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SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

Edited by ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN

~ LEVANTE EDITOR( - BARI

~

2003 - Tutti i diritli riMfvati

Ai .VTa TWv rriXas- KAUE"u,.

Kal 6oooel3oWTa TWv ~

I think, no one; but consider whether it is not better to defeat one's enemies even by impiety than to be a slave and submit to others.

The imperative opa, in the sense of taking mental note, shows that the speaker wants to persuade his interlocutor to adopt his point of view, and perhaps the lines were spoken by someone encouraging Telephus to kill his uncles"'. Alternatively, Telephus may be speaking these words himself, as Chandler Post suggests (1922: 17), following Welcker (1839: 413). Deceptive arguments are the province not only of bad advisers but of evil doers as well". Finally, in fr. 352 from the Creusa someone declares: KaAOvµiv oW o'UKIon Td tt,Eu6fJMynv· OT416' OAE:8fX.lv 6nv0v 0.Af\6EL'dyn, O'uyyvwcrrbv ei.TTE"1v foTt Kal TO

µ11KaAOv

it is not good to tell falsehoods, but for whom the truth brings terrible destruction, it is forgivable to speak even what is not good

One may compare this fragment to the conversation between Neoptolemus and the wily Odysseus in the prologue of Philoctetes, in which Neoptolemus asks Odysseus if it is not disgraceful to tell lies (oUK aloxpov 'lYU 6i;Ta TO.wa, Toil voil, El. 1027), while Antigone acknowledges that some people may say thatIsmenethinkscorrectly(Ka).ws... cppoviiv, Ant. 557). The chorus recognizesTecmessa as 'being not withoutknowledge' (ouK ... .6yo,s ... cj>L>.oooav ... cf,[>.11v, while Electra declares that Chrysothemis hates the murderers of their father 'in words' (µLoELsµev >.6y) but 'in fact' (EPY".')has no problem associating with them (El. 357-58). These accusations bring me to the last, but definitely not the least important theme associated with the adviser figures in the plays of Sophocles: the conflict between words and action. This conflict is central to the opposition between the Sophoclean heroes and their advisers, in particular the tragic warners". It has clear precedents in Homeric epic, for example in the opposition between Hector and Polydamas. It is also frequently alluded to in the fragments of Sophocles, and, even if not all of these fragments come from scenes involving adviser figures, a number of them probably did. For instance, we know from Plutarch, who quotes the lines, that fr. 855 was spoken by Nestor to Ajax, and they indeed fit the pattern: Nestor, the prototypical adviser figure, characterizes Ajax as being good in deeds but not in words: 'I do not blame you,' says Nestor, 'for though your words are bad, your actions are good' (ou µiµcf,oµa[ OE· 6pwv yap Ell KOKWS AEYELS)". Fr. 896 is more likely spoken by a heroic figure to his or her adviser, because the speaker acknowledges that the addressee is sophron in words but not in deeds: 'I wish you were as sensible in your actions as in your words' (,,e·i'joea owcf,pwv,pya Tots A6yo,s ioa). One is reminded of Electra's comment to Chrysothemis, in

1

For attestations of this theme in Sophocles· extant plays, see Blundell ( 1989) index s. v. words: and deeds. Cf. Woodard (1964 ). s, Sommerstein, this volume, argues that this fragment is derived from Sophocles' Syndeipnoi, while Welcker (1839) 134 assigns it to the Palamedes. Nestor's own speaking skills are perhaps alluded to in fr. 155 of the Achilleos Erastai: cf. Hom. II. 1.249, cited by Pearson (1917) 1.209 and Radt (1983) 200 n. 28. -'

A. LARDINOIS,BROKENWISDOM

41

which she tells her sister that she speaks well but nevertheless errs (El. 1039). Lloyd-Jones and Nigel Wilson have suggested lifting lines 1050-54 from Sophocles' Electra, where they end the final scene between Electra and Chrysothemis, and assigning them instead to the Phaedra, because they do not fit the context of the Electra very well, and Stobaeus identifies the first two lines as coming from the Phaedra. Lloyd-Jones therefore has printed these five lines as fr. 693a in his edition of Sophocles' fragments". The lines are divided between two speakers: A

8

A

B

dir«µ1 Tolvw· OVTE-yap GU Tdµ' l1T11 ToVS ooVS Tpc'>rrow. ToAµJ.'... OTEJ.' ,ta,0') and a characterization of the heroine's action as foolish (dvous "'1To>J.ijsdvolas)". Earlier in the prologue of Antigone, Ismene refers to Antigone's decision to bury Polynices as a 'hunt for the impossible' (0r)piiv ... Tdµl\xava, Ant. 92 "' 0r)piia0a, KEvci), while Chrysothemis criticizes her sister for indulging her crazy temper 'in vain• (KEvci)in Electra 331. Most likely, therefore, if this is a fragment from the Phaedra, an adviser figure, such as a nurse, would have delivered the last three lines and the heroine the first two". If the lines belong to the Electra, one probably has to adopt Dawe 's distribution of them. In fr. 922, from an unknown play, we find another short dialogue, in which the first speaker defends the need to act and a second speaker urges caution or, more precisely, phronesis: A. B.

ia8AoU yap Ov&p0$"Toi,,; TTOVOlll'TOS' t~'PEAfll'. ci.AA' ~ (ppS'µEya,;.

