educative purpose” and form of Hellenistic epigrams on Sparta. 27 For the role of Doric dialect in act of historical reconstruction, see Hunter (2005) 187–​206, especially 196. 28 Klooster (2011) 75–​81, especially 80 (quoting Hobsbawm [1983] 1–​4). 29 See how even the Ptolemies sought to model themselves after, or at least recall as iconic, Spartan glory in Posidippus P. Mil. Vogl. 87; Hegemon I G-​P = AP 7.436 on “Dorian discipline,” presumably at Thermopylae; Phaennus I G-​P = AP 7.437 on Leonidas at Thermopylae; Tymnes 6 G-​P = AP 7.433 on Spartan mother who killed son for cowardice (see Gow [1965b] 556 on this relationship to Plut. Mor. 240f); Dioscorides 32 G-​P = AP 7.434 on mother’s dedication of sons killed in battle to Sparta; Nicander 1 G-​P = AP 7.435 on topic similar to Dioscorides 32; see Friedlander (1942) 78–​82 on Damagetus 4, 5, 6 G-​P = AP 7.231, 438, 541, and their strongly pro-​Spartan allusions. On the acceptance of these characterizations of Spartan-​ness as fact, although their literary quality is evident, consider that Mnasalces 7 G-​P = AP 7.242 so strongly exudes Spartan values of death in battle and devotion to country that the lemmatist wrote that the epigram referred to Spartans killed at Thermopylae, which is unfounded, as nothing of Sparta (or any other city, for that matter) is mentioned (as noted by Gow [1965b] 404). 30 Vioque (2001) 313–​ 315; Gow (1965b) 220; Webster (1964) 141, 192, 233; Friedlander (1942) 79–​80. 31 Chaeremon 2 and 3 G-​P = AP 7.720, 721; Dioscorides 30 and 31 G-​P = AP 7.229, 430; Damagetus 3 G-​P  =  AP 7.432; “Simonides” 5 G-​P  =  AP 7.431; Nicander 2 G-​P = AP 7.526; Lucillius AP 11.141; Gaetulicus in AP 7.244; Crinagoras in AP 7.741. 32 Hdt. 1.82, Τὰς γὰρ Θυρέας ταύτας ἐούσας τῆς Ἀργολίδος μοίρης ἀποταμόμενοι ἔσχον οἱ Λακεδαιμόνιοι, … Βοηθησάντων δὲ Ἀργείων τῇ σφετέρῃ ἀποταμνομένῃ, “for this was the Argive portion of the Thyrea the Lacedaemonians cut off for themselves and held … the Argives came to the aid of their territory being cut off ” (cited by Gow [1965b] 221). 33 Chaeremon’s epigram portrays a commonly received notion of Sparta’s strengths as composed mostly of physical force. The perception of Spartans’ lack of skills at public speech is probably an idea inherited from the classical period, particularly as speech became an essential trait in representation of Athenian ideology among Athenian authors. Millender (2001) 121–​164 calls speech a “cultural and political

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Othryadas 161 discriminator” as between Athenians and Spartans in Hdt. Hist. 6.58, Isoc. Antid. 293–​294, Paneg. 39–​44. Mostly throughout its uses ἀμφίλογον portrays a dispute of words (see, e.g., Xen. Mem. 4.2.34, Arist. EN 1162b); see also τῆς ἀμφιλόγου χώρας in Dion. Hal. 11.54.2), yet it is a dispute of land in App. Pun. 306.6 ἀμφιλόγῳ γῇ and 346.1 τῆς ἀμφιλόγου γῆς; later modifying γῆ in Constantinus VII Porphyrogenitus, De Sententiis and De Legationibus. 34 As in Εὐκλέας, illustrious, addressed to Leonidas about Spartans who died at Thermopylae in Simon. AP 7.301; as Gow (1965b, 221)  notes, “the names of father and son alike suggest glory [in their relationship to κλέας] and are more likely fictions of author’s than historical record.” 35 We have borrowed Beckby’s (1965, v2 ad loc.) emendation here, since it shares the meaning that Gow, Jacobs, and others have agreed upon, while retaining the definite article of the manuscript, and so agreeing with the sense of the rest of the epigram. Paton (1917, 382)  has Τοῖς Ἄργει Σπάρτηθεν ἴσαι χέρες, “We from Sparta engaged the Argives equal in number,” based on τοῖς Ἀργείοις***ἴσαι in the Planudean manuscript, which loses the common and equal death shared by the two sides and emphasized throughout the poem, especially in the last line; see Τοῖς ἄργει παρθεν in Gow (1965a) 76; Jacobs suggested Ἀργόθε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν, as in Od. 2.327, as Gow (1965b, 221–​222) comments; the adverbial suffix -​θεν, however, is common in Hellenistic poetry with Argos, as in Theoc. Id. 24.111, Apollonius of Rhodes 1.118, Damagetus 11 and 12 G-​P = A.Pl. 1 and 95, and so Jacobs’ emendation would resolve the textual discrepancy but vary from that contained in the manuscript. 36 Although there is, on occasion, some overlap between epigrams ascribed to Simonides in the AP that coincide with other attributions, such as with epigrams reported in Herodotus 7.228, this particular ascription to the Simonides of the fifth century B C E is doubtful; see Sider (2007), especially 113n.2, 129; on the possible relationship of this epigram to a forger of Dioscorides, see Reitzenstein (1893) 166; cf. Gow (1965b) 516–​517. 37 Isoc. Paneg. 4.55 describes the inability of Adrastus to retrieve the bodies of the dead, while Panath. 12.69 reports how Adrastus fled Argos to go to Athens; Paus. 1.39.2; Plut. Thes. 29; Eur. Supp. 1ff.; Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.8–​3.7.1. 38 The convention of epigrams spoken from the perspective of the deceased is an innovation of the classical period that is commonly varied by epigrams of the Hellenistic period; CEG 166 is the lone example from the archaic period (Tueller [2008] 112). The innovation on voice here is also emphatically Doric, through the past simple condition introduced by the Doric αἰ and concluded with apodosis introduced by ἦς, a Doric third singular. 39 Tueller (2008, 27–​32, 207) shows that addressing a divinity was a convention of pre-​Hellenistic epigram, which Hellenistic authors adapted for their own use. 40 Apollod. Bibl. 2.1.1–​ 4; for patronymic, see Ἰναχίδαις in Eur. IA 1088 (Gow [1965b] 425). 41 On Adrastus as a negative paradigm representative of Argive failure, see Fearn (2003, 355–​356) on Adrastus in Bacchylides 9.9–​24, which hints at the Argive foundation myth doomed to failure contrary to the success of Automedon’s return to Phleious after his victory at Nemea. 42 I am following the theory of Calame (2005, 1–​16), who, in his introduction, traces the line that distinguishes fiction from historical reference based on “the instance of enunciation” that places utterances within a discourse (“mise en discours,” 3),

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162  Alissa Vaillancourt and Andrew G. Scott on “authorial moments of intertextual play” (10), and on the role of poetic genre in playing an essential role in poetic manifestations (13). 43 Tueller (2008) 27. 44 See Day (2007, 36–​37) on how epigram frames a reenactment of ritual by its associations with the perpetuation of an earlier event, all of which is enabled by a reader reading ceremonial moments, announcements, and prayers that point to relevant occasions. 45 Other uses of φόνος as blood, see Pind. Isthm. 5. 50; Il. 24.610 (Gow 1965b, 520). 46 See Tueller (2008, 194, 197–​202) for examples of how etiological, dialogic epigrams can frustrate the reader and thus show their literary quality. Tueller examines how the dialogue of inscribed epigrams, as opposed to literary epigrams like the one here, were almost always a conversation between a passerby and one present at the site of the epigram. Dioscorides manipulates this convention with the epigram’s presentation of a dialogue between the two Argives remaining. 47 Dioscorides’ Spartan epigrams (30–​32 G-​P = AP 7.229, 430, 434) are dated 225–​ 219 B C E and are probably earlier than that of “Simonides,” although we cannot say certainly; see Sider (2007) 125–​126, 129; Webster (1964) 138. 48 Similar to the bloodiness of Dioscorides 30 G-​P = AP 7.229, in which a father dedicates his son’s ashes to Sparta in profession of faith to Spartan bravery. The final speech of the father to the dead son corresponds to recurring elements in funereal inscriptions, yet the commonplace, overly Doricized names and stereotypical elements of bravery suggest that the epigram is fictional as well as overly stylized; on literary affectations, see Vioque (2001) 310–​311; on certainty of this epigram’s reference to the Battle of Champions, see Gow (1965b) 261–​262. 49 Vioque (2001) 318, in which he discusses the contracted Doric genitive singular form (from -​αο to -​α) of Othryadas. 50 Much like the theatrical masks of Greek epigram discussed by Petrides (2009) 494–​504. 51 In all of the epigrams attributed to Dioscorides, direct reference to writing occurs in only three other epigrams, yet two of these other three are epitaphs celebrating the poetic crafts of other authors: Dioscorides 21 G-​P = AP 7.411 (on Aeschylus, “who carved letters not neatly chiseled, but the very sort that are left obscured by water of a storm,” ὁ μὴ σμιλευτὰ χαράξας γράμματα, χειμάρρῳ δ’ οἷα καταρδόμενα); 26 G-​P = AP 7.450 (on the Samian author Philaenis who claims “not to have written works unsuitable for women,” οὐκ εἴμ’ ἡ τὰ γυναιξὶν ἀναγράψασα προσάντη ἔργα); 24 G-​P  =  AP 7.708, which does not mention writing itself, but is dedicated to the comic playwright (Τῷ κωμῳδογράφῳ) Machon. The third occurrence of writing is on a shield and behaves similarly in Dioscorides 15 G-​P = AP 6.126, with speech interrupted by what the presumed inscription presents; since it is not a dialogue epigram and is solely a dedication, 15 G-​P provides clearer coordination between text and image, yet the performative nature of the writing on a shield within the dialogue epigram in Dioscorides 31 G-​P, seems less attached to any actual image, other than the stage that the epigram creates. 52 Tueller (2008) 150. On how pronouns such as τοῦτο bring immediacy of the image to the reader of epigram, and a clue to understanding the poem’s self-​awareness, see Svenbro (1993) 31–​34. 53 Nicarchus 2 G-​P = AP 6.285 third person dedication of weaving items, where verb introduces direct speech of weaver; speaker uses verb to describe voice of subject

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Othryadas 163 of epigram in Philodemus AP 5.121; Antipater Thess. AP 9.552, of a dedicatory sword, and of the sea next to a tomb in AP 7.287; of a tomb in Xenocritus Rhod. AP 7.291; commanded to a column to speak of entombed in Archias Mac. AP 7.140; reported by epigram’s speaker of others who call out in love in Anon. 26 G-​P = AP 12.66. 54 Thermopylae is an exemplum resonant among Hellenistic epigrammatists, e.g. Hegemon I G-​P = AP 7.436; Phaennus I G-​P = AP 7.437; Tymnes 6 G-​P = AP 7.433 (cf. Plut. Mor. 240f). 55 Excluding those epigrams concerning Thyreatis, Spartan-​themed epigrams in the Hellenistic Anthology include: Leonidas 24 G-​P = AP 9.320; Nicander 1 G-​P = AP 7.435; Damagetus 6 G-​P = AP 7.541, 11 G-​P = A.Pl. I; Asclepiades 47 G-​P = P. Teb. 3; Dioscorides 30 G-​P = AP 7.229; Dioscorides 32 G-​P = AP 7.434; Anon. 53 G-​P = AP 7.723; Hedylus 1 G-​P = AP 6.292. 56 For archaizing in Dioscorides, see Gabathuler (1937) 86–​89; Webster (1964) 139, 141–​143; Gow (1965b) 254; Bing (1988) 40; Gutzwiller (1998) 260. 57 For dating Nicander to mid-​second century BC E , see Gow (1965b) 423; Gow and Scholfield (1953) 5. 58 Damagetus 3 G-​P  =  AP 7.432, somewhat of a contemporary of Dioscorides, praises a certain Gyllis and so bestows a fourth century polemarch with imaginary heroic exploits in dying at Thyrea. Lucillius, who in AP 11.141 satirizes the use of exempla, includes one exemplum of Othryadas, to mock a lawyer (see Fain [2010] 231). Gaetulicus in AP 7.244 presents a copy of Chaeremon 3 G-​P = AP 7.721 (see Gow [1965b] 220). Crinagoras in AP 7.741, calls Othryadas “great fame of Sparta” (τὸ μέγα κλέος), as a metaphorical comparison to an Italian soldier who, although half dead form his wounds, recovered the Roman battle standard and then died victoriously. The epigram also depicts Cynegeirus, fighter at Marathon and Salamis, as an exemplum of heroism; the story is also recorded at Hdt. 6.114; Ael. NA 7.38; and Paus. 1.15.1–​4. The image of Othryadas may also be the inspiration for other historical narratives, as in Plut. Mor. 306.

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Othryadas 165 Jacobs, F. 1794–​1814. Anthologia Graeca. 13 vols. Leipzig: Dyck. Kelly, T. 1970. “Did the Argives Defeat the Spartans at Hysiae in 669 B.C.?” American Journal of Philology 91: 31–​42. Kennell, N. 1995. The Gymnasium of Virtue. Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press. Klooster, J. 2011. Poetry as Window and Mirror:  Positioning the Poet in Hellenistic Poetry. Leiden: Brill. Kohlmann, P. 1874. “Othryadas.” Rheinisches Museum 29: 463–​480. Kohlmann, P. 1876. “Die Inschrift des Othryades beim Statiusscholiasten.” Rheinisches Museum 31: 302–​304. Legrand, P.E. 1901. “Sur Quelques Épigrammes Du III Siècle.” Revue Etudes Anciennes 3: 185–​193. Loraux, N. 1977. “La ‘belle mort’ spartiate.” Ktéma 2: 105–​120. Millender, E. 2001. “Spartan Literacy Revised.” Classical Antiquity 20: 121–​164. Paton, W. R., ed. and trans. 1916–​1918. The Greek Anthology. 5 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Petrides, Antonis. 2009. “Verbalizing/​Visualizing:  Theatrical Masks and the Greek Epigram.” Classical Quarterly 59: 494–​504. Rawson, E. 1969. The Spartan Tradition in European Thought. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Reitzenstein, R. 1893. Epigramm und Skolion:  Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der alexandrinischen Dichtung. J. Ricker. Santaniello, C. 1995. Detti dei Lacedemoni. Naples: M. D’Auria. Sider, D. 2007. “Sylloge Simonidea.” In P. Bing and J. S. Bruss, eds., Brill’s Companion to Hellenistic Epigram. Leiden: Brill, 113–​130. Svenbro, J. 1993. Phrasikleia:  An Anthropology of Reading in Ancient Greece. Translated by J. Lloyd. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Thommen, L. 1995. Lakedaimonion Politeia. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. Tigerstedt, E. N. 1965. The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, vol. 1. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Tigerstedt, E. N. 1974. The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, vol. 2. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell. Tueller, M. 2008. Look Who’s Talking: Innovation in Voice and Identity in Hellenistic Epigram. Leuven: Peeters. Vioque, G. G. 2001. Dioscórides Epigramas. Huelva: Universidad de Huelva. Wade-​Gery, H. T. 1949. “A Note on the Origin of the Spartan Gymnopaidiai.” Classical Quarterly 43: 79–​81. Webster, T. B. L. 1964. Hellenistic Poetry and Art. London: Methuen. Weisshaüpl, R. 1889. Die Grabgedichte Der griechischen Anthologie. Vienna. Reprinted in S.L. Tarán, ed., The Greek Anthology I. New York: Garland, 1987. Wibman, J. 2002. “Hellenistic Epigrams as School-​ Texts in Classical Antiquity.” In M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit, and G. C. Wakker, eds. Hellenistic Epigrams. Leuven: Peeters, 215–​230.

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11  No peeking! Athene and Alcibiades* Joseph Falaky Nagy

In 407 B C E , the larger-​than-​life soldier, politician, and bon vivant Alcibiades had the bad fortune to return from exile to his hometown of Athens during the Plynteria –​“dour and secretive ceremonies” (Nagy 1991, 302) in honor of Athene, the divine patroness of the city, which involved, among other activities, disrobing her statue in the Parthenon and temporarily covering it. This was, according to Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades (34.1–​2) and Xenophon (Hellenica, 1.4.12), a spectacularly inauspicious time to return (or so some Athenians thought), as the days of the Plynteria did not at all constitute the proper occasion on which to conduct civic business, including staging a returning and forgiven hero’s welcome. Hence Athene, the patroness of Athens and the goddess in whose honor the Plynteria were held, was not pleased: she “did not appear to welcome Alcibiades with kindly favour and good will, but rather to veil herself from him and repel him.”1 In other words, despite presumably being present in Athens to accept the worshipful ritual gestures being performed by designated specialists, Athene hid herself from the intruding prodigal-​son Athenian, even trying (as Plutarch says) to drive him away. Our honoree has persuasively argued that Alcibiades’ “profanation” on this occasion was not intentional or the result of his thoughtlessness. Rather, Nagy proposes, the Plynteria had been slyly and discreetly rescheduled by city officials hostile to Alcibiades (and seeking to embarrass him) so as to coincide with his return (Nagy 1994, 280–​285). We can imagine the scene of Alcibiades, along with his crew of sailors and soldiers, as well as the party of well-​wishers on the shore of the Athenian harbor of Piraeus, switching from a festive mood to the sobering realization that they had stumbled upon “unspeakable” activities (aporrhēta, the ritual term used by Xenophon) –​maybe the unfolding, nearby on the same shore, of some stage of the Plynteria’s ceremonial sequence. The bad timing, moreover, is not presented by Plutarch as a passing incident. Rather, in his narrative of the life of Alcibiades it constitutes a key turning-​point moment, presaging the disastrous outcome of a roller-​coaster * This chapter was written in honor of Balázs, my kedves bátyám, whose shrewd scholar’s eye and genial manner in the classroom have always inspired this little brother, just as they have won the admiration of his colleagues and served him in such good stead with generations of students.

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No peeking! Athene and Alcibiades 167 of a career, which ends in military failure, more exile, and, as we shall see, a deadly trap in the company of a female. Xenophon, Plutarch, and our other sources on Attic ritual leave key questions about this incident unanswered. What was it about the Plynteria that would bring bad luck to those who would be out and about during this event? Is Plutarch’s characterization of Athene as concealing herself from Alcibiades another way of saying that the image of Athene Polias was temporarily covered? Or was Athene herself actively trying to hide from his view or even “shoo” him away on account of her being deshabillée? Perhaps the most important unanswered question is: what was the “script” for the rituals of the Plynteria? Given the name, it is clear that they had to do with washing (plunein “to wash”), and the scholarly consensus, based on the available evidence, is that the festival involved some sequenced combination of the following: cleaning the Parthenon, undressing Athene’s statue and temporarily shrouding it, or putting “travelling clothes” on the image; laundering the removed clothing (her ritual peplos “tunic” and/​or chiton “shift”); taking the statue down to the sea and immersing it; and dressing it in clean or perhaps even newly-​made garb. The ritual actors belonged to a designated category of priestesses, the Praxiergidai, who in carrying out these women-​only activities were not only taking care of Athene but also paying homage to her proto-​priestess in Athens, Aglauros, one of the primeval culture heroines of the city. Likely a multiform of the goddess herself, Aglauros was the official patroness of Athenian young men undergoing the rite of passage to full-​fledged adulthood (the epheboi). Aglauros’ fatal leap from the Acropolis on behalf of her city, the saving of which from enemies, an oracle had proclaimed, was dependent upon such a voluntary sacrifice, had been commemorated with a yearlong embargo on the washing of the garment(s) draped on Athene’s statue in the Parthenon. (Doing Athene’s laundry had been Aglauros’ job.) The resumption of the cleaning of and caring for the goddess’ material representation and its dress marked in effect the first Plynteria, as well as the end of mourning for Aglauros (see Kerényi 1978, Lambert 2008, and Sourvinou-​Inwood 2011, passim) –​or the elevation of that mourning to a higher, more institutional level of commemoration. In addition to predicting the shape of things to come in his subject’s life, Plutarch’s highlighting of the Plynteria, connected as it is with Aglauros, may have also been ironically intended to evoke an earlier passage (15.7–​8), than which Plutarch “could hardly have found a better way to end his section on Alcibiades’ ascent to power” (Verdegem 2010, 208). In this passage, set in “the good old days” before his exile, Alcibiades exhorts the men of Athens to defend the city’s territorial claims and evokes the oath they took as ephebic fledgling citizens in the Aglaureion, the temple devoted to Aglauros on the Acropolis. It would, moreover, be tempting to go further with this interpretative tack and advert to some second-​century BCE inscriptional evidence referring to the task assigned to a large contingent of epheboi to escort “Pallas” to Phaleron (like Piraeus, an outlet for Athenians to the sea) and back, the trip back to the city said to be executed with much pomp. Were we to follow the lead of some

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168  Joseph Falaky Nagy scholars who have connected this evidence with the ritual of washing the statue of Athene in the sea during the Plynteria (see, for example, Sourvinou-​ Inwood 2011, 158–​180), we would see even more of a connection between the passage in Plutarch’s Life alluding to Aglauros’ essential connection with epheboi, and the episode centered on Aglauros-​related rituals (the Plynteria) which included ephebic “extras” in its cast of characters. Nagy, however, has wisely warned us against jumping to conclusions about the ritual reference of those second-​century inscriptions, pointing out how incongruous it would be for an otherwise understated set of rituals performed by women and involving the bathing of a female statue to include a grand parade of almost 150 boisterous young men (1991, 299–​306). Even apart from the excursion to Phaleron, there is still something “ephebic” about Alcibiades’ plight in the Plynteria incident, if we turn to the Fifth Hymn by the third-​century BC E author Callimachus (edited and translated in McKay 1962, 2–​9), usually referred to as “The Bath of Pallas,” a text that begins seemingly on the occasion of what one scholar has called “an Argive version of the Athenian Plynteria” (Heath 1988, 72, n.  1; cf. Deacy 2008, 129). As the goddess in her chariot noisily approaches the river Inachos in urgent need of a bath (for both herself and her horses), the poet is hurrying the girls in charge to set out the comb and olive oil Athene will need for her postbath finishing touches. (Given the no-​nonsense nature of the bather, says the poet, there will be no need for a mirror or perfumes.) Returning to the fierceness of the initial picture he paints of Athene’s return from battle (“her armour all befouled with gore”) in need of a good wash, the poet warns: “But, Argive [male], take care lest unwittingly you behold the Queen. Whoever sees Pallas, Guardian of the City, naked, he shall see Argos for the very last time” (McKay 1962, 5). To drive home the point of how debilitating it is for men however young and vital they might be to witness the ritual bath of Athene, Callimachus proceeds to tell a story (also told in Apollodorus, Library, 3.6.7, citing Pherecydes) of how the young Teiresias, known in mythological tradition primarily as an old seer, was blinded by the goddess in the prime of his life. Tragedy struck when, seeking water after growing thirsty in the hunt, he accidentally stumbled upon Athene bathing in the company of her girlfriend, the nymph Chariclo, who also happened to be Teiresias’ mother. Seeing his mother naked might also have had grave implications, but it was the vision of a nude Athene that sealed the young man’s fate. With “his chin just now darkening with down,” Teiresias was suddenly deprived of sight (a faculty particularly associated with Athene:  Deacy 2008, 128–​ 29; McKay 1962, 66–​67) as well as of the “normal” adulthood to which an ephebos-​type could look forward. So we see that youthful adventure can lead to a very “unephebic” outcome. The blinded Teiresias must give up the roaming life of a hunter, when he becomes as infirm and helpless as an old man. But things could be worse: Athene consoles his mother Chariclo (and her sightless son) with the story of Actaeon and the far more serious consequence of his intruding on

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No peeking! Athene and Alcibiades 169 the lustrating goddess Artemis’ privacy. (Actaeon is set upon and eaten by his own dogs, leaving his mother to search for his scattered bones.) In fact, Athene, to comfort Chariclo, does more than tell a story, nearly turning Teiresias’ trespass into a “happy fault,” by ameliorating the punishment with gifts. He will never regain his sight, but Teiresias will have great prophetic skill and the use of a sturdy (magically?) guiding stick. Also, unlike the “normal” dead who are mere flitting shades, he will be allowed to maintain his mind and personality when he goes to Hades. In other words, he will become the illustrious figure of myth and epic we still know today, from the Odyssey and the Oedipus cycle. As in numerous other tales about the awarding of knowledge to poets and seers in ancient Greek and other Indo-​European traditions, while there is always the danger of total disaster, a human encounter with the divine –​whether intentional or accidental, serious or trivial –​can confer upon the mortal intruder a mixture of blessing and curse. Great knowledge and the success that can come from possessing it often come arm in arm with a major “lack” in other aspects of social identity, or even ignoble doom, perhaps postponable but still inevitable (Compton 2006). It does not take away from the historical accuracy of Plutarch and his sources to suggest that there is a mythological subtext at work in the latter part of the Life of Alcibiades –​specifically, a subtext similar to what underlies the Callimachean aition of Teiresias’ blindness. When the rambunctious hero of Plutarch’s narrative returns to his hometown, he witnesses (or, “blind” to the danger, he is trapped into witnessing) something sacred that he should not have seen. Subsequently, Athene, bathing or about to bathe in the context of the Plynteria, hides from his sight, even though he is coming to the rescue of her city and its interests. As in the case of Teiresias, the enormity of offending the goddess does not “kick in” completely, that is, without any modification or some accompanying “silver lining.” At least for a while, Alcibiades will enjoy the fruits of the rehabilitation and “rejuvenation” of his reputation among the adoring Athenian citizenry, as well as a series of political and military triumphs, before the hero’s fall from grace and departure happen all over again. Yet, like Teiresias, who never experiences death in its numbing totality, Alcibiades in his second exile lives on in the hearts of his countrymen, despite having experienced a political “death.” When the military fortunes of the city take a drastic turn for the worse after Alcibiades is no longer in command, “in spite of [the Athenians’] present plight, a vague hope still prevailed that the cause of Athens was not wholly lost so long as Alcibiades was alive” (38.2). Finally, the most striking detail in Plutarch’s narrative offering evidence of a mythological schema brought into play by Alcibiades’ unfortunate encounter with Athene is the prophetic vision the author ascribes to his subject as his assassination approaches: At that time Alcibiades was living in a certain village of Phrygia, where he had Timandra the courtesan with him, and in his sleep he had the following vision. He thought he had the courtesan’s garments upon

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170  Joseph Falaky Nagy him, and that she was holding his head in her arms while she adorned his face like a woman’s with paints and pigments… Thus he fell… Timandra took up his dead body, covered and wrapped it in her own garments, and gave it such brilliant and honorable burial as she could provide. (39.1–​4) He is no Teiresias, but at the end Alcibiades dreams like a seer –​and death, oddly, means his being dressed in woman’s clothes and having makeup applied to his face by a woman. Her name, moreover, is Timandra “honorer of men,” and, it has been suggested, she may be the same person as another of Alcibiades’ girlfriends, mentioned elsewhere, named Damasandra “subduer  of men” (Verdegem 2010, 388–​389, n.  152). Could this emasculating vision of deathly pampering be Athene’s ironic payback for Alcibiades’ having disrupted her own toilette?2

Notes 1 Here and later in this chapter, from the translation by Bernadotte Perrin on the Perseus website. 2 Plutarch supplies a variant account of Alcibiades’ death in which the details are even more lurid: he is slain by the brother of a woman whom he had seduced (39.5). The promiscuity that marks Alcibiades’ life all the way to the bitter end echoes his invasion of Athene’s privacy that took place during the Plynteria. I thank another beloved big brother and mentor, Gregory, who some years ago brought the curious details of the story of Alcibiades’ prophetic dream to my attention.

Bibliography Compton, Todd M. 2006. Victim of the Muses:  Poet as Scapegoat, Warrior, and Hero in Greco-​Roman and Indo-​European Myth and History. Hellenic Studies 11. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Deacy, Susan. 2008. Athene. London: Routledge. Heath, John R. 1988. “The Blessings of Epiphany in Callimachus’ ‘Bath of Pallas’.” Classical Antiquity 7.1: 72–​90. Kerényi, Karl. 1978. Athene:  Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion. Translated by Murray Stein. Dallas: Spring Pubs. Lambert, Stephen D. 2008. “Aglauros, the Euenoridai and the Autochthon of Atlantis.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 167: 22–​26. McKay, Kenneth J. 1962. The Poet at Play:  Kallimachos, the Bath of Pallas. Mnemosyne, Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Supplement 6. Leiden: Brill. Nagy, Blaise. 1991. “The Procession to Phaleron.” Historia:  Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 40: 288–​306. Nagy, Blaise. 1994. “Alcibiades’ Second ‘Profanation’.” Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 43: 275–​285.

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No peeking! Athene and Alcibiades 171 Sourvinou-​ Inwood, Christiane. 2011. Athenian Myths and Festivals:  Aglauros, Erechtheus, Plynteria, Panatheneia, Dionysia. Edited by Robert Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Verdegem, Simon. 2010. Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades:  Story, Text and Moralism. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

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12  A furious fury: Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus, and the reconciliations of Juno Lee M. Fratantuono

For Professor Blaise Joseph Nagy: Isten éltessen sokáig

The rationale for Virgil’s naming of Camilla, the huntress heroine of Aeneid XI, remains uncertain.1 A connection between Turnus’ ill-​fated Volscian ally and the enemy of both the Etruscans and the Volscians, the dictator and veritable second Roman founder Marcus Furius Camillus, has been suggested on the strength of the shared name.2 This association of Camilla and Camillus has been dismissed outright by some, with little offered in the way of support for the linkage beyond the similarity of name, or for the exclusion of the linkage.3 Our investigation will show that Virgil’s Camilla was modeled in part after Livy’s Camillus, and that Virgil’s depiction of Camilla was crafted in part to show the same accession of Juno to honor in Rome that Livy illustrated with his account of the evocatio of Juno from Veii to Rome in Book V of his Ab Urbe Condita, and that through his Camilliad Virgil initiates a dramatic sequence of events by which Juno will be willing to be reconciled to the idea of a Rome that will not be Trojan, a new city that will rest on Italian ascendancy and Trojan suppression.4 In the narrative of Aeneid XI, the Volscian Camilla’s death comes during a lengthy equestrian battle before the walls of the Latin capital (XI, 597–​895). Turnus has learned that Aeneas’ forces plan to launch a cavalry feint as a ruse to conceal an infantry march over difficult terrain that will seek to capture the city and end the war at one stroke (XI, 445–​514). Turnus decides to wait in ambush for Aeneas’ land army while Camilla manages the equestrian battle (XI, 515–​531). In the ensuing struggle Camilla performs brilliantly and dispatches a number of Trojans and their allies, before Jupiter intervenes to check her progress by stirring up the Etruscan Tarchon (XI, 648–​767). At this juncture, the mysterious Etruscan Arruns prays to Apollo that he might vanquish the Volscian heroine (XI, 783–​793).5 His prayer is granted, and Apollo oversees the destruction of Turnus’ most ferociously effective ally (XI, 794–​835). Camilla dies with her attention fixed on the larger strategic considerations of the day’s combat (XI, 820–​826). Arruns is slain by Diana’s nymph Opis to avenge Camilla (XI, 836–​865), and Camilla’s death inspires the women of the Latin capital to acts of valor (XI, 891–​895).

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 173 When he learns of his captain’s death, Turnus is overcome by rage and abandons his ambush plans; Jupiter, we are told, demanded nothing less: ille furens (et saeva Iovis sic numina poscunt) deserit obsessos collis, nemora aspera linquit. (XI, 901–​902)

The book ends with a stalemate; Turnus loses his best chance to win the war at one stroke by inflicting a serious defeat on Aeneas, but the Trojan hero cannot carry out his plan to capture the Latin capital unawares. Nightfall forces an end to combat operations, as the two sides bivouac before the gates of the city. The history of the fourth-​century BCE Roman Republican hero Marcus Furius Camillus is complicated by the usual problem of source criticism. Our main surviving evidence for his career is Livy’s Ab Urbe Condita (Books V–​ VI), supplemented by Plutarch’s biography. Virgil mentions Camillus in the great parade of heroes Aeneas sees in the underworld (VI, 825), where the savior of Rome after the Gallic invasion is seen “returning the standards” (referentem signa), a passage usually taken to refer to the recovery of the gold that had been offered the Gauls in 390 BCE .6 It is attractive to associate Virgil’s naming of the mysterious heroine Camilla with Marcus Furius Camillus, conqueror of Etruscan Veii (c.396 B C E ) and deliverer of Rome from disaster after the Gallic invasion of 387–​386 B C E . In addition to the hero’s cognomen, Furius can reasonably be considered appropriate as an onomastic inspiration for the vicious Camilla. But there are other parallels that can be adduced to support the conclusion that Virgil modeled his Volscian princess after Livy’s Camillus. Camilla is destroyed in part through the agency of Apollo, and, significantly, in the wake of her reckless pursuit of the spoils of the bizarrely attired Chloreus (XI, 768–​782). Camillus was also associated with Apollo and troubles in the matter of war spoils. Livy describes how Camillus prayed to Pythian Apollo before the attack on Veii, vowing a tenth of the spoils from the city’s sack to the god (V, 21). He also invoked Juno, asking that she might abandon her Etruscan home and come over to the destined victors in Rome.7 After the victory, the question of the Apollonian spoils was raised (V, 23). Camillus recalled his vow (se decimam vovisse praedae partem cum diceret Camillus). The pontifices agreed that the funds needed to be allocated for the god, and it was decided that everyone who wished to discharge the obligation would surrender a tenth of their personal plunder (tandem eo quod lenissimum videbatur decursum est, ut qui se domumque religione exsolvere vellet, cum sibimet ipse praedam aestimasset suam, decimae pretium partis in publicum deferret, ut ex eo donum aureum … ex dignitate populi Romani fieret). The plan was carried out, but the people were hostile to Camillus at the loss of their spoils (ea quoque collatio plebis animos a Camillo alienavit). At this juncture, envoys arrived from the Volscians and Aequians to sue for peace, which was granted.

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174  Lee M. Fratantuono The problem of the spoils and the plebeian hostility to Camillus grew worse (V, 25). Camillus raises the point that the property assessed for Apollo should include not only that which is moveable (praeda quae rerum moventium), but also the actual city and land of Veii. Once again, the pontifices supported Camillus’ judgment. The problem was lack of resources to fulfill the obligation. Money had to be taken from the treasury (ex aerario), and when the amount needed was insufficient, the matronae came forward to donate their own jewelry (ornamenta sua). Livy’s Camillus is presented twice as being in support of the correct religious action; when the senate could not determine whether he should be followed in his second proposal (anceps senatui visa), the priests once again ratified his judgment. His action inspired the women of Rome to come forward to support the fundraising from their own treasures. In gratitude for the example of self-​sacrifice, the senate awarded the use of the pilentum and the carpentum. The inspiration of the women to make a dramatic donation may have been part of the inspiration for Virgil’s scene of the recklessly brave Latin women. There is a curious problem, however, in Livy’s narrative. At V, 23, the historian details how after the capture of Veii, Camillus set up a temple to Queen Juno on the Aventine, and he dedicated it to the Mater Matuta, the ancient Italian fertility goddess (Tum Iunoni reginae templum in Aventino locavit, dedicavitque Matutae Matris).8 Once done, he resigned his dictatorship, having completed both human and divine business (atque his divinis humanisque rebus gestis dictatura se abdicavit). It is only after this abdication that Livy notes there was discussion over the question of Apollo’s spoils (agi deinde de Apollinis dono coeptum). Only now, it might seem, does Camillus recall his vow. But from this point forward, Camillus is presented as strongly supportive of efforts to discharge the Apollonian debt. Did Camillus forget about his vow to Apollo? Was the amnesia genuine or merely convenient? The second episode of Camillus’ dealings with the debt to Apollo comes in the course of debate over the fate of Veii (V, 24). Camillus’ decision –​and the priestly endorsement –​leads the plebeians to conclude that Camillus squandered the riches of the newly acquired Etruscan city (V, 25 eum praedam Veientanam publicando sacrandoque ad nihilum redegisse).9 The plebeians are offered the plan of having three thousand citizens relocate into Volscian territory (V, 24). They protest that the beautiful city of Veii is a better destination (cur enim relegari plebem in Volscos cum pulcherrima urbs Veii agerque Veientanus in conspectus sit, uberior ampliorque Romano agro). The idea is raised that both Veii and Rome could have a senate and plebeians; the optimates protest that this would be disastrous and mean little more than doubling the already existing problem of the struggle of the orders. Camillus blames the madness of Rome on failure to observe religious obligations (V, 25 furere civitatem quae damnata voti omnium rerum potiorem curam quam religione se exsolvendi habeat), thus introducing his proposal to

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 175 end the problem of the attractiveness of Veii by essentially selling it off to pay Apollo. We may observe at this juncture some interesting Virgilian adaptations of Livy’s episodes and themes. The central problem of the Aeneid is the final ethnographic disposition of Rome. It is only in the poem’s final movements that Virgil reveals this future, when Jupiter announces to Juno that Rome will be Italian, not Trojan (Aeneid XII, 832–​842). Jupiter counsels his sister and wife to abandon her rage and madness (summitte furorem), because she will be held in honor by the Romans of the future, who will be the Romans of Italy –​ one might say the Italians of Turnus and Camilla. Troy will be suppressed. Nor will the future Romans be the Romans of Veii: Etruscan Veii too will be suppressed.10 So also Caere.11 Falerii is next on Rome’s Etruscan list of targets (V, 26–​27). Upon his return as the conqueror of yet another enemy of Rome, Camillus enjoys greater glory than ever, as the enemy was conquered with justice and fairly (V, 28 Camillus meliore multo laude quam cum triumphantem albi per urbem vexerant equi insignis iustitia fideque hostibus victis). Yet once again there is the problem of the discharge of the vow to Apollo (cum in urbem redisset, taciti eius verecundiam non tulit senatus quin sine mora voti liberaretur). The passage is not altogether clear.12 What is certain is that Camillus did not mention the vow, and the senate decided to finish the matter by sending the golden bowl to Delphi in the care of selected envoys. Why Camillus remained silent is not explained. Plutarch provides more evidence.13 In his Vita Camilli (7), the biographer notes that after the siege of Veii, whether because Camillus had not wished to trouble his soldiers as they indulged in the sacking of the captured city, or because he had forgotten, he allowed his men to plunder that portion of the spoils that would have been handed over to Apollo. Only after he laid down his power (cf. the same detail in Livy’s account at V, 23 his divinis humanisque rebus gestis) does he refer the matter to the senate. Plutarch makes clear (as does Livy) that the people were already irritated with Camillus because of his celebrated (some might say infamous) triumph.14 In Virgil, Apollo is willing to assist in Camilla’s destruction despite no indication in the text that she had displeased him; the god partially fulfills the prayer of his cultor Arruns. In Livy, there is similarly no explicit indication that Camillus did anything to offend the Delphic god, but the question of the spoils due to Apollo was raised by the plebs. As the Trojans first approach Italy (Virgil, Aeneid III, 521 ff.), a temple to Minerva is spied before Aeneas sees the “first omen” (537 primum omen), four white horses grazing. Anchises interprets the sign as indicative of both war and peace; the four steeds will one day bear the yoke.15 In accord with the orders Helenus had given, offerings are at once made to Juno 546–​547 rite /​ Iunoni Argivae iussos adolemus honores). The scene is Italy, locus of the Latin goddess Minerva’s temple; the sacrifices are conducted for the Greek Juno in anticipation of peace after war.16 The four white horses are

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176  Lee M. Fratantuono borrowed from Livy’s description of the triumph of Camillus after Veii, and so sacrifice to Juno follows immediately upon sight of the steeds. Caesar, of course, would imitate the Camillan (and Romulan) triumph (sacrilege?); Octavian, despite the drama of his own returns, would not make the same mistake.17 The details of Camillus’ triumph, Livy notes, led some to attack the victor for impiety, as if he were trying to usurp the prerogatives of Jupiter and Sol. Here we see a direct influence on Virgil’s depiction of Camilla, who will be destroyed by the combined efforts of Jupiter and Apollo.18 On account of this, the triumph was considered more splendid than pleasing (ob eam unam maxime rem clarior quam gratior fuit). In Livy, it is immediately after the mention of this displeasure that Camillus’ setting up of a temple to Juno and dedication to the Mater Matuta is detailed, just as in Virgil the portent of the horses is followed by the Trojan worship of Argive Juno. A connection can also be drawn between Camillus’ equestrian triumph and the cavalry battle in which Camilla both distinguishes herself and meets her doom, a link that will also lead to Turnus, as we shall see later in this chapter. The thread that runs through Livy’s portrayal of Camillus is one of at least potential trouble with Apollo, coupled with the danger of having appeared to appropriate Jovian honors. But it should be noted that as in Virgil’s depiction of Camilla, there is no clear and incontrovertible evidence in Livy’s depiction of Camillus that he deserved any ill consequence from his relations with either god. The tribune of the plebs Lucius Apuleius indicts Camillus on account of the spoils from Veii (V, 32 propter praedam Veientanam). Livy does not make clear the precise nature of the charge. Plutarch (12) specifies that he was charged with having certain brass gates from the city in his possession. Elsewhere I  have shown that Virgil’s Arruns was modeled after Lucius Arruntius, one of Octavian’s naval commanders at Actium.19 The parallelism between the names of the two historical personages, Lucius Apuleius and Lucius Arruntius, is striking.20 Camillus is offered payment of his fine, but no chance of acquittal; he voluntarily goes into exile. In Plutarch, there is a striking scene of his prayer at the gates of the city that if his condemnation is unjust, he might be sought after at some future date. Camillus is an exile at Ardea (V, 43), famous in Virgil as the home of the Rutulian Turnus. In Livy’s account, the invading Gauls arrive in Ardea so they may experience Roman valor (proficiscentes Gallos ab urbe ad Romanam experiendam virtutem fortuna ipsa Ardeam ubi Camillus exsulabat duxit). It is appropriate that in Livy’s account Fortune herself conveys the Gauls to Camillus, given that the temple of the Mater Matuta was associated with a twin temple to Fortuna in the Forum Boarium. Plutarch associates Camillus at Ardea with Achilles (13), a connection that may reflect a rich reflection on Virgil’s linkages of Turnus (and even Camilla) with the Homeric hero.21 Turnus and Camilla have much in common, including Livy’s Camillus as a partial model.

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 177 The recall of Camillus from Ardea is, as the commentators have noted, pure invention (“one of the most daring fabrications in Roman history”  –​ Ogilvie). In Livy’s vision, Camillus not only returns to Rome, but is soon elected dictator by the people via a decree of the Comitia Curiata (V, 46). The scene may have inspired Virgil’s depiction of Camilla’s inexplicable return from exile to the leadership of the very people who had expelled her as an infant together with her father Metabus. Somehow –​Virgil leaves the matter quite unexplained –​Camilla manages to become the leader of the Volscians in the war of the native Italians against Aeneas and his allies. Virgil’s lack of explanation may well be a playful acknowledgment of Livy’s wholesale invention of the story of Camillus’ return as savior. Virgil’s Camilla is an intensely problematic figure.22 She is depicted as a violent fury whose destruction is demanded as part of the coming of the future (Augustan) order. But, like Turnus –​whose death line she shares (XI, 831 = XII, 952) –​she experiences a rehabilitation in death in that the “enemy” side proves ultimately victorious, notwithstanding mortal ignorance of the divine decisions that are revealed in Juno’s reconciliation in Book XII.23 In Aeneid XI, Camilla is under the protection of Diana, although her abandonment of Diana’s forest life has played a part in her inevitable doom. She is, in one sense, the answer to the prayers the women of the Latin capital make to Minerva for a savior (XI, 481–​485); she is a virgo bellatrix, like the great goddess, although flawed in that she shuns the domestic arts for which Minerva was famous (VII, 805–​807). Jupiter’s demands her destruction in part to save Aeneas, because he knows the emotional impact the girl’s death will have on Turnus. Apollo, for his part –​the great patron of the victory at Actium –​is in some sense in civil strife with his sister Diana as he facilitates the prayer of his devotee Arruns to destroy Camilla. In the final analysis, despite all the complex divine allegiances, Camilla must be destroyed, but in death she will be honored and her cause will ultimately prove victorious. Juno is left unmentioned in connection to Camilla: it is as if the furious Camilla (who has affinities with the real Fury Allecto, Juno’s agent in Aeneid VII in instigating the war in Latium) acts as Juno’s avatar in Book XI.24 It is Juno’s rage and hostility that most oppresses Aeneas’ Trojans in Virgil’s epic, and so female figures most effectively act as agents of Juno’s fury: Allecto, Camilla, Juturna, even (in a different way) Dido.25 Jupiter plays a significant rôle in Book XI as the ultimate source of Camilla’s destruction. Minerva, as we have noted, plays a more subtle part. Camilla appears as the second of the three main female figures in the epic who serve as Junonian avatars. In what might seem a perverse sense, there is already a nascent Capitoline triad in Latinus’ capital during the great cavalry battle of Aeneid XI, with the furious Camilla taking the place of the enraged Juno. But the triad is perverse precisely because the final ethnographic reconciliation of Juno has not yet taken place, and Camilla must die (just as Allecto and Juturna must be dismissed) before that reconciliation can be effected: the mortal avatar will be killed, while the immortal avatars will have their powers checked.