'~ Dawe ( 1975) 100; cf. ( 1973) 191. Dawe postulates a lacuna after the third line and

assigns the first two lines(£/. 1050-51) to Chrysothemis, the third line (El. 1052) to Electra, and the last two lines again to Chrysothemis (El. 1053-54). ""Sophocles' heroes and heroines are often accused of folly: see Knox (1964) 21-22. 7 ' Talboy (forthcoming) comes to the same conclusion. but for different reasons. We may further speculate that if these lines ended the scene between Phaedra and her nurse, Phaedra may have subsequently gone into the pa1ace (cf. t:iot8') to inform Hippolytus about her love for him. and another character (the nurse?) could have reponed on the confrontation between Phaedra and Hippolytus in the next scene. In this way, Sophocles would have avoided the scandal that Euripides· first Hippolytus had caused by having Phaedra declare her love for Hippolytus on stage; see Barrett (1964) 10-45 and Talboy (forthcoming) on this controversy and on the relative dates of Euripides' first Hippolytus and Sophocles' Phaedru.

A. LARDINOIS,BROKENWISDOM

A B

43

It is the way of a noble man to help those in ttouble. But sound thinking is a great god.

In this fragment, the contrast between word and deed is transformed into an opposition between sound thinking and action, as it was already in fr. 693a. The same is the case in fr. 939, which sums up the opinion of many advisers in Sophocles, Herodotus or Homer: 'Thoughts have more power than strength of arms' (-yvwµa,rr/..lovKpaToua,v i\ a8£vosx,pwv). This opposition is fundamental and runs through many of Sophocles' plays". I hope to have demonstrated that adviser figures appeared frequently in the lost plays of Sophocles, just as they do in the seven surviving plays. We have looked at traces of tragic warners, nurse figures, divine advisers and bad advisers, as well as certain words and themes associated with adviser figures in Sophocles' plays. They include the description of speeches as teachings or advice, appeals to reason, the recognition of a speaker as knowledgeable or wise, and the opposition between words and deeds or sound thinking and action. None of these themes are unique to adviser figures, but they are so frequently associated with such figures in Sophocles' plays and other early Greek literature that they are good indications of possible appearances by advisers in the fragments, especially when combined with other information about the presence of such figures in the lost plays. The discovery of the same character types and themes in the fragments as in the extant plays demonstrates the conventionality of Sophocles' characterization and complements our picture of the adviser figures in his plays".

,. On the conflict between sound thinkingand action in Sophocles' extant plays, see North (1966) 50-68, Butaye (1980), and Winnington-lngram (1980) 9-10. " This essay was firstorallydeliveredat the conferenceon thefragmentsof Sophocles in Nottingham.U.K., in the summerof 2000. I would like to thankthe participantsof this conference for their valuablesuggestionsand comments,in particularthe organizerand editor of this volume, Alan Sommerstein,who also commentedon the writtenversion, and his students David Fitzpatrickand Thomas Talboy, with whom I conducted an extensive electronicdebate.

2

Medical Language in the Sophoklean Fragments E.M. CRAIK Kyoto University,Japanand Universityof St Andrews

Many difficulties are inherent in assessing - indeed, even identifying with confidence - medical language in lay writers, especially where literary texts are concerned. These are fully explored in Craik (200lc)'. Scrutiny of fragments, rather than of complete plays, has the disadvantage of uncertainty in context but the advantage of variety in content and chronology, useful in an overview. A preliminary question peculiar to Sophokles relates to the various traditions which suggest that he had a special relationship with Asklepios'. Of these, the story which has aroused most interest in modem times is that Sophokles 'received' the god in his house when Asklepios' cult was introduced to Athens and was consequently himself heroized after his death, with the title Dexion. It has become unfashionable to put much credence in ancient biographical data, and the prevailing climate is one of extreme scepticism'. In this mode a determined and on the whole

See also Craik (200 I a.b) for a discussionof the influenceof contemporarymedicine on Thucydides2 and on Plato•s Symposium. ' See Radt (1977:57-58), especially test. 69 ( = EM s.v. a,elwv). J Lefkowitz( 1981) was influentialin settingthis trend. 1

46

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMEl'ITS

convincing case has recently been made' for a sceptical view of the data for the heroization of Sophokles as Dexion: the most persuasive argument is that there is no parallel for such a change of name. However, several scholars working in the field of ancient religion take a more tolerant view, allowing some connection of Sophokles with the introduction of Asklepios' cult to Athens'. The evidence that Sophokles wrote a paean to Asklepios is still generally accepted. Even if the title Dexion is discarded as unconnected with Sophokles, there remains a nexus of passages in the ancient Life of Sophokles, all suggesting a strong religious orientation. The author, or compiler, of the Sophoklean Vita is unusually scrupulous and specific in documenting his sources: he names Aristophanes, Aristoxenos, Hieronymos, Istros (especially - six citations), Karystios, Lobon, Neanthes and Satyros, sometimes expressing reservations about the validity of their testimony, or adjudicating between versions when these conflict. This gives the content an exceptional authority and verisimilitude. There seems no good reason to abandon the statement (Vita 11) that Sophokles 'took over the priesthood' of a deity who was associated with Asklepios and with Cheiron'; the emendation of the name ?Halon (or Alon) to Amynos', on the basis of fourth-century inscriptions, is highly plausible. The most likely sense of the name is 'averter' [of evil], suggesting a common attribute of healing gods. The inscriptions allude to two decrees issued by Td KOLVCITWv OpyE"Wvwv ToU 'AµUvou Kal TOD 'AaKATJTTLOUKal Toi) Li.,€[ovos-.'associations of the worshippers of Amynos, Asklepios and