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178  Lee M. Fratantuono But if Jupiter had not intervened to demand Camilla’s death, what would have happened? Arguably, Camilla would have continued to dominate the cavalry battle before the gates of the Latin capital, and Aeneas would have been destroyed (or at least seriously discomfited) by Turnus’ planned infantry ambush. By orchestrating the death of Camilla, Jupiter guarantees Turnus’ abandonment of the ambush, and sets in motion the events of Book XII, which culminate in his concession to Juno regarding Rome’s future ethnography (cf. the important XII, 833 do quod vis, et me victus volensque remitto). Of course, if Camilla and Turnus had succeeded in their battle plan in Book XI, the future would also be Italian –​but it would not be Roman. The future would instead be a continuation of the same (often squabbling) native factions that would engage in warfare with Rome in, for example, Camillus’ day. Rome would be Italian, not Trojan –​but Italy would also be Roman, not merely Italian. Camilla’s Vorleben is richly textured into an amalgam of extraordinary complexity. One of her many antecedents is the literary portrayal of Camillus crafted by Livy as part of the dramatic close of the first pentad of the Ab Urbe Condita. Book V of Livy’s history ends with a lengthy speech by Camillus in which the virtues of remaining in the devastated capital of Rome are extolled. The oration is a paean to the glories of the city, an appeal to remain firmly grounded in the origins of the settlement of Romulus (V, 54). Virgil’s Camilla is also a savior of a seemingly lost cost at the penultimate moment in its struggle (in this she is akin to the Penthesilea of the epic cycle, who succored Troy in its last hour). Her example in combat proves Turnus’ point from the debate in the Latin war council (XI, 378–​444):  all is not lost, and victory remains possible. Camilla thus in part fulfills the portent of the horses from Aeneid III, an omen that reaches consummation in Camillus’ triumph. Both the portent and Camillus’ triumph are linked in Virgil and Livy to the worship of Juno, and we have seen how Camilla –​the precursor of Camillus in Virgil’s imagining of the origins of Roman history –​serves as a mortal avatar of Juno’s fury. Camillus summoned Juno from Etruscan Veii to Rome, and Camilla’s death –​ orchestrated by Jupiter and Apollo –​serves in the short term to save Aeneas from disaster, while in the longer view, it helps to ensure Juno’s wish that the new foundation will be Italian and not Trojan. The horses Aeneas and his Trojans saw in Italy were snow-​white (III, 538 candore nivali).26 The passage is highly significant for several reasons. First, candor is rare in Virgil; it occurs only twice in the Aeneid (and never in Eclogues or Georgics), here and at XII, 84, where it describes the color of Turnus’ horses. Nivalis occurs three times in the Aeneid; besides the present passage it appears twice in mountain contexts: VII, 645 of the snowy mount Othrys whence centaurs charge, and XII, 702, where Aeneas is compared to snowy Apenninus.27 The centaur image describes the Tiburtan brothers Catillus and Coras, Argive youths as they charge to war. So there are three passages where there is a connection between candor and/​or nivalis and horses (the omen in Book III, the centaurs of VII, and

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 179 Turnus’ horses in XII). The portent of the horses thus looks forward to Turnus (whose proxy Camilla is), and portends both the war in Latium and the eventual peace that will come from the amalgamation of Troy and Italy in the new Rome.28 What guarantees the fulfillment of Aeneas’ fate to survive and be the putative founder of a new people is nothing less than Camilla’s death in equestrian combat, which guarantees the reaction from Turnus that Jupiter demands and the chance for Juno to prolong the conflict still further, thus leading to Jupiter’s surrender (do ut vis) of the crucial question of Roman ethnography. The speech Camillus makes near the end of Livy’s first pentad (V, 51ff) has been taken as a literary announcement of the Augustan program.29 Camillus, a second Romulus, is the founder of a reborn Rome, a potential model for Augustus. But –​as with Romulus –​the image Camillus presents is not invariably positive or praiseworthy.30 In particular, the decision to celebrate a triumph that would be imitated by Julius Caesar but not, significantly, by Augustus could well provide evidence of a certain vanity, even a love for spoils that might be legitimately deemed excessive. In these aspects of his character, Livy’s Camillus provides a model for Virgil’s Camilla, herself a positive figure with flaws that do not detract from her laudable heroism and attractive qualities. Like Caesar, who imitated Camillus (and Romulus) in equestrian display, Camilla would be killed as part of the coming order. But her death would ensure the peculiarly Roman devotion to Juno, the goddess whose rage she embodied. Helenus had urged the Aeneas to venerate Juno (III, 436–​440), and the Trojan obeyed the injunction. Jupiter, for his part, would promise Juno that no race would surpass the Romans in devotion to her (XII, 840). By her death, Camilla would help ensure that those pious Romans would not be Trojan. Livy’s Camillus had summoned Juno from Etruscan Veii to Rome. In his Camilla narrative, Virgil provides part of the explanation for why Juno came to Rome so willingly, and why she found her new home so comfortably familiar.

Notes 1 For Camilla, note especially N. Horsfall (1988), and, in supplement to the bibliography provided in my commentary (2009) ad Virgil, Aeneid XI, 496 ff., Viparelli (2008), and Fratantuono and McOsker (2010). For Livy’s Camillus, see further Walsh (1970) 16 ff., Burck (1991), Henderson (2000), Stevenson (2000), Uwe (2000), and Gowing (2008). I am grateful to Chelsea Faxon of the University of Dallas for her insightful reflections and work on Livy’s Camillus and Virgil’s Juno. Professor Nagy regularly offered an advanced Latin course on Sallust and Livy at Holy Cross. I regret that I was unable to take the class as an undergraduate; I offer this Livian reflection in gratitude for the example of expert teaching, meticulous scholarship, and devotion to family that Professor Nagy has shown me for over 20 years. 2 “Camillus” = a votary of a god; the name is thus appropriate for Virgil’s Camilla, who is Diana’s devotee, and may accord with Livy’s presentation of Camillus

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180  Lee M. Fratantuono as (more or less) concerned with religious affairs. Helpful here (with caution) is Alessio (1993) 121–​125; note also the fine introduction to Barnes (1993), especially pp. 4–​6. I am grateful to Professor Anne Rogerson of the University of Sydney for generously providing me with a copy of the thesis. Camilla’s doom is partly foreshadowed by her inability to be a true votary (camilla), given that her mother is certainly dead (such acolytes in Roman religion were also supposed to be below the age of puberty, but the death of Casmilla is decisive –​the youth’s parents were both supposed to be alive). 3 See further the commentaries ad loc. To my knowledge no one has offered exclusionary evidence against the association, while the evidence presented in favor does not go much beyond the shared name. 4 All quotes from Virgil from Geymonat (1973) and Livy from Ogilvie (1974). For commentary on the relevant passages of Aeneid VII and XI, note Horsfall (2000, 2003); for Ab Urbe Condita V, Ogilvie (1965, 2nd ed. 1970), and for Book VI, Oakley (1998) and Kraus (1994). For the date of Livy V–​VI, note Luce (1965). 5 On Arruns and the question of his provenance, see further my “Tros Italusque: Arruns in the Aeneid” (2006). There are Etruscans on Turnus’ side as well as Aeneas’ during the Latin war, the civil nature of which Virgil stresses. 6 Note also Georgics II, 169–​170 and, for the signa (recovered from the disaster at the Allia), Propertius c.  III, 3.11.67, with Heyworth and Morwood (2011), and Nethercut (1971). On Camillus’ portrayal in the Virgilian underworld scene see further Powell (1998) 106–​107. Horace names Camillus as one of those heroes who was compelled by poverty to live an austere, noble life (c. 1.12.41–​44). 7 For the evocatio, see Ogilvie (1965) ad V, 21 (pp. 673–​674). 8 For the cult, see further Littlewood (2006) 147–​ 149; the Mater Matuta was associated with the dawn and with Lucina, the goddess of childbirth. Book XI is the only book of the Aeneid to open with a dawn formula, and Diana had associations with childbirth; cf. Diana’s description in Virgil of Camilla’s troubles in infancy (XI, 547 ff.). 9 For the idea that the struggle of the orders was really over the matter of wealth, including plunder from conquest, see Miles (1986), especially pp. 5–​6. 10 Useful here is Kraus (1994b). 11 Caere is the site of Venus’ bestowal to Aeneas of the shield; for detailed examination of the events surrounding the Gallic invasion, the proposed move to Veii, and Camillus’ twofold deliverance of Rome, see Harrison (1997), especially pp. 72–​75 and, for the extant portion of Camillus’ elogium from the Forum Augusti (where he is celebrated for refusing to transfer the population to Veii), p. 72. Interestingly, not only is the shield bestowed at Caere and not Rome, but Camillus is not named in the crucial section (VIII, 652–​666). Despite clear evocation of elements from the Livian Camillus narrative (e.g., the matronae and their jewelry), the main figure in the drama is omitted. I would argue that the location of the gift-​giving and the absence of Camillus point to the part Camilla (and Turnus) will play in fulfilling the Camillus-​rôle in Virgil’s epic. 12 V. Warrior (2006) translates, “Though he made no mention of his vow, the senators were so uncomfortable with his reticence that he was freed from it without delay.” Better is Aubrey de Sélincourt’s “The Senate was uneasy about the obligation he had incurred by his vow, and though he did not mention the matter himself, such was their respect for him that they could not rest till it was cleared up.” Livy’s

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 181 comment about Camillus’ verecundia does not translate into something for which the hero should be condemned. 13 I read Plutarch from Lindskog and Ziegler (1969). 14 Besides Livy and Plutarch, note Diodorus Siculus (14.117) and Dio Cassius (52.13), and Hutchinson (2006) ad Propertius, c. 4.1.31–​32. 15 For Anchises’ interpretation, note especially O’Hara (1990) 59. 16 On this passage note Horsfall (2006) ad loc. Virgil is, as often, playing with the idea of future blending of peoples. 17 Ogilvie (1965) notes that Octavian, “while he did not make Caesar’s mistake of indulging in flashy exhibitionism … was anxious to turn the past to his own account.” And so in Livy Camillus’ triumph is problematic, but the historian makes clear in his narrative that Camillus’ expulsion was not because of four white horses. In contrast, for Camillus as a model of the ideal princeps, note Bernard (2000) 353. Fundamental for the Caesar triumph is the fourth chapter of Weinstock (1971). For Caesar’s ascription of the Romulan/​Camillan mantles, see Ogilvie (1965) ad V, 23 (pp. 679–​680), and Dio Cassius 43.14. 18 For the differences between Sol and Apollo in the Latin poets, note Fontenrose (1940). The distinction is important, though it is likely the two were more or less associated if not conflated. It is telling that Livy’s Camillus was thought to have imitated both Jupiter and Sol, while Virgil’s Camilla is destroyed by the direct interventions of Jupiter and Apollo. 19 He was from the Volscian town of Atina, the scion of a wealthy family that had Pompeian sympathies during the civil wars. His son’s adopted heir was Lucius Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus, consul in 32 CE . See further my Madness Unchained (2007) 344–​345, and my commentary notes ad XI, 759. 20 See further Ogilvie (1965) ad V, 19–​23. As he notes, the “original” name of Camillus’ prosecutor was Spurius Carvilius; the later name of Lucius Apuleius may, Ogilvie speculates, connect to Lucius Apuleius Saturninus, Marius’ infamous ally. 21 For Turnus as Achilles, note Aeneid VI, 89–​90, where the Sibyl announces to Aeneas that “another Achilles” has been born in Latium; for Camilla as Achilles, my commentary notes on the simile of the hawk and the dove (XI, 721–​724). It is conceivable that Virgil wanted to frame Aeneid VI with the mention of the new Achilles, i.e., Turnus, and Camillus in the underworld in connection to Camilla (who then appears at the end of Book VII). 22 Although to the extent she did recall Camillus to Virgil’s audience, she would have had a largely sympathetic reception, recalling as she does Rome’s second founder. Upon her introduction in Book VII, at the commencement of the Latin war, and her return in Book XI for the penultimate action before the inevitable single combat between Aeneas and Turnus, it is not at all clear how she might become the “Camillus” of the Aeneid. Again, the absence of Camillus from the shield given at Caere is telling; Virgil’s Camilla will help ensure Rome’s future. On Camilla as savior of Aeneas see further Fratantuono (2009a) 393–​401. 23 For a good account of the problems of divine/​mortal communication, note Hardie (1998) 78. 24 Cf. the actions of Turnus’ sister Juturna in Book XII. 25 Vid. the important scene between Juno and Venus at IV, 90–​128, where Venus smiles because she thinks she has uncovered Juno’s tricks, when it is in reality Juno who scores a victory, given the devastating consequences of Aeneas’ love affair

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182  Lee M. Fratantuono with Dido both for him personally and for his people’s future: Carthage’s enmity. For a sensitive study of Juno’s effects on Aeneas, note Powell (2008) 153–​154. 26 For the color terms, see Edgeworth (1992), especially pp. 116ff on the Homeric origins of the description of Turnus’ horses and the baleful associations therein. Edgeworth dismisses the idea that there is connection between the horse as symbol of Carthage and the meaning of the portent of the four white steeds, but part of Virgil’s drama is the audience’s awareness that war with Carthage looms long after the Junonian reconciliation of Aeneid XII. “Homer’s horses are whiter.” (Horsfall, 2006, ad III, 538). 27 The passage is significant in that it is modeled after Homer’s description of Hector at Iliad XIII, 754; Aeneas is thus compared to Hector as he charges into single combat with Turnus  –​before Jupiter ensures that Turnus will lose. As for the brothers Catillus and Coras, any mention of brothers in combat has special resonance in Roman history. 28 On the question of how Camillus could be princeps both in war and in peace, note the important article of Momigliano (1942), with convenient bibliography of the foundational work on Camillus. 29 For sober appraisal of the issue, especially the reaction to Caesar’s supposed idea to transfer the Roman capital to old Troy, see Syme (1959), especially pp. 47–​48; note also Petersen (1961). 30 Neither Virgil’s underworld pageant nor the Forum Augusti shy away from problematic figures; note Horsfall (2000a) 148–​149, with excellent analysis. Whatever Camilla’s faults, she is rehabilitated, although post mortem; Caesar, a problematic figure to be sure, was a safe parent for the princeps because he, too was, dead.

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Virgil’s Camilla, Livy’s Camillus 183 Geymonat, M. 1973. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. Torino: Paravia. Gowing A. 2008. “Rome and the Ruin of Memory.” Mouseion 8.3: 451–​467. Hardie, P. 1998. Virgil. Greece & Rome:  New Surveys in the Classics No. 28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrison, S. 1997. “The Survival and Supremacy of Rome: The Unity of the Shield of Aeneas.” Journal of Roman Studies 87: 70–​76. Henderson, J. 2000. “The Camillus Factory: Per astra ad Ardeam.” Ramus 29: 1–​26. Heyworth, S. J. and J. H. W. Morwood. 2011. A Commentary on Propertius, Book 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horsfall, N. 1988. “Camilla, o i limiti dell’invenzione.” Athenaeum 66: 57–​68. Horsfall, N. 2000a. A Companion to the Study of Virgil. Boston, MA: Brill. Horsfall, N. 2000b. Virgil, Aeneid 7. Boston, MA: Brill. Horsfall, N. 2003. Virgil, Aeneid 11: A Commentary. Boston, MA: Brill. Horsfall, N. 2006. Virgil, Aeneid 3: A Commentary. Boston, MA: Brill. Hutchinson, G. 2006. Propertius:  Elegies Book IV. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Kraus, C. 1994a. Livy: Ab Urbe Condita, Book 6. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraus, C. 1994b. “‘No Second Troy’:  Topoi and Refoundation in Livy, Book V.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 124: 267–​289. Littlewood, J. 2006. A Commentary on Ovid’s Fasti, Book 6. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Lindskog, C. and K. Ziegler. 1969. Plutarchi Vitae Parallelae, Vol. I, Fasc. I. Stuttgart: Teubner. Luce, T. 1965. “The Dating of Livy’s First Decade.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 96: 209–​240. Miles, G. 1986. “The Cycle of Roman History in Livy’s First Pentad.” American Journal of Philology 107: 1–​33. Momigliano, A. 1942. “Camillus and Concord.” Classical Quarterly 36.3/​4: 111–​120. Nethercut, W. 1971. “Propertius 3.11.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 102: 411–​443. Oakley S. 1998. A Commentary on Livy, Books VI–​X: Volume 1: Introduction and Book VI. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ogilvie, R. 1965. A Commentary on Livy, Books 1–​5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2nd edition 1970.) Ogilvie, R. 1974. Titi Livi Ab Urbe Condita:  Tomus I, Libri I–​V. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. O’Hara, J. 1990. Death and the Optimistic Prophecy. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Petersen, H. 1961. “Livy and Augustus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 92: 440–​452. Powell, A. 1998. “The Peopling of the Underworld: Aeneid 6.608–​27.” In H.-​P. Stahl, ed., Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 106–​107. Powell, A. 2008. Virgil the Partisan: A Study in the Re-​Integration of Classics. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Stahl, H.-​P., ed. 1998. Vergil’s Aeneid: Augustan Epic and Political Context. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales. Stein-​Holkeskamp, E., ed. 2000. Von Romulus zu Augustus:  Grosse Gestalten der römischen Republik. Munich: Beck.

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184  Lee M. Fratantuono Stevenson, T. 2000. “Parens Patriae and Livy’s Camillus.” Ramus 29: 27–​46, Syme, R. 1959. “Livy and Augustus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64: 27–​87. Uwe, W. 2000. “Marcus Furius Camillus:  Die schattenhalfte Lichtgestalt.” In K. J. Hölkescamp and E. Stein-​Hölkescamp, eds., Von Romulus zu Augustus:  grosse Gestalten der römischen Republik. Munich: Beck, 58–​68. Viparelli V. 2008. “Camilla:  A Queen Undefeated, Even in Death.” Vergilius 54: 9–​23. Walsh, P. 1970. Livy:  His Historical Aims and Methods. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Warrior, V., trans. 2006. Livy:  The History of Rome, Books 1–​ 5. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Weinstock, S. 1971. Divus Julius. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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13 Ovid’s autobiography (Tr. 4.10): Poetic identity and immortality in the poetry of exile1 Matthew M. McGowan

Tristia 4.10 is unique in the history of Greek and Latin literature: it is the only poetic autobiography to come down to us from the classical period.2 Apart from Cicero, whose poetry about himself exists solely in fragments,3 Ovid is the only classical poet to offer in verse an extensive “autobiographical” reflection on his life and career. Of course, the term “autobiography” is problematic in this context and ought to be used with caution.4 In classical antiquity there was no fixed literary form for autobiography as such, and many different authors from Hesiod and Isocrates to Ennius and Cicero included “autobiographical” material in their poems, letters, commentarii, and speeches. Thus, scholars have had success in reading Tr. 4.10 in light of the rhetorical apologia5 or, more frequently, of the poetic sphragis.6 However one chooses to categorize the poem –​ “autobiography in verse”? –​the reason it remains popular today is because of the fascinating bits of personal information it purports to represent from the life of one of antiquity’s most celebrated poets. There is no compelling reason to doubt the veracity of what Ovid tells us about himself, although as in all autobiographies, the poet knowingly selects particular details from his life and imaginatively represents them in the service of greater poetic ends.7 Those ends are intimately tied to the poet’s status as an exile, as is the case throughout the exilic corpus, and in view of the exile poetry as a whole, Tristia 4.10 seems hardly unique.8 With the exception of the vitriolic mania and obscure mythologizing that characterize the Ibis and other Spottgedichte from the collection,9 Ovid consistently appears throughout the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto as a first-​person narrator  –​the poetic ego in propria persona  –​to bemoan the evils of his place of banishment and to plead for a reprieve from exile (or at least for a commutation of his sentence to a more palatable place). The poet himself calls attention to the repetitive nature of his poems from exile, the humorous consequence of which is that their monotonous repetition becomes itself a repeated theme.10 When taken as a whole, the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto may be said to construct for Ovid an autobiography of exile, that is, an extended first-​person account of a particular life-​experience.11 Because of the similarity in subject matter and form among the exile poems it is

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186  Matthew M. McGowan not surprising that Tr. 4.10 reprises many the oft-​repeated themes of the exile poetry –​isolation from family and friends, the poet’s ambiguous legal status, the harshness of his place of exile –​and may be used to shed light on the poetic identity Ovid adopts in the exile poetry generally. In this paper Tristia 4.10 serves as a virtual window into the poet’s self-​representation in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto even as it reflects back on Ovid’s preexilic works, the Metamorphoses in particular. As we shall see, in his autobiography Ovid invokes and redeploys perhaps his most famous claims from the beginning and end of his Metamorphoses, 1.3–​4: ab origine mundi /​ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen “spin out a song for all time from the origin of the universe to my own time,” and 15.877–​879: quaque patet domitis Romana potentia terris, /​ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama, /​siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam “people will read my works out loud, and if the prophecies of bards have any truth to them, via fame through every age I shall have life.” A concern for fame after death and a kind of immortality vouchsafed to poets on display in the Metamorphoses’ coda cited earlier continues to occupy Ovid in his exile poetry.12 Not surprisingly, his autobiography opens with an appeal to posterity (1–​2), from where it progresses chronologically through Ovid’s life. The reader follows along from the circumstances of his birth (3–​ 14) to his education and professional prospects (15–​40); from his outstanding poetic success and stunning reversal of fortune (41–​68) to an account of his family life (69–​90); from a recap of his acta uitae (91–​100) to the evils of exile (101–​124); until it closes with a return to his status as poet and a prediction of poetic immortality (125–​132). In a sense, the poem finishes where it started: with an address to the reader, candide lector, whose existence Ovid posits both in real time and in posterity. The address to posterity at the beginning of the poem, 1–​2:  ille ego qui fuerim, tenerorum lusor amorum, /​quem legis, ut noris, accipe posteritas “That you might know who I was, the sport of tender loves whom you now read, welcome (my words) posterity,” puts the reader in mind of the poet’s afterlife and future fame. This had always been a concern for Ovid from his very first collection of poetry, the Amores,13 and we can hear in these lines an echo of the opening verse of that collection’s closing poem, Am. 3.15.1: tenerorum mater Amorum. But the beginning of Ovid’s autobiography also calls to mind an earlier poem in the exilic collection, Tr. 3.3.73–​76: HIC · EGO · QUI · IACEO · TENERORUM · LUSOR · AMORUM    INGENIO · PERII · NASO · POETA · MEO AT · TIBI · QUI · TRANSIS · NE · SIT · GRAVE · SI · QUID · AMASTI    DICERE · NASONIS · MOLLITER · OSSA · CUBENT. I, once the sport of tender loves, who here do lie, /​Naso, the poet, did by my genius come to die; /​but for you who have loved and perchance come past, /​let it not be hard to say: “May the bones of Naso softly rest.”

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Ovid’s autobiography 187 The passage is presented as the poet’s self-​composed funerary epitaph –​hence the capitals and interpuncts –​a so-​called “speaking inscription” of a familiar type for the meter of elegy in antiquity.14 Ovid plays on the connotations of the elegiac genre with the epitaph throughout his poems from exile, which he repeatedly likens to a form of death.15 In a sense, these poems fulfill the poet’s claim from the end of the Metamorphoses (15.871–​879) to live on after death in the mouths of men. The irony, however, is that the overcoming of death does not in fact depend on dying but is realized while the poet is still alive. Alive or dead, as poeta doctus Ovid is eminently conscious of returning the meter of elegy to the tradition of funerary lament. The meter of elegy had always been connected in antiquity with lament, but Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto invoke the form of the funerary inscription and offer themselves as an extended epitaph there for his plight in Tomis. As is fitting for the elegiac epitaph, he addresses himself in his autobiography to his readership in posterity. What Ovid makes explicit in Tristia 4.10 holds for the whole of the exile poetry: these poems erect for the reader a metaphorical tombstone for the poet’s predicament in exile and Augustus’ act of unmitigated anger that brought it about.16 Ultimately, Ovid’s appeal to posterity is tied to his claims about the immortalizing power of poetry from the Amores, Metamorphoses, and elsewhere. It is meant to serve, however slightly, as a rejoinder to the overwhelming temporal power exercised by the Roman emperor, Augustus Caesar. According to the exile poetry –​and that is our only source –​Augustus is solely responsible for the poet’s banishment and, as it happens, for his chances of a reprieve. From the first full distich of his autobiography, then, it should be clear that the poet’s sights are set beyond the mere details of his personal and professional life. It is perhaps not surprising to read in Ovid’s story of his origins that the waters of his place of birth, Sulmo, were “ice-​cold” (3: gelidis undis), an epithet he uses to describe the Danube and the generally harsh climate of his land of exile.17 When Ovid comes to speak of his bitter circumstances in Tomis later in the poem (105–​111), there is a sense that he has come full circle: the inhospitable place of exile is reminiscent of the cold place of his birth. The circularity in Ovid’s autobiographical poem may also apply to the exile poetry more broadly: as Ovid’s life starts outside the city in a town famous for its cold waters so does it end at a far remove from Rome on the edge of the empire in a place that, by the poet’s account, is covered in ice. Ovid makes creative use of the details of his life to construct an exilic identity for himself that establishes his own abject condition on the periphery of the empire over against the powerful presence of Augustus at its center.18 Ovid goes on to tell us in this first section (5–​6) that he was born in the year 43 B C E , when the two consuls died fighting against Marc Antony in the battle of Mutina, on the same day his brother had been born a year before.19 The very same day? It may seem implausible, but ancient dating is notoriously vague, and in Ovid’s house the birthdays may have been celebrated together. More important than determining the date with any certainty  –​an impossibility

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188  Matthew M. McGowan at our far remove from the events themselves –​is to see the poet using the details of his life in an imaginative way to connect his brother more closely to himself. The “facts” of his birth make the pathos of his brother’s early death more poignant later in the poem (31–​32). In the immediate sequence, his own personal story becomes better: Ovid and his family become exceptional and thus worthy of song. In Aristotle’s terms, the poem moves from the purely personal to the universal as poetry trumps history in Ovid’s story of himself.20 Whether the story of his birth is real or not, the occasion of the siblings’ birthdays offers the opportunity to appreciate the artistry of Ovid’s verse technique, 11–​12: Lucifer amborum natalibus adfuit idem: /​una celebrata est per duo liba dies “The dawn that attended our births was the self-​same: with two cakes we celebrate a single day.” Observe the tight framing with lucifer… idem (in the hexameter), and una…dies (in the pentameter), and note that, like the brothers’ birthdays themselves, the distich starts on the same note it ends: lucifer at the beginning and dies at the end are in fact one and the same day (una … idem). All of this is preparing the reader for what will become a crucial event in the life of the poet: later in the poem Ovid admits that, when his brother died at the age of twenty, he began to feel the loss of a part of himself, 31–​32:  iamque decem vitae frater geminaverat annos /​cum perit, et coepi parte carere mei “My brother had reached only twenty when he died, and I  started to miss part of myself.”21 I  will not assume that his brother was in fact a casualty of Roman politics, for which he was apparently a natural, 18: fortia verbosi natus ad arma fori “born for the stout weapons of the law-​court.” However, there is a clear difference between his brother’s profession (public oratory) and his own (poetry), which is first mentioned in the following verse, 19, as caelestia sacra “divine rites.” The term caelestia sacra offers an early hint at Ovid’s inclination here and throughout the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto to equate poetry with a sacred undertaking.22 My use of the term “profession” above, however, is perhaps misleading; the poem tells us in the very next verse, 20: inque suum furtim Musa trahebat opus “the Muse was pulling me on the sly to do her work.” Poetry chose Ovid; he professed to nothing. This is meant to be humorous, and among the most humorouse verses in Ovid’s exile poetry come at lines 24–​26:  scribere temptabam verba soluta modis:/​sponte sua numeros carmen veniebat ad aptos, /​et quod temptabam scribere, versus erat “I tried to write words free from meter, but song came of its own accord to fitting measures, and what I tried to write was verse.” Ovid’s father, perhaps seeing the opportunity the changed political make-​up of Rome under Augustus offered his family, reproaches his son’s practice on the grounds that it is worthless, 21: studium quid inutile temptas? “Why try a worthless pursuit?”23 Fittingly, the poet has him adduce Homer as a figure for comparison, 22: Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes “Homer himself died poor.” Ovid uses this (fictional?) exchange between father and son to identify himself with antiquity’s most celebrated poet, Homer, an identification that will set up another analogy  –​only alluded to later in this poem (109, and see

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Ovid’s autobiography 189 later in this chapter)  –​between Ovid and Ulysses, antiquity’s most famous wanderer.24 The figurative bond formed through suffering and the absence from home that the exiled Ovid and the wandering Ulysses share has often been noted by critics and even singled out as the most important of the many mythemes based on heroes from literature that unite the individual books of exile.25 Literature does not seem to have been of particular concern to Ovid’s father, whom the poet disregards to pursue his Muse. This is recorded later in his autobiography when the topic of otium (leisure) is introduced, 39–​ 40: et petere Auoniae suadebant tuta sorores /​otia, iudicio semper amata meo “And the Aonian sisters urged me to pursue the safety of leisure, a pursuit always loved by me.” His attraction to leisure is easily explained: for a young man with time and the right disposition, the Rome of Ovid’s youth was rich in poets to hear. This, of course, Ovid did, as he notes in the following distich, 41–​2: temporis illius colui fovique poetas, /​quotque aderant vates, rebar adesse deos “I studied and befriended the poets of that era, and as many bards as were there, I counted them as gods.” Ovid refers to his predecessors in poetry first as vates, sacred bards,26 who appeared to him divine. An essential feature of divinity –​perhaps its quintessential feature –​is immortality. By introducing the notion that poets could be likened to gods, Ovid is building a case in his autobiography that the poetic undertaking is in some sense divine and thus worthy of the immortality he will (once again) claim for it at the poem’s end. Here we may recall Ovid’s words for poetry from verse 19: caelestia sacra “divine rites,” and recognize that the sacred status of the poet and of his undertaking is directly connected to the survival of his verse after death. Herein lies Ovid’s most overt challenge to the princeps, Augustus Caesar, who had assumed the supreme position in the state and had his adoptive father, Julius, made into a god by law. The obvious implication of such a decree was that the same divine status would be owed to Augustus upon his death. Ovid counters the emperor’s legal right to divinity by reclaiming for the poets the right to represent gods in song, be they the traditional gods of Roman religion and myth, newfound (and legally deified) gods like Julius Caesar, or even popular poets such as Vergil and Ovid and, by extension, Ovid himself. In short, in his autobiography Ovid appears keen to remind his readership, which includes the emperor himself, that poets control at least one aspect of divinity: the ability to remain immortal. Throughout the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto Ovid presents Augustus and his family as traditional gods of Greek and Roman myth.27 He also appears as a character in these poems to become himself a mythical figure with his own claim to a readership in posterity.28 He is, in the end, the sole arbiter of his own immortality. It was a poetical commonplace in antiquity to lay claim to immortal life, and Ovid’s inclusion of himself in a list that includes the vates Horace, Vergil, Propertius, and Tibullus (that is, the aforementioned dei or gods [v. 43]), is a return to the same commonplace.29

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190  Matthew M. McGowan This particular list has as its consequence that Ovid too is cultivated by the next generation, as he then says in 55: utque ego maiores, sic me coluere minores “And as I cultivated the older generation, so has the younger generation cultivated me.” In the verses following from 57 on, Ovid recounts the fame he received from the Amores, his first collection of poems, wherein he immortalized the name of his beloved Corinna. In his autobiography he can admit “ ‘twas a name made up by me” nomine non vero dicta Corinna mihi (60). It has often been noted that only here in his autobiography, with the mention of Corinna, does the poet actually refer explicitly to one of his works, in this case, the Amores.30 At the same time, I have been at pains –​especially in the footnotes –​to demonstrate how the poet’s autobiography is also full of the familiar themes and motifs that lie at the core of the exile poetry. Ovid is exploiting, whether explicitly or not, the well-​known success he had before exile to contrast vividly with his currently destitute condition in exile. In the text that follows the mention of Corinna (60), Ovid goes deeper into the exploration of his psychological state in exile. He reveals that, after he was exiled, he burned in anger (iratus) some otherwise pleasing compositions, 63–​64:  tunc quoque, cum fugerem, quaedam placitura cremavi /​iratus studio carminibusque meis. “Then too, when I  was exiled, certain poems likely to please I burnt in anger at my poetic undertaking.” This he did because they were products of his poetic undertaking (studium carminaque) and thus the very reason for his exile in the first place. As many critics have noted, the burning of the poetry is reminiscent of the story about Vergil and the Aeneid.31 But Ovid also wants us to take note here of the destructive tendencies of anger, which forms the basis of the emperor’s relationship to the poet. As Laurel Fulkerson has argued in a recent paper, Augustus appears to have banished Ovid in a whimsical fit of rage, which ultimately comes to define the princeps’ behavior in the exile poetry.32 For example, the word ira appears some 78 times in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, usually in the recurring form we meet later on in this poem at verse 98:  principis ira, or its equivalent Caesaris ira /​ numinis ira. Nearly all of these instances refer to the wrath of the emperor Augustus, a point noticed by Ronald Syme, who wrote that Ovid’s use of ira was the poet’s most important “line of attack” against the princeps.33 Given the poet’s identification with Homer (and Ulysses) here and the preponderance of Iliadic (and Odyssean) references throughout the exile poetry, it is perhaps not surprising that Augustus is occasionally identified with Achilles when Ovid likens himself to Telephus. The analogy serves to remind the emperor that only he who inflicted the wound (of exile) can heal it in Tr. 2.19–​22: forsitan, ut quondam Teuthrantia regna tenenti,   sic mihi res eadem vulnus opemque feret, Musaque, quam movit, motam quoque leniet iram;   exorant magnos carmina saepe deos.

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Ovid’s autobiography 191 Perhaps, as once for him who ruled the kingdom of Teuthras (=Telephus), what brought my wound will heal it, and the Muse who provoked the wrath will soften it too; poetry often prevails upon the great gods.34 Of course, throughout the exile poetry Augustus is likened to Jupiter, the greatest of these great gods.35 The representation of the emperor as divine often entails characterizing his Jupiter as a wrathful god of retribution, whose image, like Ovid’s, will be immortal should these poems continue to be read. In truth, Ovid poses no immediate threat to the emperor; his attack –​to borrow the language of Syme –​awaits a readership in posterity, for whom Augustus will appear forever as an irascible deity prone to excessive shows of anger. In the middle of his biography (69–​80), Ovid speaks of his family, a discussion he concludes between 81–​90 by expressing his happiness at the fact that his parents died before having to suffer the disgrace of their son’s exile. But just to be on the safe side, he adds, 87–​90: fama, parentales, si vos mea contigit, umbrae, /​et sunt in Stygio crimina nostra foro, /​scite, precor, causam –​ nec vos mihi fallere fas est –​/​errorem iussae, non scelus, esse fugae: “if, shades of my parents, news of me has reached you, and there are charges against us in the Stygian court, know, I pray –​for it is not right for me to deceive you –​ that the cause of my banishment was a mistake (error), not a crime (scelus).” The details of this fanciful exchange belong to Ovid’s attempt to construct a larger poetic narrative as he re-​introduces a common theme from the rest of the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto: the legal nature of his personal transgression. In the passage at hand (87–​90), Ovid uses technical terms of the law, that is, error and scelus, in order to clarify the nature of his crime in relation to the very severe and public punishment it received. In legal language, error means “mistake made in ignorance of the law.” It never incurred a penalty beyond the redress of the wrong, and nothing ever as severe as exile, or relegation (technically Ovid claims to have been relegated rather than exiled, which allowed him to keep his property and retain some rights as citizen he would have otherwise lost with the penalty of exilium). In fact, Ovid never names an offense that merits exile, and the reader is left with the lingering impression that his punishment at the hands of the emperor Augustus was unjust. Still, the exact reason –​or reasons –​for Ovid’s banishment remains a genuine mystery, perhaps better left to (detective) novelists.36 Although here is not the place to pursue once again the mystery behind Ovid’s exile, some historical background on his punishment may nevertheless be in order. For reasons that continue to escape explanation, the poet was banished in 8 CE to Tomis on the western coast of the Black Sea in what is now Romania by the emperor Caesar Augustus. The answer to why depends on an oft-​quoted distich from Tristia 2, Ovid’s open letter to Augustus, 2.207–​208: perdiderint cum me duo crimina, carmen et error, /​ alterius facti culpa silenda mihi “Although two crimes, a poem and a mistake, have ruined me, I  must keep silent the fault of the latter deed.” We learn on several occasions that the above carmen is Ovid’s didactic work

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192  Matthew M. McGowan on the Art of Love, the Ars Amatoria.37 The poet’s silence on the error has left a vacuum which is likely to have been intentional, as suggested by the following distich from the poem under review, Tr. 4.10.99–​100: causa meae cunctis nimirum nota ruinae /​indicio non est testificanda meo. “The reason for my downfall, doubtless well-​known to all, is not to be revealed by evidence of mine.” This couplet, however, offers nothing concrete and has generally be met with a good degree of skepticism.38 In a crucial way, the lack of anything concrete is emblematic of a general evasiveness at the core of the exile poetry, where Ovid himself appears less concerned with providing historical detail than with constructing a personal tale that demands to be read as poetry. As such, it has an obvious stake in becoming an integral part of the literary tradition of Greece and Rome. We have already observed how Ovid consciously invokes the prime moment in that tradition, Homer, to enlarge his personal experience, for example, with his father’s admonition against poetry writing (Tr. 4.10.21–​2). The very idea of Homer meant so many different things in antiquity, but at least on one level, the legend of Homer as a wandering (blind) bard implies that the poet can never truly go home, to which a long line of poets from Ovid to Dante to James Joyce and Derek Walcott can readily attest. In the end, language and the poetic act become the poet’s home, and these, as in the case of Ovid, provide his life with sustenance and meaning in exile, Tr. 4.10.113–​118: quod quamvis nemo est, cuius referatur ad aures,   sic tamen absumo decipioque diem. ergo quod vivo durisque laboribus obsto,   nec me sollicitae taedia lucis habent, gratia, Musa, tibi: nam tu solacia praebes,   tu curae requies, tu medicina venis. The fact that, although there is no one to whose ears my work could be brought, I nevertheless consume and thus deceive the day; the fact that I even go on living and stand up to harsh suffering and that weariness of the day’s anxiety does not overtake me, is thanks to you, my Muse: for you offer solace; you come to me as my respite and cure for care. Historical circumstances may have forced Ovid to become an exile, but he never ceased being a poet and actively sought to adapt his life circumstances to their representation in verse. In a sense, exile may be said to empower Ovid by giving him a voice –​a mournful voice to be sure –​with which to construct a poetic reality where exile becomes a source of intellectual refuge beyond the immediate control of the emperor. There, both Ovid and his unflattering representation of Augustus continue to live and to be read, even in contemporary Rome and, perhaps more importantly, beyond the grave. When Ovid presents his actual life in exile from verse 101 to the end, he does so in in full awareness of an enduring poetic tradition. He notes that,

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Ovid’s autobiography 193 like Odysseus, he has borne physical hardships and personal betrayal. Thus, in 107–​108, for example, he claims to have suffered as many misfortunes on land and sea as there are stars in the sky:  totque tuli terra casus pelagoque quot inter /​occultum stellae conspicuumque polum “I bore as many troubles on land and sea as stars between the hidden poles.” We may remember Odysseus’ lament from Odyssey 17.284–​285: κακὰ πολλὰ πέπονθα /​ κύμασι καὶ πολέμῳ “I have suffered many ills on the sea and in battle,” and recall Ovid’s own words from the first book of the Tristia, 1.5.57–​8: pro duce Neritio docti mala nostra poetae /​scribite. Neritio nam mala plura tuli. “Write, learned poets, about my misfortunes instead of Odysseus’; for I have suffered more ills than he.” Ovid’s point here is to relate himself to the paradigmatic exile of the literary tradition, to polutropus Odysseus as in v. 109: mihi longis erroribus acto “after I  had been driven at length for a long period of wandering.” Remember in this connection Homer’s ὁς μάλα πολλὰ πλάγχθη “he, who was much beaten about.” When Ovid finally does reach Tomis, in 110–​111, he is surrounded by quiver-​bearing Getae at war (iuncta pharetratis Sarmatis ora Getis /​hic ego finitimis quamvis circumsoner armis “having reached the Sarmatian shore joined to Getic bowmen, although here the noise of my neighbors’ weapons surrounds me …”). Ovid’s characterization of the Getae, or Sarmatians, Tomitans, Iazyges, or Bastarni, or any other exotic names that fill these poems –​the more exotic, the better! –​is surely exaggerated and even a bit playful:  their quivers are loaded with poison arrows; they never trim their beards; and they settle bargaining disputes with the sword. To relieve the hardship the exposure to such barbarism brings, Ovid writes poetry, 112: tristia quo possum, carmine fata levo “to the extent I can, I lighten my sad fate via song.” As we have seen in 113–​118 earlier, poetry sustains Ovid and gives meaning to his life. Thanks to the Muse, he is able to survive; with her help, the writing of poems brings him away from his place of exile and puts him in Helicon, as he says in 119–​120: tu dux et comes es, tu nos abducis ab Histro, /​in medioque mihi das Helicone locum “you are my guide and companion; you lead from the Danube and place in the middle of Helicon.” When we consider that earlier in the poem (23), Helicon was the place Ovid tried to quit in his youth, there is clearly a return to the place he started that completes a kind of Ringkomposition linking this passage to 23–​28 earlier. There, the poet had played a passive role when he was chosen by the Muse, in a sense letting his essential, poetic nature find its inevitable expression in verse. Here, by contrast, Ovid is the active cultivator of the Muses and of the art of poetry; his very life depends on it. The closing verses to the poem, 129–​132, offer striking parallels to the close of the Metamorphoses, 15.878–​879:  ore legar populi, perque omnia saecula fama /​siquid habent veri vatum praesagia, vivam “I shall be read by people’s lips, and with fame through all ages –​if the predictions of bards have any truth to them –​I shall have life.” In both places the poet lays claim to the immortalizing power of poetry to transcend death. In his autobiography he writes, 129–​132:

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194  Matthew M. McGowan si quid habent igitur vatum praesagia veri,   protinus ut moriar, non ero, terra, tuus. sive favore tuli, sive hanc ego carmine famam,   iure tibi grates, candide lector, ago If then the predictions of sacred bards have any truth to them  –​even though I shall die forthwith –​I shall not be yours, earth. But if through favor or by poetry I have gained this fame, it is right, kind reader, that I give you thanks. The final appeal to the candide lector at the close brings Ovid’s autobiography back to the reader, who at the outset was understood to be posteritas. Then Ovid was writing with the future in mind; now the poem (like the movement in the Metamorphoses) has brought us through the time of Ovid’s past up to our own, very real present, emphasized in the emphatic close in the present tense ago “I give you thanks!” For Ovid realizes that, if poetry is an immortalizing force and the poet its agent, then that immortality depends on the reader, that is, on “us”: then, now, and in the future. In view of the fate he suffered, Ovid’s insistence on the immortalizing power of his poetry appears to be a natural response to his circumstances. Having been exiled (unjustly) he is forced to die (metaphorically) to his former self and create in exile a place of intellectual refuge, which seems to reside beyond death in the immortalizing power of the poetic tradition. This is how the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto fulfill the poetics of immortality as revealed at the end of the Metamorphoses. That poem  –​and in particular its triumphant close –​marked the apex of Ovid’s success while in Rome and provided the most powerful witness to his claim to immortality. It is cannily redeployed in Ovid’s autobiography, as it had been even earlier in the Tristia, 3.7.45–​54: en ego, cum caream patria vobisque domoque,   raptaque sint, adimi quae potuere mihi, ingenio tamen ipse meo comitorque fruorque:   Caesar in hoc potuit iuris habere nihil. quilibet hanc saevo vitam mihi finiat ense,   me tamen extincto fama superstes erit, dumque suis victrix septem de montibus orbem   prospiciet domitum Martia Roma, legar. Behold, though I  lack my country, you, my family, and my home, and whatever could be taken from me has been snatched away, I still continue to enjoy fully the power of my mind: Caesar could have no right over this. Let someone end this life of mine with a bitter sword, still my fame shall survive my death. And as long as triumphant Rome, the city of Mars, looks out over the conquered world from her seven hills, I shall be read.

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Ovid’s autobiography 195 These verses recognize the bitter loss of country, home, and family incurred by exile, even as they tie the freedom of poetic expression to the longevity of the Roman empire: the two are not so much at odds, as complementary. The theme of poetic immortality found here and in the Metamorphoses turns the epilogue of Ovid’s epic into a prologue for the Tristia.39 In fact, the immortalizing power of poetry proves to be an enduring motif for the poet in exile. Although it may not have been the last poem Ovid wrote in exile, the final poem or epilogue to the entire collection of exile poetry that we possess, reads, Pont. 4.16.1–​4: Invide, quid laceras Nasonis carmina rapti?   Non solet ingeniis summa nocere dies famaque post cineres maior venit et mihi nomen   tum quoque, cum vivis adnumerarer, erat. Why, oh jealous one, do you abuse Ovid’s poems after he’s been taken from this world. The day of death is not wont to harm poetic genius, and after burial a greater fame comes to me than the name I  had then too when I was counted among the living.

Notes 1 This chapter started as a lecture for audiences at Johns Hopkins, Case Western Reserve University, Fordham, and Fairfield University, and it has retained some of that expository form. I want to thank my hosts at those universities for the invitation to speak and the editors of this volume, Mary English and Lee Fratantuono, for soliciting this contribution. Above all, I  would like to thank Professor Nagy, whose role as Professor of Classics at Holy Cross went far beyond teaching and publishing: he was a teacher to many, an example to all. 2 Misch (1951) 307, “[Tr. 4.10] is the first and, until the fourth century, the only ancient autobiography of which we have knowledge.” Fairweather (1987) 183, n. 12, identifies the unique feature of Tr. 4.10 as Ovid’s interest in his development from boy to man, noting, “In Ovid’s autobiography we may perhaps discern the beginnings of that greater interest in the psychology of the young which we find in the later Roman empire, notably in Augustine’s Confessiones.” See Paratore (1958) 358, n. 1. 3 The remains of the De Consulatu Suo are scant and generic; the De Temporibus Suis has fully disappeared, on which Courtney (1993) 174: “We have no evidence that this poem was ever completed or published.” 4 Cf. Görgemanns (2006) for problems of definition in ancient autobiography. Longman (1991) 39–​43, develops some convenient parameters for ancient “autobiography,” albeit in reference to Akkadian texts. 5 Fairweather (1987); Paratore (1958). 6 Luck (1969) 149–​150; Luck (1977) 265–​266; Evans (1983) 85–​87. Paratore (1959) 196, sees Tr. 4.10 as both sphragis and apologia, which for him have obvious affinities. The sphragis or “seal” was a common feature of Alexandrian poetry, wherein the poet presented himself and, perhaps more importantly, his art to his readers;

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196  Matthew M. McGowan it generally appeared at the end of a poem or a collection, as it does here. Nagle (Fredericks) (1976) 139–​140, emphasizes the poem’s position at the close of the fourth book of the Tristia, which may have been originally intended as the last of the entire collection, on which see Evans (1983) 75. 7 Nagle (Fredericks) (1976) 139–​140 with nn. 2 and 6, argues against scholars who overemphasize the “biographical” material in interpreting this poem  –​and the rest of the exile poetry, for that matter –​a kind of criticism that has fallen out since Nagle’s pioneering work on the poem. She asserts, 141: “In this study, I treat Tristia 4.10 as a poem which happens to be an autobiography, rather than an autobiography that happens to be a poem.” She stresses in particular Ovid’s “imaginative use of biographical detail” (146) and draws resourcefully on the engaging study of Pascal (1960) Design and Truth in Autobiography. 8 The distinct character of the exile poetry as a whole has often been observed, e.g., Hexter (2002) 417:  “Ovid’s Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto were unique in their day, born of unique circumstances”; Stroh (1981) 2638–​2639, 2645, and memorably noted by Gibbon in the Decline and Fall, Ch. xviii n. 40 (Womersley [1994] 656): “The nine books of Poetic Epistles … possess, besides the merit of elegance, a double value. They exhibit a picture of the human mind under very singular circumstances; and they contain many curious observations, which no Roman, except Ovid, could have an opportunity of making.” 9 I.e., Tr. 1.8; 3.11; 4.9; 5.8; Pont. 4.3. Williams (1996) is helpful in explaining the abiding melancholy that lies behind these poems and, especially, the Ibis. 10 E.g., Pont. 3.7.3–​4: taedia consimili fieri de carmine vobis, /​quidque petam cunctos edidicisse reor “You’re bored by my monotonous verse and, I  suppose, have all learned by heart what I want”; Pont. 3.9.1–​2; 3.9.39–​42: cum totiens eadem dicam, vix audior ulli, /​verbaque profectu dissimulata carent. /​et tamen haec eadem cum sint, non scripsimus isdem, /​unaque per plures vox mea temptat opem “I so often say the same thing, though almost no one listens, and my words are left ignored and without effect. And though they’re all the same, I’ve not written to the same people: my repetitive appeal looks to many for help.” 11 The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (20083) (ed. C. Baldick), defines “autobiography” thus:  “a narrative account of an extended period of some person’s life, written by, or presented as having been written by, that person.” The entry includes Graham Greene’s famous definition of autobiography as a “sort of life,” that is, a highly contrived literary product of an individual’s selective memory, unconscious omissions, and outright distortions. Fittingly, A Sort of Life is also the title of Greene’s own 1971 autobiography. 12 E.g., Tr. 3.7.45–​54, quoted later, and see also Pont. 2.6.33–​34: crede mihi, nostrum si non mortale futurum est /​carmen, in ore frequens posteritatis eris “believe me, if our poetry is not destined to partake of death, you will often be spoken of in posterity.” On the poetics of immortality more generally, cf. Tr. 1.6.35–​36; 3.3.77–​78; 3.4a.45–​46 Nasonisque tui, quod adhuc non exulat unum, /​nomen ama: Scythicus cetera Pontus habet “cherish the name of your Naso, which alone is still not in exile: Scythia’s Black Sea holds the rest;” 4.9.19–​26; 4.10.2; 5.14.5–​6, 33–​42; Pont. 3.2.29–​30; 4.7.53–​54, and the passages cited in the following note. 13 See Kenney (1982) 420–​422; 447–​449; and McKeown (1989) 387–​389 on Am. 1.15.7–​8, 41–​42; 3.15.19–​20; Bömer (1986) ad Met. 15.871–​879. Future fame and the fate of his poetry remain an obsession for Ovid in exile, Tr. 3.10.2:  et superest sine me nomen in urbe meum “my name survives without me in Rome”;

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Ovid’s autobiography 197 5.14.5–​6: dumque legar, mecum pariter tua fama legetur, /​nec potes in maestos omnis abire rogos “and as long as I’m read, your fame will be read together with me, and you cannot disappear entirely in the sad funeral pyre”; Pont. 3.2.29–​30: fallor, et illa meae superabit [sc. gratia meriti Cottae] tempora vitae, /​si tamen a memori posteritate legar “I’m mistaken:  Cotta’s thanks will survive my life’s span, if a mindful posterity continues to read me”; 4.7.53–​54:  vincitur Aegisos, testataque tempus in omne /​sunt tua, Vestalis, carmine facta meo “Aegisos is conquered, and for all time, Vestalis, my poetry bears witness to your deeds.” See, too, his prayer for the Metamorphoses, Tr. 1.7.25–​26: nunc precor ut vivant et non ignava legentum /​otia delectent admoneantque mei “now I pray that they may live and that my active leisure may delight the reader and remind him of me”; and similarly, Tr. 3.14.23–​ 24:  nunc incorrectum [opus=Met.] populi pervenit in ora, /​in populi quicquam si tamen ore mei est “now the unrevised edition has reached people’s lips, if there is still anything of mine on their lips.” For the fame conveyed by poetry as a conventional topos in Greek and Latin poetry, see e.g. Alcm. 148 (Davies), Sapph. 32 (Lobel-​Page), Hom. h.Ap. 166–​176; Enn. fr. 12 (Skutsch); Hor. Carm. 2.20 (with Nisbet-​Hubbard [1978] 335–​336, 344–​345); 3.30; 4.3; Prop. 4.1. 14 Cf. Herescu (1958) whose title is instructive, “Le Sens de l’epitaph ovidienne.” 15 E.g. Tr. 3.11.25–​26: non sum ego quod fueram: quid inanem proteris umbram? /​quid cinerem saxis bustaque nostra petis? “I’m not what I was: why trample an empty shade? Why attack my ash and tomb with rocks?” Pont. 1.2.28:  et similis morti pectora torpor habet “my heart is held by a deathlike torpor”; 1.5.85–​86: vosque, quibus perii, tum cum mea fama sepulta est, /​nunc quoque de nostra morte tacere reor “and I imagine that you for whom I died when my reputation was buried, now also remain silent about my death”; 1.7.9–​10: nos satis est inter glaciem Scythicasque sagittas /​vivere, si vita est mortis habenda genus “enough for me to live amid the ice and Scythian arrows, if a kind of death is to be taken for a life.” Further, his departure for exile is like a funeral, Tr. 1.3.22; 3.14.20; 5.1.13–​14; Pont. 2.3.3; Tomis sits on the Styx, Tr. 5.9.19; Pont. 1.8.27; 4.9.74. On the recurring theme of exile as equivalent to death, see Gaertner (2007) 160 with n. 26; Claassen (1999) 239–​241 with n. 37; Williams (1994) 12–​13; Helzle (1988) 78; Nagle (1980) 23–​35. Cf. Cic. Att. 3.7.2; Fam. 14.4.3. 16 Fulkerson (2012) offers an extended analysis of the princeps’ anger in Ovid’s exile poetry: the representation is not flattering. 17 E.g. Tr. 2.190; Pont. 2.2.94; and on the freezing of Pontus in Tr. 3.10.35–​50, see Evans (1975). 18 Hallett (2003) 343, 358–​359; cf. Walker (1997) 195; Habinek (1998) 164. 19 Tr. 4.10.5–​6:  editus hic sum nec non ut tempora noris, /​cum cecidit fato consul uterque pari. 20 I’m referring here to the familiar passage from Aristotle’s Poetics (451b4ff), which states that history is concerned with what happened, poetry with what might probably or necessarily have happened; the historian deals only with the actual, while the poet aims at the universal. Aristotle’s main concern is of course with plot (μῦθος) and the poetic representation on stage. Although not theatrical in this sense, Ovid’s poetry of exile nevertheless contains the dramatic core of a story about exile that runs from his banishment from Rome in Tristia 1 to, say, his congratulatory poem to Graecinus for his future consulship (Pont. 4.9). Fairweather (1987) 185, on Ovid’s autobiographical narratio in relation to the Aristotelian criteria for tragedy established in the Poetics.

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198  Matthew M. McGowan 21 Nagle (Fredericks) (1976) 146–​148, suggests that Ovid’s relationship to his brother establishes a ready contrast between oratory and poetry, between a public and poetic career. For Nagle, the death of Ovid’s brother frees him to become a poet. See Luck (1977) ad loc. “zum Bild der ‘Hälfte der Seele’ ” in Hor., Liv., Tac. as well as the rest of Ovid’s oeuvre. 22 Luck (1977) ad loc., provides the parallels from the exile poetry, e.g. Pont. 2.9.64; 2.10.17:  sunt tamen inter se communia sacra poetis; 3.6.67; 4.8.81, but see also McGowan (2009) 126, on Fast. 6.3–​8; see also Pont. 4.13.43: per studii communia foedera sacri “by the common bonds of a sacred pursuit,” cited by McGowan (2009) 155, who notes: “Ovid’s consistent use of the term sacer with poetry shows the exiled poet attempting to bestow upon his professional pursuit a degree of sacredness and perhaps even to elevate his art into something ‘worthy to be regarded as divine’ (OLD s.v. sacer §9). In combination with the figure of the uates, the references to poetry as a sacred undertaking provides the banished poet with a viable answer, if not a definitive counterbalance, to the divine status of Augustus and the imperial family in these poems.” 23 Fairweather (1987) 184, provides an interesting anecdote on the “poverty-​of-​ poets” theme. 24 E.g., Tr. 3.11.61–​62; 5.5.3,51–​52; Pont. 1.3 passim, 2.7.60; 3.1.35–​36; 3.6.19–​20; 4.10.9–​38, 4.14.35–​36; 4.16.13–​14. A full catalogue of passages with the Ulysses figure is to be found in Claassen (2001), especially 33:  “Odysseus, or rather the Ovidian Ulysses, is the most important recurrent symbol for the storm-​tossed exile,” and 57 with Table 6. 25 Notably by Rahn (1958) 116:  “die Odysseus-​Rolle steht nicht auf einer Stufe mit den anderen von ihm genannten Heroen … sondern ist so etwas wie ein Leitmotiv, das zur inneren Einheit der Bücher aus der Verbannungszeit wesentlich beiträgt.” 26 McGowan (2009) 127. 27 McGowan (2009) 68–​71. 28 See Claassen (2001) 32–​34, on Ovid’s use of mythic paradigms generally. For Ehlers (1988) 156, the poems from exile, when taken together, construct a kind of a Schicksalstragödie, whereby the poet is continuously able to identify with a tragic hero, such as Telephus and Hector. Fairweather (1987) 185, points out how the arch of Ovid’s autobiographical narratio is in keeping with the parameters of tragedy established by Aristotle’s Poetics. 29 Tr. 4.10.43–​54: saepe suos solitus recitare Propertius ignes /​iure sodalicii, quo mihi iunctus erat. /​Ponticus heroo, Bassus quoque clarus iambis /​dulcia convictus membra fuere mei. /​et tenuit nostras numerosus Horatius aures, /​dum ferit Ausonia carmina culta lyra. /​Vergilium vidi tantum, nec avara Tibullo /​tempus amicitiae fata dedere meae. /​successor fuit hic tibi, Galle, Propertius illi; /​quartus ab his serie temporis ipse fui. 30 Nagle (Fredericks) (1976) 144–​145; Fairweather (1987) 183, n. 15; Evans (1983) 107, n.  31, suggests that mentioning only the Amores heightens the contrast between Ovid’s amatory and exilic phases. 31 Luck (1977) ad loc. See also Fairweather (1987) 191 with n. 43 for bibliography. 32 Fulkerson (2012) who provides helpful tables at the end of her article charting the various uses of words associated with anger and wrath. The figures on ira I reproduce here are all my own. 33 Syme (1978) 223, and see 224:  “a ‘princeps’ should not give way to anger, neither should a Caesar … at the lowest, the comportment of this Caesar is shown

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34

35

36 37 38

39

discrepant with the dignity of his station.” Cf. Drucker (1977) 172, for whom ira is Augustus’ “hervorstechendster Zug.” For the Ovid-​Telephus /​Augustus-​Achilles theme see Tr. 1.1.100, 2.19–​20, 5.2.15, Pont. 1.7.51, 2.2.26. In Tr. 3.5.37–​38, Augustus is again likened to Achilles, this time for the mercy he showed to Priam, and again in Tr. 5.1.55–​56. Cf. Tr. 3.4, on Hector (Ovid) –​Andromache (Ovid’s wife) –​Achilles (Augustus). Ovid likens himself to Achilles who wiled away his cares by playing on the lyre, Tr. 4.1.15–​ 16: fertur et abducta Lyrneside tristis Achilles /​Haemonia curas attenuasse lyra. Kenney (1982) 444; Williams (1994) 137–​138, 172–​173, and 190–​193; and Bömer 1986, ad Met. 15.858: “Die Parallel-​oder gar Gleichsetzung Iuppiter und Augustus ist für Ovid und auch für viele seiner Zeitgenossen beinahe selbstverständlich.” As Lovatt (2011) has recently explored. Tr. 1.1.67–​ 68; 2.212; 2.345–​ 347; 2.539–​ 546; 5.12.67–​ 68:  sic utinam, quae nil metuentem tale magistrum /​perdidit, in cineres Ars mea versa foret!; Pont. 2.9.75–​76. So Hollis (1977) xiv n. 2: “What all Rome knew was merely that Ovid had offended the emperor;” Luck (1977) ad Tr. 1.1.23f.; Green (1982) 206–​207 with n. 31; contra is Goold (1983) 95:  “a natural interpretation of the couplet is that, though the offense could not tactfully be discussed in public, everyone knew what it was.” He cites in addition P. 1.7.39–​40: et tamen ut cuperem culpam quoque posse negari, /​sic facinus nemo nescit abesse mihi. As implied by Johnson (2008) 122–​124.

Bibliography Bömer, F. 1958. P. Ovidius Naso: Die Fasten. Vol. 2. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Bömer, F. 1986. P. Ovidius Naso: Die Metamorphosen. Vol. 7. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Claassen, J.-​M. 1999. Displaced Persons: Literature of Exile from Cicero to Boethius. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Claassen, J.-​M. 2001. “The Singular Myth: Ovid’s Use of Myth in the Exilic Poetry.” Hermathena 170: 11–​64. Courtney, E. 1993. The Fragmentary Latin Poets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Drucker, M. 1977. Der verbannte Dichter und der Kaisergott: Studien zu Ovids späten Elegien. PhD dissertation, Universität Heidelberg. Ehlers, W. W. 1988. “Poet und Exil: Zum Verstandnis der Exildichtung Ovids.” Antike und Abendland 34:144–​157. Evans, H. B. 1975. “Winter and Warfare in Ovid’s Tomis (Tristia 3.10).” Classical Journal 70: 1–​9. Evans, H. B. 1983. Publica Carmina: Ovid’s Books from Exile. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Fairweather, J. 1987. “Ovid’s Autobiographical Poem, Tristia 4.10.” Classical Quarterly 37: 181–​196. Fulkerson, L. 2012. “Sad Ovid, Angry Augustus.” Latomus Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History. Series edited by Carl Deroux, Vol. 16, 339–​366. Gaertner, J. F. 2007. “How Exilic Is Ovid’s Exile Poetry?” In J. F. Gaertner, ed., Writing Exile:  The Discourse of Displacement in Greco-​ Roman Antiquity and Beyond. Boston, MA: Brill, 155–​172. Goold, G. P. 1983. “The Causes of Ovid’s Exile.” Illinois Classical Studies 8: 94–​105. Görgemanns, H. 2006. “Autobiography:  Greek, Roman.” In H. Cancik and H. Schneider, eds., The New Pauly. http://​referenceworks.brillonline.com/​entries/​brill-​ s-​new-​pauly/​autobiography-​e210040. Accessed 10 August 2018.

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200  Matthew M. McGowan Gradel, I. 2002. Emperor Worship and Roman Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Green, P. 1982. “Carmen et error: πρόφασις and αἰτία in the Matter of Ovid’s Exile.” Classical Antiquity 1: 202–​220. Habinek, T. 1998. The Politics of Latin Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Habinek, T. 2002. “Ovid and Empire.” In P. Hardie 2002b: 46–​61. Hallett, J. P. 2003. “Centering from the Periphery in the Augustan Roman World: Ovid’s Autobiography in Tristia 4.10 and Cornelius Nepos’ Biography of Atticus.” Arethusa 36: 345–​359. Hardie, P. 2002a. Ovid’s Poetics of Illusion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardie, P. ed. 2002b. The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Harrison, S. J. 1990. “Cicero’s ‘De Temporibus Suis’:  The Evidence Reconsidered.” Hermes 118: 455–​463. Helzle, M. 1988. “Ovid’s Poetics of Exile.” Illinois Classical Studies 13: 73–​83. Helzle, M. 1989. Publii Ouidii Nasonis epistularum ex Ponto liber IV: A Commentary on Poems 1–​7, 16. Hildesheim: Olms. Hexter, R. J. 2002. “Ovid in the Middle Ages:  Exile, Mythographer, Lover.” In B. Weiden Boyd, ed., Brill’s Companion to Ovid. Leiden: Brill, 413–​442. Hinds, S. E. 1999. “After Exile:  Time and Teleology from Metamorphoses to Ibis.” In P. Hardie, A. Barchiesi, and S. E. Hinds, eds., Ovidian Transformations: Essays on Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Its Reception. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 48–​67. Hinds, S. E. 2007. “Ovid Among the Conspiracy Theorists.” In S. J. Heyworth, P. G. Fowler, and S. J. Harrison, eds., Classical Constructions: Papers in Memory of Don Fowler, Classicist and Epicurean. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 194–​220. Hollis, A. S. 1977. Ovid. Ars Amatoria, Book 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ingleheart, J. 2010. A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Ingleheart, J., ed. 2011. Two Thousand Years of Solitude:  Exile After Ovid. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kenney, E. J. 1982. “Ovid.” In W. Clausen and E. J. Kenney, eds., Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 420–​457. Lewis, R. G. 1993. “Imperial Autobiography from Augustus to Hadrian.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II 34.1: 629–​706. Longman, T. 1991. Fictional Akkadian Autobiography:  A Generic and Comparative Study. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Lovatt, H. 2011. “The Mystery of Ovid’s Exile: Ovid and the Roman Detectives.” In Ingleheart 2011: 241–​258. Luck, G. 1969. Latin Love Elegy, 2nd ed. London: Methuen. Luck, G. 1977. P. Ovidius Naso, Tristia, Vol. 2. Heidelberg: C. Winter. McGowan, M. M. 2009. Ovid in Exile:  Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Boston and Leiden: Brill. Misch, G. 1951. A History of Autobiography in Antiquity. London: Routledge. (Orig. German 1949, 3rd ed. Geschichte der Autobiographie.) Nagle (Fredericks), B. R. 1976. “Tristia 4.10:  Poet’s Autobiography and Poetic Autobiography.” Transactions of American Philological Association 106: 139–​154. Nagle (Fredericks), B. R. 1980. The Poetics of Exile:  Program and Polemic in the “Tristia” and “Epistulae ex Ponto” of Ovid. Brussels: Latomus.

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Ovid’s autobiography 201 Nisbet, R. G. M. and M. Hubbard. 1978. A Commentary on Horace’s Odes, Book II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paratore, E. 1958. “L’Elegia autobiografica di Ovidio.” In N. Herescu, ed., Ovidiana: Recherches sur Ovide, publiées à l’occasion du bimillénaire de la naissance du poète. Paris: Societe d’Edition “Les Belles Lettres”, 353–​379. Paratore, E. 1959. “L’evoluzione della ‘sphragis’ dalle prime alle ultime opere di Ovidio.” In Atti del Convegno internazionale ovidiano, Sulmona, Maggio 1958. Rome: Istituto di studi romani, I.173–​203. Pascal, R. 1960. Design and Truth in Autobiography. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Rahn, H. 1958. “Ovids elegische Epistel.” Antike und Abendland 7: 105–​120. Stroh, W. 1971. Die römische Liebeselegie als werbende Dichtung. Amsterdam: Hakkert. Stroh, W. 1981. “Tröstende Musen:  zur literarhistorischen Stellung und Bedeutung von Ovids Exilgedichten.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt II 31.4: 2639–​2684. Syme, R. 1978. History in Ovid. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walker, A. D. 1997. “Oedipal Narratives and the Exilic Ovid.” Ramus 26: 194–​204. Williams, G. D. 1994. Banished Voices: Readings in Ovid’s Exile Poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, G. D. 2002. “Ovid’s Exile Poetry: Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto and Ibis.” In P. Hardie, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 233–​245. Williams, G. D. 2009. “Politics in Ovid.” In W. J. Dominik, J. Garthwaite, and P. Roche, eds., Writing Politics in Imperial Rome. Boston, MA: Brill, 203–​224.

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14  Billy Collins as a modern-​day Ovid: An Ovidian reading of Collins’ Ballistics Jill A. Coyle

Although Billy Collins is more widely read by the general public than perhaps any other contemporary poet and despite his status as Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003, he has not been enthusiastically received by many of his literary contemporaries. A recent evaluation of Collins’ accomplishments as a poet claims that Collins has “not received a great deal of critical acclaim,” but “there is no disputing that he is very popular.”1 The same essay poses the question “Is Billy Collins an accomplished poet?” and concludes that the only accomplishments he has realized are “his sense of humor, his light ironic touch, and his accessibility.”2 The reviewer observes, “His mid-​poem banter is concise and explanatory, peppered with humorous sayings and anecdotes” and “one also feels that he is a bit of a smart ass, and this endears him further to his audience.”3 The review does not accord Collins much literary recognition beyond the acknowledgment that his poems are “entertaining.” The lukewarm critical reception is also evident in a review of Collins’ 2008 collection Ballistics in which the reviewer claims Collins has “hit a dead end” with the collection. He reminds us that “such critique [of Collins] has circulated in reviews at least since his previous collection, The Trouble With Poetry.”4 The lukewarm and sometimes contemptuous reception that Collins receives in literary circles due to his perceived lack of literary complexity is reminiscent of Ovid’s underwhelming reception by his literary contemporaries. The characterization of Collins as an endearing “smart ass” is also the impression that Ovid conveys about himself in much of his poetry. The irreverent tone of both Ovid’s and Collins’ poetry lends both poets a wide appeal among the general public, while it does not necessarily endear them to their peers. Regarding Ovid’s reception in ancient times, Conte observes, “there can be no doubt that Ovid [was] extremely popular with many readers” and the fact that that “subliterary graffiti on the walls of Pompeii and ancient verse inscriptions on stone are filled with quotations and reminiscences of his work attests to his wide popularity,” but it is also true that “Ovid never became a canonical poet in antiquity, and he seems to have been studied neither in ancient grammar schools … nor, after Augustan times, by teachers of rhetoric.”5 However, that which was not often the subject of serious study in his own time, and which the 19th and 20th centuries often found

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 203 morally problematic and of little literary merit, is today regarded as “highly sophisticated and endlessly polysemous.”6 I  argue that Billy Collins’ poetry likewise displays a greater sophistication than most contemporary critics have noted. An Ovidian-​inspired reading of Collins’ Ballistics uncovers a greater literary complexity than immediately meets the eye. Billy Collins begins his 2008 collection “Ballistics” with a quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Even as a cow she was lovely. At first glance, this epigraph seems to have no apparent connection to the poems that follow, but a close reading of Ballistics suggests that the quote can be read as programmatic. An affinity to Ovid pervades the entire collection. This affinity is evident in numerous aspects of Collins’ collection: the poet’s portrayal of himself as isolated between two worlds, the relationship of the poet to the reader, the personification of poetry, the construction of the poet’s intimate relationship to his verse, the emphasis on visual experience, the use of light irony and humor, the interest in the mutability of meaning, and the poet’s subversive attitude toward contemporary literary tradition. Collins’ status as a poet who has found popularity among the general public, but not necessarily among literary critics is also strikingly similar to Ovid’s status among his contemporaries. The initial epigraph is not the only indication that Collins had Ovid in mind when he wrote Ballistics. In a poem entitled Lost, midway through the collection, Collins compares a lost coin to a lost work of Ovid: and then it was gone, as lost as the lost theorems of Pythagoras, or the Medea by Ovid, which also slipped through the bars of time, and as ungraspable as the sin that landed him-​ forever out of favor with Augustus-​ on a cold rock on the coast of the Black Sea, where eventually he died, but not before writing a poem about the fish of those waters, into which, as we know, he was never transformed, nor into a flower, a tree, or a stream, nor into a star like Julius Caesar, not even into a small bird that could wing it back to  Rome. The references to Ovid’s exile call to mind his Tristia, written while in exile from Rome at Tomis on the Black Sea. The comment on Ovid’s failure to be transformed into a flower, tree, stream, or bird is obviously a reference to

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204  Jill A. Coyle his Metamorphoses, which contains stories of humans transformed into all of these things. Taken together with the Metamorphoses quote that begins Ballistics, the overt references in Collins’ Lost to Ovid’s poetry and exile encourage an Ovidian reading of Ballistics as a whole. Collins’ stylistic and thematic affinity with Ovid is most profoundly felt in both the preface poem and the final poem of Ballistics. In the first poem, August in Paris, Collins establishes his poetic persona as an exile or a poet between two worlds. We see the poet walking alone in Paris and stopping to look over the shoulder of a painter who is painting a side view of a church. In the second stanza, he asks But where are you, reader, who have not paused in your walk to look over my shoulder to see what I am jotting in this notebook? Alone in this city, I sometimes wonder what you look like This poem establishes the poet’s isolation from both his audience and his immediate environment. In Paris, Collins is in a foreign land, distanced from readers in his native land, but also culturally alienated from the inhabitants of his current location. This can be compared to Ovid’s position as an exile in Tomis, which was situated at the extreme edge of the Roman Empire far from Ovid’s readers in Roman Italy. In August in Paris, Collins addresses his readers from a distant land just as Ovid does in his Tristia. In the Tristia, Ovid mentally travels back to Rome and imagines himself attending events there. For example, in Tristia 4.2.57–​61, he claims: Although I am exiled, I am able to see these things in my mind; my mind has the right to visit these places that have been snatched away  from me; it travels freely through boundless lands; its swift flight reaches the sky; it leads my eyes down into the midst of he city….”7 haec ego summotus qua possum mente videbo:   erepti nobis ius habet illa loci: illa per inmensas spatiatur libera terras   in caelum celere pervenit illa fuga; illa meos occulos mediam deducit in urbem This is the same perspective of isolation and of looking in on the world from the periphery that appears throughout Ballistics. Compare Ovid’s Tristia 4 to Collins’ placement of his poetic self on the fringes, while his mind roams freely to inhabit wildly different, often distant and improbable scenes. In

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 205 Brightly Colored Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles, Collins observes the boats from a “glassy room” on the opposite side of the river, and then places himself in them: … for the rest of the day I pictured a lighter version of myself calling time through a little megaphone, first to the months of the year, then to the twelve apostles, all grimacing as they leaned and pulled on the long wooden oars. Collins’ “lighter version of himself ” is strongly reminiscent of Ovid’s mind travelling freely in its “swift flight.” Ovid portrays his poetry as at least partially responsible for his exile, part of the famous and much debated carmen et error that Ovid cites as the reason for his banishment. We learn the reason for Collins’ exile in his poem Evasive Maneuvers. The poet confesses “I grew up hiding from other children.” and “I used to hide from adults, too,” and inevitably as we would expect of a poet, “And I hid behind books…” The poem continues: Before I knew how to read, I sat in an armchair in the living room and turned the pages, without a clue about the worlds that were pressed between D and F, M and O, W and Z. Maybe this explains why I looked out the bedroom window first thing this morning at the heavy trees, low gray clouds, and said the word gastropod out loud and having no idea what it meant went downstairs and looked it up then hid in the woods from my wife and our dog. Unlike Ovid’s exile, Collins’ isolation is self-​imposed, but significantly, it is a guilty indulgence in the written word that is the source of both poets’ alienations from the rest of the world. Ovid’s Tristia emphasizes his “dislocated perspective as he views the world from its margins.”8 Ovid is indeed geographically isolated during his exile, however, his exile is also a literary creation and his description of his environment is a pastiche of traditional and literary material.9 As Matthew McGowan observes, Ovid uses references to ancient epic, specifically to Homer and Ulysses, to transform his personal experience of exile into a universal and to

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206  Jill A. Coyle create a heroic persona.10 By incorporating Ovidian references into his own poetry, Collins imbues it with a similar heroic universality. Jo-​Marie Claassen argues that Ovid’s exile poetry is relevant today because there exists an innate psychological relationship between all those in isolation.11 This isolation need not be physical exile, but it may be the psychological and emotional isolation so common in modern life. Collins uses Ovidian references to lend a timelessness to his poetry. The exilic persona allows Collins to strike a chord with a modern society in which people feel increasingly disconnected from one another, while it also allows his poetry to evoke universals through references to ancient literature, history, and myth. As we have seen, the construction of the poet’s persona as a poet between two worlds is an obvious affinity with Ovid that is established in the preface poem and continued throughout Collins’ collection, but a closer examination of the preface poem reveals more subtle echoes of Ovid. Already in the first stanza, Collins exhibits an interest in poetry as a visual experience. The poet has stopped to watch a man painting: I have just stopped here on the rue des Ecoles just off the boulevard St. Germain to look over the shoulder of a man in a flannel shirt and straw hat who has set up an easel and a canvas chair on the sidewalk in order to paint from a droll angle aside-​view of the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The reader is asked to imagine not only the scene evoked by the poem, that is, the poet taking a stroll, but also a scene within that scene, that is, the painting of a church. In the third stanza, we are asked to imagine another image as the poet wonders what his reader looks like: if you are wearing a flannel shirt or a wraparound blue skirt held together by a pin. Both the image of the painting and the image of the reader are characterized by intimate visual details. We learn that the painting is from a “droll angle” and that the reader’s blue skirt is “held together by a pin.” This interest in presenting detailed visual images in verse is also evident in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for example, in Ovid’s detailed descriptions of the transformations of bodies into animals and objects which has been described as a “photographic narrative technique.”12 Ovid is also fond of embedding one image or story within another, such as in the story of Arachne, which contains elaborate ekphrases on the images woven by Minerva and Arachne (Metamorphoses 6.70–​128). The third visual image presented in August in Paris is one that bears a significant resemblance to the scene set by Ovid in the first lines of his Amores 1.5:

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 207 It was hot, the day had completed its mid-​hour; I lay sprawled in the middle of my bed. One window shutter was open, the other, closed, the light was as in a forest Aestus erat, meridiamque dies exegerat horam;   apposui medio membra leuanda toro. pars adaperta fuit, pars altera clausa fenestrae,   quale fere siluae lumen habere solent Compare the final image created by Collins in August in Paris: But every time I turn around you have fled through a crease in the air to a quiet room where the shutters are closed      against the heat of afternoon In both poems the poet presents an image of someone sequestered and taking refuge from a hot afternoon in a shuttered room. The reader in Collins’ poem has “fled through a crease in the air” almost like the light in Ovid that sifts through half-​closed shutters. In Ovid’s poem, it is the poet himself who is awaiting the arrival of his lover, Corinna. In the poem by Collins, it is the reader who is sequestered in the room where there is only the sound of your breathing and every so often, the turning of a page. Here Collins, in the form of his poetry, enjoys a close intimacy with his reader. The setting of the shuttered room on a hot day coupled with the intimate reference to the sound of the reader’s breathing eludes to another theme common to both Collins and Ovid: the use of erotic imagery and the characterization of the poet’s relationship to poetry as an erotic experience. Ovid’s erotic relationship to poetry is well established. As Alison Sharrock observes, “writing poetry, for Ovid, is not just about sexuality; it is itself an erotic experience, in which it is impossible to distinguish clearly between sex and poetry.”13 Collins eludes to the theme of the conflation of poetry and eroticism in the final stanza of August in Paris where we hear the intimate sound of the reader’s breathing, but he develops this theme more fully in January in Paris. This poem continues the portrayal of the poet as an exile. Interestingly, it also begins with a scene in a shuttered room: That winter I had nothing to do but tend the kettle in my shuttered room on the top floor of a pensione near a cemetery

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208  Jill A. Coyle In this poem, the poet is still a stranger in a strange land and midway through the piece we see him pausing on a bridge to “observe the flow of the river below /​as I tried to better understand the French.” As Ovid often does in his exile poems, Collins turns from a description of his foreign surroundings to a discussion of poetry: I would see the poems of Valery, the ones he never finished but abandoned, wandering the streets of the city half-​clothed. Like Ovid, Collins strikes a tone of light irony: Forsaken for so many long decades how could they ever trust another man with a pen? He comes across one of the poems in a romantic setting: sitting with a glass of rose at a café table-​ beautiful, emaciated, unfinished, cruelly abandoned with a flick of panache In the rest of the poem, the poet describes his completion of Valery’s poem as a sexual encounter: Never mind how I got her out of the café, past the concierge and up the flights of stairs-​ remember that Paris is the capital of public kissing. And never mind the holding and the pressing. It is enough to know that I moved my pen in such a way as to bring her to completion, a simple, final stanza, which ended, as this poem will, with the image of gorgeous orphan lying on a rumpled bed, her large eyes closed, a painting of cows in a valley over her head, and off to the side, me in a window seat blowing smoke from a cigarette at dawn. Like Ovid in Amores 1.5, Collins has left details to be filled in by the reader (“Never mind how I got her out of the café /​… And never mind the holding and the pressing. /​It is enough to know that I moved my pen in such a way as to bring her to completion”). This is strongly reminiscent of Ovid’s “Who does not know the rest?” (cetera quis nescit?) with which he concludes the erotic encounter in his Amores 1.5.25. In January in Paris, as in August in Paris, the poet is concerned with the visual aspects of poetry. He presents us with images like scenes from a film, again

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 209 calling to mind Ovid’s photographic narrative technique. Like Ovid, Collins embeds secondary images within the primary image of his poem. Within the image of an orphan lying on a bed, we get the image of a painting of cows in a valley. To a careful reader of Ballistics, these cows may even call to mind the quote from Ovid’s Metamorphoses that begins Collins’ collection: “Even as a cow she was lovely.” When read in relation to this quote, the painting of cows may be an intentional nod to Ovid, but an even greater affinity with Ovid lies in the poet’s erotic relationship to his poetry exhibited with a light ironical tone by the characterization and personification of poetry itself as the poet’s lover. Compare erotic aspects of January in Paris to Ovid’s Tristia 4.1.27–​30, in which Ovid portrays his verse as an elegiac lover. Speaking of his Muses, Ovid writes, I wish, since they were destined to harm me, that I had never set hand to the sacred work of the Pierian Muses. But now what should I do? Their sacred power holds me, and as a madman, although I am injured by verse, I love verse still. non equidem vellem, quoniam nocitura fuerunt,   Pieridum sacris inposuisse manum. sed nunc quid faciam? vis me tenet ipsa sacrorum,   et Carmen demens carmine laesus amo. The portrayal of the poet hopelessly obsessed with a lover at whose hands he has suffered is the traditional trope of Roman elegiac poetry. Ovid follows this traditional convention, but with an ironic twist –​poetry itself is his elegiac lover. Although Ovid’s erotic relationship with his verse is one of obsession and elegiac suffering, Collins’ romantic encounter with his personified verse characterizes love (and poetry) as a game, calling to mind the amor as lusus theme that pervades Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, and Remedia Amoris. Collins’ poem Envoy, the final poem in his Ballistics collection, may be the most obviously Ovidian. Collins directly addresses his book of poems, which is personified as an envoy: Go, little book, out of this house and into the world, carriage made of paper rolling toward town bearing a single passenger beyond the reach of this jittery pen, far from the desk and the nosy gooseneck lamp. It is time to decamp, put on a jacket and venture outside, time to be regarded by other eyes, bound to be held in foreign hands.