• Connolly (1998). 'Robert Parker, Kevin Clinton, Emily Kearns; see Connolly (1998) 2 n. 7. 6lox1: OEKal TllvToll "AAUlvoS' \1:pwaWrw,OS' l)pws µ1:TO.'AaKArpnoi)rraf)OXt:lpwvt l6puv8E:lsirrrO'locf,wVToS' Toi) ui.oi)µETCl Tl)v TEMUTT)v.'He came into possession (aorist £crx1:) of the priesthood of Halon who was a hero connected with Asklepios and associated with Cheiron, as set up by his son lophon after his death.' The verb l6pw&tsindicates that Iophon 'established' a shrine (cf. Vita 12i.1:p6v\6pVO'aTo)or perhaps set up a statue. Lefkowitz ( 1981) 161 translates 'He held [sic] the priesthood of Halon, who was a hero under Chiron's tutelage along with Asclepius. After Sophocles' death Halon's shrine was maintained [sic] by his son lophon.' 1 For miscelJaneous attempts to emend the name. see Radt ( 1977:33-34).

E.M. CRAIK.MEDICAL LANGUAGE IN THE SOPHOKLE.AN FRAGMENTS

47

Dexion''. Other relevant statements are (Vita 6) that Sophokles established a thiasos, an exclusive group, of cultivated men devoted to the Muses; and (Vita 12) that be received a revelatory dream from Herakles' which enabled him to discover a stolen treasure and gain a state reward, which he appropriately used to set up a shrine to Herakles Menytes, Herakles in bis capacity as informer. The same source, Hieronymos, stated in the same context (recorded Vita 12) that Sophokles was a man of exceptional piety: this could be a deduction from the internal evidence of the plays, but reliance on the external evidence presented seems more likely. There seems no good reason either to distrust Plutarcb 's statement that there was much evidence in his day (unfortunately of unspecified nature) for Sophokles' receiving divine favour from Asklepios, parallel to the favour accorded to Pindar by Pan". The evidence of the ancient sources is cumulatively compelling: Sophokles was actively involved in cult activities devoted to a range of deities, including healing deities. There is a common mystic or cultural slant. Asklepios as son of Apollo has a certain affinity with literature and the arts, and the main festival of Asklepios at Athens was celebrated on the day preceding the Great Dionysia, when poets and actors paraded before the populace". The story of the prophetic dream sent by Herakles may again be linked with the stories of an affiliation with Asklepios: the cult of Asklepios was associated with prophetic dreams, as was that of many deities (such as Amphiaraos and Trophonios) in Sophokles' day. Further, Herakles shared with Asklepios a reputation as putative ancestor of Hippokrates and as protector of mankind. Some association between Sophokles and Asklepios' cult is thus strongly indicated, but this need not imply an association with the theory or practice of scientific medicine. Most priesthoods were inherited, passed from father to son (cf. Iophon's

'First published in MDA/(A/ 18 (1893) 231-256 and 21 (1896) 287-332: now /G ii' J252 and 1253. The orderof the divine/heroicnames varies. Cf. Vita 15 on the dream supposedly sent to Lysanderby Dionysos, in order to secure passage for Sophokles• funeralcorti!ge. 10 Myc,,;EaTi.rro>J.a. µ.fxpl &llpo faaaw{tuv TEKµi]pla(Plut.Num. 4). 11 See Edelsteinand Edelstein(1945) i 62,207 and elsewhere. 9

48

SHARDSFROMKOWNOS: STUDIESJNSOPHOCLEANFRAGMENT'S

involvement in the cult of ?Halon after his father's death), and it is probable that only a medical family would have held a priesthood of exclusively medical character. According to tradition (Vita I), Sophokles' father Sophillos was some sort of craftsman, and there is nothing to suggest that the family practised medicine. There has been nevertheless a tendency to privilege Sophokles' relationship with medicine". Certainly, two of the extant plays, Trachiniai and Philoktetes, are full of medical (and magical!) interest". But it is the fragments which concern us; and there is plenty of material there, especially in the fragments of satyric drama. Various aspects of 'medicine' will now be discussed in turn. First, we consider the theory and practice of medical therapy. Here, there is much general medical imagery of a type common in Greek poetry". Such expressions as lrrrvovlaTpov v6crou 'sleep, physician of trouble' (fr. 201g), a>.-yelv' ... To,oUTwv... lacnv 'cure for pains' (fr. 258), Atr!TTJS ... liKEcrTpov'salve for grief' (fr. 314.325), or crwTT)plas ... -A'a,l voo,,v, 'I think the poor man is never free from disease but always ailing' (fr. 354), or TlKTooo, -yap TOL Kol v6crous 6oo8uµla, 'despair can give rise even to (physical) illness' (fr. 663) are little more than cliches and the metaphors they deploy are dead metaphors. The adjective livocros is surprisingly unusual in the Hippocratic Corpus, occurring only in Epidemics I and 2; for the (fr. 4), liCJTOµoS(fr. formation Cf. WSWVlitrOlS TE K.l~f\)and not in its use as a Sopholdean vox amatoria". The sexual content of fr. 483 is clear; the textual tradition less so. The source is Athenaeus (11.476b), and the ms. tradition gives XPi>afOVK€p.XciKtSrrpolfTOl.