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210  Jill A. Coyle So off you go, infants of the brain, with a wave and some bits of fatherly advice: stay out as late as you like, don’t bother to call or write, and talk to as many strangers as you can. Compare Ovid’s Tristia 1.1. 1–​13: Little book-​I don’t begrudge it-​you will go to the city: Ah, me, that it is not permitted for your master to go! Go, but go unadorned, as befits an exile: unfortunate, wear the garb that matches my circumstance. Nor should you have a cover dyed with the purple juice of berries: that is not a suitable color for mourning; neither should you have a title in vermillion, nor paper tinged with  cedar oil, no white bosses on your dark edges. These embellishments are for fortunate books: it is fitting for you to be a reminder of my misfortune. Let not your edges be polished by brittle pumice, appear as if with locks rough and disheveled. Do not be ashamed of blots… Parve (nec invideo) sine me, liber, ibis in urbem:   ei mihi, quod domino non licet ire tuo! vade, sed incultus, qualem decet exulis esse:   infelix habitum temporis huius habe. nec te purpureo velent vaccinia fuco:   non est conveniens luctibus ille color; nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur,   candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras. felices ornent haec instrumenta libellos:   fortunae memorem te decet esse meae. nec fragili geminae poliantur pumice frontes, hirtutus sparsis ut videare comis.   neve liturarum pudeat… Both poets address their books as if they are children (i.e., “little book”) being sent into the world by a father. Both poets imagine the books being received by distant readers and describe the book’s physical appearance. Both include advice about how the books ought to behave in public. As we have seen, Collins frames his collection with strong references to Ovid. The Metamorphoses quote and August in Paris begin the collection, while Envoy ends the collection. The poem Lost, which contains direct references to Ovid, appears roughly midway through the collection. The

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 211 prominent placement of Ovidian references prompts one to look for a more subtle and pervasive Ovidian influence throughout the work as a whole. Consider the possible implications of the Metamorphoses epigraph, which begins Ballistics for the reading of the book as a whole. As Conte observes of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, “The fundamental characteristic of the world described by the Metamorphoses is its ambiguous and deceptive nature, the uncertainty of the boundaries between reality and appearance, between the concreteness of things and the inconstancy of their appearances.”14 A careful reader finds many metamorphoses in Collins’ poems. In Baby Listening, metamorphosis appears as the mutability of meaning. The crux of the poem hangs on the dual interpretation of the phrase, meaning either a baby who is listening, or the act of listening to a baby. As often happens with both Collins and Ovid, halfway through the piece, the poem is revealed to be about poetry itself. Commenting on the two possible interpretations of the phrase “baby listening,” Collins remarks: Lucky for some of us, poetry is a place where both are true at once, where meaning only one thing at a time spells malfunction. Poetry wants to have the baby who is listening at my  door as well as the baby who is being listened to, quietly breathing by the nearby telephone. In other words, poetry depends upon mutability and the metamorphosis of meaning. Several other poems in Collins’ collection echo Ovid’s Metamorphoses. For example, in Colins’ Orthinography, the tracks of birds in the snow are transformed into a language: and under the feeder, some birds are busy writing short stories, poems, and letters to their mothers. A crow is working on an editorial. That chickadee is etching a list, and a robin walks back and forth composing the opening lines to her autobiography. The image of the birds communicating by tracks on the ground is reminiscent of the scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which Io, transformed into a cow, uses her hoof to scratch her name and story into the dirt (1.649–​652). Moreover, in both Collins and Ovid, the tracks on the ground communicate

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212  Jill A. Coyle messages to a parent. Some of Collin’s birds write letters to their mothers, while Io tries to communicate with her father. Collins’ chickadee is writing her autobiography, while Ovid’s Io is likewise trying to convey important information about her life. Other poems in Ballistics also call to mind specific scenes from the Metamorphoses. For example, in Collins’ The Flight of Statues, the poet imagines statues coming to life: Whatever the cause, no one will forget the sight of all the white marble figures Leaping from their pedestals and rushing away. One thinks of the metamorphosis described by Ovid in the Pygmalion myth in which the statue of a woman he has sculpted comes to life (Meta. 10.280–​295). In Hippos on Holiday, Collins combines his interest in the visual experience of poetry with the metamorphosis theme. The reader is asked to envision the poet in a movie theater and at the same time he is also asked to envision the movie playing on the screen in which hippos frolic in a muddy river. The climax of the scene comes when the boundary between the two images is blurred as Collins writes, I would be both in my seat and in the water playing with the hippos, A sort of metamorphosis has taken place in which the poet himself has become one of the hippos, but this is not the only affinity this poem shares with the Metamorphoses. As in August in Paris and January in Paris, Collins here again embeds one image within another, just as Ovid so often does in his Metamorphoses. In Hippos on Holiday, Collins continues to construct his persona as a poet on the fringes who allows his mind to roam freely where he cannot as he imagines a version of himself joining the hippos in their muddy river. This theme is common in many of Collins’ other poems. For example, in The Future, it is a moment in time that the poet envisions himself visiting, and similarly, in Looking Forward, the poet imagines himself attending a future burial. In Tension, the poet’s mental flights of fancy take him from his living room all the way to South America. At the same time as they present themselves as isolated and dislocated, both Ovid and Collins address their readers as if they are on intimate terms. Both often employ a casual, conversational tone. They address the reader directly as “you,” and their poems are often confessional in tone. They describe details of their daily lives (whether real or invented), as if speaking to a friend. Collins’ intimate relationship with the reader is most dramatically felt in The Great American Poem, in which he writes,

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 213 and the only characters here are you and I, alone in an imaginary room which will disappear after a few more lines, leaving us no time to point guns at one another or toss all of our clothes into a roaring fireplace. I ask you: who needs the man on the train and who cares what his black valise contains? We have something better than all of this turbulence lurching toward some ruinous conclusion. I mean the sound that we will hear as soon as I stop writing and put down this pen. Here Collins is keenly self-​conscious of the intimacy he constructs with the reader. He places himself in the same room as the reader, calling to mind the shuttered room that he imagined his reader inhabiting in his preface poem August in Paris. Collins often conjures the image that he is shut up in a room alone with his reader, almost as if with a conspirator or a confessor. The confessional tone is reminiscent of the tone often employed by Ovid. Both Ovid and Billy Collins have a reputation for being “subversive.” Ovid not only challenged the literary tradition by bending the rules of the traditional ancient genres in which he worked, most notably in his innovative adaptation of the traditions of love elegy in his erotic poems, but he also challenged the mores of the Augustan regime (chiefly in his erotic poems, but also, more subtly, in his references to Augustus in his Metamorphoses).15 Collins is subversive in a slightly different way. His belief that poetry ought to be accessible rather than obscure challenges the current trend in elite literary circles toward obfuscation. Collins also eschews traditional forms and conventions. Some of his poems openly poke fun at literary “rules.” For example, he begins his poem Tension with a quote from Writing Fiction, presumably a “how-​to” writing manual: “Never use the word suddenly just to create tension.” Collins’ Tension repeats the word “suddenly” 11 times. Collins’ “subversive” tendencies are well known. In a recent interview with Collins, the interviewer characterizes Collins as somewhat of a heretic, commenting that “Among other vaguely heretical beliefs, America’s former Poet Laureate insists that a poem should give pleasure on its first reading.”16 Collins also employs a subversive tone when writing about the poems of others. In his titular poem, Ballistics, Collins imagines that the book in a photograph of a bullet passing through a book is “a recent collection of poems written /​by someone of whom I was not fond ….” Similarly, he displays a derisive attitude toward other poets in The Poems of Others when he laments “Is there no end to it /​the way they keep popping up in magazines …” and he goes on to imagine the poems peering down from the trees and barking at him as he takes a walk to try to get his mind off of them. It has also been observed that Collins is subversive in his “deliberate pastiches, or parodies, of serious

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214  Jill A. Coyle poets” for which he has been accused of “thumbing his nose at great poetic ancestors.”17 For example, Collins’ The Day Lassie Died is obviously a parody of Frank O’Hara’s The Day Lady Died. Collins substitutes the dog Lassie for the famous Jazz singer Billie Holiday. Collins’ playful and irreverent attitude toward his literary predecessors is strikingly Ovidian, as Ovid is renowned for his parodic imitation of traditional Classical authors and genres. The playful Ovidian tone with which Collins presents his poetry renders it palatable to a wide array of palates at a time when many readers are losing their taste for poetry. The fact that the poetry of both Collins and Ovid is accessible and enjoyable to a wide audience should not discourage serious scholarly study of their texts. Closer attention to Ovid over the past few decades has uncovered much literary complexity beneath the playfulness. A close examination of Collins’ affinity to Ovid reveals that Collins likewise has created a complex and polysemous text with his collection Ballistics. Collins extracts from Ovid the timeless themes of both isolation and intimacy. The alienation of a poet in exile is set against the intimate relationship that exists between the poet and the text, the text and the reader. The tension between intimacy and distance created by the use of Ovidian motifs is uniquely relevant to the modern psyche which technology renders simultaneously connected to and distanced from others. Collins’ skillful use of Ovid imbues his poetry with universal resonance.

Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Hilbert (2006) 21. Hilbert (2006) 3. Hilbert (2006) 4. Hill (2008). Conte (1999) 359–​360. Booth (2009) 61. Williams (2002) 237. Translations of Ovid in this chapter are my own. Williams (2002) 236. Claassen (2008) 185. McGowan (2009) 181. Claassen (2008) 214. Conte (1999) 355. Sharrock (2002) 99. Conte (1999) 354. Conte (1999) 341–​359. Weich (2004). Hilbert (2006) 7–​8.

Bibliography Booth, Joan. 2009. “The Amores:  Ovid Making Love.” In A Companion to Ovid. Edited by Peter Knox. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 61–​77.

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Billy Collins as a modern-day Ovid 215 Claassen, Jo-​Marie. 2008. Ovid Revisited: The Poet in Exile. London: Duckworth. Conte, Gian Biagio. 1999. Latin Literature:  A History. Translated by Joseph B. Solodow. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hilbert, Ernest. 2006. “Wages of Fame:  The Case of Billy Collins.” Contemporary Poetry Review. www.cprw.com/​. Accessed 1 June 2018. Hill, Sean Patrick. 2008. “Poetic Trajectory Spirals in Ballistic.” Oregonian, 24 October. http://​blog.oregonianlive.com/​books/​2008/​10/​poetry_​review_​ballistics. html. Accessed 1 June 2018. McGowan, Matthew M. 2009. Ovid in Exile: Power and Poetic Redress in the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto. Boston, MA: Brill. Sharrock, Alison. 2002. “Gender and Sexuality.” In Philip Hardie, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 95–​107. Weich, Dave. 2004. “Billy Collins, Bringing Poetry to the Public.” Powells.com, author interviews, January. www.powells.com/​authors/​collins.html. Accessed 2 January 2011. Williams, Gareth. 2002. “Ovid’s Exile Poetry: Tristia, Epistulae ex Ponto, and Ibis.” In Philip Hardie, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Ovid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 233–​246.

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Part IV

Fury, honor, and historia: Conflict and struggle in the Greek and Roman imaginations One constant in the history of ancient Greece and Rome is the emergence of a state of conflict and struggle between both individuals and societies. These conflicts take various forms that range from the seemingly omnipresent threat of civil war and internecine strife to the quarrels and eruption of violence in domestic life. In an important sense, the process of historical inquiry is aimed at the resolution of such conflicts and the avoidance of future outbreaks of violence; history can be reasonably viewed as an antidote for both troubled minds and weary nation states. In the last section of our volume, the debates and violence that marred the history of Greece and Rome are considered afresh, alongside the development of conflicts, both religious and political, that in several important ways continue to plague the human condition. Katie Lamberto opens Part IV by looking at how aural effects play a crucial role in the artistry of Euripides’ Bacchae and highlight the violent frenzy of the script. James J. O’Hara next considers Vergil’s Evander and his preoccupation with gore and vengeful punishment and how this may have affected Aeneas’ evolution as political leader in Italy. Turning us away from the mythological realm, Mark J.  B. Wright reads three episodes from Livy’s account of the early legends of Rome through the lens of the civil wars that dominated his life. In the following chapter, Paul Burke investigates of the “characters” of Pontius Pilate and Tiberius in the narratives of Early Christian history. The final two chapters of Part IV explore the topic through the lens of reception. Mary C. English delves into Jerome Kilty’s theatrical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s epistolary novel, The Ides of March, and its failure to capture the intensity of the original work as well as the spirit and grandeur of other 1960s adaptations of the Caesar and Cleopatra narrative. Finally, in what could be considered a metapsychological look at said conflicts, Ellen E. Perry considers the disagreements over the collections of plaster casts in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the role that the curator Edward Robinson played in these struggles. And so, from the stage of Euripidean tragedy to the halls of the modern academy, these authors contemplate the divisive forces of the Greek and Roman imaginations and emphasize, time and again, connections between the past and the present.

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15  Sound effects: Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae Katie Lamberto

Studies of Greek literature and culture have often emphasized sight, framing arguments around ekphrasis, the idea of the “gaze,” and other vision-​oriented models. The richness of these studies lies in stark contrast to the attention given to sound, which differs from sight in its basic qualities, modes of expression, and interpretive framework. References to sound carry their own significance and may enrich our understanding of the texts that express them. This chapter offers a model for examining sound in a Greek text by exploring some of the aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae. General scholarly interest in sound and noise has increased over the past century and a half, coinciding with technological advancements in sound recording and manipulation as well as the introduction of industrial sounds into the environment. The past decade and a half has also seen an increase in studies of historical sounds for which we have no recordings. This research has demonstrated how to study sound in fruitful ways, outlined the particular qualities of sound relevant to its interpretation, and provided the vocabulary needed for discussing sound. The term “soundscape,” for instance, which I use in this chapter, was coined by R. Murray Shafer in his 1977 book The Tuning of the World as a term that refers to the full number of sounds in any given environment, providing a useful way to talk about the spatial aspect of sound. Sound plays a significant role in Bacchae and is especially emphasized as an important element of the Dionysiac cult that has entered Thebes. Although this has been pointed out by Dodds, Seaford, and others writing on the play,1 interpretation has moved little beyond the idea that the worship of Dionysos was noisy.2 This noise, however, is what drives the plot forward –​it changes ordinary space into Dionysiac space, influencing bacchant behavior and ultimately causing the death of Pentheus, whose rejection of this invasive Dionysiac noise dooms him. Pentheus remains stuck in a visually-​oriented world of dress-​up, spying, and silence. Much has been written about sight in Bacchae, but this key contrast between Pentheus’ worldview and that of the bacchants has been missed. Seeing and hearing are our two primary means of experiencing the world, and these sensory modes differ in significant ways that are important when considering the sights and sounds of Bacchae. Sound imposes itself

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220  Katie Lamberto on anyone within earshot and cannot be blocked by closing the ears like one would close one’s eyes. Sound is also generally not conceptualized as an object with definite boundaries or measurability, making it elusive and difficult to contain. The technology to measure the loudness of sound, for instance, was only developed in the 20th century. Sound waves radiate out and are easily manipulated by spatial acoustics, making it difficult to identify a sound’s source. The act of seeing, by contrast, typically results in the discernment of distinct objects whose basic characteristics such as size and location are obvious. Lastly, while these discrete visual objects remain present for our prolonged examination, sound exists only in the moment it is emitted.3 Certain types of visual phenomena do mimic the characteristics of sound, but these tend either to indicate faulty vision or to be inferior to sound in some way. For example, the φάσμα seen by Pentheus in the palace –​whether “real” or a hallucination  –​behaves in ways that are natural for sound but impossible for ordinary visual objects. It appears, has no physical mass, and apparently vanishes while Pentheus tries to engage with it (629–​631). Lightning, which is mentioned several times in the play but does not occur, presents another example of a visual effect that has characteristics typical of sound –​it floods a space, lacks measurability, and exists only for an instant. By having these characteristics, however, lightning and related visual phenomena have a diminished ability to communicate information clearly to the viewer. These same characteristics may impact how sound communicates information, but they do not lessen its ability to do so. The mysterious, unsourced voice of Dionysos present in lines 1078–​1081, for instance, is described by the messenger both as an epiphany of the god and as a clearly communicated command –​perhaps the clearest in the play, unhampered by being located in a physical object. The fact that some of the visual effects in Bacchae mimic the properties inherent in sound suggests that the play’s version of Dionysiac worship is best expressed by sound. Indeed, an examination of the references to sound in Bacchae suggests that it is central both to the play and to the Dionysiac cult it presents. The worship of Dionysos –​Bromios, the Noisy one –​in Bacchae is defined by sound. The bacchants alter how space is experienced whenever they introduce a Dionysiac soundscape. Their behavior, in turn, is influenced by the Dionysiac space that they create. Sound also functions as a means of recognition and communication, both among the human characters and between Dionysos and his followers. All of these factors are present very early in the play, in the description of Dionysiac worship at the end of the first Choral ode:        ὁ δ’ ἔξαρχος Βρόμιος, ..............................................................       ὁ Βακχεὺς ἀνέχων πυρσώδη φλόγα πεύκας ἐκ νάρθηκος ἀίσσει δρόμῳ καὶ χοροῖσιν

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 221 πλανάτας ἐρεθίζων ἰαχαῖς τ’ ἀναπάλλων, τρυφερόν πλόκαμον εἰς αἰθέρα ῥίπτων. ἅμα δ’ εὐάσμασι τοιάδ’ ἐπιβρέμει· Ὦ ἴτε βάκχαι, ὦ ἴτε βάκχαι, Τμώλου χρυσορόου χλιδᾷ μέλπετε τὸν Διόνυσον βαρυβρόμων ὑπὸ τυμπάνων, εὔια τὸν εὔιον ἀγαλλόμεναι θεὸν ἐν Φρυγίαισι βοαῖς ἐνοπαῖσί τε, λωτὸς ὅταν εὐκέλαδος ἱερὸς ἱερὰ παίγματα βρέμῃ, σύνοχα φοιτάσιν εἰς ὄρος εἰς ὄρος        The leader is Bromios. ...........................................................        The Baccheus, raising the blazing flame of pine makes it stream from the shaft, goading the wandering ones by racing and dances, inciting them with his cries, tossing his luscious locks into the aither. Amid the shouts he roars out such things: “Oh go Bacchae, oh go Bacchae, with the splendor of gold-​flowing Tmolus sing and dance for Dionysos to the beat of deep-​rumbling drums exalting the cheerful god with cheers amid Phrygian shouts and cries, whenever the sacred sonorous flute rings its sacred lilting tunes, fitting for the mad roamers: to the mountain, to the mountain!” Bacchae 140; 145–​165 Bromios is ἔξαρχος, the leader, and, according to Dodds, his presence is recognized in the priest, the Baccheus.4 The epithet Bromios means “Noisy”5 and continues to be used throughout the play to describe Dionysos.6 It fits very appropriately here. Although the scene stimulates all of the senses, it is especially full of sound. The noise described by the Baccheus is chaotic, but it indicates Dionysos’ control over the soundscape –​any non-​Dionysiac sound would be drowned out. Whatever soundscape normally exists has given way to the sounds of the cult. Despite the noise, Dionysos himself, in the person of his priest, is still clearly heard shouting orders through the din. He incites the bacchants with his cries, driving them further into frenzied worship. Having

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222  Katie Lamberto attained recognition and control over the soundscape, Dionysos now uses sound to affect his worshippers. This scene presents sound as the key element of Dionysiac worship in Bacchae. It signifies the cult and motivates its participants. Pentheus’ later failed attempts to silence the worshippers as well as his eventual adoption of the visual but not aural aspects of the cult will demonstrate his inability to comprehend the nature of the cult that has entered Thebes. Because sound is presented as integral to the Dionysiac cult of Bacchae, it is not surprising to find that it is also a significant part of the play as a whole. In addition to news from offstage arriving in the form of speeches –​ which translate seen events into heard accounts –​sound is embedded into the narrative by being a primary means of recognition among characters and by being the primary means of communicating with the blind Tiresias. At various points in the play, Tiresias, Pentheus, and Dionysos are all recognized by the sounds they are making. These moments of recognition achieved through sound demonstrate the range of clarity that sound can carry. Kadmos greets Tiresias in line 178 by saying ὦ φίλταθ’, ὡς σὴν γῆρυν ᾐσθόμην κλύων, “My friend, I  knew your voice when I  heard it.” Kadmos knows Tiresias’ voice with the same certainty that he would know his face. Verdenius notes that γῆρυν is a poetic word that indicates a particularly loud cry.7 In lines 638–​639, Dionysos in the guise of the Stranger surmises from the sound of footsteps that Pentheus is on his way. Pentheus’ footsteps are a slightly less certain signifier than Tiresias’ γῆρυν, coming from somewhere offstage and communicating a sound somewhat open to interpretation. It makes sense that these footsteps belong to Pentheus –​as, indeed, they do –​but this is trusted more than known. Dionysos’ aural epiphany during the “palace miracles” scene in lines 576 to 584 unites the certainty and uncertainty of sound midway through the play. Dionysos calls out to the bacchants, who are initially confused by the mysterious unsourced voice. When Dionysos calls out a second time, however, they recognize it as the voice of their master: DIONYSOS:    ἰώ,              κλύετ’ ἐμᾶς κλύετ’ αὐδᾶς,              ἰὼ βάκχαι, ἰὼ βάκχαι. CHORUS:           τίς ὅδε, τίς πόθεν ὁ              ἀνά μ’ ἐκάλεσεν Εὐίου; DIONYSOS:      ἰὼ ἰώ, πάλιν αὐδῶ,              ὁ Σεμέλας, ὁ Διὸς παῖς. CHORUS:     ἰὼ δέσποτα δέσποτα,              μόλε νυν ἡμέτερον ἐς              θίασον, ὦ Βρόμιε. DIONYSOS:    Oh,              Listen, listen to my voice,              Oh bacchae, oh bacchae.

κέλαδος

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 223 CHORUS:      What’s this? What’s this? From              of Euios call me? DIONYSOS:    Oh, oh, I call again,            The child of Semele and Zeus. CHORUS:     Oh, oh, lord, lord,            Come now into our            Thiasos, Bromios, Bromios!

where did the sound

Bacchae 576–​584 This same pattern of misperception followed by recognition occurs again in Dionysos’ aural epiphany on Kithairon (1078–​1079; 1088–​1091), and the explicit recognition of Dionysos in both of these scenes supports the implicit recognition of him in the scene recounted in the first Choral ode. It should also be noted that Dionysos is not recognized visually at any point in the play –​his disguise as the Stranger fools all but the audience. Despite the  uncertainty inherent in sound, it is the surest means of recognition in Bacchae and is the only way Dionysos is clearly perceived. Tiresias, the blind seer, embodies the importance of sound for communication and understanding. His presence in the play is not necessary for the plot. The scene in which he and Kadmos are dressed in fawnskins has been interpreted as both comical and serious, and Tiresias is generally understood to be the voice of sophistic rationality.8 Sight and sound play an important part of the scene. Tiresias’ conversation with Kadmos focuses on the aural rather than the visual. In addition to recognizing him by his voice, Kadmos asks Tiresias to lead the way in celebrating the new god through dance (184–​ 186). Whereas Pentheus will later take on the appearance of a bacchant in order to spy on the women, Tiresias and Kadmos dress in order to take an active role in the worship. Their willingness to dance –​an activity typically done in response to a rhythm or sound of some kind  –​distinguishes them from Pentheus. They make no mention of creating sound themselves, however, unlike the bacchants who have fully accepted the cult. Kadmos and Tiresias betray a lack of understanding and an uncomfortableness with the new Dionysiac cult that is also reflected in their calculated reasoning for welcoming it. The perceived comical nature of the scene may in part be attributed to their somewhat misguided efforts to please Dionysos. One of the richest descriptions of sound in Bacchae comes in lines 120–​ 129, in which the Chorus explains that the Korybantes were the source and inspiration for Dionysiac revelry: ὦ θαλάμευμα Κουρή-​

των ζάθεοί τε Κρήτας Διογενέτορες ἔναυλοι, ἔνθα τρικόρυθες ἄντροις βυρσότονον κύκλωμα τόδε

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224  Katie Lamberto μοι Κορύβαντες ηὗρον· βακχείᾳ δ’ ἀνὰ συντόνῳ κέρασαν ἁδυβόᾳ Φρυγίων αὐλῶν πνεύματι ματρός τε Ῥέας ἐς χέρα θῆκαν, κτύπον εὐάσμασι Βακχᾶν Oh lair of the Kouretes and very holy Zeus-​bearing echo-​chambers of Crete, where the three-​crested Korybantes found for me in the caves that tight skin on the circle –​ then with bursting revelry mixed it with the sweet-​sounding breath of Phrygian flutes and set it in the hands of mother Rhea, a beat for the shouts of Bacchae The richness of the soundscape is further enhanced by the term ἔναυλοι, which can mean either “caves” or “with the flute.” It is not just the cave that is nurturing Zeus –​it is also the sounds. The choral reference to the Korybantes demonstrates the complete control of a soundscape and what this can achieve. The Korybantes dominate the soundscape in order to drown out the sounds made by the infant Zeus. They discover the drum –​“that tight skin on the circle” –​and mix it with the “sweet-​ sounding breath of Phrygian flutes,” giving it to Rhea as a “beat for the shouts of bacchae.” The noise –​loud and chaotic –​is only superficially uncontrolled, because it in fact takes over the soundscape and reshapes it to mask the truly uncontrollable sounds of the infant Zeus, thereby protecting him. The value of attaining control over the soundscape does not end with controlling what people hear. It also lies in the power that sound itself  –​and, therefore, the one in control of it –​can have over those listening. This potential influence that sound can have over its hearers is best demonstrated in the play by a brief reference to Orpheus. The Chorus, imagining where Dionysos might be, suggests, τάχα δ’ ἐν ταῖς πολυδένδρεσ-​

σιν Ὀλύμπου θαλάμαις, ἔν-​ θα ποτ’ Ὀρφεὺς κιθαρίζων σύναγεν δένδρεα μούσαις, σύναγεν θῆρας ἀγρώτας. or perhaps in the thickly-​wooded lairs of Olympus, where once Orpheus, playing the cithara, gathered the trees with his music, gathered the wild beasts Bacchae 560–​564

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 225 The mythical power of Orpheus’ music to move even the elements of nature is the prime example of the potency of sound, and the reference to it here implies that the power of sound may have a broader role in the play. Indeed, a parallel can be drawn between Orpheus’ musical power and Dionysos’ command over his frenzied followers, achieved at least in part through sound. The ability of sound to influence the natural world, and, by extension, human action, also imbues sound with a dangerous quality that will be explored in full by the end of the play. The Bacchic soundscape imagined in lines 677–​727 is reminiscent of both the Korybantic and Orphic soundscapes. The messenger describes how he saw the bacchants wake up on the mountain and engage with the  nearby herdsmen. His description demonstrates how the changed soundscape heralds an overall change in the place. He begins by describing the silent, sleeping women. After the sound of cattle wakens Agave (692), she shouts in order to rouse the others. The women soon begin to make noise in their worship of Dionysos, and the messenger says, πᾶν δὲ συνεβάκχευ’ ὄρος καὶ θῆρες, οὐδὲν δ’ ἦν ἀκίνητον δρόμῳ, “The entire mountain and the beasts reveled with them, and nothing was unmoved by their running” (726–​727). His statement indicates that the change in the soundscape dramatically affected the place as a whole, transforming it into Dionysiac space. Nature responded to the frenzy and participated in it. Although the chaos is reminiscent of the Korybantes, the influence of Bacchic sound on nature is like Orpheus’ power. Nature calmly ordered itself around Orpheus to hear his music; it reacts to the Dionysiac soundscape by actively participating and increasing the perceived level of chaos. Control of the soundscape is particularly important in Bacchae; in fact, the central conflict over the worship of Dionysos as a god is expressed several times as a conflict over the control of sound and what sounds should or should not be made. Pentheus frames much of his concern over Dionysiac cult in terms of sound and twice threatens to silence Dionysos and the bacchants. Pentheus’ desire to silence the bacchants and retain control over the Theban soundscape is countered by Dionysos’ encouragement of Bacchic noise, which he demands as part of his worship. The sounds of Bacchic revelry are found throughout the play. After Pentheus’ death, Dionysos tells the people of Thebes that all of this came about because they didn’t sing when they should have (1345). Pentheus initially describes the Stranger as a γόης ἐπῳδός (234). Both of these words are related to sound and connote its ability to enchant.9 Although his description continues with how the Stranger smells and looks, it is significant that his multisensory assessment begins with sound. A γόης is a wizard or sorcerer, and is related to the verb γοάω –​to groan or lament. The LSJ gives its basic meaning as “one who howls out enchantments.”10 The adjective ἐπῳδός, by contrast, literally means “singing over” and describes someone who uses spells or charms to heal wounds.11 The charming, charismatic qualities of Dionysos so evident in his appearance are also present in how he sounds.

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226  Katie Lamberto A few lines later, Pentheus makes a general threat against this howling enchanter, saying, εἰ δ’ αὐτὸν εἴσω τῆσδε λήψομαι στέγης, παύσω κτυποῦντα θύρσον ἀνασείοντά τε κόμας, τράχηλον σώματος χωρὶς τεμών. If I catch him under this roof, I’ll stop him from clanging the thyrsos and shaking his hair by cutting his throat. Bacchae 239–​241 Pentheus later speaks to the Stranger directly, telling him he will stop the women’s hands from the thump and beat of the drum by setting them up as loom-​slaves (lines 511–​514). During the first interrogation scene, Pentheus asks the Stranger if the Dionysiac rites are performed by night or by day (485–​ 486). Dionysos answers that they mostly take place at night, which is full of σεμνότης, “awe.” Darkness also generally minimizes sight, allowing other senses such as hearing and touch to take precedence. Pentheus demonstrates his continuing lack of understanding when he orders Dionysos to be imprisoned in the dark a few lines later (510–​511). He tells Dionysos that he can dance there –​a statement full of derision and sarcasm that betrays Pentheus’ ignorance. Based on what the Stranger said only a few lines earlier, a dark prison does not preclude Dionysiac revelry and may actually be preferable to a lighted area. The “palace miracles” scene confirms that the darkness prevented nothing and strengthens the assertion that Dionysos’ power is largely expressed and derived by sound. After the Stranger escapes from prison and the Messenger reports on the bacchants, Pentheus’ anger peaks and he gives orders to raise arms against them. The Stranger tells him to be quiet and that Bromios will not let him move the bacchants εὐίων ὀρῶν ἄπο, “from the mountains of joyous shouting” (790–​791). The Stranger’s language frames Pentheus’ actions in terms of noise and is subtlety infused with words promoting Dionysiac sound. Pentheus, echoing his earlier threats to silence what he does not understand, complains about the Stranger’s inability to stay quiet (801) and tells him to stop talking (809). The Stranger’s response is to shout ἆ (810), identified by Seaford as the moment that the Stranger begins to assert his control over the situation.12 With this inarticulate sound, the Stranger has directly contradicted Pentheus’ order. Pentheus will not ask him to be quiet again, and instead begins to imagine himself sitting σιγῇ, “in silence,” (816) on Kithairon to spy on the bacchants. When Pentheus agrees to dress as a bacchant, he seems to unwittingly accept and participate in the Dionysiac cult. He only accepts the visual signs of the cult, however, and obsesses over visual details while neglecting to dance or make noise. The only hint of his attention to this aspect of the cult comes

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 227 in lines 930–​931, where he explains that his hair became disheveled because he was shaking his head inside in Bacchic revelry. Dionysos quickly turns Pentheus’ attention back to the visual, fixing the hair and commenting on his outfit. Pentheus’ behavior can be contrasted with that of Kadmos and Tiresias earlier in the play who not only wear the clothing of bacchants but discuss how they will dance for Dionysos. Pentheus’ focus on the visual is not limited to the attention he gives his new outfit. His goal is to spy on the women, and the language in this part of the play is full of words for looking, hiding, and spying. Pentheus’ initial idea to tear up the mountain is met by Dionysos’ admonition to leave the land of flute-​playing Pan undisturbed. Segal contrasts Pentheus’ plan to destroy a place for music with Orpheus’ ability to draw the natural world to him by using music.13 Although Pentheus readily gives up this plan, it is not due to respect for Pan; he decides it is better to spy quietly than to take the women by force. He says, ἐμὸν κρύψω δέμας, “I will hide my body” (954), language that emphasizes his physical and visual presence. In the next two lines, Dionysos uses the words κρύψῃ, κρύψιν, and κρυφθῆναι, and refers to Pentheus as a κατάσκοπος, literally, “one who looks.” In line 975, immediately before the scene’s close, Dionysos says that he and Bromios will be the victors in the contest. His use of the epithet Bromios subtlety indicates that sound will prevail over sight. The choral ode after Pentheus and Dionysos leave for the mountain employs language referring to sight as well as sound. The Chorus imagines that Pentheus will be spotted by his mother, who will call on the other bacchants to attack him (982–​984). Like Dionysos, the Chorus refers to Pentheus as a κατάσκοπος (981). In line 1020, the Chorus wishes Dionysos will appear as a bull, lion, or serpent. Their hope for such an epiphany recalls Dionysos’ description of Pentheus’ experience in the “palace miracles” scene and anticipates the faulty vision of the bacchants on the mountain when they perceive Pentheus. The Chorus reacts to Pentheus’ death by exclaiming, εὐάζω ξένα μέλεσι βαρβάροις, “I, a stranger, sing euoi with foreign songs,” because there is no more need to fear Pentheus’ oppression (1034–​1035). The Messenger who traveled with Pentheus and Dionysos calls their goal a θεωρία, “spectacle” (1047). They were σιγηλός, “silent,” so they could see without being seen (1049–​1050). He describes the various activities of the bacchants, including a group that βακχεῖον ἀντέκλαζον ἀλλήλαις μέλος, “sang out a resounding Bacchic song to one another” (1057). In the lines immediately following this, the messenger explains how Pentheus complained that he could not see the bacchants. This led to Dionysos putting Pentheus in the pine tree where he was able to be seen by the bacchants more than he could see them. In seeking a spectacle, he becomes one. Sound’s power, importance in recognition, and ability to alter the environment –​aspects of sound all present in the first choral ode’s description of Dionysiac cult –​converge again in the dramatic death of Pentheus described by the messenger. The most significant sound moments in the messenger’s

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228  Katie Lamberto speech are found in lines 1077–​1091. The scene demonstrates the full power of Dionysiac sound: καὶ τὸν ξένον μὲν οὐκέτ’ εἰσορᾶν παρῆν, ἐκ δ’ αἰθέρος φωνή τις, ὡς μὲν εἰκάσαι Διόνυσος, ἀνεβόησεν· Ὦ νεάνιδες, ἄγω τὸν ὑμᾶς κἀμὲ τἀμά τ’ ὄργια γέλων τιθέμενον· ἀλλὰ τιμωρεῖσθέ νιν. καὶ ταῦθ’ ἅμ’ ἠγόρευε καὶ πρὸς οὐρανὸν καὶ γαῖαν ἐστήριξε φῶς σεμνοῦ πυρός. σίγησε δ’ αἰθήρ, σῖγα δ’ ὕλιμος νάπη φύλλ’ εἶχε, θηρῶν δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἤκουσας βοήν. αἳ δ’ ὠσὶν ἠχὴν οὐ σαφῶς δεδεγμέναι ἔστησαν ὀρθαὶ καὶ διήνεγκαν κόρας. ὃ δ’ αὖθις ἐπεκέλευσεν· ὡς δ’ ἐγνώρισαν σαφῆ κελευσμὸν Βακχίου Κάδμου κόραι, ᾖξαν πελείας ὠκύτητ’ οὐχ ἥσσονες ποδῶν τρέχουσαι συντόνοις δραμήμασι And the Stranger was no longer seen, but from the aither some voice, I suppose Dionysos, shouted, “Oh youthful women, I lead the one who made a mockery of you, me, and my rites. But exact vengeance upon him.” And as he addressed them a light of holy fire rose toward sky and earth. The aither went silent, the wooded glen had silent leaves, and you couldn’t hear the clamor of beasts. But they, not perceiving the sound clearly in their ears, stood straight and surveyed with their eyes. Again he called them, and when the daughters of Kadmos caught the clear order of Bacchos they darted no slower than a dove, running with a zealous race of feet. Bacchae 1077–​1091 The messenger reports how the Stranger disappears and a mysterious voice is heard shouting to the bacchants. This voice is described as coming ἐκ δ’ αἰθέρος, “from the aither” (1078), implying that it is unsourced and fills the space. Nature grows silent as Dionysos takes complete control of the soundscape. The bacchants are initially confused by the voice, and Dionysos repeats his command. The bacchants then clearly recognize the voice of the god and obey, attacking Pentheus. At the moment when Pentheus begins to be dismembered, he and the bacchants are filling the soundscape with their voices –​

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 229 ἦν δὲ πᾶσ’ ὁμοῦ βοή, ὃ μὲν στενάζων ὅσον ἐτύγχαν’ ἐμπνέων, αἳ δ’ ἠλάλαζον. …it was all one common noise, he groaning as long as his breath held out, and the women howling in triumph. Bacchae 1131–​1133 Dionysos’ manifestation and recognition as a voice has heralded his control both of the soundscape and of the people within it, leading to a blend of sounds marking Pentheus’ death. Despite Pentheus’ rejection of the aural aspects of the Dionysiac cult, he is compelled in his death to participate in the Dionysiac soundscape. According to Kadmos in Bacchae, Actaeon was killed because he κρείσσον’ ἐν κυναγίαις /​ Ἀρτέμιδος εἶναι κομπάσαντ’, “boasted he was a better hunter than Artemis” (339–​340). The verb κομπάζω implies sound; boasts are vocal, and the same word is attested in the third century BCE to indicate testing a jar by ringing it.14 The manner of Actaeon’s death, in contrast, relies heavily on sight; he is physically transformed into a stag and subsequently attacked by his own hounds. The similarities with Pentheus’ fate are obvious: both men are seen as prey rather than as themselves, and are thus turned on by allies. The deaths also offer vivid imagery that is taken up in the visual arts, both ancient and modern. The impetus for these heavily visual deaths, however, is primarily aural. Actaeon boasts, thereby insulting a divinity. Pentheus, on the other hand, denies the divinity of a god, attempts to silence him, and refuses to participate in his noisy worship. In line 1293, Kadmos tells Agave that Pentheus, having gone to Kithairon, ἐκερτόμει θεὸν σάς τε βακχείας, “was taunting the god and your bacchae.” In addition to the other parallels in the stories of Actaeon and Pentheus, the visual tricks and transformations that the offended deities perform are responses to insults governed by the power dynamics of sound. Sound in Bacchae is presented as a force sent out and imposed upon others. It arises and moves without warning, making real changes to physical space. It transforms a quiet mountain into a site of Bacchic revelry infused with the presence of Dionysos and incites the bacchants into other versions of themselves. Sound in the play may be misunderstood or not heard, but it is never false. The sound’s source  –​whether an individual, group, or something else –​exerts power through the action of being heard. Visual phenomena, by contrast, are vulnerable to being seen, and the viewer exerts power over what is viewed. Sight also is either static (when real) or shifting into various unreal perceptions. The double sun, Pentheus as a lion, and the bull in the palace are examples of sight deceiving the viewer. Pentheus dressing as a bacchant makes him more vulnerable (as Dionysos says, he will be ridiculed), and he misses the point by remaining

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230  Katie Lamberto silent in his costume. The fluidity of sight in the play –​shifting perceptions, etc. –​is always false, implying something wrong with the viewer’s ability to see clearly. Sound actively but secretly manipulates people in the play, while visual hallucinations are presented more as symptoms rather than causes of madness. If and when spectacles are perceived correctly, they cause controlled reactions –​the messenger sees what’s happening on the mountain and acts accordingly. The danger of sound –​and Dionysos –​is that people are induced to do things without making a conscious decision. This chapter has attempted to demonstrate the fruitfulness of examining the presence of sound in an ancient script and has attempted to provide an example of what such an examination would entail. By paying close attention to the aurality of a text –​including moments that feature sound as well as the language used to describe it –​and by keeping in mind the particular qualities of sound that differentiate it from visual objects or other types of sensory input, the role of sound in a text can be explored and understood on its own terms. The sounds of the bacchants are more than just a lot of noise.

Notes 1 E.g., Dodds (1960) xxiii and ad loc. 65–​67; Seaford (1996) 28–​29 and ad loc. 66; Winnington-​Ingram (1969) 31–​33. 2 Segal (1982) argues that the references to music in the play are expressive of a Dionysiac joy/​madness duality and briefly discusses the power inherent in music (70–​77). 3 See Connor (1997), especially pp. 56–​57, for a comparison of sound and sight in the context of modernity. 4 Dodds (1960) ad loc. 145. 5 LSJ ad loc. 6 It appears 21 times in the play, in lines 66, 84, 87, 115, 141a, 329, 375, 412, 446, 536, 546, 584, 592, 629, 726, 790, 976, 1031, and 1250. 7 Verdenius (1988) ad loc. 178. 8 E.g., Papadopoulou (2001) 26–​28; Segal (1982) 293–​295; Roth (1984) 60–​61. 9 The same combination of terms is used by Theseus in the Hippolytos 1038 to describe his son after hearing his defense and thinking Hippolytos is using his good spirit to win him over (LSJ ad loc.). 10 LSJ ad loc. 11 LSJ ad loc. 12 Seaford (1996) ad loc. 810. 13 Segal (1982) 76. 14 LSJ ad. loc.

Bibliography Connor, Steven. 1997. “Sound and the Self.” Reprinted in Mark M. Smith, ed., Hearing History: A Reader. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004, 54–​66. Dodds, E. R. 1960. Euripides’ Bacchae. Edited with an Introduction and Commentary. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Aural aspects of Euripides’ Bacchae 231 Papadopoulou, Thalia. 2001. “The Prophetic Figure in Euripides’ Phoenissae and Bacchae.” Hermes 129.1: 21–​31. Roth, Paul. 1984. “Teiresias as Mantis and Intellectual in Euripides’ Bacchae.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 114: 59–​69. Schafer, R. Murray. 1977. The Tuning of the World. New York: A. A. Knopf. Seaford, Richard. 1996. Euripides’ Bacchae. Edited with an Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Warminster: Aris & Phillips. Segal, Charles. 1982. Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides’ Bacchae. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Verdenius, W. J. 1988. “Cadmus, Tiresias, Pentheus Notes on Euripides’ Bacchae 170–​ 369.” Mnemosyne, Fourth Series, 41.3/​4: 241–​268. Winnington-​Ingram, R. P. 1969. Euripides and Dionysus. Amsterdam: Hakkert.

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16 Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed in Aeneid 81 James J. O’Hara

As everyone knows, the Aeneid ends with Aeneas’ killing of Turnus. Turnus pleads for his life, and Aeneas hesitates, sees that Turnus is wearing Pallas’ baldric, and then kills him in a rage of fury and anger: Ille, oculis postquam saevi monimenta doloris exuviasque hausit, furiis accensus et ira terribilis: “tune hinc spoliis indute meorum eripiare mihi? Pallas te hoc vulnere, Pallas immolat et poenam scelerato ex sanguine sumit.” Hoc dicens ferrum adverso sub pectore condit fervidus; ast illi solvuntur frigore membra vitaque cum gemitu fugit indignata sub umbras. Aen. 12.945–​952

This is a rich, complex ending, and one requiring correspondingly supple and complex interpretation. One way of approaching Aeneas’ killing of Turnus is to consider the role of furor in all of Vergil’s works, and what it means for Aeneas to kill furiis accensus et ira /​terribilis (946–​947) and fervidus (951). Another approach is to consider Anchises’ words to Aeneas in the underworld, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos (6.853), and whether Aeneas obeys his father’s commands.2 These are both complicated questions, which this chapter will not directly address, but my comments will not be not irrelevant to them. My subject is not Aeneas’ father, but Evander, a father figure who has a great deal of influence on what happens at the end of the poem, and indeed in Books 8–​12 as a whole, Evander, the Greek king and father of Pallas, who came over from Arcadia and is ruling in the area that will later be the city of Rome. The chapter will offer only a partial picture of Evander, but one rather different from the way in which he is usually viewed. My focus will be on Book 8, but before we get to Book 8, we need to call to mind two more later passages that suggest the importance of Evander’s influence on the end of the poem. The first is in Book 10, right after Pallas’ death, where we see that Pallas and Evander are on Aeneas’ mind (515–​517),

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 233 right before Aeneas takes prisoners to be offered as human sacrifice for Pallas (519–​520):          … Pallas, Evander, in ipsis omnia sunt oculis, mensae quas advena primas tunc adiit, dextraeque datae. Sulmone creatos quattuor hic iuvenes, totidem quos educat Vfens, viventis rapit, inferias quos immolet umbris captivoque rogi perfundat sanguine flammas. (10.515–​520)

The second passage is in Book 11, where Evander demands that Aeneas avenge the death of his son Pallas by killing Turnus, in words that in part motivate the actions of the poem’s final scene. sed infelix Teucros quid demoror armis? vadite et haec memores regi mandata referte: quod vitam moror invisam Pallante perempto dextera causa tua est, Turnum gnatoque patrique quam debere vides. Meritis vacat hic tibi solus fortunaeque locus. Non vitae gaudia quaero, nec fas, sed gnato manis perferre sub imos. (11.175–​181)

These passages are both familiar, but as they show the influence of Evander upon Aeneas it will be helpful to keep them in mind as we look at the earlier portrayal of Evander. We turn to Book 8 now. Basically I want to argue that there is a consistent portrayal in the Aeneid, produced by noteworthy details that I  think have never all been pulled together, of Evander’s extreme fondness for blood, gore, killing, and vengeful punishment, a fondness he shares with no other speaker in the poem.3 There are of course other aspects to Evander in the poem, and the traits to which I call attention are just part of the picture.4 Many scholars have shown that Evander is in many ways a sweet old man, like Homer’s Nestor, with whom the reader of the Aeneid sympathizes, especially when in Book 11 his sorrow at the loss of his son Pallas affects us deeply. He also represents an idealized and attractive alliance of Greek and Trojan, in contrast to the enmity stressed in earlier books of the Aeneid. Evander admirably urges Aeneas not to scorn the humility of his small home, and to take up the role fate has set for him, and both of these admonitions dovetail with aspects of Augustus’ program for renewal of old-​fashioned values. These are the usual traits associated with Evander. But I shall be calling attention to other aspects of the depiction of the Arcadian king, well grounded in the text, which point in a different direction, and have interesting consequences for how we view everything he says in the poem. In this chapter, I shall be making observations

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234  James J. O’Hara about the story of Hercules and Cacus that Evander tells Aeneas, the hymn to Hercules that Evander’s people sing right after the Cacus story, what Evander says about Mezentius and the Etruscans and about himself, and finally, the baldric that Evander’s son Pallas is wearing on his first and last day of battle. The noteworthy gory details start with the Hercules-​Cacus story. When Aeneas comes upon Evander and his son Pallas in Book 8, they are sacrificing to Hercules, and Evander explains at length that they commemorate a heroic exploit in which the visitor Hercules defeated and killed the local monster Cacus, who has stolen his cattle. Evander describes the cave of Cacus: hic spelunca fuit vasto summota recessu, semihominis Caci facies quam dira tenebat solis inaccessam radiis; semperque recenti caede tepebat humus, foribusque adfixa superbis ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo. (8.193–​197)

In lines 195–​196 Cacus’ lair is warm and wet with fresh slaughter (semperque recenti /​caede tepebat humus), and in 197 his victims’ heads drip gore from his doorposts (ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo).5 Recent scholarship has done much to point out the moral ambiguity that readers might see in the way in which Hercules kills Cacus for stealing his cattle, the cattle which he himself stole from Geryon, whom he killed, in ways that some ancient authors found less than admirable.6 Geryon’s death was described in a famous lost poem of Stesichorus, from which Vergil borrows in describing, sympathetically, the death of Euryalus in Aeneid 9.435–​437:  Euryalus’ head, like that of Geryon, droops in death like a broken poppy-​flower, as Vergil combines passages in Stesichorus, Homer and Catullus, and we suspect that Stesichorus also described the death of Geryon with sympathy. Recent scholars have also noted how details of the presentation of the confrontation between Hercules and Cacus blur the distinction between villain and hero:  in addition to thievery, there is also the way that both of them are associated with furor, and their use of violence.7 But I think it’s safe to say that Evander the storyteller is oblivious to all of this ambiguity. For him it is a story of a good man fighting and punishing a bad man: Evander’s name of course means Good Man, and Cacus’ name can be taken to mean Bad Man (even though the Greek word has a different accent and vowel quantity).8 To Evander Cacus has committed a scelus (sceleris in line 206) and Hercules is an ultor (line 201); to Evander it must be a good thing that Hercules in lines 219ff. burns with furor, and that he is furens in 228 and fervidus ira in 230, just like Aeneas at the end of the poem, in the lines quoted at the start of this chapter. The precise manner in which Evander describes the killing of Cacus also demands our attention. In line 220, Hercules grabs his familiar club, and in other versions of the Cacus story the hero kills the thief with his club –​in Livy before Vergil and by Propertius and Ovid after him, Ovid in an extensive

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 235 portrait in the Fasti in which Evander displays none of the fascination with blood and gore that I am claiming he shows in the Aeneid.9 In the Aeneid, in Evander’s story, Hercules does not kill Cacus with his club. There are in fact several unique or odd versions of myth associated with Evander in the Aeneid, and they contribute to his portrait as a lover of gruesome, hands-​on violence. When Hercules kills Cacus in Vergil, in lines 260–​261, he squeezes his blood-​ drained neck so hard his eyes pop out (angit inhaerens /​elisos oculos et siccum sanguine guttur). That’s what the Latin must be saying, but the Latin is as violent as the action; my footnote quotes Eden’s note on this line.10 Literally Evander seems to be saying that he chokes his squeezed-​out eyes. As Conte has argued, when Vergil writes Latin that we have to paraphrase before we can translate it, the original Latin is not to be dismissed as poetic cleverness, but its features and precise expressive force should get more and not less attention.11 The Latin here stresses the gruesome, hands-​on violence. I turn now to the hymn to Hercules that follows the Cacus story. This hymn is sung by Salian priests, but I shall speak as though Evander is in control of the contents of the hymn, so that its content can add to the characterization of him, which I think is a legitimate move.12 In lines 290–​291, the hymn boasts of Hercules’ sacking of both Troy, and Oechalia. ut bello egregias idem disiecerit urbes, Troiamque Oechaliamque, The mention of the sack of Troy may embarrass his Trojan guests, but Evander must view Troy as having been sacked rightly, in an instance of justified punishment, like Hercules’ killing of Cacus, because Laomedon denied Hercules his reward for saving Hesione from the sea-​monster.13 The sack of Oechalia can also be seen as justified punishment, for in some versions Hercules sacks the city because he was not rewarded as promised with Iole the daughter of the king. In some versions, that pretense is specious, or not even mentioned, as Hercules sacks Oechalia simply because he lusts for Iole, for example in Sophocles’ Trachiniae. Scholars have noted the interesting resonance of the Oechalia story with that of Aeneas and Turnus. Aeneas fights because he has been denied a promised bride, but the story of Turnus is perhaps even closer, although some details are uncertain, because we only hear about them from people in the grip of Allecto’s furor.14 At least in the mind of Turnus and Amata, Turnus fights because he has been denied a bride after doing services for her father, who he thinks has promised her to him (cf. 9.138 coniuge praerepta). In lines 293–​294, the hymn then lists, as a feat, Hercules’ slaughtering or sacrificing of two centaurs “by hand”:       tu nubigenas, invicte, bimembris Hylaeumque Pholumque manu… mactas,

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236  James J. O’Hara It would take a long time to sort out all the mythological versions relevant to these two lines, and we can’t be sure what an original reader would be thinking. The Georgics say that Hylaeus and Pholus were killed in the famous drunken brawl between the Lapiths and the Centaurs.15 Many versions, including those of Servius and Apollodorus, do say that Hercules was involved in the death of Pholus, but none that he “slaughtered him by hand.” In Servius and Apollodorus, Hercules is a guest of Pholus, and Pholus dies accidentally after touching one of his poisoned arrows, after a brawl with other centaurs, whose wine Hercules had drunk without permission.16 As Fordyce notes in his commentary, this is “not a very creditable exploit” –​but it must be to Evander and to the singers of the hymn, who claim that Hercules “sacrificed” them by hand, manu mactas, just as in Evander’s story he kills Cacus not with his club but with his bare hands. In Apollodorus, the accidental death of Pholus follows the accidental killing by Hercules of Chiron. Accidentally killing Chiron would certainly not be “a very creditable exploit,” it would be like killing Mr. Rogers, or Professor Dumbledore, and without even being a secret double agent still in love with a young wizard’s dead green-​eyed mother. In lines 294–​295, the next words, and in part the same words, the same words manu mactas, say that Hercules killed not only the Nemean lion, but also the Cretan bull, which all other versions say he captured alive as ordered by Eurystheus. …Hylaeumque Pholumque manu, tu Cresia mactas prodigia et vastum Nemeae sub rupe leonem My claim is that there is no other explanation for this unique version of the myth except that Evander loves talking or hearing about killing. Two lines later comes a description of Cerberus with half-​eaten bones in his bloody underworld cavern: te Stygii tremuere lacus, te ianitor Orci ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento; (296–​297)

Modern commentators have enjoyed gently mocking James Henry’s 19th-​ century question about Cerberus here: “Where did he get his bones in that region of shadows? … [T]‌he cake the Sibyl was so thoughtful as to bring with her… and unfortunate Pirithous, are the only food I ever heard from any reliable authority of his getting.”17 It is true that Hesiod Theogony 311–​312 does say that Cerberus eats raw flesh, as commentators note, but none of the commentators are asking the right question, which is why Vergil depicts Cerberus here with bones in a bloody doghouse. My answer is, again, because Evander loves gore and blood and killing, as much as Quentin Tarentino or other modern filmmakers or our students who play

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 237 those extremely violent video games. Many have noted that the gore of Cerberus’ canine cave resembles that of Cacus’ cave. Compare ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento (297) with caede tepebat humus, foribusque adfixa superbis /​ora virum tristi pendebant pallida tabo (196–​197). The story told by Evander about Hercules and Cacus, and the hymn sung by Evander’s people, have caves dripping with blood because Evander loves that kind of stuff. Later passages of Book 8 continue the stress on killing and/​or gore, and in fact I think are easier to understand when we take them all together. On the future site of Rome, Evander tells Aeneas about the Argiletum, named for a guest of his who was somehow killed, perhaps, as Servius notes, by Evander or by his people because he sought to take Evander’s crown from him.18 nec non et sacri monstrat nemus Argileti testaturque locum et letum docet hospitis Argi. (345–​346)

We can’t know exactly what Vergil is saying here, but if readers would think or speculate about what happened to Argus, they should do so in light of the overall characterization of Evander, which suggests an ideology in which killing is often the right thing to do. It should be noted, however, that there is nothing gory about this killing, and no evidence in the Aeneid that Evander killed Argus, and little evidence anywhere that Evander takes particular pleasure in actually killing anyone, as opposed to talking and hearing about it. We should look now at a passage later in Book 8.  When telling Aeneas about Mezentius, Evander says he ties living men to corpses so that they die oozing with liquid gore and filth: mortua quin etiam iungebat corpora vivis componens manibusque manus atque oribus ora, tormenti genus, et sanie taboque fluentis complexu in misero longa sic morte necabat. (485–​488)

Mezentius, like Cacus (the word tabo appeared in line 197, quoted earlier), is depicted as a monster.19 Mezentius will be a fierce killer in Book 10, but not a monster –​and of course Vergil’s first readers will have recently read in Livy 1 a Hercules-​Cacus story in which Cacus is not a monster either. Whether what Evander says about Mezentius is true is a question that cannot be answered, but it is certainly true that Vergil has him tell this story about Mezentius’ gory killing of prisoners partly because Evander is a character who loves gory stories of killing. Evander goes on to discuss how Mezentius’ people drove him into exile, and then how they rose up in “righteous anger” to seek “punishment”:

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238  James J. O’Hara ergo omnis furiis surrexit Etruria iustis, regem ad supplicium praesenti Marte reposcunt. (495–​496)

Righteous furor, like in the Cacus story. A couple of lines later, when Evander quotes the oracle saying the Etruscans need a foreign leader, the oracle reminds the Etruscans that they are angry at Mezentius, and rightly so: quos iustus in hostem /​fert dolor et merita accendit Mezentius ira (500–​501). The oracle that Evander quotes conveniently shares both his belief in righteous punishment, and his vocabulary. The phrase iustae irae will also be used of the Etruscans by the narrator in Book 10 (10.714), but the first-​time reader of Book 8 cannot know that will happen. So that’s Evander’s story of Mezentius’ exile. We turn briefly now to a speech by Evander with no mention of gore or violence or killing: his own story of how he was driven from his homeland: me pulsum patria pelagique extrema sequentem Fortuna omnipotens et ineluctabile fatum his posuere locis, matrisque egere tremenda Carmentis nymphae monita et deus auctor Apollo. (8.333–​336)

Evander says me pulsum patria, with no explanation of how or why he was driven out. The near contemporary Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.31 says that that after factional strife Evander’s defeated party chose to emigrate. Ovid in Fasti 1.481–​484 has a version in which Evander’s mother says he was exiled because he got a god mad at him, but scholars rightly think that Ovid’s own exile at the hands of the godlike emperor Augustus has influenced Ovid’s story.20 Servius, who preserves much older material, tells us that Evander killed his father, Servius Auctus that it was his mother than he killed.21 What are we to make of this? What would readers think about how Mezentius was driven into exile, and how Evander was? We don’t know a lot about Mezentius yet, but we know a lot about Evander. Later in Book 8 we see the one story in which Evander actually is said to do the killing himself: his own story of how when he was young and strong, and slew the three-​souled Erulus. o mihi praeteritos referat si Iuppiter annos, qualis eram cum primam aciem Praeneste sub ipsa stravi scutorumque incendi victor acervos et regem hac Erulum dextra sub Tartara misi, nascenti cui tris animas Feronia mater (horrendum dictu) dederat, terna arma movenda: ter leto sternendus erat; cui tunc tamen omnis abstulit haec animas dextra et totidem exuit armis. (560–​567)

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 239 Evander’s killing of triple-​souled Erulus is mentioned only here; Vergil imitates the way Nestor tells of his own slaying of Itymoneus, also not mentioned elsewhere (Il. 11.672). But the three-​souled Erulus is like the three-​bodied Geryon (tergemini…Geryonae 8.202) killed and robbed by Hercules. Evander seems to appropriate to himself (Servius uses the Latin legal term vindicare) a story that was told of Hercules (attendendum sane, hoc sibi Evandrum vindicare quod fuit in Hercule; nam ut ille Geryonem extinxit, ita hic Erylum occidit).22 Is the reader supposed to think that just by coincidence Evander had an experience just like that of his hero? Or is the story suspicious and not credible? What does this story do to our views of what Evander says about Mezentius, and about his own exile? I began this chapter by mentioning the end of the poem and Pallas’ baldric, and return to it now. Vergil describes the baldric in Book 10, as Turnus takes it from Pallas’s lifeless body: et laevo pressit pede talia fatus exanimem rapiens immania pondera baltei impressumque nefas: una sub nocte iugali caesa manus iuvenum foede thalamique cruenti, quae Clonus Eurytides multo caelaverat auro; quo nunc Turnus ouat spolio gaudetque potitus. (10.495–​500)

The baldric depicts the bloody story of how the daughters of Danaus killed their cousins and husbands, the sons of Aegyptus, on their wedding night: caesa manus iuvenum foede thalamique cruenti. There has been a lot of good work done on what the deaths of these young men suggest about the killing of Pallas and of Turnus, and why Augustus had statues of Danaus and his daughters in the portico of Augustus’ temple to Apollo.23 But we should also ask: Why is Evander’s son Pallas going to war wearing a belt with dead young men on it? This is no different from asking why Turnus has Io on his shield, or why Dido puts scenes from Troy on a temple to Juno.24 For Evander I think the answer is now pretty obvious: it’s a scene of bloody violence and of vengeful punishment by Danaus of his brother Aegyptus. Everything Evander loves! I can just imagine him in the weaponry store, or flipping through the catalog, and finding this baldric. “This would be great for the boy!” Evander is in some ways a sweet old man who represents the alliance of Greek and Roman, who admirably urges Aeneas not to scorn the humility of his small home, and whose sorrow at the loss of his son affects us deeply. These are three aspects of his portrayal that this paper has ignored. But Evander also displays a Tarentino-​esque delight in talking or hearing about killing and gore that complicates his status in the poem. We also need to think about how Evander’s ideology influences Aeneas, and provides a much more immediate influence on him than his real dead father’s injunction in the underworld to spare the conquered. The ambivalent portrait of Evander should thus be on our mind when we read the poem’s challenging final lines.

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240  James J. O’Hara

Notes 1 I am happy to offer this paper in honor of Blaise Nagy, with whom I took courses on “Sallust and Livy” and “Readings in Greek” (with a brutal sight-​passage from Demosthenes on the final) and audited a Horace course; I also worked with him on a short writing project senior year, in which I learned a great deal about precise and careful writing, in which every word counts. I think he will appreciate that this paper is on a Latin text I  first read with Fr. Robert Healey, S.J. The paper was originally delivered at the January 2012 meeting of the American Philological Association in Philadelphia, and an expanded version was given at Pennsylvania State University as part of the series “Virgil in Penn’s Woods.” Some of the work was done while I was a James Gilmore Fletcher Whitton Faculty Fellow at UNC’s Institute for Arts & Humanities. For helpful comments on the APA paper I thank Carole Newlands, for the invitation to Penn State I  thank Stephen Wheeler. For comments on the longer paper I  thank Professor Wheeler, Garrett Fagan, Paul Harvey, and Zoe Stamatopoulou, and for comments on this version I thank Lee Fratantuono. 2 The scholarship on the end of the Aeneid is of course vast; see Putnam (1995, chs. 1 and 7–​10) and now (2011), Horsfall (1995) 192–​216, Hardie (1998) 99–​101, Gill (2006) 448–​461, Tarrant (2004), and now the commentary of Tarrant (2012). In O’Hara (2010) 106, I briefly discuss the treatment of the killing of Turnus by novelist Ursula LeGuin in her 2008 novel Lavinia; her story goes beyond the end of the Aeneid, and she has Aeneas and Lavinia actually discuss Turnus’ death, in interesting ways. 3 I here survey the most noteworthy other descriptions of gore in the poem, and their association with characters or the narrator. Certainly, Turnus in his furor loves to inflict violence, and will hang severed heads on his chariot (12.510–​511), rather like Cacus, and Aeneas when enraged will deal out gruesome violence with great enthusiasm, as do various minor characters. But nobody likes talking or hearing about it as much as Evander. Aeneas in 3.24–​30 tells of pulling up the bloody reeds where Polydorus is buried (huic atro liquuntur sanguine guttae /​et terram tabo maculant), but he is horrified. Achaemenides in 3.616–​629 tells of the Cyclops’ eating of his companions, and of his punishment, with gory language like that of the Odyssean original (sanieque aspersa natarent /​limina; vidi atro cum membra fluentia tabo, 625–​626). The prime narrator tells in 9.465–​472 about the gore dripping from the severed heads of Nisus and Euryalus (simul ora virum praefixa movebant /​nota nimis miseris atroque fluentia tabo, 471–​472), in 12.339–​ 340 about the blood spattered by Turnus’ chariot and in 510–​511 about the blood flowing from the heads (rorantia sanguine) that he attaches to his chariot, in 8.644–​645 about the bloody limbs of Mettus torn apart by horses on Aeneas’ shield (sparsi rorabant sanguine vepres), at 8.695 about the sea red with blood at Actium (arva nova Neptunia caede rubescunt), and about numerous bloody deaths in battle. The prime narrator does not, it seems to me, speak of blood and gore with the same gusto that Evander does. 4 See Papaioannou (2003) 680–​702, Fantham (1992) 155–​171, Fratantuono (2007) 235–​249. I have benefited much from the chapter “Pallas” in Petrini (1987) 48–​86. 5 I note in passing that foribusque adfixa superbis (196) weirdly connects Cacus with Augustus on the shield of Aeneas: dona recognoscit populorum aptatque superbis /​ postibus (8.721–​722); see Fowler (2000) 49–​54, Reed (2007) 124.

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 241 6 For the myth of Geryon, see Gantz (1993) 402–​408, Horsfall (2000) 433–​434, Nisbet and Hubbard on Hor. Carm. 2.14.8. Pindar frag. 81 SM describes Geryon as praiseworthy compared to Hercules, and Pindar frag. 169 SM is quoted by a character in Plato Gorgias 484b1–​c3, who says that Hercules took Geryon’s cattle “without purchasing or being given them” due to the natural right of the stronger to take possessions from the weaker. 7 “It is notoriously hard to distinguish between the emotions and tactics of the ‘evil’ Cacus and the champion of ‘good man’ Evander” (Hardie [1993] 66); also Sansone (1991), Feeney (1991) 156–​162, (1998) 55–​56, Ferenczi (1998–​1999), Newman (2002), Lyne (1987) 32–​33, Gildenhard (2004). Morgan (2009) offers a positive view of Hercules’ violence. 8 On the punning names, cf. Hardie quoted in previous note, and O’Hara (1996) 204; on puns that are made despite differing vowel quantities cf. O’Hara (1996) 61–​62. 9 Livy 1.7.7, Propertius 4.9.15, Ovid Fasti 1.575–​576 (cf. the n. in Green’s commentary) 10 Eden on 260 f. is worth quoting at length: “angit…guttur: tr. ‘strangled him until his eyes started from his head and his throat was drained of blood’. Literally ‘clinging to him he throttles his dashed-​out eyes and throat dry of blood’. The phraseology is compressed and violent through the combination of two common figures: (I) angit is strictly connected with guttur, only by zeugma with oculos which however comes first; in many cases of this figure the ‘surprise’ noun is less startling through following an expected one, cf., for example, Val. F1. 8.68…; (2) elisos and siccum are both proleptic …. Difficulty was felt about elisos in antiquity: Servius defends it as … an apparent solecism; elidens was preferred by many scholars and has found its way into the MS tradition, but after inhaerens another present participle is of course stylistically impossible (even if separated by a comma). ango and angor (noun) seem to be used exclusively of mental distress before the Augustan period; here, in its only occurrence in the Aeneid, Virgil imposes the literal physical sense.” 11 Conte (2007), especially 91, 98–​100. 12 On the hymn see Hardie (1986) 111–​112 (noting features shared with the Hercules-​ Cacus story), Heiden (1987), Galinsky (1990) 288–​289, Lowrie (2009) 57–​58, and Miller (2014), whose focus is quite different from mine. 13 On Hercules and Troy, see Gantz (1993) 400–​402. Vergil has Anchises refer to this earlier sack at 2.642–​643. As Gransden on 8.157–​159 notes, we are also reminded of this story earlier in Book 8 when Evander speaks of meeting Anchises in Arcadia when Priam was travelling to visit Hesione –​a key figure in the earlier sack. Evander’s notion of Troy as guilty differs from what Aeneas in Book 2 quotes Venus as saying to him (non tibi Tyndaridis facies invisa Lacaenae /​culpatusue Paris, divum inclementia, divum /​has evertit opes sternitque a culmine Troiam, 2.601–​602). But of course that is also a story. 14 On Oechalia, see sources in Gantz (1993) 434–​437; Soph. Trach. 351–​374 omits the promise. On Turnus and Aeneas, cf. Buchheit (1963) 123 (stressing the tie to Aeneas), Fratantuono (2007) 240. 15 Geo. 2.455–​457:  Bacchus et ad culpam causas dedit; ille furentis /​Centauros leto domuit, Rhoecumque Pholumque /​et magno Hylaeum Lapithis cratere minantem. See Thomas’ n. for Vergil’s mythological innovation here. 16 Servius on 8.294:  H YLAEV M QU E P H OLU M QU E Hylaeum Theseus interemit, Pholus vero Herculem suscepit hospitio eo tempore, quo ad expugnandos Centauros esset profectus: Lucanus hospes et Alcidae magni, Phole. unde apparet

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242  James J. O’Hara per poeticam licentiam nomina esse pro nominibus posita. [Servius Auctus, in italics:] alii Pholum non abhorrere a vera historia tradunt. Pholus enim dum miratur sagittas Herculis, quibus tot Centauros interfecerat, una ex illis in pedem eius decidit, cuius vulnere sanari non potuit. C RESI A MACTAS PROD IG IA ‘mactas’ bene ad leonem, quem interemit, refertur:  nam Cretensem taurum non mactavit, sed cum eum incolumem ad Eurystheum perduxisset, [Servius Auctus:] ille eum licet flammas vomuisse dictus sit, inlectus pulchritudine, in Atticam regionem reliquit. qui cum Marathonem vastaret, a Theseo postea occisus est. … [Servius Auctus:] alii ‘mactas’ ad Centauros sicut ad leonem referri volunt. Apollodorus 2.5.4 (I have underlined the central details):  τέταρτον ἀˆ θλον ἐπέταξεν αὐτῳˆ τòν Ἔρυμάνθιον κάπρον ζω̂ντα κομίζειν:  του̂το δὲ τò θηρίον ἠδίκει τὴν Ψωφίδα, ὁρμώμενον ἐξ ὄρους ὃ καλου̂σιν Ἔρύμανθον. διερχόμενος οὐˆ ν Φολόην ἐπιξενου̂ται Κενταύρῳ Φόλῳ, Σειληνου̂ καὶ νύμφης μελίας παιδί. οὑˆ τος Ἡρακλει̂ μὲν μὲν ὀπτὰ παρει̂ χε τὰ κρέα, αὐτὸς δὲ ὠμοι̂ ς ἐχρη̂το. αἰτου̂ντος δὲ οἰˆνον Ἡρακλέους, ἔφη δεδοικέναι τὸν κοινὸν τω̂ν Κενταύρων ἀνοι̂ ξαι πίθον:  θαρρει̂ ν δὲ παρακελευσάμενος Ἡρακλη̂ς αὐτὸν ἤνοιξε, καὶ μετ᾽ οὐ πολὺ τη̂ς ὀσμη̂ς αἰσθόμενοι παρη̂σαν οἱ Κένταυροι, πέτραις ὡπλισμένοι καὶ ἐλάταις, ἐπὶ τὸ του̂ Φόλου σπήλαιον. τοὺς μὲν οὐˆ ν πρώτους τολμήσαντας εἴσω παρελθει̂ ν Ἄγχιον καὶ Ἄγριον Ἡρακλη̂ς ἐτρέψατο βάλλων δαλοι̂ ς, τοὺς δὲ λοιποὺς ἐτόξευσε διώκων ἄχρι τη̂ς Μαλέας. ἐκει̂ θεν δὲ πρὸς Χείρωνα συνέφυγον, ὃς ἐξελαθεὶς ὑπὸ Λαπιθω̂ν ὄρους Πηλίου παρὰ Μαλέαν κατῴκησε. τούτῳ περιπεπτωκότας τοὺς Κενταύρους τοξεύων ἵησι βέλος ὁ Ἡρακλη̂ς, τὸ δὲ ἐνεχθὲν Ἐλάτου διὰ του̂ βραχίονος τῳˆ γόνατι του̂Χείρωνος ἐμπήγνυται. ἀνιαθεὶς δὲ Ἡρακλη̂ς προσδραμὼν τό τε βέλος ἐξείλκυσε, καὶ δόντος Χείρωνος φάρμακον ἐπέθηκεν. ἀνίατον δὲ ἔχων τὸ ἕλκος εἰς τὸ σπήλαιον ἀπαλλάσσεται. κἀκει̂ τελευτη̂σαι βουλόμενος, καὶ μὴ δυνάμενος ἐπείπερ ἀθάνατος ἠˆ ν, ἀντιδόντος Διὶ Προμηθέως αὑτὸν ἀντ᾽ αὐτου̂ γενησόμενον ἀθάνατον, οὕτως ἀπέθανεν. οἱ λοιποὶ δὲ τω̂ν Κενταύρων φεύγουσιν ἄλλος ἀλλαχῃˆ, καὶ τινὲς μὲν παρεγένοντο εἰς ὄρος Μαλέαν, Εὐρυτίων δὲ εἰς Φολόην, Νέσσος δὲ ἐπὶ ποταμὸν Εὔηνον. τοὺς δὲ λοιποὺς ὑποδεξάμενος Ποσειδω̂ν εἰς Ἐλευσι̂ να ὄρει κατεκάλυψεν. Φόλος δὲ ἑλκύσας ἐκ νεκρου̂ τὸ βέλος ἐθαύμαζεν, εἰ τοὺς τηλικούτους τὸ μικρὸν διέφθειρε: τὸ δὲ τη̂ς χειρὸς ὀλισθη̂σαν ἠˆ λθεν ἐπὶ τὸν πόδα καὶ παραχρη̂μα ἀπέκτεινεν αὐτόν. ἐπανελθὼν δὲ εἰς Φολόην Ἡρακλη̂ς καὶ Φόλον τελευτήσαντα θεασάμενος, θάψας αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὴν του̂ κάπρου θήραν παραγίνεται, καὶ διώξας αὐτὸν ἔκ τινος λόχμης μετὰ κραυγη̂ς, εἰς χιόνα πολλὴν παρειμένον εἰσωθήσας ἐμβροχίσας τε ἐκόμισεν εἰς Μυκήνας. 17 James Henry (1873–​1892) on 8.297–​301, vol. 3 pp. 689–​690 (I have also seen an edition in which this note was on pp. 701–​702). Cf. the notes of Fordyce and Eden on 297. 18 Servius on 345:  SAC RI M ON STRAT N EM U S A RG IL E T I ‘sacri’ execrabilis. sane Argiletum, quasi argilletum, multi volunt a pingui terra; alii a fabula. nam Evander Argum quendam suscepit hospitio. qui cum de eius cogitaret interitu, ut ipse regnaret, Evandro hoc non sentiente socii intellexerunt et Argum necarunt:  cui Evander et sepulchrum fecit et locum sacravit, non quod ille merebatur, sed hospitalitatis causa. bene autem in hac re Evander inmoratur et docet causas, ne apud hospitem veniat in suspitionem. ergo Argiletum ab Argo illic sacrato et sepulto. [Servius Auctus:] alii Argum occisum dicunt ab ipso Evandro, auxiliante sibi Hercule, quod is ex hospite factus esset inimicus. 19 On Mezentius cf. Kronenberg (2005), Burke (1974), Thome (1979), especially 24–​ 42, Gotoff (1984), Gaskin (1992). 20 Cf. Green (2004) on F. 1.479–​496

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 243 21 Servius on 8.333:  M E P U LSU M PATRI A aut, ut diximus supra, propter parricidium:  aut certe oraculorum necessitate conpulsum. Servius on 8.51:  ARC ADE S H I S ORI S G EN U S A PALLAN TE PROF E CT U M Evander Arcas fuit, nepos Pallantis, regis Arcadiae. hic patrem suum occidit, suadente matre Nicostrata, quae etiam Carmentis dicta est, quia carminibus vaticinabatur. [Servius Auctus:] alii ipsam Nicostratam, matrem Evandri, cum esset centum decem annorum, a filio peremptam tradunt. 22 Cf. Petrini (1997) 51. 23 Cf. Breen (1986), who discusses why the violent scene on the shield might be appropriate for Pallas, Conte (1986) 185–​195, Spence (1991), Petrini (1997) 81–​84. 24 On Turnus’ shield cf. Breen (1986), Thomas (1998) 285–​288; on Dido’s temple see Putnam (1998) 23–​56.

Bibliography Breen, C. C. 1986. “The Shield of Turnus, the Swordbelt of Pallas, and the Wolf.” Vergilius 32: 63–​71. Buchheit, V. 1963. Vergil über der Sendung Roms: Untersuchung zum Bellum Poenicum und zur Aeneis. Gymn. Beiheft 3. Heidelberg: C. Winter. Burke, Jr., Paul F. 1974. “The Role of Mezentius in the Aeneid.” Classical Journal 69.3: 202–​209 Conte, G. B. 1986. The Rhetoric of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Conte G. B. 2007. The Poetry of Pathos:  Studies in Virgilian Epic. Oxford:  Oxford University Press. Eden, P. T. 1975. A Commentary on Virgil: Aeneid VIII. Mnemosyne, Supplement 35. Leiden: Brill. Fantham, E. 1992. “The Role of Evander in Ovid’s Fasti.” Arethusa 25: 155–​171. Ferenczi, A. 1998–​1999. “The Double-​Faced Hercules in the Cacus-​Episode of the ‘Aeneid.’” Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 34–​35: 327–​334. Fordyce, C. J. 1977. P. Vergili Maronis Aeneidos Libri VII–​VIII with a Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fowler, D. P. 2000. Roman Constructions: Readings in Postmodern Latin. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fratantuono, L. 2007. Madness Unchained:  A Reading of Virgil’s Aeneid. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Galinsky, G. K. 1990. “Hercules in the Aeneid.” In S. J. Harrison, ed. Oxford Readings in Vergil’s Aeneid. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 277–​294. Gantz, T. 1993. Early Greek Myth. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gaskin, R. 1992. “Turnus, Mezentius and the Complexity of Virgil’s Aeneid.” Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History VI. Series edited by Carl Deroux. Brussels: Latomus, 217, 295–​316. Gildenhard, I. 2004. “Confronting the Beast: From Virgil’s Cacus to the Dragons of Cornelis van Haarlem.” Proceedings of the Vergil Society 25: 27–​48. Gill, C. 2006. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gotoff, H. C. 1984. “The Transformation of Mezentius.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 114: 191–​218.

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244  James J. O’Hara Gransden, K. W. 1976. Virgil Aeneid Book VIII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Green, S. J. 2004. Ovid, Fasti 1: A Commentary. Leiden: Brill. Hardie, P. 1986. Virgil’s Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hardie, P. 1993. The Epic Successors of Virgil: A Study in the Dynamics of a Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hardie, P. 1998. Virgil. G&R New Surveys in Classics 28. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrison, E. L. 1988. “Vergil’s Introduction of Mezentius:  Aeneid 7, 647–​ 8.” Proceedings of the Vergil Society 19:70–​77 Heiden, B. 1987. “Laudes Herculeae: Suppressed Savagery in the Hymn to Hercules, Verg. A. 8.285–​305.” American Journal of Philology 108: 661–​671. Henry, J. 1873–​1892. Aeneidea, or critical, exegetical, and aesthetical remarks on the Aeneid. 5 vols. Dublin and London: Northgate. Horsfall, N., ed. 1995. A Companion to the Study of Virgil. Leiden: Brill. Horsfall, N. 2000. Virgil, Aeneid 7:  A Commentary. Mnemosyne, Supplement 198. Leiden: Brill. Johnson, W. R. 1976. Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kronenberg, L. 2005. “Mezentius the Epicurean.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 135.2: 403–​431. Le Guin, U. 2008. Lavinia. Orlando, FL: Harcourt. Lowrie, M. 2009. Writing, Performance, and Authority in Augustan Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lyne, R. O. A. M. 1987. Further Voices in Vergil’s Aeneid. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, J. F. 2009. Apollo, Augustus, and the Poets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, J. F. 2014. “Virgil’s Salian Hymn to Hercules.” Classical Journal 109.4: 439–​463. Morgan, L. 1998. “Assimilation and Civil War:  Hercules and Cacus:  Aen. 8.185–​ 267.” In H. P. Stahl, ed., Vergil’s Aeneid:  Augustan Epic and Political Context. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 175–​197. Newman, J. K. 2002. “Hercules in the Aeneid: The Dementia of Power.” In Pol Defosse, ed., Hommages à Carl Deroux: I. Poésie. Brussels: Latomus, 266, 398–​411. Nisbet, R. G.  M. and Hubbard, M. 1978. A Commentary on Horace Odes II. Oxford: Oxford University Press. O’Hara, J. 1996. True Names:  Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. O’Hara, J. 2010. “The Unfinished Aeneid?” In J. Farrell and M. Putnam, eds., A Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and Its Tradition. Malden, MA:  Wiley-​Blackwell, 96–​106. Papaioannou, S. 2003. “Founder, Civilizer and Leader: Vergil’s Evander and His Role in the Origins of Rome.” Mnemosyne 56.6: 680–​702. Petrini, M. 1997. The Child and the Hero: Coming of Age in Catullus and Vergil. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Putnam, M. C.  J. 1995. Virgil’s Aeneid:  Interpretation and Influence. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Putnam, M. C. J. 1998. Virgil’s Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Evander’s love of gore and bloodshed 245 Putnam, M. C. J. 2011. The Humanness of Heroes: Studies in the Conclusion of Virgil’s Aeneid. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Reed, J. 2007. Virgil’s Gaze: Nation and Poetry in the Aeneid. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Spence, S. 1991. “Clinching the Text:  The Danaids and the End of the Aeneid.” Vergilius 37: 11–​19. Tarrant, R. 2004. “The Last Book of the Aeneid.” Syllecta Classica 15: 103–​129. Tarrant, R. 2012. Virgil: Aeneid Book XII. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomas, R. F. 1988a. Virgil:  Georgics. 2  vols. Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press. Thomas R. F. 1998b. “The Isolation of Turnus: Aeneid Book 12.” In H. P. Stahl, ed. Vergil’s ‘Aeneid’: Augustan Epic and Political Context. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 271–​302. Thome G. 1979. Gestalt und Funktion des Mezentius bei Vergil, mit einem Ausblick auf die Schlusszene der Aeneis. Bern: Peter Lang.

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17 A disquiet follows my soul: Civil war in Livy Book I1 Mark J. B. Wright

For Blaise Nagy: nam tu solebas meas esse aliquid putare nugas.

Introduction quasi consuetudinem fecit populus Romanus bellorum civilium. As if the Roman people made a custom of civil wars. Servius Ad Aen. 6.832

Despite the attention to Livy’s skill as a literary artist shown in the scholarship of recent years, there is still work to be done toward illuminating Livy’s literary talents and redeeming him from the critiques of the Quellenforschung school which the methods of Erich Burck and his followers (what Gary Miles terms the rhetorical-​thematic school) have been unable to do.2 The image of Livy as a creative compiler seems especially hard to shake because of the episodic nature of his narrative, even with the work of scholars such as Gary Miles, Jane Chaplin, or Andrew Feldherr.3 Although scholars recognize the almost poetic qualities of Livy’s text, his lacteas ubertas in Quintilian’s formulation,4 and his status as the prose exemplar par excellence of the Augustan period, few have read Livy in some of the same ways we read Vergil or Horace: as an author who reacts to the horror and brutality of decades of civil war in his text.5 Perhaps this resistance is because we know from the Periochae and some fragments6 that Livy treated the civil wars in his later books and so readers have assumed Livy would save his thoughts and reflections on the discord of the first century BCE for the appropriate places in his history. As a result, these summaries and fragments have sparked much speculation about the structure and content of those later books.7 Yet the fact that Livy treated the discord of his times in his later books should not automatically deter us from considering the effects of civil war in the early books for a couple of reasons. First, Livy published the first pentad at some point in the early 20s BCE 8 when the wounds of civil war were still fresh and dominated the thoughts of authors such as Vergil and Horace.9 Indeed, it would seem improbable that Livy writing his first book in the late 30s would

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Civil war in Livy Book I 247 not be affected by the same contemporary concerns that find expression in the works of Vergil, Horace, and Propertius and Sallust.10 Second, the troubles of the Roman present often found their expression in the Roman past in this period; the Romans were a people with a tremendous awareness of their history and also of the various ways it could be rewritten, recast, and reused.11 Finally, it makes more sense to work with what one has than to ceaselessly speculate on fragments. Although the readings I offer here have been hinted at in various publications, to my knowledge they have not been fully explored.12 Based on my belief that Livy would have been as affected by the civil wars as his contemporaries, I  propose to read three episodes from Livy’s first book, the death of Remus, the war over the Sabine women and the duel of the Horatii and Curiatii, through the lens of civil war. It is my aim here to show some tensions of Livy’s text, which arise from the reaction of the Paduan historian to the darkness of the years of discord that swept over Italy.13 I  contend that Livy presents civil war as a key part of the Roman identity, inextricably linked to its foundation and that the latter two wars recall and repeat the originary civil discord through a common narrative pattern that makes use of the language of violent wrath (ira, indignatio, and ferocitas), portrays the conflict as a dialectic between Roman and an antithesis that acts as a double to Rome that concludes in a violent synthesis, and examines the effects of civil war upon familial relations. In addition, Livy underscores this repetition through intratextual references in the episodes of the Sabine women and the war with Alba Longa to the civil conflict at Rome’s foundation. These themes are reflected in the conflicts of Livy’s own lifetime. The civil wars of the first century BCE carried plenty of examples of ira and ferocitas: the proscriptions, Pompey’s Sullan threats14 and Octavian’s butchery at Perusia. What is more, Livy’s time witnessed the transgression of familial bonds as Caesar fought against his son-​in-​law Pompey;15 Octavian fought against his brother-​ in-​ law Antony and the triumvir Lepidus allowed his brother to be proscribed. Likewise, the decades of civil war saw many potential military dynasts collide in battle until all power came into the hands of one: Augustus.16 Thus, what I seek to trace here, is how Livy’s text sees these forces of discord present in his own lifetime as present at Rome’s beginnings and affecting Rome’s earliest history as much as Rome’s present. Paul Jal has shown how these three stories reflect the contemporary concerns of Roman civil war in his magisterial book on civil war in Roman thought.17 But Jal is more interested in the stories qua stories, so that Livy becomes just one source amongst many in his diachronic analysis. My interest here is specifically Livy’s text and how he links these episodes together, in how the wars with the Sabines and with Alba Longa have the same discordant energies that attended the city’s foundation. In other words, I  am not just interested in how these episodes reflect civil war, but in how Livy uses them to say something about the place of civil war in the Roman national identity and the memoria of the Roman people.

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Romulus and Remus: Foundational fratricide (1.6–​1.7)     acerba fata Romanos agunt   scelusque fraternae necis, ut inmerentis fluxit in terram Remi   sacer nepotibus cruor. Harsh fates drive on the Romans, the crime of a fraternal murder since the holy blood of innocent Remus flowed into the ground for his descendants. Horace, Epode 7, 17–​20 Any account of Rome’s foundation would understandably carry some implications about Roman character. It is all the more disquieting (although understandable) that Livy and other contemporary authors would situate the foundation of the city in the context of discord and fratricide. In this section I  read the story of Romulus and Remus’ foundation of Rome (1.6–​1.7) as a civil war in order to examine the activity of ira, the dialectic of the twins giving way to one founder and the problems of fraternal discord. I argue that by making these themes part of his foundation story, Livy makes them key to interpreting not only the foundation of Rome but also the subsequent conflicts in the first book. Rome had many foundation myths and even several versions of the most common myth, that of the twins Romulus and Remus. In some, Remus outlived his brother, while in others Romulus was not even complicit in his brother’s death.18 What we would consider the “canonical” version is attested in the aftermath of Julius Caesar’s murder in 44 B C E in the De Officiis of Cicero (3.41).19 As a new round of civil wars began in the wake of Caesar’s death, the fratricide took on much darker tones. Horace, in his Epodes, wrote about the fratricide with overtones of guilt, original sin and ground steeped in blood.20 Virgil, however, almost entirely omits discussion of the fratricide entirely from his works, except the oblique reference at Aen 1.292ff: Remo cum fratre Quirinus, /​iura dabunt, a reconciliation that signals the end of discord as the gates of war are closed and Furor impius locked away. Writing his first pentad likely in the late 30s and early 20s B C E , Livy presents two versions of the death of Remus at 1.7. Livy often offers two versions of stories dealing with Rome’s earliest history, treating one cursorily and the other in greater detail. Miles believes that Livy implicitly judges a version’s accuracy by the amount of detail he grants it; for example, Aeneas makes peace with Latinus as the expanded narrative goes, rather than conquers him in war according the brief narrative. By Miles’ reading, Livy endorses the other narrative of peaceful settlement by his comparatively extended treatment.21 However, there may be another way of reading Livy’s duplices famae. Miles notes that Livy’s emphasis in the preface is not so much on the

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Civil war in Livy Book I 249 res gestae of the Roman people but on the memoria of those deeds: iuvabit tamen rerum gestarum memoriae principis terrarum populi pro virili parte et ipsum consuluisse (nevertheless, it will be a delight to take thought of the memory of the deeds of the chief people in the world, as far as my ability allows). Presenting two versions allows Livy to offer a more bitter truth about Romans before treating what the Romans would like to believe about themselves, what actually makes up their collective memoria. Thus, Aeneas’ conquest of Latinus, although treated cursorily in his own narrative, reflects what the Romans actually do throughout the history: make war, not peace.22 With this in mind, let us turn to the narrative itself. Livy begins his tale of Remus’ death by recounting the story of the augury, a tale that dated back at least to Ennius in his Annales.23 Because they are twins, age cannot settle the question of preeminence so each takes a position on a hill with his followers to await a sign from the gods. A debate arises over the result: Should the regnum go to Remus since he saw his augury of six vultures first, or to Romulus who saw his augury second even though it had twice the number of vultures? The brothers cannot even agree on the rules of their competition over who will get to rule the new city. The debate quickly turns violent and at this point Livy’s story diverges into two possible endings, both fatal for Remus. In the first, both parties (Romulus’ supporters and Remus’ supporters) come together and wrath turns to slaughter (Inde cum altercatione congressi certamine irarum ad caedem vertuntur), and Remus is struck by a blow and killed (ibi in turba ictus Remus cecidit). In the second, more common (volgatior) version, Remus mockingly jumps over Romulus’ new walls and is killed by his brother in response. Unlike the earlier duplex fama of Aeneas’ arrival in Italy, where the grim fama of brutal conquest can be occluded by the happier fama of peaceful relations with the Aborigines, both versions Livy presents here are troubling to the reader. Although the first option absolves Romulus of any direct guilt in his brother’s death, it still situates Rome’s foundation in an act of civil war between the partisans of the brothers. The second version makes Romulus his brother’s killer and thus situates Rome’s foundation in an act of fratricide, as a kind of original sin, as we see in Horace’s seventh Epode. Thus, discord is inescapable in Rome’s origin. Common to both versions of Remus’ death is the presence of wrath, ira, which drives the two crowds together into the deadly altercation and Romulus into murdering his brother. Also notable is the way Livy artfully portrays the increasing separation between the brothers as they come to found Rome at the level of word order and syntax. In 1.6, Livy collocates the names of the brothers about to found their own city (Ita Numitori Albana re permissa Romulum Remumque cupido cepit in iis locis ubi expositi ubique educati errant urbis condendae.) This first, innocent cupido of foundation quickly turns to a more sinister cupido of power (regni).24 The twins each take a hill in order to take the augury that will determine the ruler of the city. Livy employs a chiasmus at the end of 1.6 that both notes the separation of the twins on

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250  Mark J. B. Wright different hills, while reminding the reader of their recent close bond with his final collocation of their names (Palatium Romulus, Remus Aventinum). Livy ceases to collocate the two names in 1.7, although he still notes the bond of brotherhood with the use of utrumque and fratris and puts both brothers into the dative case despite using different verbs at the time of the augury itself (Remo augurium venisse and duplex numerus Romulo se ostendisset). But now Livy increasingly emphasizes the separation of the brothers. Each has his own group of supporters (sua multitudo) or factio, and in the second version of the death of Remus, a wall has been built between the brothers, both literally (for that is what Remus must jump over) and in the language itself, occurring between the two names (Remum novos transiluisse muros; inde ab irato Romulo …). The discord that has arisen over the augury is reflected in the fact that the names of the brothers are no longer even placed in the same grammatical case. This discord leads first to Remus’ death and then to Romulus’ sole rule. Livy’s narrative expresses this in a dialectic that will be repeated in the two other conflicts I treat here. There is the doubling, here of the twins Romulus and Remus, each with their own augury of vultures and their own group of partisans (sua multitudo). This dialectic follows a teleology that forces one of the doublet to be conquered or killed so that the other emerges victorious, in this case Romulus. This dialectic is reflected at the level of Livy’s language in 1.7, as duplex (here of the vultures in Romulus’ augury but inescapably also of the twins) and utrumque give way to solus. In both versions, Remus’ death solves the controversy and Romulus gains both imperium and the title of conditor.25 This story of Rome’s foundation also disrupts the family ties between Romulus and Remus. There is a familial precedent for this, in the avitum malum of regni cupido that rent apart their grandfather Numitor and their great-​uncle Amulius concerning the rule of Alba Longa. Numitor ultimately becomes complicit in an uprising that overthrows Amulius, led by his grandsons. In other words, Numitor gives his approval to a civil conflict that restores him to the throne. The avitum malum later tears apart the twins as well. Whether the reader believes that Remus died in a large altercation by some anonymous partisan (Livy does not identify the killer) or Romulus killed his brother, the conflict is one of civil war. In other words, the avitum malum is regni cupido and its outcome is always civil discord. To sum up: Livy’s text offers two versions of Remus’ demise which only differ in that Romulus is directly responsible for his brother’s death in the second version. Both accounts detail the forces of ira in the conflict, both follow a dialectic that pits one figure against his double (in this case the twins) that leads ultimately to the victory and rule of one. Finally, civil conflict, as the outcome of the ancestral issue of regni cupido tears apart Romulus’ and Remus, just as it did with the earlier generation of Amulius and Numitor. The discordant energies of this episode will haunt the nascent city throughout the first book as ira and its related energies push Rome’s expansion, absorbing the