5

'This is a tantalizing case: here is a good analogy. When bright midwinter frost appears and children grasp an icicle, the first new pleasure's unalloyed. But liquefaction can't be stopped, the hardness does not last for long. Lovers have the same desire: to show their love yet hold it back. •.11

5

"Craik ( 1998b) 22-23.

3

Sophocles and the West: the evidence of the fragments KATERINA ZACHARIA Loyola Marymount University

In this paper I examine Sophocles' treatment of Italy and Sicily in his fragmentary plays, and I ask how far his 'western' allusions reflect contemporary Athenian preoccupations with that part of the Greek world.• Greek mythology stretched out to the west from early dates, corresponding to the historical movements of identifiable groups of Greeks. That is expressed with deliberate caution: ancient historians nowadays are chary of talk about 'colonization', a word which carries an excessively Roman-style suggestion of state-organized activity'. Attention has accordingly moved from the quest for precise foundation-

* This

paper was first read in Nottingham at the conference on the fragments of Sophocles organized by Professor A.H. Sommerstein. The paper wa~ subsequently read at the University of Florence, at the Institute of Classical Studies in London and at the Classics department of the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). I would like to thank the organi:zer for putting the conference together and all four audiences who generously made their contributions during discussion. I would like to extend my special thanks to Professor Simon Hornblower of University College London (my own graduate University) for his valuable insights and kind generosity. 'Osborne {1996, 1998).

58

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS:STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

dates to the study of such intriguing topics as myths of return, nostoi, of such Homeric heroes as the Argive Diomedes'. Such traditions were not simply the invention of scholarly historians and poets such as Callimachus. The actual discovery, by pure chance, of the islands of Diomedes in I 993 was clinched by a piece of pottery with part of the name Diomedes on it'. That must reflect some very old tradition indeed. But my concern is not the first period of settlement, but the fifth century BC, in particular the possible contribution of the tragedian Sophocles to the development of western myths. Myths about the west, like all myths, underwent changes according to political circumstances. Talk of propaganda is usually too crude when speaking of the ancient world. It is however reasonable to examine with particular care the way in which western myths were presented in Attic tragedy; that is, the way in which they were presented for the consumption of the Athenians who showed such hunger for the west throughout the Pentekontaetia and finally launched a great fleet against Sicily in 415 BC. Nikias, according to Thucydides, called his fellow-countrymen 'ill-starred lovers of the distant' (6.13.1) and he was referring, in this strikingly poetic word 5uaepwTES',to their passion for distant Sicily and Italy. But the same Thucydides is tantalisingly thin on the pre-416 background to the great expedition. Perhaps we shall be able to supplement him from the poets and their handling of the myths. Does he show awareness of the tragedians on particular points? (That is, I am not here referring to general tragic influences on his diction and handling of episodes). There is nothing explicit - in the History at least, though a fine epitaph on Euripides was ascribed to Thucydides in antiquity'. But it is usually thought that by making Alkibiades come first, second and fourth in the Olympic games of 416 he is correcting Euripides who made him come first, second and third (Thuc. 6. 16. 2, contrast Plut. Ale. 11.3 = PMG 755). And in a famous passage which I have discussed elsewhere', he

' Malkin (1998). 'R.C.T. Parker (1999a). • Page 1981: 307-8. ' Zacharia (200 I).

K. ZACHARIA, SOPHOCUS AND THE WEST:THE EVIDENCEOF THE FRAGMENTS

59

rejects the attempt, which was surely Sophocles' attempt, to connect the historical Thracian king Teres and the mythical Thracian Tereus. Finally, Soph. fr. 590 from Tereus('only the god is tamias, steward, of the future') seems to be echoed by Hermokrates' use of the same tamias metaphor in Thucydides (6.78.2) and by Alcibiades earlier in the same book (6.18.3). Tereus was close in date to the historical Sicilian expedition, though Thucydides' composition date was of course some time later than 413. It may seem paradoxical to link Sophocles with the west, or indeed with any particular region. In the first place, Sophocles' loyal refusal to leave Athens, despite invitations from wealthy foreign rulers, was the subject of ancient biographical anecdote. In the second place, the tragedian who was biographically associated with the west was not Sophocles but Aeschylus, just as Euripides was associated biographically with the north, in fact with Macedonia. But one of my aims is precisely to tum the focus away from Aeschylus' western interests, which have often been remarked, to those of Sophocles, as evidenced from his writings. After all, Mary Lefkowitz's destructive work on the lives of the Greek poets' has left much of the biographical tradition about them all in ruins. Her chapter on Euripides even closes by doubting whether he visited Macedonia at all: perhaps (she suggests) his exile there was invented to explain references in the plays. As for Aeschylus, she dismisses the various fanciful ancient explanations for his Sicilian visit, such as exile or the poet's own dissatisfaction with Athens, and she notes that the biographies ought to have been content with saying that he went to Hiero's court simply because, like Simonides and Pindar, he was invited there. But she does not actually doubt the historicity of the visit. As for Sophocles, much of the more fanciful biographical tradition about him goes the same way, but even she accepts three basic facts: a. The first is that he himself came from the deme of Kolonos, the setting for his OC. b. The second is that he was a hellenotamias in 443 BC (the word does not mean 'state treasurer' as Lefkowitz says; it was not a civic Athenian office but an imperial one. The point is not trivial for our purposes, • Lefkowitz(1981 ).

SHARDSFROMKOWNOS: STUDIESIN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENTS

since we shall be interested in Sophocles' treatment of a wider world than that of Athens). The evidence for facts one and two is absolutely secure and has been doubted only by a couple of eccentrics. The proof is the mention of (r]oq,oKMS Ko>.o[VE6£v hfllivoTaµ[]qs in large letters in the twelfth of the so-called Athenian Tribute Lists, which are generally accepted to have begun to be inscribed at Athens in 454 BC, bringing us to 443 for Sophocles' tenure of office. c. The third fact accepted by Lefkowitz is Sophocles' generalship in the Samian war of 441 /0; this is attested by the contemporary Ion of Chios (FGrH 392 F 6) and also by the reliable fourth-century historian Androtion of Attica in a passage whose main problem does not concern Sophocles' (FGrH 324 F 38). d. Curiously, Lefkowitz nowhere even mentions a fourth hard fact about Sophocles, accepted as such by a scholar of the stature of Michael Jameson, namely his much-discussed service as proboulos in the aftermath of the Sicilian expedition of 415-413 and before the establishment of the oligarchy of the Four Hundred in 411. The fact is from the Rhetoric of Aristotle and it implies that Sophocles reluctantly acquiesced in the regime of the Four Hundred. Again, as biographical evidence goes, this is an item of early date and high quality'. That still leaves plenty of dubious material for Lefkowitz to sweep away. Even the heroization of Sophocles under the name Dexion, which survived Robert Parker's examination as recently as 1996 in his Athenian religion: a history, came under attack from Andrew Connolly in JHS two years later'. But the four items accepted by good and sceptical scholars as authentic remain impressive evidence that Sophocles, unlike the two other great tragedians, did indeed hold high Athenian and imperial office. It is the imperial aspect I shall be examining in particular. It will not be enough merely to list passages or fragments which refer 7

The problemis thatAndrotionappearsto list eleven generalsratherthanten. • Hellenotamias:IG i' 269 (for the demotic see Meritt 1959:189); for the events of 413-411: Jameson(1971). For scepticismsee Avery( 1973a). • R.C.T. Parker (1996) 184f.; Connolly (1998).

K. l.ACHARIA. SOPHOCLES AND THE WEST.·THE EVIDENCE OF THE FRAGMENTS

61

to the west in a vague sort of way. To such a procedure it can only too easily be objected that the references may be purely decorative, or that they can in any case be paralleled in the writings (surviving and fragmentary) of the other two tragedians. Thus Aeschylus' Aimaiai had a clearly Sicilian setting and mentioned the local cult of the Palikoi known from Diodorus. Again, the river Eridanos featured both in the Heliades of Aeschylus (where the river could be Italian not Spanish, as Diggle thought") and in the Hippolytus of Euripides (722-42), where it is the Po. And there is a famous reference at the end of Euripides' Electra linking the Dioskoroi, Sicily and the idea of saving ships; Zuntz refused, in a couple of crushing pages, to see here a reference to the relief expedition sent to Sicily in 413 BC, but the idea is periodically revived". A contemporary resonance can hardly be excluded, though there is risk of circular argument about the play's date; but even if we accept the resonance, the allusion is a glancing one. So too in the parodos of the Troades (220-3) the western material, though detailed and intriguing, is really just elaboration of one of the regions the chorus would like to escape to (river of Thourioi that dyes the colour of hair), Athens the great taker-in of refugees being their first choice; the 415 date of this play gives it interest in view of the Sicilian expedition. Interesting again is the connection between Melanippe Desmotis and Metapontion. Metapontos or Metabos was married to Arne or Melanippe or various other women; Eur. fr. 496 says that according to Euripides in the Melanippe Desmotis Sirls (a town in south Italy, connected to Themistokles by Herodotus) was named from a woman called Sirls". To return to Sophocles, what we need to look for is evidence that he chose specifically western myths for the central themes of a play or that he added important western twists to existing myths and themes. Of the

"Diggle (1970) 27-32: but see Leigh (1998) 88-90. " Zuntz ( I 963) 64-7 I: against, see Borelli (I 979). "Cf. Ion 209-10 with Borelli (1979) 141-8 on Enkelados: IT 582-94 with Borelli (1979) 159. 'lalJusionto Nikias' Jetterat Th. 7. 10-14. See also appendixin Burelli(1979) J62-6; she enumeratesall the more casual references in Eur., including mention of Daedalos in Hek..838, isles of the blest in Hel. 1676ff. and the fragmentaryCretans (fr. 471-2) which mentionsMinos, Daidalos and Ikaros.