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Civil war in Livy Book I 251 surrounding peoples into its increasingly (self)destructive dialectic leading to Roman “one-​ness.”26

The Sabine women: Murderous in-​laws … quod si tibi fata dedissent maiores in luce moras, tu sola furentem inde virum poteras atque hinc retinere parentem armatasque manus excusso iungere ferro, ut generos soceris mediae iunxere Sabinae. Because if destiny had granted you (Julia) More time in the light, then you alone Would have been able to restrain your mad husband and your father, To join their armed hands after they’d thrown away their swords Just as the Sabine women in the middle joined their fathers With their sons in law. Lucan, Bellum Civile 1.114–​118 After Romulus founds the city of Rome, Livy recounts three wars he fights: one protracted war against the neighboring communities from which he and his comrades abducted their wives, another against the Fidenates, and a third war against the Veii. Livy devotes the greatest detail to the first conflict(s) over the Sabine women (1.9–​1.13), which becomes a civil war because the young Roman city is fighting against foes bound to them through marriage ties. In this section I will explore how Livy’s account of this war reflects narrative patterns and forces at work in the account of Remus’ death: the play of wrath, figured here as indignatio as well as ira; the doubling dialectic that leads to Roman victory and absorption of the neighboring cities and the effect upon family ties. In addition, I will note how Livy uses an intratextual reference to tie this civil conflict back to the foundational one that led to the death of Remus. Once it has been founded, Rome begins to prosper. Yet the lack of women threatens to cut off Rome’s burgeoning greatness after a generation. Romulus sends out legates to the surrounding communities to ask for the right of intermarriage with their women, but his embassies are systematically rebuffed. The Romans do not take this lightly and resort to trickery and force to get the women they need to propagate a new generation. They justify their actions through force of arms and ultimately absorb the male members of the brides’ families into the Roman state. Like the civil discord that attended the foundation of the city, the language of wrath –​ ira and indignatio is also present in this episode. The women kidnapped during the Consualia are understandably upset: Livy describes their indignatio at 1.9.14 (nec raptis aut spes de se melior aut indignatio est minor), which obliquely notes that their families also possess their own degree of indignatio, expressed in their accusations of violated hospitality as they flee

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252  Mark J. B. Wright the city (profugiunt, incusantes violati hospitii foedus). It is for this reason that Romulus addresses the women so that he might convince them, by outlining the potential benefits of their new situation, to quell their anger (mollirent modo iras). Yet while Romulus may be able to calm the new wives of his men with words, he must solve the external threat of the unwilling generi by force of arms. There is plenty of indignatio present amongst the various surrounding cities who have lost their women (nec domi tantum indignationes, 1.10.1), but the Sabines, the most powerful city in the region led by Titus Tatius, react too slowly for the other cities, the Caeninenses, Crustumini and Antemnates (lente agere his Tatius Sabinique visi sunt, 1.10.2). Indeed, the latter two are too slow even for the Caeninenses, who advance to war themselves, driven on by ardor and ira. Livy describes their wrath as an ira that lacks strength (sine viribus, 1.10.4), which is implicitly contrasted with the ira cum viribus of Romulus, which allows Rome to quickly conquer them in battle –​Romulus shows how their anger is a vain one when it lacks vis (levique certamine docet vanam sine viribus iram esse, 1.10.4). After the defeat of the Caeninenses, the Antemnates and the Crustimini attack Rome in quick succession to no avail. Finally, the Sabines try their luck against Rome. At first Livy notes that their war was begun without ira or cupido, which, in his view, makes it the greatest of the three wars (multoque id maximum fuit, 1.11.5). Yet Livy seems to contradict this later in 1.13.3, where the women come between the two armies and beg them to set aside their wrath (dirimere iras, 1.13.2). Why does Livy create this contradiction? As we saw earlier in the story of Rome’s foundations, ira seems to be one of the defining characteristics of Romulus27 –​it was an enraged Romulus (ab irato Romulo) who killed his brother. Even in the alternative version of Remus’ demise, it is a contest of enraged partisans (certamine irarum) that leads to his death. Livy is outlining a hierarchy of ira here, between the vana ira without vires that ultimately accomplishes nothing and the ira that is accompanied by vires that leads to victory, whether in fraternal discord or in (civil) war. Livy also limits the work of ira in his account of the reign of Romulus to this conflict and the fratricide since ira does not play a part in the conflict against the Fidenates and the Veii. So although Romulus possesses ira cum viribus, the Sabines originally pursue their war without any wrath at all, yet the ira apparently spills over to both sides as the battle lines draw together. This ira on both sides is part of Livy’s strategy of creating a dialectic of Rome and a foe that is both its double and its antithesis. This means then that the war is not only a civil one because it is between men related by marriage but also because the Romans have met their match. They have met the other and it is them. This dialectic between two doubles ultimately leads to the absorption of the Sabines and the other foes in this series of wars into the Roman state. Livy crafts this doubling in several other ways, not just through the forces of ira. Like Romulus’ trick of the Consualia, the Sabines get the upper hand

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Civil war in Livy Book I 253 by deception, using Tarpeia to capture the citadel of the Capitoline hill. Each side has its own daring hero, Mettius Curtius for the Sabines and Hostius Hostilius for the Romans. The Romans lead an assault up the Capitoline to attack the Sabine position, while the Sabines lead a counterassault that pushes the Romans back down into the valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine hill. Later, after the battle two kings, Romulus and Titus Tatius, will rule Rome for a time. Like the doubling of the twins Romulus and Remus, the war here is fought between the doubles of Sabine and Roman. Further, the activity of ira drives the two sides to conflict. The earlier battle of the twins and/​or their partisans was part of a teleology that led from two to one and that same teleology is followed here. It is presaged at 1.11.2, where the wife of Romulus, Hersilia, persuades her husband to reach a concord with the Antemnates where they will become citizens of Rome.28 The wives as a group seek the same thing at 1.13.3 and are able to convince their fathers, husbands and brothers to make peace and become one people. Yet even when this concord is achieved, the outcome is not too rosy for the Sabines. Although they originally agree to rule together, the seat of government is Rome. Further, the death of Titus Tatius is neither avenged, nor is the king himself replaced. Co-​rule (regnum consociant, 1.13.4) becomes sole rule for Romulus once again. The Sabines are ultimately only left with a name, Quirites, by which the combined peoples are called. At last the dialectic of Sabine/​Roman, which made that war the greatest conflict of the series achieves the synthesis Quirites, based at Rome and ruled by Romans. The Sabine origin of the term Quirites is left to the antiquarians. The intercession of the wives of the Romans also highlights the effects of civil war upon familial relations that Livy earlier limned in his account of the death of Remus. The women rush out with the appearance of mourners, their hair messed up and their clothing torn (crinibus passis scissaque veste, 1.13.1). The relations by marriage of the combatants, of which these women are the nexus, are highlighted by the deitic phrases hinc patres, hinc viros. They declare that this conflict is a crime (sanguine nefando) and that the two sides should not pollute their offspring by parricide (ne parricidio macularent partus suos, 1.13.2) because they are related. Indeed, it is by this appeal to the dreadful effects of civil war upon familial relations that the women are ultimately able to stop the war. This war, as a civil war, expresses the same dark energies as the originary civil war. I want to highlight a possible intratextual reference through which Livy may allude to the earlier fratricide and thus link that conflict with the one over the Sabine women. Before that conflict, the brothers took up their positions on two hills, the Palatine and the Aventine. The doublet in this case is topographically expressed by the two hills.29 Likewise in the war with the Sabines in 1.12, the conflict is topographically expressed by two hills, the Capitoline, which the Sabines have seized by the treachery of Tarpeia, and the Palatine, controlled by the Roman forces. The battle itself takes place in the

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254  Mark J. B. Wright low ground between these two hills (inter Palatinum Capitolinumque collem campi est complesset). In short, the pairing of two hills in each case may link these two civil conflicts intratextually. As with the earlier story of Romulus and Remus, the forces of ira have created a civil conflict that is envisioned as a violent dialectic of doubles, Romulus/​Remus and Roman/​Sabine that is synthesized into one of the two terms, Romulus and Roman (albeit with a new Sabine name). Also like that earlier story, the civil war affects familial relations, though in this episode the women are able to stop the war before it is too late. Finally, Livy may link these two episodes together through his topographical reference to paired hills (the common hill for both episodes being the Palatine). Romulus’ subsequent wars are not portrayed as civil conflicts, since ira and its related terms are absent from his account. Numa, the next king after Romulus’ apotheosis, is a man of peace. It is not until the third king, Tullus Hostilius (a descendant of the Roman champion Hostius Hostilius in the war with the Sabines) that Livy portrays a new civil war.

The Horatii and Curiatii: The war most like a civil war Alba namque illa, quam filius Aeneae creavit Ascanius, Romae mater propior ipsa quam Troia. For that Alba, which Ascanius the son of Aeneas created was more of a mother to Rome than Troy itself. St. Augustine, Civitas Dei 3.14 My final example comes from a war of the third king of Rome, Tullius Hostilius, against the city of Alba Longa at 1.22–​26. In fighting against her mother city, Rome engages in a clear civil war, as Livy’s text notes (civili simillimum bello, 1.23.1). In this section, I  will illustrate how Livy deploys the concept of ferocitas (violent rage); how he creates the doubling dialectic between Rome and Alba through the duel of the triplets and how this civil war, like my two other examples, wreaks havoc on familial relations. Finally, I will note how Livy intratextually links this episode with the civil discord of Rome’s foundation, to illustrate how the discordant energies have kept going beyond Romulus’ reign.30 As Tullus Hostilius takes the throne after the decease of Numa Pompilius, he becomes convinced that years of peace have been detrimental to the Roman people. To that end he encourages raids on Alban territory and then works some deception through an exchange of embassies that finally brings Alba Longa to war. The Alban king, Cluilius dies shortly after his army enters Roman territory. His replacement, Mettius Fufetius, points out to Tullius that the Etruscans will watch the upcoming war carefully and attack the victor who would be weakened by the conflict. A  solution is soon found:  as each army has a set of triplets, these two sets will duel to determine the outcome

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Civil war in Livy Book I 255 of the war. The Roman side, the Horatii, ends up victorious over the Alban triplets, the Curiatii, although two of the Horatii perish in the duel. As a grim epilogue to the war, the remaining Horatius slays his sister upon his return, because she was weeping for her dead fiancé, one of the Curiatii. Horatius is put on trial but is ultimately acquitted through an underhanded legal maneuver of Tullius and the intercession of his father, Publius Horatius. As this summary of the episode makes clear, the themes of family relations and doubling that Livy has treated in my other examples of civil war are present in this episode. The theme of wrath is also present in this episode, although now it has developed from the ira of Romulus to the more violent ferocitas of Tullus Hostilius and the Horatii. As Hostilius takes the throne, Livy describes him as a man more fierce than even Romulus himself (ferocior etiam quam Romulus fuit). Yet like Romulus, this violent nature is paired with vires (cum aetas viresque tum avita quoque Gloria animum stimulabat). The ferox nature of the king is further inflamed by the death of Clulius (Tullus, ferox praecipue morte regis). Furthermore, Livy again notes at 1.24.10 that Tullius is ferox by his innate spirit (indole animi) and made even more so by the hope of victory (spe victoriae ferocior erat).31 Like Tullus Hostilius, the champions, fitting for a doubling dialectic as we have seen in Livy thus far, are matched both in their nature as feroces (1.25.1) and in their strength (nec viribus dispares, 1.24.1). As the duel goes on it quickly becomes a mismatch: Two of the Horatii fall, but the remaining brother excels in ferocitas against his Alban opponents (sic adversus singulos ferox, 1.25.7) –​Livy does not use the adjective ferox in relation to the Curiatii again. The remaining Horatius outmatches the Curiatii in vires as well, since he is unharmed (forte is integer fuit, 1.25.7). As Livy notes, he is overmatched against the last remaining, albeit wounded, Curiatius (iamque aequato Marte singular supererant, sed non spe nec viribus pares, 1.25.11). As in the previous stories it is the combination of wrath/​violence (here ferox, as Horatius is fierce because of his two prior victories geminata victoria) and strength (vires) that ultimately wins the day. Yet the ferocity of Horatius continues outside of the duel itself: the mourning of his sister for her lost fiancé moves the fierce youth (feroci iuveni) to murder his sibling. Horatia would have linked together the two sets of triplets through marriage. Indeed, in this episode Livy’s two themes of family and doubling run together, since even the relation between Rome and Alba is cast in familial terms. Let us turn to the doubling aspect first. Alba and Rome are both matched in their cupido imperii as Mettius notes in his speech at 1.23.7. Furthermore, not only are the triplets matched in their numbers but also (at least at first) in their ferocitas and vires. The doubling in this case is so close that Livy expresses some doubt as to which set of twins belonged to which city; even in so famous a story an error of the names remains (in re tam clara nominum error manet, 1.24.1). His deliberations here make use of doubling terms such as utrius and utro. But like the earlier dialectic of the fratricide, and of the Romans and the Sabines, the second part of the doubling pair,

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256  Mark J. B. Wright Alba Longa, eventually gives way to Rome as Horatius buries his sword in the neck of his opponent. Although Alba is initially reduced only to the status of an allied nation subordinate to Rome, after the betrayal of Mettius Fufetius the city will be leveled and its citizens transferred to Rome, including such famous families as the Julii. The fact that some of Rome’s leading families were originally Alban underscores the close relationships between the two cities that Livy expresses in familial terms. As Livy notes at 1.23.1: Et bellum utrimque summa ope parabatur, civili simillimum bello, prope inter parentes natosque, Troianam utram prolem, cum Lavinium ab Troia, ab Lavinio Alba, ab Albanorum stirpe regum oriundi Romani essent. And this war, was being prepared with the greatest effort on both sides; it was a war most like to a civil war almost between parents and children: both were of Trojan stock since Lavinium arose from Trojan stock, Alba from Lavinium and the Romans from the line of Alban kings. Note too how Livy deploys doubling language here as well with utrimque and utram, just as in the conflict of the twins in 1.7. The familial relation is further underscored by the cupido imperii that Mettius Fufetius identifies as driving the efforts of both sides. This seems to be the regni cupido that drove Romulus and Remus applied to foreign policy. Livy describes that earlier cupido as an avitum malum (ancestral evil) that originated two generations earlier in the conflict of Numitor and Amulius:  the ruling family of Alba Longa. Thus, even the causa belli here is ultimately framed in familial terms.32 It is not just the metaphorical relations of city to city that Livy describes here but also the effect on actual families. The doomed Horatia would have linked together the two families, the Horatii and the Curiatii, by marriage, which makes the duel one between would-​be brothers-​in-​law. Horatia herself falls victim to the dark energies of ferocitas that activated the civil war in the first place, as it is her ferox brother whom she moves to sororicide by her weeping for her dead fiancé instead of her two dead brothers. The one who loses out the most here would be the father of the Horatii, who watches three children die due to civil war in one day, and must plead for his son’s life and beg the Roman people not to deprive him of all his children (orabat deinde ne se quem Paulo ante cum egregia stripe conspexissent orbum liberis facerent, 1.26.9). As with the other two episodes, Livy continues his narrative pattern of civil war by analyzing the play of wrath and violent anger in the conflict; by turning Rome’s opponent into a double of Rome itself that must engage in a violent dialectic towards a teleology of one-​ness and by portraying civil wars ruinous effects upon family relations –​in this case both upon the figurative family relationship between Alba Longa and Rome and between the families of the Curiatii and the Horatii and within the family of the Horatii

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Civil war in Livy Book I 257 itself. As we have seen in the episode of the Sabine women, Livy also uses intratextual references to the foundational fratricide to show how civil war is in fact part of Romanitas. Here Livy ends the conflict with a sibling killing another sibling, while echoing the words of Romulus:  sic eat quaecumque Romana lugebit hostem (Thus let it be for any Roman woman who mourns an enemy) roars Horatius as he slays his sister (1.26.4); sic deinde quicumque alius transiliet moenia mea (thus then anyone else who jumps over my walls) bellows Romulus as he strikes down his brother (1.26.7).33 The energies of civil war that attended the foundation of the city, which surfaced again in the war over the Sabine women, have continued even beyond the reign of Romulus, a fact that Livy’s text and language reflect.

Conclusions: Livy’s preface in light of civil war Laboris praemium petam, ut me a conspectus malorum quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas, tantisper certe dum prisca illa tota mente repeto, avertam… I seek this prize of my labor, that I may turn myself away From the sight of the evils which our age has seen through so many years, While at least for a little while I  pay full attention to these ancient matters… Livy, Ab Urbe Condita, Praefatio 5. My analysis of these three episodes of Livy has led to the following conclusions. First, Livy links these three episodes together through the related concepts of ira, indignatio and ferocitas. These words cluster together to convey an idea of violent rage. In Livy’s text, those who possess this rage as well as vires prove effective in civil conflict –​it is this quality that separates Romulus, Tullus Hostilius, and Horatius from their opponents. Second, Livy creates a dialectic in each conflict between Rome and its opponent, which is portrayed as a double of Rome, an antithesis to the Roman forces, lacking only the vires that makes the Rome victorious. This dialectic always concludes in a violent synthesis in which the antithesis to Rome is absorbed: Remus’ blood strengthens the walls of Rome, the Sabines become part of Rome and give their name to its citizens and Alba Longa becomes part of Rome as well. Finally, Livy shows how the forces of civil war rend apart families from the fratricide of Romulus and Remus to the war between the soceri and generi over the Sabine women and the murder of Horatia. Even so, my analysis must still confront Livy’s own words in the preface that he is turning away from the ills of his time to the earliest days. The implication here is that such ills, likely civil war in this context, were absent from the earliest days of Rome, yet when Livy turns back to these origins he finds the very same problems.34 He would not be alone, since Vergil in the Aeneid would

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258  Mark J. B. Wright find civil war in Aeneas’ mission to found a city in Italy and Horace would trace back the horrors of civil war to the murder of Remus in his Epodes. Yet we must still account for Livy’s preface in relation to his text.35 It seems to me that there are two possible ways out of this problem. First is that Livy is obliquely playing to the supposed desires of his readers. Before his melancholy wish to escape the ills of his time (Pf. 4), he notes that: et legentium plerisque haud dubito quin primae origines proximaque originibus minus praebitura voluptatis sint, festinantibus ad haec nova quibus iam pridem praevalentis populi vires se ipsae conficiunt. And I don’t doubt that for many of my readers that the first origins and those events right after the origins would offer less pleasure and that they’ll hasten on to those recent events, by which for a long time now the strength of a mighty people has undone itself. Livy thus contrasts himself to his readers: they want to read about the civil wars while he wants to escape all of that and write about the glory days of Rome’s beginnings. By inscribing civil war even into the beginnings of Rome, Livy may then be giving his readers what they want. While I do not deny, if Livy’s estimations of his readers hold any weight, that this may have been a result of Livy’s portrayal of Rome’s earliest history, it seems to be a rather shallow attempt to divine Livy’s intent and does not account for the meaning of civil war in his text. There may be another explanation, however. In Roman literature there is a marked use of inconsistency, especially between the prefatory parts of a given work and the way the narrative actually plays out.36 In Roman historiography this is most notable in the prefaces of Sallust’s works. At the beginning of the Bellum Catilinae, Sallust provides the reader with many typical platitudes about morality, history, and the rewards of history. Yet his text is about a great villain, Catiline. This effect is even clearer in the beginning of the Bellum Jugurthinum, where Sallust decries human belief in the power of fortune to shape events, yet Marius is told to follow his fortune, in becoming consul and it is ultimately Sulla Felix (Sulla the lucky) who captures Jugurtha.37 In writing that he wishes to escape the sight of the evils of his own time (ut me a conspectus malorum quae nostra tot per annos vidit aetas … avertam, Pr. 5), Livy is really setting up the reader for the harsh truth that those mala have really been there from the very beginning, figured as the avitum malum that drives the foundational conflict between Romulus and Remus. I have argued that Livy portrays civil war as a key part of Romanitas, driven by the avitum malum of regni cupido. If it is a part of Roman identity, Romanitas, it would follow that civil war would repeatedly be expressed, that repetition would be itself a characteristic of civil war. In my readings of these three civil war episodes, I  have shown this repetition through Livy’s use of the same narrative patterns, the same language and by his careful intratextual

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Civil war in Livy Book I 259 references back to the original fratricide. In other words, one may read the war over the Sabine women and the war with Alba Longa as the repeated expression of the same dark energies that sparked that first civil discord. These same energies were still repeated in Livy’s own time at Pharsalia, in the proscriptions, and at Actium. The vires that had fueled Rome’s beginnings and expansions had turned inward to finally fuel her (self)-​destruction.38

Notes 1 The text for Livy used throughout is that of Ogilvie (1974). All translations are my own. I owe thanks to Will Batstone, Corey Hackworth, Timothy Joseph, Lee Fratantuono, and the late Gregory Pellam for helpful advice and comments on this chapter. 2 Begun by Nissen (1863). The most notable Quellenforschung scholar in English is Ogilvie (1965). The basic work of the rhetorical-​thematic school is Burck (1964). For a summary of the two different approaches, see Miles (1995, 1–​7). 3 Miles (1995), Feldherr (1998), and Vasaly (2015). 4 Quintilian 10.1.32. 5 Batstone (2009a, 33–​35), alone among modern scholars, has noted these issues, albeit in a cursory fashion, as part of his survey on how postmodern readings of history can help us to better understand these writers. Although my work here is indebted to his, my approach in this chapter further explores these issues in more episodes (not just the duel of the Horatii and Curiatii) and in greater detail than the limitations of a Cambridge Companion chapter allow. 6 E.g., Seneca Suasoria 6.16ff and 22. 7 See, notably, Syme (1959). Syme warns against the uncritical use of the Periochae, which are written much later, likely based upon an epitome and show various chronological inconsistencies. Nevertheless, Syme proceeds to reconstruct a possible structure of the later books, based upon these Periochae. Henderson (1998)  301–​ 319, in his own inimitable fashion, critiques these speculative efforts. 8 Luce (1965) has established the communis opinio as to the dating of Livy’s first decade. 9 E.g. Vergil, Eclogue 9 and Horace Epode 7. Syme (1964, 214–​239) develops useful heuristic category of “triumviral literature” to cover the works of Sallust and the early Vergil and Horace, all of whom show the effects of civil war in their writings. Syme (1959,  53) applies the period to the early books of Livy by extending its endpoint to the “restoration” of the Republic in 27 B CE . 10 The scholarship on this issue is vast. In general, see Jal (1963). For Vergil, see Putnam (1965). For Horace, see Lyne (1995). For Propertius, see Gurval (1998) 167–​208 and 249–​278. Syme (1964) and Batstone (2009b) situate Sallust in a context of civil war. 11 Especially through the mos maiorum. I  have presented this idea elsewhere in a reading of Augustus’ Res Gestae. I will address the Roman use of the mos maiorum in times of civil war in a separate study. See Fox (2007) and van der Blom (2010) on Cicero’s use of history. For the manipulation of cultural memoria in the empire, see Gowing (2005). On the general theory behind this view of historiography, see especially Jenkins (2007).

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260  Mark J. B. Wright 12 Petersen (1961) examines references to Augustan policies in Livy’s first book as part of a project to categorize Livy as “pro” or “anti” Augustan. Petersen’s approach shows the potential for a kind of reading “the present in the past” in Livy, but questions of Livy’s political allegiance are ultimately irrelevant to my inquiry. Furthermore, Petersen’s approach is a tenuous one because of his reliance upon much later sources, especially the history of Cassius Dio. 13 For a parallel study, on Vergil and the social wars, see Marincola (2010). 14 See Cicero, Ad Atticum 9.10, especially 9.10.2 Sulla potuit, ego non potero and 9.10.6 ita sullaturit animus eius et proscripturit iam diu. 15 Cf. Vergil, Aen. 6.829–​831. 16 What Henderson (1998, 168)  in his discussion of Lucan terms “the cult of aggression and ‘Oneness’ [leading] to a logical end of suicidal implosion.” Cf. too Tacitus Annales 1.1: Pompei Crassique potentia cito in Caesarem, Lepidi atque Antonii arma in Augustum cessere. We might think as well of the two generations of conflict between Pompeys and Caesars (Caesar the dictator vs. Pompey Magnus and Octavian (adopted as Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus against Sextus Pompey). 17 Jal (1963) 407–​411. 18 Although at times somewhat fanciful in its quest for origins, Wiseman (1995) is the best treatment of the myth in its various permutations. 19 The myth took on its ideas of original sin around the same time civil war became an odious term among the Romans. See Batstone (2009b) for a survey of the evolution of the terms bellum civile against the same background that the canonical version of the Romulus and Remus fratricide myth evolved. 20 An image that recurs in Horace’s Ode 2.1.29–​31 to Pollio writing a history of the civil wars:  Quis non Latino sanguine pinguior /​campus sepulcris impia proelia /​ testatur. 21 Miles (1995) 20–​31, especially 28ff. treating Livy 1.1.6ff. 22 I owe this alternative reading to an observation of Corey Hackworth. 23 Ennius Annales 1.72–​91 Sk. apud Cicero De div. 1.107–​108. See further Skutsch (1985) ad loc. 24 I believe Livy’s treatment of cupido may owe something to Sallust’s treatment of lubido in the Bellum Catilinae. On this, see Batstone (1990). On links between Sallust and Livy see the dissertation of Paschalis (1980) and recently Feldherr (2010). 25 Wiseman (1995, 117–​125) proposes a context in the early third century B CE , where the myth of Remus dying at the city walls may have arisen. Working from archaeological evidence from the temple of Victory at Rome where human graves were found underneath walls, Wiseman theorizes that these sacrifices might have been performed to strengthen the defenses of the city walls in the face of an alliance of Etruscans, Samnites, and Gauls against Rome. Remus death as a sacrifice to enforce the new walls of the city is preserved at Propertius 3.9.5. This would possibly explain the presence of a wall in the common version of Remus’ death. In this regard, it may be notable that Romulus’ next act is the fortification (muniit) of his chosen hill, the Palatine; this is how Florus, in his epitome of Livy (1.1.8), seems to interpret the story. 26 In this sense, many of the wars in the first book, much less the first pentad, can be read as proleptic civil wars, like the conflict in Aeneid 7–​12. 27 See 1.7 and 1.10. Cf. Penella (1987) and (1990).

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Civil war in Livy Book I 261 28 It is worth noting here that Livy subtly provides a duplex fama here as well. On the one hand, the Antemnates are granted citizenship. The Crustimini do not seem to attain the same benefit, but instead become a colony (as, ultimately Antemnae does as well), utroque coloniae missae. The choice here is between the peaceful absorption of a population and the seizure and occupation of their land by force. 29 Cf. Jaeger (1997) 30–​56. 30 Solodow (1979) provides an admirable analysis of this episode. Solodow is interested in illustrating the moral complexity of Livy’s narrative, whereas I am interested in Livy’s portrayal of this episode as a civil war and how it is linked to the energies of civil war elsewhere in Livy’s first book. 31 On ferocitas in this episode, cf. Penella (1990). 32 There may be another Sallustian reference here. Cupido imperii is figured as the engine that drives the expansion of Rome (and Alba Longa). Likewise, in Sallust’s archaeology in the Bellum Catilinae it is lubido dominandi that drives history. It is only after this term is introduced that names begin to appear in Sallust’s history. Cf. Batstone (1990). 33 Cf. Batstone (2009a) 34. 34 Cf. Batstone (2009a) 33. 35 It is worth noting in passing here that even in Moles’ (1993) fine analysis of the preface, he does not consider its relation to the actual text of the history. 36 For a broad view of this, see O’Hara (2007). 37 Lack of the role of fortune in human events: Sallust, BJ 1.1. Marius told to follow his fortuna, BJ 63. 38 In portraying these civil wars as repetitive and even (given the contemporary civil wars of Livy’s lifetime) timeless, Livy may be engaging in another historiographical trope, if not creating it himself. The monograph of Timothy Joseph (2012) examines how Tacitus portrays civil war in this way in the Histories by analyzing that historians intertext with Vergil and Lucan. Given my conclusions here, I would argue that although Tacitus uses the poetic language of those epic poets to craft his portrayal, he adopted the trope itself from Livy.

Bibliography Batstone, W. W. 1990. “Intellectual Conflict and Mimesis in Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae.” In J. Allison, ed., Conflict, Antithesis and the Ancient Historian. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. Batstone, W. W. 2009a. “Postmodern Historiographical Theory and the Roman Historians.” In A. Feldherr, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Historians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 24–​40. Batstone, W. W. 2009b. “Word at War: The Prequel.” In B. Breed, C. Damon, and A. Rossi, eds., Citizens of Discord. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 68–​116. Burck, E. 1964. Die Erzählungskunst des T.  Livius. Berlin:  Wiedmannsche Verlagbuchhandlung. Chaplin, J. 2000. Livy’s Exemplary History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Feldherr, A. 1998. Spectacle and Society in Livy’s History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Feldherr, A. 2010. “Hannibalic Laughter:  Sallust’s Archaeology and the End of Livy’s Third Decade.” In W. Polleichtner, ed., Livy and Intertextuality. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier.

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262  Mark J. B. Wright Foucault, M. 1977. “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History.” In D. F. Bouachard, ed., Language, Counter-​ Memory, Practice:  Selected Essays and Interviews. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 138–​164. Fox, M. 2007. Cicero’s Philosophy of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gowing, A. 2005. Empire and Memory: The Representation of the Roman Republic in Imperial Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gurval, R. 1998. Actium and Augustus: The Politics and Emotions of Civil War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Heinrich, A. J. 1996. “Violence in Narrative: Imperium and Identity in Roman Epic.” Dissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo. Henderson, J. 1998. Fighting for Rome:  Poets and Caesars, History and Civil War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jaeger, M. K. 1997. Livy’s Written Rome. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Jal, P. 1963. La guerre civile à Rome: Étude littéraire et morale. Paris: Publications de la Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Paris. Jenkins, K. 2007. Refiguring History. London: Routledge. Joseph, T. A. 2012. Tacitus the Epic Successor: Virgil, Lucan, and the Narrative of Civil War in the Histories. Leiden: Brill. Konstan, D. 1986. “Narrative and Ideology in Livy:  Book I.” Classical Antiquity 5: 198–​216. Luce, T. J. 1965. “The Dating of Livy’s First Decade.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 96: 209–​240. Luce, T. J. 1977. Livy:  The Composition of His History. Princeton, NJ:  Princeton University Press. Lyne, R. O.  A. M. 1995. Horace:  Behind the Public Poetry. New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press. Marincola, J. 2010. “Eros and Empire:  Virgil and the Historians on Civil War.” In C. S. Kraus, J. Marincola, and C. Pelling, eds., Ancient Historiography and Its Contexts:  Studies in Honor of A.J. Woodman. Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 183–​204. Miles, G. B. 1995. Livy: Reconstructing Early Rome. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Moles, J. 1993. “Livy’s Preface.” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 39: 141–​168. Nietzsche, F. 1997. “On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life.” In D. Breazeale, ed., Untimely Meditations. Translated by R. J. Holingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 57–​124. Nissen, H. 1863. Kristische Untersuchungen über die Quellen der vierten und fünften Dekade des Livius. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung. O’Hara, J. J. 2007. Inconsistency in Roman Epic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogilvie, R. M. 1965. A Commentary on Livy: Books 1–​5. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paschalis, M. 1980. “Livy’s Praefatio and Sallust.” Dissertation, Ohio State University. Penella, R. 1987. “War, Peace and the ius fetiale in Livy I.” Classical Philology 82: 233–​237. Penella, R. 1990. “Vires/​Robur/​Opes and Ferocia in Livy’s Account of Romulus and Tullus Hostilius.” Classical Quarterly 40: 207–​213.

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Civil war in Livy Book I 263 Petersen, H. 1961. “Livy and Augustus.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 92: 440–​452. Putnam, M. 1965. The Poetry of the Aeneid. Cambridge, MA: Hardvard University Press. Skutsch, O. 1985. The Annals of Q. Ennius. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Solodow, J. 1979. “Livy and the Story of Horatius, 1:24–​26.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 109: 251–​268. Syme, R. 1959. “Livy and Augustus.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 64: 27–​87. Syme, R. 1964. Sallust. Berkeley: University of California Press. Van der Blom, H. 2010. Cicero’s Role Models. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vasaly, A. 2015. Livy’s Political Philosophy:  Power and Personality in Early Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wiseman, T. P. 1979. Clio’s Cosmetics:  Three Studies in Greco-​Roman Literature. Leicester: Liverpool University Press. Wiseman, T. P. 1995. Remus: A Roman Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woodman, A. J. 1988. Rhetoric in Classical Historiography:  Four Studies. London: Taylor & Francis.

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18  Saint Pilate and the conversion of Tiberius Paul F. Burke

This chapter examines the transformation, in post-​Classical legend and tradition, of Pilate and Tiberius, Romans who could have had no inkling of the nature of the interest many members of later, predominantly Christian, generations would take in their actions. The nonbiblical historical record supplies distressingly few actual facts about Pontius Pilate. We know that he was procurator or prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from 26 to 36 C E ; the name Pontius suggests Samnite origins. We have neither place nor date of birth, although towns in Scotland, Spain, and Germany have local legends establishing themselves as his birthplace. His brutality in office, recorded by Josephus and Philo as characterized by arrests, beatings and executions, led to his recall to Rome in 36 C E . Pilate then vanishes from the historical record, and all other traditions, including the story of his suicide, are pure legend. Tiberius is, of course, far more thoroughly documented. Emperor from 14 to 37 C E , he is immortalized by Tacitus as the saturnine, menacing instigator of treason trials and as the recluse of Capri; Suetonius adds salacious details involving brutality and pedophilia. There is, of course, no credible record of this tristissimus hominum, as Pliny calls him (Natural Histories XXVIII.5.23), having had any interest in or knowledge of Christianity. My purpose here, then, is to illustrate very briefly how a later, non-​Classical culture incorporated the procurator and the emperor into versions of a usable past that are not only wildly improbable and inconsistent with what we know of Pilate and Tiberius, but often drastically at odds with one another. The canonical Gospels of the New Testament provide a useful starting point. Historians of the first centuries of Christianity in the Roman Empire, such as Bart D. Ehrman,1 draw helpful conclusions from simply tracing the chronological portrayal of Pilate in the Gospels. The earlier the Gospel was composed, the greater Pilate’s culpability for the crucifixion of Jesus; the later the Gospel, the greater Pilate’s innocence and the greater the guilt of the Jews of Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark is generally agreed by New Testament scholars to be the oldest of the four canonical Gospels, having been composed around 70 C E . In Mark, Pilate and the Jewish people essentially agree on the execution of Jesus (Mark 15:15, “… in his desire to satisfy the mob”); Pilate, in his capacity as procurator, orders that Jesus be whipped and crucified.

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Saint Pilate and the conversion of Tiberius 265 We find a different version in Matthew, dated around 90 C E : first, Pilate’s wife warns her husband (27:19), “Have nothing to do with that innocent man; I was much troubled on his account in my dreams last night.” Pilate then tries to have as little to do with the death of Jesus as he can, washing his hands before the crowd and declaring (27:24), “My hands are clean of this man’s blood. … See to that yourselves.” In a verse that would be the justification of incalculable misery inflicted on Jews throughout the Middle Ages and later, the crowd responds (27:25), “His blood be on us and on our children.” We know from sources outside the Gospels that this is a view that was developing in the early Church: if Pilate is innocent, the guilt for the death of Jesus can only fall upon the Jews. The Gospel of Luke was most likely composed around the same time as Matthew. Here, Pilate asserts three times that Jesus is guilty of no crime and that “Clearly he has done nothing to deserve death” (23:15). Asked to take responsibility for the case, Herod merely refers Jesus back to Pilate who eventually gives in to the demands of the Jews and their leaders and sends Jesus to the cross. All the synoptic Gospels at least agree on the historical facts that, first, crucifixion is an exclusively Roman mode of execution and, second, that only a Roman official could invoke it. In John, however, datable to circa 95 C E , Pilate again reluctantly agrees to the death of Jesus but, instead of handing the victim over to his own soldiers, turns Jesus over to the Jewish people (19:16): “Then at last, to satisfy them, he handed Jesus over to be crucified.” The evolution of Pilate’s innocence continues beyond the New Testament texts. In the early second-​century noncanonical Gospel of Peter, Pilate is little more than a bystander at the trial of Jesus, not even giving the order for the death of Jesus. We leave even the vestiges of historical plausibility behind: here it is Herod, the Jewish ethnarch, who orders the execution. Again, the Jewish people take the guilt onto themselves (v. 25): “Woe to us because of our sins. The judgment and the end of Jerusalem are near.”2 By the early second century, of course, Jerusalem’s destruction by Titus’ army in 70 C E was receding into history and it was around this time that Christians began explicitly to blame the destruction of the city and the deaths of thousands of inhabitants, not on an ill-​advised challenge to Roman arms in pursuit of national independence, but on divine punishment for killing Jesus. Around 200 C E , Tertullian, the ultra-​orthodox hunter of heretic Christians, eventually to be labeled a heretic himself, mentions in his “Apology of Christianity” (section 5; Migne, P.L., I, 340–​341) a letter allegedly sent by Pilate to Tiberius regarding the recent execution of Jesus. The supposed criminal, writes Pilate, has been proven beyond all doubt by miraculous events, both preceding and following his death, to have been the authentic Son of God. Tiberius, in this account, believes Pilate and brings the matter of Jesus to the Senate, wishing to have him declared one of the gods of the state. The Senate refuses. Pilate becomes a Christian; presumably Tiberius also continues to be a believer.

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266  Paul F. Burke A huge medieval literature grows out of these documents:  we find additional and often longer versions of Pilate’s confession of faith to Tiberius and also more fully developed accounts of the emperor’s reaction when he learns that his provincial administrator has killed the Son of God. For example, in a medieval legend called the “Surrender of Pilate,” the emperor recalls Pilate and puts him on trial, claiming that, “By daring to do an evil deed you have destroyed the whole world.” At Pilate’s beheading, a voice speaks from heaven calling him “blessed” and promising that he, Pilate, will be present at the second coming of Jesus.3 In some Christian traditions, Pilate is not only exonerated, not merely called blessed, but is made a full saint. In the Egyptian Coptic church and also in the Ethiopian Orthodox church, Pilate’s death is placed on the calendar of saints. For “St. Pilate’s Day,” the medieval Ethiopian book of the saints recommends the following prayer: “On this day also died Pilate, the confessor. Salutation to Pilate who washed his hands of the blood of Jesus Christ.”4 In this most peculiar spiritual universe, where the killer of Jesus joins him as a saint in Paradise, the dream of Pilate’s wife mentioned in Matthew was sent not by God or any other positive force wishing to give Pilate one last chance to avoid committing the ultimate crime; rather, the dream is sent by Satan. The devil realizes that the unjust execution of Jesus, the blameless victim, will be followed by the Resurrection and, in turn, by the shattering of the Satanic kingdom itself. We are now in a hall of mirrors in which everything seems transformed into its opposite: in ignoring the dream, which comes from ultimate evil, Pilate is in fact doing God’s work. He is thus worthy of God’s special favor and of sainthood for allowing the execution of God’s son. We have no certain knowledge of the end of Pilate’s political career or of his death. Eusebius, the fourth-​century historian of Christianity and associate of Constantine, cites earlier writers whom he does not name.5 In this account, Pilate fell into great but unspecified troubles under Caligula and is said to have committed suicide after being recalled to Rome. A body of legend in the medieval Latin church contradicts the eastern tales of Pilate’s exoneration and even sainthood. The post-​fifth-​century “Death of Pilate” (Mors Pilati) records that Pilate’s body was thrown into the Tiber; evil spirits attendant upon Pilate’s corpse caused such an uproarious disturbance of the Tiber that, in order to save the city, it was necessary to retrieve the corpse and remove it from Italy: “malignant and filthy spirits in his malignant and filthy body, all rejoicing together, kept moving themselves in the waters, and in a terrible manner brought lightnings and tempests, thunders and hail-​storms in the air, so that all men were kept in horrible fear.” Next, Pilate’s remains were thrown into the Rhone River, near Vienne in southeastern France, where the same disturbances occurred again. A structure to be seen in the city today that was most likely part of the Roman stadium was identified in the Middle Ages as the Tomb of Pilate.6 The final disposition of the restless procurator was in a deep and lonely mountain lake near Lucerne, Switzerland; the mountain is called Pilatusberg. Through the 16th century, the city of Lucerne, under

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Saint Pilate and the conversion of Tiberius 267 penalty of law, forbade any approach to the lake. A  stone tossed into the water would bring about an onslaught of storms, demons, and the like. As late as the 19th century, shepherds and climbers who ventured near the lake were frightened by unearthly roaring and sighing noises. Today, one may ride the Pilatusbahn tramway to the top of the mountain and enjoy the pleasant views. As Ann Wroe writes:  “[Pilate] was the essence of evil or the essence of goodness: God’s rejecter or God’s embracer. These opposing legends had taken on lives of their own. Yet they had both sprung, however far back, from a civil servant’s moment of uncertainty.”7 The main line of the late Classical and medieval legends that spring from Tiberius is more quickly characterized. These stories are not so wonderfully weird:  no sainthood, no demon-​ haunted Alpine tarn. The tradition that Tiberius was favorably inclined to Christianity or even a believer is, of course, thoroughly unlikely and it exists in the absence of any real historical information at all. We may trace its origin, once again, to Tertullian’s “Apology of Christianity,” written during the reign of Septimius Severus, a time of persecution. Tertullian’s purpose is to prove that Christians, far from being enemies of humanity and a hostile presence within the Roman Empire, can in fact include one of Rome’s own emperors among their supporters. We have heard already Tertullian’s claim that Tiberius was converted to belief in the divinity of Jesus by Pilate’s alleged letter. Tertullian also cites other supposed instances; he claims that Domitian and Marcus Aurelius also received the new religion favorably. These statements have been proven to be distortions of history (as we might expect) by Paratore in a 1972 book on Tertullian’s “Apology.”8 This tradition, existing already in the late second century, is the seed from which the baroque foliage of subsequent legend grows: that Tiberius was not only favorable to Christianity, not only a converted Christian, but that he was aided in his despair by a miracle performed by Jesus. In the medieval West, there was a widespread tale that Tiberius was healed of a mortal illness by touching the veil of St. Veronica. Eastern legends are more colorful and can be documented to a much earlier period. In Egypt and Ethiopia, a work attributed to the fifth-​and sixth-​century bishop of Oxyrhynchus, Cyriacus, describes Tiberius’ grief at the death of his unnamed son9 (as a matter of historical fact, Tiberius’ actual son and heir, Drusus, died in 23 CE ). Tiberius had heard of the Resurrection of Jesus; therefore, he shipped the corpse of his son to Jerusalem with the request that he be restored to life. Tiberius’ letter to the resurrected savior begins, “From Tiberius, King of the Earth, to the King of Heaven,” and concludes, “Therefore I believe that you are the Son of God and are in Heaven and Earth.” Tales of Tiberius and Pilate are linked not only by Pilate’s legendary letter to his emperor. Pilate, about whose actual death we know neither date nor circumstances, is sometimes said to have been decapitated by order of Tiberius for failing to take sufficiently severe retribution against the Jews of Jerusalem who were thought to have killed Jesus. Alternatively, Pilate dies in exile in Umbria, in prison in Damascus, or, tormented by remorse, by suicide. In any event, it is Tiberius who gives the order that the unfortunate procurator’s body

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268  Paul F. Burke be thrown into the Tiber, only to be moved to the Rhone, as we have seen, and finally to reside in a lake near the foot of Pilatusberg outside Lucerne. Thus, Christian tradition regarding Tiberius is oddly benevolent in its evaluation of the emperor. Actual Roman history is, of course, far less kind, whether we consider Tacitus’ portrait of the gloomy and homicidal princeps or Suetonius’ lurid tales of pedophilia and bodies plummeting from the summit of Capri to the seaside rocks below. This survey of the peculiar sea-​changes undergone by two Roman officials, whose contact with Christianity as an organized faith must be regarded as completely fictitious, demonstrates that facts and plausibility are put aside when higher priorities, such as religious faith, obtrude. Instead, we see one more instance of the transformation of factual history into a usable past.