62

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENTS

Tereus we can say confidently, as my other paper argues", that its Thracian setting and character was absolutely central; that it was made central by Sophocles; and that the play's theme had to do with historical Athenian involvement with Thrace - both political involvement and private involvement in the fonn of aristocratic marriages of individuals. Can we say anything of the sort about the west? I should say at this point that I hope some disclaimers can be taken for granted; thus I shall not bother issuing the usual warnings about the dangers of building big hypotheses on small fragments of plays whose structure we know little or nothing about. However, attention paid to the fragments of the lost plays, whose total ran into three figures, can only be healthy if it stops us generalizing about Sophocles on the basis of the seven surviving plays. After all, virtually nothing in the surviving oeuvre could have prepared us for the outre, sombre and exotic content of Tereus, and we should be prepared to be open-minded about some other titles as well. I start however with the surviving plays. The west does occasionally feature; the most interesting allusion is Antigone 1119 which places Dionysos in Italy. To be sure, there is no need to emend this to Ikaria or anything else: recently found Bacchic-Orphic material from south Italy greatly strengthens the case for retention, already made by Jebb. Jebb however adduced Athens' Thourioi project of 443, shortly before the traditional date of the play, as supporting evidence". This is hardly necessary in view of the cultic evidence for Dionysiac cult in that part of the world, and both Lloyd-Jones and Wilson in Sophoclea and now Mark Griffith in his recent commentary stress these as the main grounds for keeping Italy in the text, and cite the work of Albert Henrichs". In fairness to Jebb, he too gave this as one of his reasons; the point is, the evidence

"Zacharia (2001). "Jebb (1906): 199. 1 Kabµt=:lasdya,\µa vlJµq>Cls-, Kal au:>s (3apuj3p€µiTo ~ Soph.Ant. 11I 5-19: noAUWvuµt=:, yiVOS',KAUTCl.v OS'i1THS'ITaXlav, 'God of many names! Glory of the Kadmeian bride [Semele}! Child of loud-thundering Zeus! You who watch over famous Italy'. Trans. Jebb, adapted (1906). See Lloyd-Jones & Wilson (1990): Griffith (1999) both ad foe.

K. ZACHARIA. SOPHOCLESAND THE WEST.·TH£ EVIDENCE OF TH£ FRAGMENTS

63

has increased greatly since Jebb's time. Here then, the right conclusion seems to be that an Italian allusion should be retained, but that it should not be made to bear a heavy political load. Let us move on to the fragmentary plays. Another warning is appropriate here: we should be as alert to what Sophocles does not do or say about the west as to what he does do and say. A good example, of great interest to investigators of myths about early Rome, is from the Laokoon (fr. 373), quoted by Dionysius of Halicarnassus. It deals with Aeneas' escape from Troy and seems (the text is difficult) to describe how he was joined by a host of people who wanted to take part in this migration, apoikia, of the Phrygians. Now Dionysius has just set out at length how Sophocles' contemporary, the Arthidographer Hellanicus of Lesbos, made Aeneas go west (Rome is the most famous destination, but in the third century we find him going to Segesta in Sicily"). Sophocles however does not, on Dionysius' evidence, specify Aeneas' ultimate destination but has him go to Mt Ida not far from Troy. How should we interpret this? I do not want to burden this paper with the names of modem scholars but on this issue I shall do so, in order to illustrate how good scholars can diverge startlingly. For the North Italian scholar Lorenzo Braccesi, the Phrygian apoikia is Rome; that is, Braccesi takes apoikia in a concrete sense and argues that Sophocles knew of the Rome story. Malkin on the other hand says that Stesichorus, for whom Aeneas went west, was 'unlike Sophocles', who had him merely going to Mt Ida. Now Dionysius does not quite draw this contrast; he makes clear that Hellanicus too described how Aeneas regrouped on Mt Ida first, and departed only after that; then follows the citation from Sophocles, who is really being quoted not for radical disagreement but for a characteristic Sophoclean religious detail, the alarming portents interpreted by Anchises. Nevertheless Malkin is right in a way: as Vanoni acutely notes, if writers of the Augustan period could have cited a dramatist of Sophocles' stature for the story that Aeneas founded Rome, they would have done so like a shot". That these

"Gruen (1990) 12-13. 11 Austin ( 1964) on Aeneid 2. 797 and 800 shows that Virgil knew Sophocles· IAocoon.

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SHARDSFROMKOWNOS: STUDIESIN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

writers did not cite him suggests they could not; that is, Sophocles was simply not specific on Aeneas' destination. Incidentally Dionysius cites Sophocles' lAocoon verbatim, showing that he knew the play at first hand, not from a summary by an earlier writer. So much for Aeneas. That is what I mean by paying attention to what Sophocles does not say. But when Malkin says that Sophocles' version was unlike that of Stesichorus who had Aeneas go west, and that Sophocles made him go in another direction - to Mt Ida - this goes too far. All we can say is that Sophocles was non-committal on where if anywhere Aeneas went after Mt Ida". I move on to the Triptolemos, a play dated with relative precision and unusual plausibility to about 468 (Pliny's word in Natural History 18. 65 is 'fere', and is too often overlooked in modem discussions, which tend to treat the date 468 as absolute and secure). Two fragments of the play (598, 600) are about Italy: one has Demeter giving Triptolemos directions for his mission (Oinotria i.e. south-western Italy, the Etruscan gulf and Liguria), the other speaks of the grain and fertility of Italy. 468 is the high point of the era of Kirnon 's prominence, and indeed anecdotes connect Kirnon and Sophocles' victory over Aeschylus on this very occasion. Let us disregard them. Kirnon was active in Thrace in the 460's rather than in Sicily, but scholars" have nevertheless managed to tie Sophocles in with Kimonian policies in this period, by pouncing on fr. 604 which mentions Chamabon, king of the Getai, a Thracian people. The modem argument is then elaborated by reference to the Antenoridai, a play I shall say more about in a moment. Like Aeneas, Antenor and his sons left Troy to go west, but they went via Thrace. There is a whiff of treachery about the story because a leopard-skin was placed above Antenor's house in Troy as a sign to the Greeks to spare it. An early date for this play is said to be indicated by the representation of Antenor and the leopard-skin by Polygnotos in about 461 in a famous Delphic painting of the fall of Troy. To these two strands of literary evidence, modem Italian scholars add the alleged Athenian commercial interests in the Adriatic, as attested by, for

1 •

Braccesi (1984) 47; Malkin (1998) 193; Vanotti (1979) 111.

19

Cerrato ( 1985).

K. ZACltARIA.SOPHOCLES AND THE WEST:THE EVIDENCEOF THE FRAGMENTS

65

instance, Attic vases at Spina (Ferrara museum)"'. One must be cautious about this sort of archaeological evidence; historians have generally rejected the correlation between the distribution of painted pottery and western imperialism made by Cornford nearly a century ago". Let us stick with the Triptolemosfor the moment. That the popularity of the Triptolemos theme had an imperial aspect is very likely: Twenty years ago Raubitschek" examined the iconographic evidence for the Mission ofTriptolemos and concluded that the main phase of the theme's popularity did indeed coincide with the most glorious period of Athenian Empire, that between the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, when Eleusinian motifs were certainly exploited for imperial purposes; he connects details on the painted pottery with Sophocles fragments, such as the dragons which pulled Triptolemos' chariot and Demeter's instructions to Triptolemos. That the play pointed west is clear. We must not overdo this because it was of the essence of Triptolemos' mission that it was universal: Christopher Jones in his recent book on kinship diplomacy" notes how, in a speech at Sparta in 371, Kallias the ancestral Keryx of the Eleusinian mysteries reminded the Spartans that it was to the Peloponnese that Triptolemos had first taken the gift of grain, and that he first showed the secret ritual objects to Heracles the Spartans' ancestor. Nevertheless, the prominence of Demeter in the religion of Magna Graecia ( such as the cult of Demeter Malophoros at Selinous") makes the western angle specially appropriate for Sophocles to stress, and the Eleusinian aspect to Athenian imperial policy" means that the play can have carried an imperial sub-text. But I doubt if we need bring Kirnon into it. It would be more plausible to connect the allusions to Oinotria and the Etruscan gulf, that is the south-western and central-western Italian seaboard, to a definitely attested Athenian act of colonization, the colony sent to Naples

Cerrato(1985) 173 and n. 35 citing Braccesi. JI Cornford(1907); a betterview in de Ste Croix ( 1972). " Raubitschek( 1991). :s

" Jones (1998) 32. • Jameson ele. (1992) 132-3. H

Meiggs and Lewis (1988): no. 73.

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SHARDS FROM KOWNOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENTS

and mentioned by Strabo (5.4.7) who says: 'after Dikaiarchia comes Neapolis, a city of the Kymaians. At a later time it was re-colonized (,rrotKlcr!h-])by Chalkidians and also by some Pithekoussans and Athenians and hence for this reason was called Neapolis'. We should also recall a fragment of Timaeus (fr. 98) about the Athenian admiral Diotimos' visit to Naples in the 430s where he founded a torch-race as an act of expiation. He was a 'western expert', because Thucydides says that Diotimos son of Strombichos led the Athenian squadron to Kerkyra in 433 BC (Thuc. 1.45). Martin Frederiksen, in his posthumous Campania, left a brilliant account of this important but poorly-attested fifth-century Athenian involvement in Carnpania". Comparing Strabo 5.4.7 with Timaeus fr. 98 and the date of Diotimos from Thucydides 1.45 on the Kerkyran squadron, we get (following Frederiksen) a mid century date for this Athenian settlement. This Athenian involvement in Campania culminated in an event overlooked by Thucydides, the sending of Carnpanian cavalry to help the Athenians in Sicily during their ill-fated expedition (D.S. 13.44). I have already mentioned the Antenoridai; unlike the Laokoon, this play did specify the ultimate destination of the Trojan heroes of its title: they went to the Venetic region at the head of the Adriatic. I do not want to stop for long over this play, which has been much studied, naturally enough, by North Italian scholars, notably Lorenzo Braccesi and his pupils". And Leigh (1998) bas greatly strengthened the case for seeing Sophocles as interested in the Adriatic region; hi~ starting point is the bird, 'herald and minister', of fr. 137, which he ingeniously and plausibly suggests was a crow or raven which guided the settlers, like the famous crows which in Aristobulus' version guided Alexander the Great to the Siwah oasis. (Ptolemy's variant had some talking serpents do this particular job). Leigh further conjectures that in the Roman period Accius took this a bit further and produced a foundation story for the Roman city of Patavium, modern Padua. But except for the painted pottery already

'Strabo 5.4.7 and FGrHist 566 F 98 with Frederiksen (1982) 104-7. 17 Vanoni(1979); Braccesi(1984); Cerrato(1985).