Notes 1 Ehrman (2003). This chapter is based on a talk that I  delivered at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of New England, New London, Connecticut, 13–​14 March 2008. 2 Quoted by Ehrman (2003) 21. 3 Quoted by Ehrman (2003) 21. 4 Budge (1928) 1034. “St. Pilate’s Day” falls on a date in the Ethiopian calendar corresponding approximately to 25 June. The text also pays honor to Pilate’s wife:  “And salutation to Procula, his wife, who sent him the message:  ‘Do not condemn him because that man is pure and just.’ ” See also Cerulli (1973). This article summarizes material set forth in greater detail in Cerulli’s La letteratura etiopica: L’Oriente cristiano nell’unità delle sue tradizioni (1968). Cf. pp. 196–​202, “La leggenda di Tiberio imperatore cristiano e di Pilato martire nelle letterature dell’Oriente.” 5 Historia Ecclesiastica, ii.7. 6 A tourist website may be of some interest: www.livius.org/​a/​france/​vienne/​vienna. html. 7 Wroe (1999) 380. 8 Paratore (1972) 34 n. 12 and 35 n. 13. 9 Cf. Cerulli (1973) 144.

Bibliography Budge, E. A. Wallis. 1928. The Book of the Saints of the Ethiopian Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cerulli, E. 1968. La letteratura etiopica:  L’Oriente cristiano nell’unità delle sue tradizioni. Florence: Sansoni. Cerulli, E. 1973. “Tiberius and Pontius Pilate in Ethiopian Tradition and Poetry.” Proceedings of the British Academy LIX: 141–​158. Ehrman, Bart D. 2003. Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Paratore, E. 1972. Tertulliano, “Apologetico.” Bari: Laterza. Wroe, Ann. 1999. Pontius Pilate. New York: Modern Library.

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19 Julius Caesar in the 1960s: Jerome Kilty’s stage adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s The Ides of March1 Mary C. English

As the recent work of Maria Wyke has aptly shown, the persona of Julius Caesar has captured the Western imagination since his assassination in 44 BC E .2 In 1948, Thornton Wilder, following on the success of his earlier novels  –​ The Cabala (1926), The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), and The Woman of Andros (1930) –​wrote The Ides of March, a novel divided into four books of letters and journal entries that chronicle the events leading up to Caesar’s death. The entries neither unfold chronologically nor chart a linear narrative. Instead, Wilder used Rome under the dictatorship of Caesar to explore love, poetry, religion, and political freedom and to probe how individuals both struggle against and are obsessed by these forces. These topics lent themselves well to a novel structured around letters, and Wilder capitalized on the reflective aspects of the epistolary genre to add extra dimension to his characters. Early in 1961, Wilder granted Jerome Kilty permission to transform this novel into a dramatic script. It was the first time he had agreed to allow one of his novels to be transformed into a play.3 Wilder, however, did not relinquish complete control of the project and worked with Kilty on the adaptation.4 In January 1962, while his “Plays for Bleeker Street” were in production, Wilder even joined Kilty in Atlantic City, New Jersey, so that they could collaborate on the script in person.5 Kilty was a natural choice for such an adaptation because, several years earlier, he had written Dear Liar, a play based on the correspondence of George Bernard Shaw and the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell.6 The challenges of adapting the fictitious letters in The Ides of March proved significant. Kilty managed to capture the spirit of Wilder’s characters in the original novel and to produce a lively script; what was missing, however, and what could probably never have been replicated in dramatic form, was Wilder’s “fantasia” approach to the historical material. Although Kilty’s script dramatized some of the best moments in the novel and sensationalized the intrigue that led up to Caesar’s assassination, his linear chronology failed to recreate the expressionist aspects of the original and to bring to life Wilder’s most pressing concerns in The Ides of March. Kilty’s play opens with a solid first act. Cornelius Nepos, the famed Roman biographer, provides important background information for the

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270  Mary C. English audience in much the same way as the Stage Manager functions in Wilder’s Our Town. It is 45 B C E , the year before Caesar’s assassination; political tensions are mounting in Rome and dissident factions are clamoring for liberty and freedom and calling for Brutus to overthrow the dictator; Cleopatra, the alluring Egyptian queen and alleged mother to a child of Caesar, has announced a one-​year visit to the city; and the lyric poet Catullus has plastered Rome with hateful epigrams about Caesar and beautiful poems to his literary muse and erstwhile lover, Clodia Pulcher, the most scandalous woman of the elite circles on the Palatine Hill. As the action unfolds, Caesar appears as a sympathetic dictator and appoints his rival Brutus to the office of Praetor of the City, despite the rumors that Brutus has circulated chain letters calling for his immediate death. Brutus and Caesar even discuss the possibility that Brutus would become Caesar’s successor if the dictator were to die prematurely. Amid this civic turmoil, Clodia Pulcher and her rather debauched brother Clodius decide to cast aside their scandalous lifestyle and reenter the political scene in order to garner support for the anti-​ Caesar factions. To aid in her campaign for respectability, Clodia plans a dinner party to which Caesar, his wife, and his Aunt Julia are invited. Caesar agrees to attend because he will meet the poet Catullus. On the night of the party, assassins, most likely organized by Clodius and his political allies, attack Caesar right outside Clodia’s house. Although Caesar is severely wounded, he continues on to the party, disperses the angry crowds that have gathered to protest this attack, and insists that Clodia resume the festivities. At the dinner banquet, Caesar raises the question, “Is great poetry the supreme work of men’s minds, or does that vision come as a prompting of the gods?”7 Catullus maintains that Eros, god of love, has inspired him to write his tender lyrics to Clodia. She, in turn, disgusted at the overemotive poet, responds, “Why would the gods concern themselves with us? It’s in our mind! Look at him, see! A wild-​eyed versifier possessed by his own imagination, his own feverish dreams. Well, it is not from dreams that we learn. It is from life!”8 As Caesar enters into the argument, he collapses in an epileptic fit. The act concludes with Cornelius Nepos announcing Cleopatra’s arrival in Rome. As this summary of the first act demonstrates, Kilty does an admirable job of adapting a novel based on ambiguity and achroneity into a lively dramatic narrative that interweaves events from all four books of Wilder’s original. Although by choosing to forego Wilder’s structural complexity, Kilty sacrifices some of the poignancy and tenderness that so attracted devotees of Wilder to his 1948 creation. Instead Kilty emphasizes the political intrigue and machinations of the aristocratic class in late Republican Rome. What results is a play that attempts to captivate its audience with historical fiction and compelling plot; gone is Wilder’s hallmark commentary on human affairs and the continuum of emotions that links the ancient past with the modern reader. While Kilty’s work is entertaining, Wilder’s novel is “fun” in the most intricate sense of the word. In fact, in a letter to Maxwell Anderson, dated 13

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Julius Caesar in the 1960s 271 November 1956, Wilder illustrates how this adjective crystallizes his intent in The Ides of March: Of all the works I’ve done that book comes nearest to what one could call fun. Fun to shift from voice to voice; to build up the complicated time-​scheme […]; fun to parody the apparatus of a work of scholarship; fun to force the reader to assume that people have been much the same in all times and ages (that society dowagers, for instance, babbled, then, much as they do at their committee meetings now; and the figures now known to every school-​boy regarded one another as anything but lasting historical giants).9 Kilty by no means ignores these principles in crafting his script, but his preference to prioritize action over character often leaves the viewer unsatisfied. Kilty’s omission of Wilder’s exploration of the complexities of organized religion and individual faith does the greatest disservice to events of the novel chronicled in Act I. Wilder’s Caesar, much like his Alcestis in The Alcestiad and the hetaira Chrysis in The Woman of Andros, struggles to reconcile his supreme authority with the elusive power of the gods. Although Wilder’s Caesar doubts the very existence of the gods, he still worries that some greater force is determining mortal affairs. In a journal entry to his confidant Lucius Mamilius Turrinus (a character overlooked in Kilty’s script), Wilder’s Caesar displays this ambivalence: I must be certain that in no corner of my being there lingers the recognition that there is a possibility of a mind in and behind the universe which influences our minds and shapes our actions. If I acknowledge the possibility of one such mystery, all the other mysteries come flooding back: there are the Gods who have taught us what is excellent and who are watching us; there are our souls which are infused in us at birth and which outlive our death; there are rewards and punishments which furnish a meaning to our slightest action.10 These great questions intensify as threats of Caesar’s assassination become more menacing:  “I’ll probably die by the dagger of a madman. The Gods hide themselves even in their choice of instrument. We are all at the mercy of a falling tile. We are left with the picture of Jupiter going about dislodging tiles which fall upon a lemonade vendor or upon Caesar.”11 Such ruminations contribute to Wilder’s sympathetic portrait of the dictator and render Kilty’s Caesar, by comparison, power-​hungry and egotistical. In his novel, Wilder balances these struggles of an individual ruler with the public scandal that ensued when Clodia Pulcher’s brother disguised himself as a woman and infiltrated the secret rites of the Good Goddess. The profanation of this ritual so intrigued Wilder that he took the liberty of moving the historical event from 62 BCE to the year of Caesar’s assassination so that he could

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272  Mary C. English use the event to tie certain characters together. In the novel, Caesar believes that his wife Pompeia knew of Clodia’s plans for sacrilege and failed to inform him. He divorces her in the wake of the scandal and marries Calpurnia who stays loyal to him until his assassination. Clodia orchestrates such a public travesty because the matrons of Rome, appalled at her reckless lifestyle, have taken measures to limit her involvement in the rite. She becomes in Wilder’s world a strikingly intricate character who at once captivates Caesar, inspires the lyrics of Catullus, profanes the one of Rome’s most sacred religious rites, and destroys the dictator’s marriage. When Kilty omits the religious angle, he simplifies Clodia’s character to the point that she becomes a one-​dimensional vixen caught up in the political conspiracy against Caesar. Kilty’s decision to dilute the complexities of these characters has more serious artistic consequences in Act II. The narrator Cornelius Nepos reappears and notes the rejuvenation of Caesar now that Cleopatra has taken up residence in the city. Clodia and her political ally Marc Antony plot a public embarrassment for the dictator and the Egyptian queen –​Marc Anthony will seduce Cleopatra and steal her away from Caesar. Clodia has spurned her lover Catullus, and, as a result, his health begins to fail and his poems grow more urgent. Caesar responds to Catullus’ debilitation by ordering Clodia to absent herself from the city after Cleopatra’s party. When Catullus hears about Clodia’s impending departure, he becomes overwhelmed with emotion and declares his eternal love: I have loved you as no woman has ever been loved, but you could not understand that. […] I won’t forget you. I made you into a beautiful thing. Lesbia/​Clodia. You’re in my room … in the air I breathe. I won’t leave you alone and you can’t do anything about it. That is a new experience, isn’t it? The discarded lover who won’t be discarded?12 In response, Clodia confesses that Caesar once loved her, but she declined his offer of marriage: And he wanted to marry me –​and he wouldn’t leave me alone –​until he was sent away –​but from that day, every man I ever had was cast in his mold. And every time one of them fell in love with me I couldn’t accept it. It wasn’t him. And now I am caught. He is sending me away to save you… who are him.13 Meanwhile, Brutus, Clodius, and Marc Antony present Caesar with proposals from the senate about “freedom and liberty and the people’s capacity to maintain them.”14 Caesar rejects the proposals outright and refuses Brutus’ request to argue his position on them in the senate. The day of Cleopatra’s reception arrives. At the party, Marc Antony traps the queen in a compromising embrace, and Caesar believes the worst about the situation. To make matters worse, the dictator is called away to comfort Catullus on his

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Julius Caesar in the 1960s 273 deathbed –​he has in fact perished from love of Clodia. In the aftermath of Cleopatra’s party and Catullus’ demise, Caesar prepares to leave the city to oversee the Roman army. He senses trouble in the city and has grown fearful and suspicious enough to declare, “I think now that, were I  not Caesar, I would have to be Caesar’s assassin.”15 The play closes with a pantomime in which the senators  –​Brutus, Marc Antony, and Clodius among them  –​ murder the dictator. Those familiar with Wilder’s novel immediately notice the liberties that Kilty has taken with his narrative. By portraying Brutus, Marc Antony, and Clodius as a united front, Kilty pinpoints the motivating forces behind Caesar’s assassination while Wilder presents these same characters as independent agents and leaves their involvement in Caesar’s murder ambiguous. Kilty also confirms what we suspect in Wilder’s The Ides of March –​that Clodia Pulcher and Caesar share a complicated history of entanglement and miscommunication. In Wilder’s novel the subtle interplay between these two characters complicates Caesar’s fascination with the lyrics of Catullus and allows an interesting nexus between love, poetry, and politics to emerge. At Catullus’ deathbed, Wilder’s Caesar reflects on the collision of these forces:  “Clodia is no ordinary woman and colliding with her Catullus has struck off poems which are not ordinary. At the closer range we say good and evil, but what the world profits by is intensity. There is a law hidden in this, but we are not present long enough to glimpse more than two links in the chain. There lies the regret at the brevity of life.”16 Kilty overlooks the opportunity to explore the dynamics between these forces. Instead his tendency to sensationalize the events in Wilder’s novel leaves the audience with a sordid tale of intrigue culminating in the death of one of the most celebrated dictators. It certainly does not capture the “kaleidoscopic” nature of the historical material that so fascinated Wilder. In comparing his work on the Emporium to his time spent on The Ides of March, Wilder notes that his interest in a project wanes when the daily task (i.e., the pages that I am at work on) do not bristle, sparkle, dance, with representations of life’s diversity, time’s achroneity, and any idea’s Vielseitigkeit. All that is what kept me interested in The Ides of March. No view of life, then, is real to me save that it presents itself as kaleidoscopic, –​which does not mean essentially incoherent. (The very children’s toys of that name show us always a beautifully ordered though multi-​fragmented pattern.)17 The absence of that “pattern” at the end of Kilty’s play leaves the audience yearning for the vibrancy of life, death, and love that characterizes Wilder’s work. Originally Kilty’s The Ides of March was scheduled to premiere at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. Lewis Funke of the New York Times reported that the preparations for the Spoleto production included masks, classical and modern costumes, and a great deal of music; in fact, South

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274  Mary C. English African composer Arthur Evans was commissioned to create background music, a marching song, and a score for Catullus’ poems.18 The Italians also promised to finance a large cast with “hundreds” of extras.19 Kilty even suggested to Wilder that he play Cornelius Nepos: “Yes, in Italian at Spoleto. […] Cornelius, is, after all, outside the play and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if he had an accent in any case. Wouldn’t you like to do that?”20 Despite the publicity for this opening and its grand conception,21 plans changed and the production premiered instead at the Renaissance Theatre in Berlin in November 196222 and a Broadway version, produced by David Black, was scheduled for November of 1963 and upset plans for the U.S.  premiere at the University of Michigan.23 According to the New  York Times, the German production received “a polite but cool reception,” and “some of Berlin’s leading theater critics told friends at the end of the evening that they were ‘disappointed.’ Others in the audience said they had been bored.”24 After this lukewarm reception in Germany, Kilty and Wilder revised the script and planned to relaunch the adaptation. According to Wilder, Kilty seems to have secured possible productions in Poland, Italy, and Paris, although these engagements apparently never came to fruition.25 Perhaps more importantly, Wilder himself was growing frustrated with the difficulty of transforming the novel into material appropriate and exciting enough for the stage. In a letter to Catherine Coffin dated 7 February 1963, he writes, “It’s tedious work to rewarm yesterday’s porridge; and one can put no heart into putting patch-​patch-​patch on to a framework that was never designed as theatre. Had I intended to write a play on that lofty subject I would have gone about it differently in every detail.”26 A slightly altered version of the play opened the following year in Oxford, toured Britain for a month, and moved to London at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket on 8 August 1963 where it ran for 60 performances.27 John Gielgud codirected with Kilty and starred as Julius Caesar; Irene Worth played Clodia Pulcher. John Gielgud had been impressed with the revisions to the script and negotiated with Kilty that the production would open in Britain before New York.28 In a letter to Isabel Wilder, dated 27 June 1963 at the outset of the British tour, Gielgud expressed complete confidence with adaptation: “Well, it all looks quite promising, I believe. Excellent cast, beautiful simple décor in perfect taste –​the first act very successful, only needs a bit of cutting and tightening here and there.”29 Unfortunately, critical response was again less than stellar, and both the script and the cast came under attack. According to The Times of London, “The complex figures of the book have shrunk into lifeless theatrical stereotypes, mouthing standard speeches about democracy and true love. But even given the banality of the script, it is surprising to find a cast of this distinction playing with such wooden theatricality. … The effect all around is to reduce a study of patrician values into a middle-​class cliché.”30 Kenneth Tynan of the London Observer was equally scathing: “The upshot is a waste not only of his [Gielgud’s] time and ours, but of history’s. … For this is history spotlit and cheapened, reduced to the level of a revue sketch, without the saving wit and brevity of a revue. … In short, it is bourgeois

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Julius Caesar in the 1960s 275 history at its last gasp, individualized, unauthenticated and stripped of social background.”31 Only T. C. Worsley of the New York Times seemed to enjoy the performance and characterize it as “an evening of highly civilized enjoyment.”32 Kilty summarized his reaction to this critical response in a letter to Wilder, dated 18 August 1963:  “Well, as you’ve heard by now, we were slaughtered. No one can explain it but we were. The first night was joyous and John [Gielgud] actually went to bed thinking we had a very good chance. The next day the bed fell. Oddly, I still have enormous faith in the play and dozens have written to me and phoned saying the same thing.”33 The momentum for subsequent productions of Kilty’s play did indeed dwindle after the London run. Audiences may well have been overwhelmed by all of the controversy surrounding Century Fox’s Cleopatra, which opened in June 1963 after months of scandal and excessive expense.34 John Gielgud reacted strongly to the criticisms of the London production and became unenthusiastic about transferring the show to New York. In a letter to Isabel Wilder, dated 18 August 1963, he confessed these reservations: The press has smashed our hopes greviously. The company has behaved beautifully and many people have encouraged and consoled us with praise, but I fear we cannot hope to survive more than a few weeks. … I fear I could never have the courage to play it in New York, though I do think it would stand a much better chance there. It is the Americans who have seen it who are most enthusiastic.35 Although the possibility of a U.S. production was always being considered, Kilty’s adaptation did not see its U.S. premiere until 16 October 1969, when Nagle Jackson directed it at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis.36 As Gielgud predicted, American critics reacted positively to the performance. As Bob Goddard of the St Louis Globe Democrat noted, “THE IDES carries the impact of solid drama, but unlike some solid dramas which tend to run to the ponderous, it is immensely fluid, graced with wit and airy charm as well as potent dramatic moments.”37 Likewise, Miles Stanish of the St. Louis Post-​Dispatch described the production as “a lucid civilized play, intelligent, engrossing.”38 Despite this success in St. Louis, the play has seen few revivals, either in the United States or abroad. Perhaps it is unfair of scholars and theatre critics to compare Kilty’s The Ides of March to Wilder’s original, especially since this line of thinking usually leads to showing how the adaptation fails where the original succeeds. Kilty’s task was daunting  –​he attempted to dramatize a novel that Wilder himself described as “fantasia on certain events and persons of the last days of the Roman Republic.”39 In a letter to Glenway Wescott, dated 7 April 1948, Wilder confessed his hope that readers of The Ides of March could understand his approach to the historical material:  “Because with all its incompleteness it urgently asks to be loved. And that so many have denied it. It has been called frigid, –​when its all fun and about the passions; it’s been called

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276  Mary C. English calculated, –​when its recklessly spontaneous; it’s been called hard, –​when it’s almost pathologically tremulous.”40 Kilty’s dramatic adaptation of Wilder’s work approached the material from another direction, but it neither captured the spirit of the original novel nor deviated enough from it to achieve success in its own right. Nevertheless, Kilty deserves praise for making the first attempt to “adapt” a Wilder novel into a dramatic script, and his play, as do all adaptations, forces us to reexamine the original source and to reevaluate one of Wilder’s literary masterpieces.

Notes 1 This essay is dedicated to Blaise Nagy –​a wonderful mentor and teacher. 2 Maria Wyke (2006, 2008, 2012). 3 Three other Wilder novels have since been transformed into plays:  Matthew Burnett, Theophilus North (New  York:  Samuel French, 2004); Lee Blessing, Heaven’s My Destination; David Greenspan, The Bridge of San Luis Rey (the latter two scripts have yet to be published). Theophilus North opened 24 January 2003 and was produced by The Geva Theatre Center (Rochester, NY) and Arena Stage (Washington, DC). It premiered in New York on 14 September 2006 in a production by Keen Company. Heaven’s My Destination opened at the Cleveland Play House and ran from 24 April to 17 May 2009. The Bridge of San Luis Rey opened at Two River Theater (Red Bank, NJ) and ran from 17 February to 18 March 2018. 4 Lewis Funke (1961a). T. Wilder (2003) 258. Work on this project may have started as early as 1959, sometime between May and October. See R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 483. 5 R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 581–​582. 6 Dear Liar opened at the Renaissance Theatre in Berlin, 1957; Billy Rose Theatre in New  York, 1959; Athenee Theatre in Paris, 1961. Later in his career, Kilty again turned to the epistolary format. In 1968, Long Live Life, his play based on the correspondence of Anton Chekhov and his wife, opened at the American Conservatory Theatre. Soon after, Dear Love, his play based on letters and poems of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, premiered at the Alley Theatre (Houston, Texas) in 1970. 7 Kilty, The Ides of March, 38. 8 Kilty, The Ides of March, 39. 9 R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 543. 10 Wilder, The Ides of March, 38. 11 Wilder, The Ides of March, 217. 12 Kilty, The Ides of March, 52–​53. 13 Kilty, The Ides of March, 53–​54. 14 Kilty, The Ides of March, 57. 15 Kilty, The Ides of March, 75. 16 Wilder, The Ides of March, 185. 17 Donald Gallup (1985) 328,​“series of notations toward a continuation of ‘The Emporium,’ ” entry dated 15 February 1954. 18 Funke (1961a). 19 In a letter dated 6 October 1961 (Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale

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Julius Caesar in the 1960s 277 University), Kilty wrote to Wilder about a successful meeting that he had with Gian-​Carlo Menotti, Paolo Stoppa, and Rina Morelli about the world premiere of The Ides of March in Spoleto, Italy. At the meeting, Kilty mentioned that he envisioned a production with four or five extras. Menotti replied, “Four or five! But we have hundreds! We like to fill up the stage.” 20 See letter referenced in n. 19. 21 Funke (1961b). Funke confirmed the production and reported that Paola Stoppa was scheduled to star as Caesar and Rina Morelli as Clodia Pulcher. 22 By April 1962, Kilty and Wilder had started negotiations for a German premiere. In a letter from Kilty to Wilder dated 15 April 1962 (Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University), he writes, “I talked to Dr.  Raeck and Frau Mittler on the phone… from Munich. Raeck wants the opening between the 10th and 15th November. The only time the theatre will be free for long enough, he said. I said it was too late. He is going to try for earlier.” In the same letter, Kilty also told Wilder that he was trying to secure Laurence Olivier for a later London production. 23 Funke (1962b). A  month prior, Funke had announced the possibility of the U.S.  premiere at the University of Michigan. See Funke (1962a). For more on David Black as producer of a New York run, see “Kilty Making a Career as ‘Dear Liar’ Observer; ‘Ides of March’ Is Next” (1963). 24 “Berliners Cool to Wilder ‘Ides’:  Jerome Kilty’s Adaptation of Play on Caesar Opens” (1962) 16. O.  E. Haase starred as Julius Caesar and Herta Staal as Cleopatra. 25 R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 622. In a letter to Catherine Coffin, dated 7 February 1963, Wilder writes, “I’ve just got a letter from Jerry Kilty. The Moscow Ministry of Culture has approved the dramatized Ides of March. It has been accepted for production in Warsaw; Turino-​Milano-​Roma October to December; London (with John Gielgud) in June. Paris in October. I presume it’s the same text that had a bad reception in Berlin. I wrote some new scenes for it; then my will-​power broke down.” 26 R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 622. 27 The “pre-​London” run seems to have been a bit uneven. In a letter to Thornton Wilder dated 26 June 1963 (Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University), Kilty writes, “The first act played very well on the first night but the second went to hell when Sir John forgot all his lines. Last night it was much better and I think with trimming and all that is yet to come in the five weeks before we open that we have a good chance.” For a review of the Oxford preview, see Chapman (1963). 28 Mangan (2004) 281. Gielgud expressed such sentiments in a letter to Kilty dated 16 July 1962. 29 Mangan (2004) 295. A few days before he wrote this letter to Isabel Wilder, Gielgud communicated his praise for the production to Richard Sterne. In a letter, dated 22 June 1962, he wrote, “The Ides is fascinating. … I am delighted with the cast, the rewrites and the general feeling of the play …”. 30 “Patrician Values Reduced to Cliché,” (1963) 11. For other negative reviews of the London production, see Barker (1963); Brien (1963); Darlington (1963); Guidry (1964); Kretzmer (1963); Levin (1963); Shepherd (1963); Shulman (1963); Thirkell (1963).

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278  Mary C. English 31 Tynan (1963). For a similar critique, see Driver (1963): “ ‘The Ides of March’ is in fact a frivolous play, promising a seriousness which few of its characters feel. When it treats of political intrigue and the problems of imperial succession this matters little. […] But when the subject is passion and poetry, embarrassment sets in.” 32 Worsley (1963) 12. 33 Kilty also wrote to Wilder on 20 August 1963 about the many letters he received supporting the London production, and again on 31 August 1963 lamenting that “it would be a pity if these lunkheads were allowed to kill off everything by the sort of trash they approve.” All three letters are archived in Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. 34 For a review exploring this Caesar and Cleopatra “overload,” see Forrest (1963). For more on the scandal of the film Cleopatra, see Brodsky and Weiss (1963). 35 Mangan (2004) 296. 36 Kilty himself saw the early readings and rehearsals of this revival. In a letter to Wilder dated 23 September 1969 (Thornton Wilder Papers, Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University), he praised the cast, the costumes, the set, and the director: “So, as you can see, I’m delighted and optimistic for a future for the piece in America. I did a thorough re-​write in the summer while I was on the coast and it is possible that the main problems with the play are on their way to being licked.” 37 Goddard (1969). 38 Stanish (1969). 39 Wilder, The Ides of March, vii. 40 R. Wilder and Bryer (2008) 460.

Bibliography Barker, Felix. 1963. “Corduroy and Cleopatra –​Oh No!” Evening News. 9 August. “Berliners Cool to Wilder ‘Ides’: Jerome Kilty’s Adaptation of Play on Caesar Opens.” 1962. New York Times. 17 November, 16. Brien, Alan. 1963. “Beware ‘The Ides of March’: The Dramatising of Wilder’s Novel Does Not Come Off.” Sunday Telegraph. 11 August. Brodsky, Jack and Nathan Weiss. 1963. The Cleopatra Papers: A Private Correspondence. New York: Simon and Schuster. Burnett, Matthew. 2004. Theophilus North. New York: Samuel French. Chapman, Don. 1963. “Wait for the Impact on the West End!” Oxford Mail. 25 June. Darlington, W. A. 1963. “‘Ides’ Spoilt by Reading of Letters.” Daily Telegraph. 9 August. Driver, Christopher. 1963. “The Ides of March.” Guardian. 9 August. Forrest, Alan. 1963. “Cleopatra Crops Up Everywhere.” Sunday Citizen. 11 August. Funke, Lewis. 1961a. “News of the Rialto:  ‘Underworld’; Vincent Donehue Will Direct Musical Play –​Other Items.” New York Times. 29 October. Funke, Lewis. 1961b. “News of the Rialto: Two Plays; Brissom Arranges His Program –​ Spoleto Premiere –​Items.” New York Times. 12 November. Funke, Lewis. 1962a. “News of the Rialto: Promise; Lilo Will Be in New Musical –​ Hijinks for ‘Poor Dad.’” New York Times. 25 February.

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Julius Caesar in the 1960s 279 Funke, Lewis. 1962b. “News of the Rialto: Wilder; Young Producer Gets ‘The Ides of March.’” New York Times. 25 March. Gallup, Donald, ed. 1985. The Journals of Thornton Wilder, 1939–​1961. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Goddard, Bob. 1969. “‘The Ides’ Graced with Charm, Wit.” St. Louis Globe Democrat. 18–​19 October. Guidry, Frederick H. 1964. “‘Ides of March’ Executive Suite Caesar.” The Christian Science Monitor. 6 July. Kilty, Jerome. 1960. Dear Liar. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Kilty, Jerome. 1970. Dear Love. New York: Samuel French. Kilty, Jerome. 1971. The Ides of March. New York: Samuel French. “Kilty Making a Career as ‘Dear Liar’ Observer; ‘Ides of March’ Is Next.” 1963. Variety. 30 January. Kretzmer, Herbert. 1963. “Caesar! Dost Thou Lie So Low? The Answer, I Regret, Is That He Does.” Daily Express. 9 August. Levin, Bernard. 1963. “Beware the Ides of March (i.e. Read the Book).” Daily Mail. 9 August. Mangan, Richard, ed. 2004. Sir John Gielgud: A Life in Letters. New York: Arcade Publishing. “Patrician Values Reduced to Cliché.” 1963. The Times of London. 9 August, 11. Shepherd, Ross. 1963. “Caesar in Civvies.” People. 11 August. Shulman, Milton. 1963. “Not So Fateful Ides of March.” Evening Standard. 9 August. Stanish, Myles. 1969. “Kilty Play at Center.” St. Louis Post-​Dispatch. 17 October. Thirkell, Arthur. 1963. “First Night.” Daily Mirror. 9 August. Tynan, Kenneth. 1963. “Ides of Marchbanks.” London Observer. 11 August. Wilder, Robin G. and Jackson Bryer, eds. 2008. The Selected Letters of Thornton Wilder. New York: HarperCollins. Wilder, Tappan. 2003. “Afterword.” In Thornton Wilder, The Ides of March. New York: HarperCollins, 247–​259. Wilder, Thornton. 1948. The Ides of March. New York: Harper & Brothers. Worsley, T. C. 1963. “‘Ides of March’ Opens in London with Gielgud in the Role of Caesar.” New York Times. 9 August, 12. Wyke, Maria. 2006. Julius Caesar in Western Culture. Malden, MA:  Blackwell Publishing. Wyke, Maria. 2008. Caesar:  A Life in Western Culture. Chicago, IL:  University of Chicago Press. Wyke, Maria. 2012. Caesar in the USA. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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20  Edward Robinson’s plaster casts and the battle for the Museum of Fine Arts Ellen E. Perry

The Museum of Fine Arts cast collection During the second half of the 19th century, what most Americans knew about Greek and Roman art they knew through the medium of plaster.1 For a time, prominent museums and schools in America, including but not by any means limited to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, gave over much of their exhibition space –​and virtually all of their ancient exhibition space –​to plaster casts of famous masterpieces such as the Laokoon, the Nike of Paionios, the Venus de Milo, and the Medici Venus. Other cultures, including Egypt and the Near East, were represented by museum cast collections, but it is safe to say that Greece, Rome, and to a lesser extent the Italian Renaissance took center stage. Art teachers in New  York and Boston made drawing from these casts a regular feature of their students’ training. And it was commonplace in art history classes for students to be seen busily measuring the sculptures, so that they might determine something about size and ideal proportion in ancient art. Cast collections also provided students an opportunity to learn about the history of ancient Greece and Rome in the presence of, and with the help of, sculptures that were historically important, like the Parthenon sculptures or the reliefs from the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Such works were not simply art for art’s sake: they conveyed political and dynastic messages. And so they were not just visible and tangible representatives of ancient Greek and Roman cultures: they actually provided clues to ancient history. One reason that plaster casts were ubiquitous was financial necessity. In 1870, when both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts were incorporated, America lacked both the timing and the geopolitical wherewithal that had, for example, allowed Great Britain to fill the British Museum with original sculptures that were both aesthetically pleasing and historically important. In other words, plaster casts were considered a convenient way of introducing ancient art to an American public that otherwise would not have had access to it. The Metropolitan Museum of Art opened its doors in 1872. Although casts were cheap in comparison with original sculptures, for the first decade of its

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 281 existence, the Met could not even afford the casts it coveted. It was only the $100,000 bequest of a wealthy donor in 1883 that allowed the museum to begin forming a collection –​at first exclusively of famous architecture like Hadrian’s Pantheon. Three years later a trustee, H. G. Marquand, gave $10,000 to begin a collection of sculptural casts, and a Department of Casts was established at the museum.2 The Metropolitan Museum of Art was sufficiently concerned about the question of which casts to acquire that it even formed a Special Committee on Casts, which included such luminaries as designer Louis C.  Tiffany and Augustus St. Gaudens, perhaps the most famous sculptor in America at the time. Several experts were then asked to draw up a wish list for the committee from which, “selections could be made … as funds and space at the disposal of the trustees might permit.”3 One of the experts who gave his advice to the committee  –​indeed, one of the key figures in the story of plaster casts in this country –​was Edward Robinson. Robinson, at the time the Curator of Classical Antiquities at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, was largely responsible for drawing up the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s wish list for the “Chaldaean, Assyrian, Persian, Greek and Roman” periods.4 Today, to get a sense of the sculptures that Robinson favored for reproduction, one need only pay a visit to the Slater Memorial Museum on the campus of the Norwich Free Academy in Norwich Connecticut, one of only a handful of high school campuses in the country to house its own museum. The Slater Museum had appointed Edward Robinson in 1887 to select, install, and purchase a collection of casts, which is still on display. His selection was, “… made with extreme care; only the very finest works available were chosen.”5 Robinson’s employer, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, opened its doors at its first, Copley Square, location in 1876. Unlike the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts owned casts right from the start. Its sculptural (as opposed to architectural) cast collection at the time included statues on loan from the Boston Athenaeum and statues purchased, interestingly, with the proceeds from a sale of donated paintings.6 The casts were such an important component of the new museum’s collection that, when the arrival was delayed of 50 cases that had been purchased from England, the opening of the museum had to be postponed for two months. During this delay, disagreement arose among the members of the Committee of the Museum as to whether and to what degree fig leaves would be necessary. The matter was ultimately referred to Dr.  Jacob Bigelow, Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, who was given full authority to decide which statues required fig leaves and which did not.7 Boston was so successful at stocking its museum that by 1885, when Robinson came on board, the museum was not acquiring new plasters because the cast rooms were already overcrowded.8 Five years later, these space problems were mitigated by an extension of the building, and after that Robinson gave what might seem to current sensibilities a surprising attention to the quality and care of the collection. For the ongoing care

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282  Ellen E. Perry of the casts he acquired something called a von Dechend Apparatus, the invention of an employee of the Royal Museum in Berlin. This had several functions: It could be used to seal the surface of casts so that they might be cleaned more easily. It also applied cleaning fluids uniformly –​in effect, it was a precursor to the aerosol spray paint can. Finally, the apparatus might be used to subject the casts to a current of compressed air, which proved an efficient and effective means of dusting.9 Although Robinson seemed quite satisfied with the results, the von Dechend Apparatus apparently did not solve all of the cleaning problems posed by plasters. Less than a decade after its acquisition, three casts were judged to be too discolored and, one presumes, no longer susceptible to a mere cleaning. The museum then commissioned Boston-​based P.P. Caproni & Co. to make new casts using molds taken from the old ones.10 In other ways, too, Robinson was clearly interested in maintaining and even improving the appearance of the museum’s collection. He lamented the fact that there was, to his mind, no acceptable method for giving casts a “warmer and more agreeable tone.” The treatments that existed he felt either hid the subtleties of modeling or confused students by producing “false spots of light and shadow.”11 In a telling articulation of his priorities, he rejected one class of surface treatment that “though picturesque is meretricious, and therefore out of place in a museum.”12 Robinson was therefore clearly mindful of the limitations of the medium. Still, he remained committed to the highest possible degree of accuracy in reproduction. He was delighted when the museum’s old cast of the Venus de Milo was replaced by one taken from a new mold that showed “all the breaks upon the surface of the figure” and so, he felt, was a superior subject for study and investigation.13 And, although the museum had acquired a plaster cast of the Delphi Charioteer in 1899 –​only three years after the bronze had been discovered  –​he was pleased when two years later the opportunity arose to replace the plaster version with a bronze one. In 1891, Robinson completed and published a catalogue of the museum’s cast collection. His catalog, which has been described as “the first comprehensive publication of that sort in America” is worth pondering a bit.14 It was sufficiently popular to go through three editions in nine years. If we are inclined to dismiss plaster casts as second-​rate knockoffs, this might seem an astonishing fact. What does it mean to publish a catalog devoted entirely to reproductions, that is, to copies of masterpieces whose originals are all housed elsewhere? And why on earth would such a catalog sell well enough to go through three editions? Part of the answer must surely be that the museum’s cast collection served as a basic education in Greek and Roman civilization. In the third edition of the catalog, for example, the entry for the Parthenon is 29 pages long, and comprises not simply descriptions of individual sculptures but also a discussion of Periklean Athens, the cultural milieu in which the Parthenon was constructed; the use of the treasury of the Delian League to fund the

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 283 building; details about dimensions of the building and the material in which it was constructed; and the afterlife of the building as it was converted into a church –​at first dedicated to St. Sophia, then to the Virgin Mary. The catalog entry then outlines the building’s continued afterlife as Athens fell under the control of, in turn, the Franks, the Sicilians, the Venetians, and, finally, the Turks. The latter converted the building into a mosque and unfortunately were also using it as a powder magazine on the fateful day in 1687 when the Venetians decided to lob a cannonball at it, killing (it is said, and yet is usually forgotten) over 300 people and reducing the sculptures from the East Pediment to mere rubble.15 All of this is what Robinson tells us in his catalogue entry before he actually starts to discuss the casts themselves. In other words, Robinson clearly thought of the collection and of his catalog as tools for providing the public with an education in ancient history and art history. The original Apollo Belvedere was (and is) housed in the Vatican; while the Medici Venus was (and is) in the Uffizi in Florence; and many of the Parthenon sculptures are still, at this writing, housed in the British Museum. In 1891, a Bostonian who wanted a thorough grounding in the history of ancient sculpture had to do a tour of Europe–​or go down the street to Copley Square, to the Museum of Fine Arts, where all of these works were housed together in one place. A walk through the museum, especially with the catalog in hand, was a walk through the history of ancient art. Dyson even notes that, “In some instances, as in the section [sc. of the catalogue] on the Venus de Milo, the readers were introduced at some length to the contemporary scholarly debates on the work.”16 Robinson’s catalog, in other words, provided history and art history, all of it grounded in the primary sources, which he cites meticulously. It also provides the circumstances of the discovery and first publication of many of the most famous sculptures of classical antiquity. Robinson was even able to make creative pedagogical use of his casts. By his own reckoning, the most important work his department did one year was to paint two casts and display them so that the public might understand something about the use of color on Greek sculpture. The casts, a Hermes of Praxiteles and a Venus Genetrix, were placed alongside unadorned plasters of the same types, so that viewers could compare painted and unpainted versions. For this exhibit, which remained open for four months, the department published a pamphlet explaining the rationale for employing the colors as they had in the reconstruction.17 During the 1890s, at the urging and with the blessing of Edward Robinson, the museum began to acquire ever more original works of art. As a consequence, however, many of the casts had to be removed from the floor and placed in storage. In June 1902 Robinson was promoted from Curator of Antiquities to Director of the Museum. That year, he carefully culled the casts that he considered least important for the education of the public, and he stored them away. This was a decision that explicitly privileged some casts over others, and implicitly privileged original works of art over casts.

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284  Ellen E. Perry This last point is an important one for the current narrative. The conflict that was soon to develop at the museum would be about the relative importance of casts and original objects. If we consider only that conflict, and not Robinson’s record of years at the museum, all we will see is that he argued tenaciously to keep the cast collection. However, his two decades at the museum produce a fuller picture of his beliefs and practices. Over the course of many years, in fact, Robinson argued both vigorously and repeatedly that the museum needed to acquire more original ancient artifacts: In concluding the report of this year, I beg to call your attention to the fact that our collection of original Greek art is greatly in need of expansion. … So far as sculpture alone is concerned, we can hardly hope for any considerable collection of really fine Greek originals; and yet I need hardly remind you of the value which even one first-​rate specimen, if it were only a head or torso, would have for our museum. It would fill a place which an entire collection of casts fills but imperfectly, both in attracting, interesting and instructing the public, and as an inspiration for artists and students of art of our community.18 Here, long before he has been drawn into an ideological conflict, we see Robinson arguing that original works serve a purpose that no cast or cast collection ever could. And in 1902, when the constraints of space forced him to choose between casts and originals, it was the casts –​some of them –​that went into storage. He regretted, however, that such a selection was necessary, and he clearly wanted to find floor space both for the entire cast collection and for the original works.19 His dream was of a museum in which there was sufficient space to include both. Thus, the earliest discussions concerning the new museum that was to be built on Huntington Avenue included plans for a large space devoted entirely to casts.20

The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts On 12 August 1905, after only three years as Director but 20  years of service to the museum, Robinson abruptly resigned altogether from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His resignation was only finally accepted by the trustees four months later, on 9 December, after a committee of distinguished men had had the chance to investigate its circumstances. Newspapers of the day denounced the trustees for their almost complete public silence on an issue of such importance to Boston and to the museum’s subscribers.21 If you were not a museum employee or closely allied to one, it was not easy to figure out or find out why the museum’s director had resigned. Nevertheless, newspaper accounts and archival sources point to several indisputable facts about the episode: that the plaster casts were a significant object of contention; that the design of the new building on Huntington Avenue  –​the building that still houses the museum today  –​was another, related object of contention; and that both of these topics were subordinate

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 285 to a larger, theoretical disagreement about whether the museum should promote education or aesthetic appreciation. It is also quite clear that clashing personalities and an unclear chain of command amplified the problem far beyond what mere differences of opinion usually do. To the degree that a genuine debate can be teased out from the personal conflict, this conflict was not just about casts but about the very purpose of an art museum. Arlo Bates, an English professor at MIT and a somewhat successful novelist, wrote two open letters in December of 1905 which, for all practical purposes, made public the sordid affairs of the museum. These letters were printed in full in the Boston Evening Transcript and were quoted or alluded to in several other newspapers: I do not know the exact terms in which the supporters of the aesthetic theory, the supporters of “aesthetic visualization” would state their position, and I have certainly no desire to misrepresent anybody. It is no secret, I believe, that they desired the suppression of casts, the rearrangement of the Egyptian and other departments for purely artistic as distinguished from archaeologic principles, and the confining of the exhibits to what they consider the beautiful.22 The supporters of this aesthetic theory included, most importantly, Samuel D.  Warren, the president of the board of trustees, and Matthew Stewart Prichard, the assistant director of the museum. To a lesser extent, Benjamin Ives Gilman, the secretary of the museum was in their camp; and Isabella Stewart Gardner, the renowned collector and patron of the arts, operated as a sort of éminence grise in the affair. Matt Prichard was a British expatriate who had come to Boston two years earlier with his friend, Edward Perry Warren, a well-​known collector and Sam’s younger brother. “Ned” had been living in England, acquiring art for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He soon returned to England, but Prichard decided to remain in Boston and was appointed assistant director of the museum. Because there was an ongoing and formidable sibling rivalry between the two Warren brothers, Ned considered Prichard’s decision a betrayal and cut ties with his former friend.23 Robinson believed fervently  –​and this is evident years before Prichard arrived in Boston –​that an important part of any museum’s purpose should be the education of the public.24 In 1897, for example, he expressed his delight at the “eagerness” with which the cast collection was used by students of drawing and of art history. He also urged the trustees to build a lecture hall. The previous year, he had offered a six-​lecture course on the principles of Greek art, but he had been compelled by the lack of an appropriate space at the museum to hire a hall offsite for the lectures: I am sure you will agree with me that until [the Museum] can provide instruction regarding the arts which it exhibits and illustrates, it will not be doing all the educational work which may be legitimately expected of it.25

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286  Ellen E. Perry Robinson’s defense of the plaster cast collection was, therefore, a defense of its usefulness for teaching the public something about the history of classical art and about classical culture as a whole. He believed that not only was the cast collection not obsolete –​or even obsolescent –​it was, in fact, being used more and more both by school classes and for adult education. Matt Prichard had nothing but disdain for this view. This became particularly clear when, for three months at the beginning of 1904, Prichard served as Director Pro Tem. Architects R.  Clipston Sturgis and Edmund Wheelwright had been retained for their advice during the planning phases of the new building. Robinson and Warren traveled with them to Europe for three months, leaving the assistant director in charge.26 While they were gone, Prichard outlined some of his ideas about museums in a private document printed for the trustees of the museum. His essay was titled “Current Theories of the Arrangement of Museums of Art and their Application to the Museum of Fine Arts.” In it, he argued that art museums existed largely to “reflect, clearly or dimly, the beauty and magnificence to which life has attained in past times,” and to “maintain in the community a high standard of aesthetic taste”.27 Prichard’s essay also lay out a number of innovative and forward-​thinking proposals for the new building that was to be constructed on Huntington Avenue. The most important of these included the grouping of objects by period and culture rather than by material; the division of the museum’s possessions into exhibition collections and study collections; and the relegation of the latter to back rooms where, for the most part, only professionals would encounter them. Prichard believed that removal of the study collections to back rooms would, in turn, alleviate the crowding of objects on public display, leading to a more harmonious, less confusing space. Some of these ideas were cutting-​edge; however, his manner of expressing himself was, at times, positively provocative. He characterized the construction of the new museum building as an opportunity for the trustees, “to consider all previous efforts and all modern suggestions with judicious equanimity, so that they may know how to refuse the evil and choose the good.”28 The message was clear:  his ideas were good; differing ideas were “evil.” Elsewhere, his argument seems to be a thinly disguised rejection of Robinson’s two decades of achievements at the museum. For example, he criticized the current arrangement of the coin collection, “which it has been the fashion not only to segregate but to arrange according to an arbitrary, confusing and highly unscientific classification invented years before museums were even thought of.”29 He wrote of “the monotony of a hall filled with Greek vases or Greek terra cottas,” asserting that the public passed through these rooms without stopping to look at anything in them.30 At one point in the essay, Prichard even felt the need to emphasize his point with capital letters:

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 287 In considering the application of these principles to our collections it is necessary to be frank; our personal appreciation and devotion must not blind us to the facts. THE PUBLIC DOES NOT LOOK AT GREEK VASES. THE PUBLIC DOES NOT LOOK AT JAPANESE POTTERY. THE PUBLIC DOES NOT LOOK AT LONG SERIES OF SMALL OBJECTS save in the most perfunctory manner, at all.31 This emphatic (and unsupported) assertion that the public does not look at Greek vases could not have endeared him to Robinson, whose hard work to increase the museum’s holdings of original objects had offered particular attention to that class of artifacts.32 Prichard’s remark about Japanese pottery was a swipe at Edward S.  Morse’s prize collection, which he had donated to the museum in 1892 and that served as the core of what is now a world-​ famous collection of Japanese art. In this essay, then, we can already trace emphatic differences between Robinson and Prichard; yet the subject of plaster casts has not been broached. Later that same year, however, the plaster casts became the particular topic of letters written to the trustees by Robinson, Prichard, and Benjamin Ives Gilman. Robinson had learned that, at a committee meeting he was unable to attend, plans for the new building had been offered that were radically different from anything previously considered. That meeting took place in the early summer of 1904. At it, the suggestion was made that, in the new museum building “instead of bringing all the casts together … they be distributed in various parts of the building, among the different departments with which they were associated,” and also that the casts be placed downstairs, although accessible by staircases.33 Robinson must have been shocked to discover this attempt, in his absence, to demote his beloved collection to subsidiary rooms; and he must have felt that his authority as the museum’s director had been undermined by a maneuver undertaken in his absence. From a pamphlet written by Morris Carter, who was newly hired as librarian of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1904, we learn that Prichard “and his allies” had engaged a young architect named Walter McCornack, to submit a competing plan for the new museum that reflected their own ideas, rather than those of Sturgis and Bigelow. A table was set up in the museum library for McCornack to do his work.34 “It may surprise some to learn,” wrote Arlo Bates later in one of his editorials, “that when [the architects’ plans] were completed they were confronted with an amateur design made by one of the heads of departments, and were asked seriously to criticise its crudities; a thing which they naturally and properly declined to do.”35 Bates also took rhetorical advantage of various rumors circulating that Isabella Stewart Gardner, a dear friend of Prichard’s, had had a hand in this “amateur” plan:

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288  Ellen E. Perry … it is possible to credit the persistent rumor that the author of this is now with the help of a lady preparing plans that are to be adopted for the new building. This, too, is in Boston and not in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera! The proposition is one in which the whole public is vitally interested. Far be it from me to deny the fertility of amateur genius, especially when assisted by a lady; but genius is so rare and amateur genius so unlikely to be all that its possessors fondly believe it to be, that the building committee certainly need to be on their guard.36 In fact, though he was young, Walter McCornack was no amateur. He was a recent graduate of MIT and went on to have a distinguished career as an architect, first in Boston and then in Cleveland. Furthermore, Sam Warren had already, as far back as 1902, invited Isabella Stewart Gardner to share her views about the new museum with the Building Committee.37 Robinson may not have cared to hear her opinions, but Warren clearly did. In fact, Gardner’s participation in the plans for the new building was a real sore point for Robinson. The museum librarian, Morris Carter, later provided some insight into the tensions at the museum during these two years. He had applied for his job in the spring of 1904. During the interview phase of the application, he was ushered into Robinson’s office where he reports he was asked: Whom did I know in Boston? I feared that I would lose the job because I had to admit that I knew absolutely no one in the city, but perhaps that was my best recommendation to him and I did receive the appointment. … Not until long after did I surmise that perhaps Mr. Robinson wanted to find out whether I knew Mrs. Gardner, because there was friction in the Museum.38 Isabella Stewart Gardner knew full well that her participation irritated Robinson, but she had no intention of fading away just to please him. Carter is frank about what he perceives as her unwarranted interference in the affairs of the Museum of Fine Arts. (His frankness about this particular episode is the more extraordinary because he later served as the first director of the Gardner Museum and wrote a biography of Gardner.) At one point, when the staff were asked –​presumably by the committee that investigated Robinson’s resignation –​if they found it difficult to work under Robinson, Carter said he did not. Shortly thereafter, Gardner paid him a visit at the museum library and “explained to me that I was making a great social error in siding with Mr. Robinson, because he and Mrs. Robinson were not social tops in Boston.” Carter continues, “I assured her that I had no social ambition whatsoever.” By contrast, he expressed admiration of Robinson for “leaving me to form my own opinions and not trying to influence me.”39 In September 1904, Robinson mounted a vigorous defense of the original plan to keep the casts in one, central location at the new building. In a letter to the museum’s trustees, he argued that casts enabled students to

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 289 familiarize themselves with masterpieces “by the only adequate means within our power”; that the cast collection was so large that, if the plasters were dispersed among the various departments of the new museum, their numbers would overwhelm the originals; and that the collection was being used more and more by students of all ages and from all types of schools.40 In the first week of November, both Prichard and Benjamin Ives Gilman, the museum’s secretary, wrote responses to this letter. Crucially, they offered their opinions at the behest of the president, Sam Warren. They reiterated some of the arguments that Prichard had made earlier in the year, particularly that the purpose of a museum of fine art is appreciation, aesthetic pleasure, and joy, while “[k]‌nowledge of art history is not the same thing as the comprehension of art works, but a very different and immeasurably less important thing.”41 Prichard went further, asserting that “[n]o lectures, or casts, or photographs are needed to translate the wonders of the Parthenon,” and suggesting that, ideally, viewers would develop an almost mystical relationship with works of art. Taste, he believed, could not be acquired by instruction, but only “silently, automatically and as the unperceived result of companionship and familiarity with beautiful things.”42 One of the few topics on which Gilman and Prichard differed was the value of photographic reproductions. This is an interesting disagreement, not the least because various different forms of photographic reproduction would ultimately help to render plaster casts obsolete even for those who did believe in art history. They offered a more compact, less cumbersome medium for teaching the discipline. Gilman, however, deplored all reproductions in any medium, and asserted that they ruined the viewer for the originals.43 By contrast, Prichard, whose opinions had evidently hardened in the course of argument, now suggested that the museum should not exhibit casts at all; and, somewhat implausibly, that photographs might be better guides to the appearance of the original sculptures than casts would be.44 On 10 November, the Committee on the Museum responded to this debate. Committee member and eminent architect W. P. P. Longfellow made a motion to inform the Building Committee that “it is not the desire of the Committee on the Museum to provide in the present plans for a material increase in the collection of casts.”45 In other words, the Committee proved unable to decide anything more than that the cast collection would not be enlarged in the future.46 This was a partial defeat for Robinson, who had hoped to supplement certain parts of the collection; but it did not resolve the considerably more contentious question of the casts’ prominence and disposition in the new building. For the time being, these questions remained unresolved. Longfellow strained to find diplomatic wording that might diffuse an explosive situation, but the best he could come up with was a statement that, “the public admires [the casts] and we may encourage it to do so”. The debates and maneuvering over both the design of the new building and the disposition of the collections highlight why Robinson’s position had become untenable. On matters of great importance, his adherents charged

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290  Ellen E. Perry Prichard with going over the director’s head under the protection of Sam Warren’s authority, with “doing this or that thing without consulting Mr. Robinson or even referring the matter to him”.47 The personal and ideological differences between the director and the assistant director need not have posed any practical problem, were it not for the fact that the museum’s bylaws were unclear on the question of who had authority in a dispute. A committee of five distinguished men, appointed in August 1905 to review Robinson’s resignation, summarized the problem as follows: The bylaw relating to the director states that the director “shall, under the trustees, have the general charge (and management) of the museum,” while that relating to the committee on the museum states that “the committee on the museum shall have supervision and control of all the collections belonging to the museum and of the arrangement and exhibition thereof.”48 In other words, Edward Robinson’s authority derived from his position as director; while Matt Prichard’s authority derived from the approval of the president, Sam Warren. The proximate cause for Robinson’s resignation the following August remains unknown. Another trip abroad may have convinced him that he could do better if he left Boston. In April 1905, he traveled to Scotland to receive an honorary degree from the University of Aberdeen and to deliver an address at the reopening of that city’s Art Gallery.49 The gallery had just undergone renovation to accommodate a new cast collection for use of the students at the adjacent Gray’s School of Art. The festivities were lavish. On 6 April, a special train transported 62 illustrious guests and members of the international press from London to Aberdeen for the reopening of the gallery and for a good deal of wining and dining. At a graduation evening reception the next day, honorary degrees were awarded to six guests, including Edward Robinson and the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Hardy was so pleased by the whole experience that he wrote a poem about it when he arrived home.50 The treatment Robinson received in Scotland must have delighted him. He had been included on a guest list of international luminaries, and the lavish festivities had all been devised to celebrate a brand new collection of plaster casts. The contrast with his situation back home in Boston could not have been more stark. It may be, then, that there was no final indignity that led to Robinson’s resignation: the damage to his authority had long been done. Instead, his resignation may have been motivated by the prospect of an honorable escape. Thanks to his consulting work, he had connections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Just over a week after the trustees finally accepted Robinson’s resignation, he received an appointment as Curator of Art and Assistant Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Most of the Boston press lamented his loss.51 The New York Times, by contrast, crowed at the city’s eminent acquisition:

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 291 A remark by Sir Caspar Purdon Clarke to the effect that, “you get more from treating people nicely than otherwise” might be pondered at Boston. Certainly in New  York it denotes a change of policy long prayed for. Courtesy may involve the loss of some hours in the week which are hard to spare, but the gain to a museum from the kindly and fair treatment of all comers is sometimes priceless, and not to be weighed against the time devoted to bores.52 Edward Perry Warren took the opportunity to go on record and air an old grudge: Boston will not recover from the blow for years. It is a disgrace that conditions so developed that Mr. Robinson was forced to vacate. He was systematically undermined and the institution will pay the penalty in his loss. Mr. Pritchard [sic], the assistant director, is a man of considerable ability, but I do not classify him with Mr. Robinson.53 Greater ambivalence was expressed by the art historian and connoisseur, Bernard Berenson, to his friend and patron, Isabella Stewart Gardner: I get so little news from Boston about the Museum, but I  hear at last that both Robinson and Prichard are to leave. I  am heartily sorry not only because they are both my friends but also because I think they will be hard to replace. Prichard I need not praise to you, but Robinson you do not esteem as I do. Say what you will, he is a scholar and a moderate man, and in the long run, considering the welter of amateurishness that pervades our Museum, such a director had his great uses.54 A few years later, in 1910, Robinson was promoted to Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. That same year he oversaw the production of a catalog of New York’s cast collection that he himself had helped to form some two decades earlier. This time he did not write the catalog on his own, but farmed out different sections –​including Egyptian, Near Eastern, Classical, and Renaissance casts –​to various scholars. Prichard and Warren, though they outlasted Robinson in Boston, did not fare as well as he did in the long run. Several newspapers called publicly for one or both to resign and suggested that both large donors and subscribers to the museum might be lost as a result of the controversy.55 In January 1906, the month after Robinson had accepted the position of assistant director in New  York, Prichard was demoted from assistant director of the Museum of Fine Arts to bursar. The following July he left the museum, and a year later he returned to Europe.56 Sam Warren retired from the presidency at the beginning of 1907, then six months later resigned as chair of the Building Committee, although he continued to work for the new building until its completion in 1909.57

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292  Ellen E. Perry It was Arlo Bates who had first noted, in his open letters, the lack of clarity in the museum’s bylaws. He urged the museum to revise these, and to specify who had final authority  –​although the various local newspapers differed on the question of whether final authority should go to the Director or to the Committee on the Museum. Several newspapers backed him, pointing out that it would be difficult to attract a new director of any status unless this most fundamental problem was resolved.58 After Robinson’s departure, the trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts amended the museum’s bylaws to increase the powers of the director and to remove from the trustees any detailed administrative authority.59 This was an implicit recognition of the point made in the newspapers –​that no director could long tolerate, or even knowingly accept, a position in which his authority was so completely compromised. Indeed, the museum had to appoint two temporary directors before it finally found a replacement for Robinson, another classical archaeologist named Arthur Fairbanks. As far as personal histories seem to go then, Robinson appears to have won. The question of who won the ideological dispute, who had history on their side, is a far more complicated one. The acquired nickname for the conflict, “The Battle of the Casts,” of course suggests that Robinson was the loser. The new building on Huntington Avenue did exhibit plaster casts, but only in two restricted areas, not in the large, central hall that he had envisioned. In 1911, not long after the opening of the new building, the Court of Renaissance Casts was transformed by burlap and temporary partitions for use in a memorial exhibition of paintings by Frederic Porter Vinton, who had died earlier that year. One critic judged the space, thus transformed, to be “an ideally dignified and perfectly lighted gallery, far better than any of the regular galleries on the second floor.”60 It was the first time, but by no means the last, that the casts in this room were moved or hidden so that an exhibit of paintings might occupy the space.61 Within a few decades, plaster casts fell into general disuse, particularly in art museums around the United States. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art finally removed their last casts from display in the same decade, the 1930s. The Boston collection was dispersed or destroyed in the early 1930s when Frederick J. Bradlee Jr., who was hired to “look at the institution with a fresh eye” had his attention called to the cast courts: Appalled by the clatter and commotion of children drawing in the large cast courts he tried to find a place in the basement for these classes. As the space that his eye lit upon was full of still more plaster casts, never exhibited since the move from Copley Square, he took steps to get rid of them. Schools and colleges were offered any that they wanted, F.O.B. Boston. When all possible casts had been disposed of in this way, sledge hammers and dump trucks got rid of the remainder.62 In 1938, the Metropolitan’s Hall of Casts was remodeled to create a Hall of Armor, and those casts, too, went into quiet retirement. Various uses were

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 293 subsequently found for some of them, until what remained of the collection was finally sold at Sotheby’s in 2006.63 The ultimate demise of American cast collections can be attributed to a number of different factors, including the increasing importance of life drawing and painting in art schools; the interest of millionaire collectors in acquiring original works of art; a decline in history painting that undermined the importance of ancient art; and, of course, the increasing use of photography for the instruction of art history.64 Nevertheless, it is too easy a trap to see Robinson as the stodgy representative of an old order and Prichard as the innovative young rebel who paid a steep personal price for his visionary approach. To be sure, Prichard knew that he was signing on for a Pyrrhic victory. Long before the conflict reached its nadir, he wrote to Isabella Stewart Gardner, “I shall lose; but I shall have lit a great lamp –​the lamp of real appreciation, of the first rate, of aesthetic conviction.” It is important, however, to remember that Prichard was not simply an opponent of plaster casts. He also dismissed Greek vases, today considered to be a strong point of the museum’s ancient collection.65 It is, moreover, a very good thing that Prichard’s views on Japanese pottery were not taken seriously, as Edward Morse’s pottery collection, and his interest in all things Japanese, made him “the principal source of knowledge about the traditional culture of Japan” in Boston.66 It was his passion for all things Japanese that attracted other Bostonians to the culture and the art, and that ultimately made the museum’s collection what it is today, one of the finest collections of Japanese art in the western hemisphere. More to the point, though, few museum employees would agree today with Prichard’s purist rejection of education as an essential function of art museums. Museums foster education and appreciation simultaneously  –​ indeed, few would dispute the two functions are inextricably intertwined. Nor are there many who would agree with the suggestion that knowledge of art history is “a very different and immeasurably less important thing” than the comprehension of art or even, again, that the two bodies of knowledge are, in any meaningful way, separable. On the whole, then, the ideological debate appears to have been a draw; and, as such, hardly an outcome worth the personal pain and diminished reputation of its various protagonists.

Notes 1 This article is dedicated to Blaise in gratitude, because he taught me by his example that the education of the young is a noble calling. For their help with archival sources, I would like to thank Maureen Melton of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts Archives, Marieke Van der Steenhoven of the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives at Bowdoin College, Lisa Feldmann and Shana McKenna of the Gardner Museum, and the librarians of the Boston Public Library and the MFA Library. For my first introduction, years ago, to the Slater Memorial Museum I  would like to thank Nina Barclay of the Norwich Free Academy.

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294  Ellen E. Perry 2 Tomkins (1986) 82. 3 Metropolitan Museum of Art: Tentative Lists of Objects Desirable for a Collection of Casts (1891) iii. 4 Ibid. 5 Hall (1990) 3. 6 Dyson (2010) 564; Whitehill (1970) 30–​31. 7 Whitehill (1970) 31. 8 Robinson (1887) 14–​15; Robinson (1888) 12. 9 Robinson (1891) 22. For a general sense of the basic mechanism of the Von Dechend apparatus, see Mitchell (1885) and “Cleaver and Others v. Wallwork and Wells” (1896), a patent infringement case in which the apparatus is compared with other, similar mechanisms for dispersing liquids uniformly. 10 Robinson (1899) 92. 11 Robinson (1891) 23. 12 Robinson (1891) 22–​23. This particular statement of priorities is intriguing, since it foreshadows the controversy that was to erupt, in part, over the cast collection over a decade later:  Although Robinson was sensitive to the allure of beautiful objects he was, nevertheless, unwilling to choose beauty over truth. 13 Robinson (1896) 25. 14 Dyson (2010) 564. 15 Robinson (1900b) 147–​177. 16 Dyson (2010) 566. 17 Robinson (1893) 21. 18 Robinson (1889) 22–​23. 19 Robinson (1903) 67–​68. 20 Robinson (1904) 3. 21 See for example, “Accepts by Wire” (1905) and Bates (1905a). 22 Bates (1905a) 9. 23 For the sibling rivalry, see Green (1989) passim, but especially 159–​198. 24 See, for example, Robinson (1887) 14 and Robinson (1897) 35–​36. 25 Robinson (1897) 35–​36. See also, Robinson (1887) 14. 26 The trip took place from 2 January to 2 April, 1904. Warren (1905). 27 Prichard (1904a) 5. 28 Prichard (1904a) 3. 29 Prichard (1904a) 13. 30 Prichard (1904a) 14. He makes a similar claim in Prichard (1904b) 29 about the cast collection:  “The visitor, anxious to move on, passes the casts scarcely deigning to glance at them; in this semi-​conscious state he not only omits to notice them, but by the same token misses many of the finest originals in the world as well, seeing nothing till he reaches the paintings, where he may rest and be thankful.” 31 Prichard (1904a) 15–​16. 32 See, for example, Robinson (1889) 23, where he describes the museum’s collection of Greek vases as “lamentably deficient” and urges the development of a collection on the grounds that “… except sculpture there is no form of art in which the purity and beauty of Greek work is more impressively displayed.” The next year he reports that the contributions of “ten friends of the Museum” have made possible the purchase of 21 vases, “all of them excellent specimens of the types to which they belong”: Robinson (1890) 13.

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 295 33 Robinson (1904) 3–​5. Whitehill glosses Robinson’s passive verb (“the suggestion was made”) with “one suspects by Prichard”: Whitehill (1970) 200. 34 Carter (1964) 19. 35 Bates (1905a). 36 Bates (1905a). Bates does not name his villains, preferring instead to refer to Prichard by such monikers as “a subordinate” or “the obnoxious assistant director” (Bates 1905b) and to Gardner as “a lady”. That she is the intended target is made clear, however, by other newspaper accounts that name her –​or use her nickname, Mrs. Jack –​in association with this rumor. See, for example, “Art Museum is now Centre of Social Revolt” (1905) and “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms” (1905). 37 Samuel D. Warren to Isabella Stewart Gardner, 14 August 1902. Archives of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 38 Whitehill (1970) 181. 39 Carter (1964) 21. For the more circumspect remarks in his biography of Gardner, see Carter (1925) 195–​196. 40 Robinson (1904) 8. 41 Gilman (1904b) 18. 42 Prichard (1904b) 25. 43 Gilman (1904b) 19. It is particularly interesting that Gilman was willing to express himself so forcefully, as he had written a catalog of the museum’s Renaissance casts  –​a sort of companion to Robinson’s catalog of Greek and Roman casts. Gilman (1904a). 44 Prichard (1904b) 35. 45 Longfellow (1904) 41. 46 Ibid. 47 “Art Museum is Now Centre of Social Revolt” (1905) 3. 48 “Art Museum is Now Centre of Social Revolt” (1905) 3. Arlo Bates summarized the full report thus: “The bylaws of the museum seem to have been invented to cause confusion. They give the care of the collections to the director, they give the care of the collections to the executive committee. It is impossible that confusion should fail to arise.” Bates (1905b) 9. 49 “Robinson Goes” (1905); Whitehill (1970) 205. 50 Melville (2001) 179–​180. 51 See, for example, “Want to Keep Robinson” (1905); “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms” (1905). The exception was the Boston Evening Record, which argued that Robinson, in the manner of all specialists, “is absorbed in his own line, exaggerates its importance and underrates the other things.” The Record was also exceptional in urging that Prichard should be promoted to director: “Art Museum Directors Worthy of Praise” (1905). 52 “Dr. Edward Robinson” (1905). 53 “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms” (1905). 54 A month earlier, Berenson’s wife, Mary, had expressed a similar ambivalence to Gardner: “Of course we are much excited and much mystified about the M.F.A. But you know much as we loathe casts, we did like Mr. Robinson, and so we drift about, unable to find out which side we are really on.” R. Van N. Hadley (1987) 371–​372. 55 “Hit at Trustees in Museum War” (1905); “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms” (1905); “Art Museum Is Now Center of Social Revolt” (1905).

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296  Ellen E. Perry 56 Ibid., 209–​210. 57 Ibid., 211. 58 “Art Museum Directors Worthy of Praise” (1905); “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms” (1905); “The Crisis at the Museum” (1905); “Art Museum Trustees Not in Harmony” (1905). 59 Whitehill (1970) 207. 60 Downes (1912) 475. 61 Whitehill (1970) 437. 62 Ibid. 63 For the afterlife of the Metropolitan casts, see Tomkins (1986) and Sotheby’s Historic Plaster Casts (2006). 64 For most of these points, see Wallach (1998) 54–​56. 65 J. D.  Beazley had not yet published his first analyses of Greek vase painters. These would appear in 1910 and 1911 and would begin to lay the foundation for a connoisseurial approach to Greek vases that Prichard might well have approved. 66 Whitehill (1970) 106.

Bibliography “Accepts by Wire. Edward Robinson Has New  York Position.” 1905. The Boston Globe. 19 December, 9. “Art Museum Directors Worthy of Praise.” 1905. The Boston Evening Record. 20 December, 2. “Art Museum Is Now Centre of Social Revolt.” 1905. The Boston Herald. 19 December, 1. “Art Museum Trustees Not in Harmony.” 1905. The Boston Advertiser. 19 December. “Art Museum Trustees Plan Radical Reforms.” 1905. The Boston Post. 20 December, 8. Bates, A. 1905a. “Why Robinson Resigned: Arlo Bates on the Museum Crisis.” The Boston Evening Transcript. 12 December, 9. Bates, A. 1905b. “The Museum’s Affairs.” The Boston Evening Transcript. 18 December, 9. Carter, M. 1925. Isabella Stewart Gardner and Fenway Court. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. Carter, M. 1964. Reminiscences or Did You Know Mrs. Gardner? Morris Carter’s Answers. Boston, MA: Privately Printed for Morris Carter by Industrial School for Crippled Children. “Cleaver and Others vs. Wallwork and Wells: February 21, 22 and 24, and March 13, 1896”. 1896. In Reports of Patent, Design and Trademark Cases. Volume 13.19. 277–​283. “The Crisis at the Museum.” 1905. The Boston Evening Transcript. 12 December, 5. Downes, W. H. 1912. “The Vinton Memorial Exhibition.” Art and Progress 3.4 (February): 474–​477. “Dr. Edward Robinson.” 1905. New York Times. 14 December, 6. Dyson, S. 2010. “Cast Collecting in the United States.” In R. Frederiksen and Eckart Marchand. Plaster Casts:  Making, Collecting and Displaying from Classical Antiquity to the Present. Berlin: De Gruyter, 557–576. Gilman, B. I. 1904a. Manual of Italian Renaissance Sculpture as Illustrated in the Collection of Casts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, MA: Museum of Fine Arts.

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The battle for the Museum of Fine Arts 297 Gilman, B. I. 1904b. “Letter from the Secretary.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume II. Boston, MA: Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 18–​21. Green, M. 1989. The Mount Vernon Street Warrens:  A Boston Story, 1860–​1910. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Hadley, R. Van N. 1987. The Letters of Bernard Berenson and Isabella Stewart Gardner. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Hall, M. 1990. Slater Memorial Museum: Catalogue of the Cast Collection. Norwich, CT: Norwich Free Academy. Longfellow, W. P. P. 1904. “From a Letter Addressed to the President by Mr. W.P.P. Longfellow.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume II. Boston, MA: Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 39–​41. Melville, J. 2001. John Forbes White and George Reid. Artists and Patrons in North-​East Scotland 1860–​1920, Ph.D. diss. University of Edinburgh. Metropolitan Museum of Art: Tentative Lists of Objects Desirable for a Collection of Casts, Sculptural and Architectural, Intended to Illustrate the History of Plastic Art. For Private Circulation Among Those Whose Advice Is Sought in the Preparation of Final Lists, to Enable Them More Readily to Make Suggestions to the Special Committee on Casts. 1891. New York: Printed for the Committee. Mitchell, L. M. 1885. “Plaster in Sculpture: Its Value as a Medium for Copying the Old Masters.” New York Times. 20 April. Prichard, M. S. 1904a. “Current Theories of the Arrangement of Museums of Art.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume I. Boston, MA: Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 3–​25. Prichard, M. S. 1904b. “Letter from the Assistant Director.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume II. Boston, MA: Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 22–​38. Robinson, E. 1887. “Report of the Department of Classical Archaeology.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Eleventh Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1886. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 11–​15. Robinson, E. 1888. “From the Report of Mr. Edward Robinson.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts:  Twelfth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1887. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 8–​13. Robinson, E. 1889. “From the Report of Mr. Edward Robinson.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Thirteenth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1888. Boston: Alfred Mudge & Son, 9–​24. Robinson, E. 1891. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Fifteenth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1890. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 13–​23. Robinson, E. 1893. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Seventeenth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1890. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 12–​21. Robinson, E. 1896. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Twentieth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1895. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 18–​27. Robinson, E. 1897. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Twenty-​first Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1895. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 18–​27.

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298  Ellen E. Perry Robinson, E. 1899. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Twenty-​third Annual Report for the Year Ending December 31, 1898. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 17–​92. Robinson, E. 1900a. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Twenty-​fourth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1899. Boston, MA: Alfred Mudge & Son, 20–​111. Robinson, E. 1900b. Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Catalogue of Casts, Part III: Greek and Roman Sculpture. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. Robinson, E. 1902. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts:  Twenty-​sixth Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1901. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 28–​72. Robinson, E. 1903. “Report of the Curator of Classical Antiquities.” Trustees of the Museum of Fine Arts: Twenty-​seventh Annual Report for the Year Ending Dec. 31, 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 66–​70. Robinson, E. 1904. “Letter from the Director.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume II. Boston, MA: Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 3–​17. “Robinson Goes: Was Director of Fine Arts Museum.” 1905. The Boston Globe. 10 December, 4. Sotheby’s Historic Plaster Casts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: New York, February 28, 2006. 2006. New York: Sotheby’s. Sturgis, R. C. 1905. “Report of Observations.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume III. Boston, MA:  Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 6–​80. Tomkins, C. 1986. “Gods and Heroes.” New Yorker, 15 September, 82–​87. Wallach, A. 1998. “The American Cast Museum: An Episode in the History of the Institutional Definition of Art.” In Exhibiting Contradiction:  Essays on the Art Museum in the United States. Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 38–​56. “Want to Keep Robinson: Hit at Trustees in Museum War.” 1905. The Boston Herald. 29 December, 4. Warren, S. D. 1905. “Prefatory Note.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume III. Boston, MA:  Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 3–​5. Wheelwright, E. 1905. “Supplementary Report.” Communications to the Trustees Regarding the New Building. Volume III. Boston, MA:  Privately Printed by Authority of the Committee on the Museum, 81–​112. Whitehill, W. M. 1970. Museum of Fine Arts Boston: A Centennial History, Volume 1. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Index

Ab Urbe Condita (Livy): Camilla in Aeneid Book XI as modeled after Camillus in, 172–​179 Aeneas 232–​33 Aeneid (Virgil): Aeneas’ killing of Turnus in, 232–​33; Camilla in Book XI as modeled after Livy’s Camillus in Ab Urbe Condita V, 172–​179; Hercules-​ Cacus story in, 234–​35; Mezentius in, 237–​39 see also Evander, love of violence, gore and punishment in; Virgil Agamemnon 91, 95–​98, 139 Alcibiades, profanation of Athenian rites during Plynteria 2, 166–​170 Alcmaeon 16–​17 “Apology of Christianity” (Tertullian) 267 Artayktes 22 Artemisia 20–​21 Athena, Alcibiades and 166–​170 autobiography, poetic 185 see also Tristia 4.10 (Ovid) Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of, 187, 219–​230; choral reference to the Korybantes and, 223–​25; conflict over the control of sound in, 225–​27; Orphic music and, 224–​25; sound as force imposed on others in, 229–​230; sound as the key element of Dionysiac worship in, 219–​22; sound in death of Pentheus, 219, 227–​29; sounds of Tiresias, Pentheus, and Dionysos and, 222–​23 Bakhtin, Mikhail, 8 Ballistics (Collins), Ovidian-​inspired reading of: August in Paris poem and, 204–​205; Baby Listening poem, 211; Ballistics poem, 213; Brightly Colored

Boats Upturned on the Banks of the Charles poem, 205; Day Lassie Died poem, 214; Envoy poem, 209–​10; erotic imagery and, 207–​209; Evasive Maneuvers poem, 205; exile themes and, 203–​206; Flight of Statues poem, 212; Great American poem, 212–​13; heroic universality and, 205–​206; Hippos on Holiday poem, 212; January in Paris poem, 207–​10; Lost poem, 203–​204; Metamorphoses (Ovid) and, 203–​204, 206, 209–​213; Orthinography poem, 211–​12; Poems of Others poem, 213; poetry as a visual experience and, 206–​209; subversive tones and, 213–​14; Tension poem, 212–​13; Tristia (Ovid) and, 203–​206, 209–​10 see also Collins, Billy; Ovid Benveniste, Emile, 104 Beyhaqi (Persian historian), 104–​111 Boston Museum of Fine Arts. see plaster casts in Boston Museum of Fine Arts Browne, Melissa, 134–​35 Camilla, 172–​179 Camillus (Roman general), 2, 172–​79 Candaules (ruler of Lydia), 15, 22–​23, 53–​62 China: Sima Qian’s new method of writing history in ancient, 27–​33 Christianity, 3 see also Tiberius see also Pontius Pilate citizen scholarship: Homer Multitext project (HMT) and, 137, 141 civil war, 217; in Roman legends, 2–​3 see also Livy, Civil War and Claassen, Jo-​Marie,  206 College of the Holy Cross, 88 see also Homer Multitext project (HMT)

300

300 Index Collins, Billy: literary reputation of as similar to Ovid’s, 202–​203, 214 see also Ballistics (Collins), Ovidian-​inspired reading of Confucius, 31 Croesus (tyrannos of Lydia), 15–​17, 47 Darius (Persian king), 17–​19, 22–​23, 36–​39 Dewald, Carolyn, 31, 33 Dow, Sterling Prof., 87, 115, 123–​125 see also Linear B decipherment by Ventris East Is East and West Is West –​Or Are They? National Stereotypes in Herodotus (Pelling), 71 ekphrasis (idea of the gaze), in Greek studies, 219 Euphiletos, 53–​62 Euripides, 2 see also Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of Evander, love of violence, gore and punishment and: Hercules-​Cacus story and, 234–​35; hymn to Hercules and, 235–​37; Mezentius’ gory killing of prisoners and, 237–​39; Pallas’ baldric and, 232, 234, 239 see also Aeneid (Virgil) exempla, 2, 145 see also Alcibiades, profanation of Athenian rites during Plynteria; Othryadas exemplum Ferdowsi (Persian poet), 104, 111–​14 gift-​exchange, 2, 87, 104; as alternative to hostage-​taking in story of Siyāvash in Shāhnāma (Ferdowsi), 111–​14; hostage-​giving and taking charading as in Beyhaqi, 106–​111 Godolphin, Francis, 33 Graziosi, Barbara, 92 Greek tragedies, 2 see also Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of Gyges (bodyguard of Candaules), 15, 22, 53–​62 Hardy, Grant, 31, 44–​46 Hartel, Frank, 134 Hellenic History (Xenophon), 9 Hercules: Hercules-​Cacus story in Aeneid, 234–​35; hymn to in Aeneid, 235–​37 Herodotus, 2; Hows and Wells (1912) as guide to, 5; influence on Tacitus, 2, 6, 70–​81; on Persian Wars, 5, 13, 34,

70–​72 see also Histories (Herodotus); Othryadas exemplum Herodotus Reader (Nagy), 6 historia in Herodotus and Thucydides, 2, 5–​7; nonuse of the word historiē by Thucydides, 7, 9–​12; use of the word historiē by Herodotus, 7–​9 Histories (Herodotus): ‘digressions’ as supplements, 33–​34; critique of ‘digressions’ in, 33; defense of Euphiletos in Lysias vs. story of Gyges and Candaules in, 53–​63; East/​ West dichotomy in, 5, 70–​72, 87; fragments of story of Miltiades in, 6, 35–​44; fragments of story of Miltiades vs. fragments in Shiji, 27, 44–​47; Lysian understanding of tyranny and violations of tradition vs. in, 6, 61–​63; spectacle motif to characterize autocratic power in, 5–​6, 13–​23; use of the word historiē in, 2, 5–​9 see also Herodotus Histories (Tacitus): account of the prodigies in Judaea in, 77; conflict between Otho and Vitellius in, 74–​75; East/​West dichotomy in, 70, 72–​80; East/​West dichotomy in as distinctively Roman, 72–​73, 81; Herodotean influence on, 69–​70, 81 Homer, 87; Odyssey by, 89–​90, 99, 193; Thucydides’ use of, 2, 87, 89–​99 see also Homer Multitext project (HMT); Iliad (Homer) Homer Multitext project (HMT), 1–​2, 87–​88; citizen scholarship values and, 137, 141; dialectic editing with automated validation and verification and, 138–​39; inadequacy of ‘crowdsourcing’ model for, 137–​38; legal and technical architecture of, 139–​41; undergraduate editors working on, 134–​36 hostage-​giving and taking, 104; gift exchange in Beyhaqi and, 106–​111; gift-​exchange as alternative to in story of Siyāvash in Shāhnāma (Ferdowsi), 111–​14; historical context of from Siyāsat-​nāma (Nezām al-​Molk), 104–​105; Seljukid brothers’ letter to Ghaznavid monarch Mas‘ud, 105–​106 Hows and Wells (1912), 5 Hydarnes, 35, 41 Hydarnes (son of Hydarnes), 42–​44

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Index 301 Ides of March (Wilder), 269–​273 see also Julius Caesar, Kilty’s stage adapation of Ides of March (Wilder) Iliad (Homer), 95–​97; performance of at the Panathenaia, 89–​90, 92, 97–​99; Villoison’s discovery of Venetus A, 133 see also Homer; Homer Multitext project (HMT) Ion (Plato), 93–​94 Jal, Paul, 247 Julius Caesar, Kilty’s stage adaption of Ides of March (Wilder): Act 1, 269–​72; Act 2, 272–​73; critical reception of German and London runs, 274–​75; failures of adaptation, 269–​72, 275–​76; premiere of, 273–​74; U.S. premiere in St. Louis, 275 Juno, 172–​79 Kilty, Jerome, 269 see also Julius Caesar, Kilty’s stage adaption of Ides of March (Wilder) Lévi-​Strauss, Claude,  104 Linear B decipherment by Ventris, 87; development of from May/​June 1952 to April 1954, 117–​123; Prof. Sterling Dow and, 115, 123–​25; rivalries in, 116–​17 Livy, Civil War and, 2–​3, 246–​47; civil war as key part of Roman identity and, 247; death of Remus (1.6–​1.7), 247–​251; duel of the Horatii and Curiatii and, 247, 254–​259; ira (violent wrath) and, 247–​55, 257; war over Sabine women and, 247, 251–​254 see also Ab Urbe Condita (Livy) Lysias: defense of Euphiletos in vs. story of Gyges and Candaules in Herodotus and, 53–​63; vs. Herodotean understanding of tyranny and violations of tradition and, 6, 61–​63 Mauss, Marcel, 87, 104 McGonagill, Gary, 93–​94 McGowan, Matthew, 205 Metamorphoses (Ovid), 186–​87, 193–​95; influence on poems of Collins and, 203–​204, 206, 209–​213 Mezentius, 237–​39 Miltiades (Athenian general): fragmented narrative of in Histories (Herodotus), 6, 35–​47; reputation of as Greek hero, 26

Nagy, Professor Blaise John, 1, 92; A Herodotus Reader by, 6 Nepos, Cornelius, 26 Nezām al-​Molk, 104–​105 Odyssey (Homer), 89–​90, 99, 193 On the Malice of Herodotus (Plutarch), 8 Othryadas exemplum, 2, 145, 147–​158; alternate versions in Hellenistic epigram, 150–​58; Chrysermus’ version of, 148; Herodotus’ version of, 145, 147–​51; Pausanias’ version of, 148–​49; Theseus’ version of, 148 Ovid, 2; literary reputation of as similar to Billy Collins, 202–​203, 214 see also Ballistics (Collins), Ovidian-​inspired reading of; Metamorphoses (Ovid); Tristia 4.10 (Ovid) Pallas (son of Evander), 232, 234, 239 Pausanias, Othryadas exemplum of, 148–​49 Pelling, Christopher, 71 Peloponnesian War, 43, 55, 89–​90 Pentheus, 219, 227–​29 see also Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of Persian poetry, 111–​14 Persian Wars: Herodotus on, 5, 13, 34; Herodotus on East/​West dichotomy in, 70–​72 Pheretime, 21–​22 Pisistratus, 14–​15 plaster casts in Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 280–​81; demise of American cast collections, 292–​93; disagreement about museum’s role in education vs. aesthetic appreciation, 285–​87; Robinson and, 281–​84, 292–​93; Robinson’s resignation and, 284–​85 Plato, 93–​94 Plutarch: Life of Alcibiades of, 166–​69; On the Malice of Herodotus by, 8; Vita Camilli of, 175–​76 Plynteria (Athenian ritual), 166–​170 poetic autobiography, 185 see also Tristia 4.10 (Ovid) Pontius Pilate: portrayal of in medieval literature, 266; portrayal of in the Gospels, 264–​265; as Saint in Egyptian Coptic church and Ethiopian Orthodox church, 266; transformation of in post-​ Classical legend and tradition, 264, 268; varied accounts of end of political career and death of, 266–​268 Prichard, Matthew Stewart, 285–​87

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302 Index religious systems of belief (early Christian period), 3 see also Tiberius see also Pontius Pilate Shafer, R. Murray, 219 Shāhnāma (Ferdowsi), 104, 111–​14 Sharrock, Alison, 207 Shiji (Sima Qian), 28–​30; compared with Herodotus’ fragmented narrative on Miltiades, 26–​27, 44–​47; Confucius in, 31; fragmented narrative in, 27–​28, 30–​33 see also Sima Qian sight and vision, in Greek studies, 219 see also Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of Sima Qian, 6; castration of for writing history, 29; new method of writing history in ancient China and, 27–​33 see also Shiji (Sima Qian) Siyāsat-​nāma (Nezām al-​Molk), 104–​105 Socrates, 93–​94 Solon (Athenian sage), 15–​16, 47 sound and noise: increased scholarly interest in, 219 see also Bacchae (Euripides), aural aspects of Tacitus: Herodotean influence on, 2, 6, 70–​81 see also Histories (Tacitus) Tellus, 16 Tertullian, 267 Theseus, Othryadas exemplum and, 148 Thomas, Rosalind, 7

Thucydides, 2; nonuse of the word historiē by, 2, 5–​7, 9–​12; use of Homer as performed poetry by, 2, 87, 89–​99 Tiberius, transformation of in post-​ Classical legend and tradition, 264, 267–​68 Tristia 4.10 (Ovid): as exile poetry, 185–​86; predictions of poetic immortality in, 186–​87, 194–​95; as sole autobiography of classical period, 185 see also under Ballistics (Collins), Ovidian-​inspired reading of; Ovid Trojan War, 89–​91, 95 Tuning of the World (Shafer), 219 Turnus, 232–​33 Ventris, Michael, 87 see also Linear B decipherment by Ventris Villoison, Jean-​Baptiste Gaspard d’Ansse de, 133 violence, 2, 217 see also Evander, love of violence, gore and punishment and; Livy, Civil War and Virgil, 2; Camilla in Aeneid XI as modeled after Livy’s Camillus in Ab Urbe Condita V, 172–​179 see also Aeneid (Virgil) Wilder, Thornton, 269; on fun in Ides of March, 270–​71 see also Julius Caesar, Kilty’s stage adaption of Ides of March (Wilder) Xenophon, 9 Xerxes (Persian king), 17, 19–​23, 42–​43