K. ZACHARIA. SOPHOCLES AND THE WEST:THE EVIDENCEOF THE FRAGMENTS

67

mentioned there is little specifically to connect Athens with the northern Adriatic region, as opposed to Campania, south Italy and Sicily. Before we confront that big question (i.e. whether these western allusions have anything to do with Athenian foreign policy) we must look at my final exhibit, the 'Minoan' plays, as we may call them, i.e. the Minos, the Daidalos and above all the Kamikoi or Kamikioi. Toe second and third of these, or perhaps all three, dealt with the story of Minos' visit to Kokalos the king of Sicilian Kamikos, in search of Daidalos who had escaped from Crete; Minos was killed by Kokalos' daughters. Of the three Sophoclean plays, the Minos survives in only a single fragment, and it has been suggested that the other two, again perhaps all three, were satyrplays. Seaford" accepts this for the Daidalos at least. And since - as Seaford says - one element in satyr-plays is their interest in ingenious, marvellous inventions, it is possible that the Kamikoi too was a satyr play, both because it specifically mentions one ingenious contrivance, and because of the general consideration that the play dealt with Daidalos the great inventor. Toe ingenious contrivance was a sea-shell which Daidalos threaded by making an ant go through the shell with a thread tied to the little creature; this is what gave away Daidalos' hidden presence because no one else could have been so clever (fr. 324). That Aristophanes also wrote a Kokalos and a Daidalos may indicate that the 'Minoan' plays belonged relatively late in Sophocles' output, that is, if Aristophanes had them in view. However, an intertextual relation with Aristophanes would not necessarily settle the question whether the 'Minoan' plays of Sophocles were satyr plays or not. For a satyr play with a Sicilian setting, the obvious parallel is the Cyclops of Euripides: Seaford accepts the gruesome suggestion that Euripides' picture of Greeks trapped in the cave of the Aitnaian cannibal may have reminded the Athenians of their fellowcitizens in the Syracusan stone-quarries. How this would have gone down with an Athenian audience I do not know. But let us examine the Daidalos myth, specifically in its Athenian and western dimensions. The whole topic has been put on a new footing by Sarah Morris' thorough and wide-ranging book Daidalos and the origins

:>1

Seaford( 1984) introduction.

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SHARDSFROMKOLONOS:STIJDIESJN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENT'S

of Greek art"'. She makes two important points relevant to our topic: first, that Daidalos' •Athenian connection, new since epic and archaic poetry, [was) introduced at least as early as Sophocles' Kamikoi'. This invites us to make the obvious further conjecture that it was Sophocles himself who introduced it, but there are problems about that as we'll see. Her second suggestion is that 'even Sicily may have entered the story via Athens, no surprise in a period when Athens' ambitions expanded west to include Magna Graecia'. I take the second of these suggestions first. Morris goes on to cite Herodotus' account (7. 169-170) of how Minos came west, but was killed at Kamikos, after which the Cretans set out from Crete to avenge him but after besieging Kamikos unsuccessfully they went off to Iapygia in Italy instead and founded Hyria, 'becoming Iapygian Messapians instead of Cretans', as Herodotus puts it, an interesting attempt to give a Greek pedigree to people who were not in fact Greeks at all. (Malkin"' summarises this slightly inaccurately by saying that after Minos' death his •now leaderless followers' went to Italy; actually they set off from Crete as part of a second expedition, Minos' apparently solitary pursuit of Daidalos being the first.) Morris evidently assumes that Herodotus picked the story up in Athens; this is a possible source, but so is Delphi: in Herodotus, the full version of the story is triggered by the Delphic response to the Cretans of 480 BC who consulted the oracle when the Greeks tried to enlist them against Xerxes. The oracle told the Cretans not to forget that whereas the Cretans had helped the other Greeks recover Helen from Troy, this good tum had not been reciprocated because the Greeks gave the Cretans no help in their attempts to avenge Minos' death in Kamikos. Herodotus' story goes on to describe how the Cretans became Iapygian Messapians, and concludes the narrative with a tremendous slaughter of the Greeks of Tarentum and Rhegion inflicted by the Messapians. Now it is certainly true that Delphic sources were in a position to know about these Iapygians or Messapians or Peuketians:

'Morris (1992) 216. • Malkin (1998) 134-5.

K. ZACHARIA.SOPHOCU:SAND THE WEST.·THE EVIDENCE OF THE FRAGMENTS

69

fifth-.alalv Alvias O Tiis 8EoD 1Td.PfOT', hr' hlµ.wv rraTEp' lxwv KEpawlov ~OOO'lVOV ct,apos, µoToU KQTGO'Td.(OVTQ KVK>.wt. BE.m'iaav olKETWv rraµrrAT}8{.av· 6€ rrAf\86s ol rr6oov OOKE:'iS. awomi(ETal dl Tfjo6' fpwc:1t Tfts drrolKlas cl>puyWv.

And now at the gates stands Aeneas, the son of the goddess, carrying on his shoulders his father with his linen robe stained with the discharge caused by the lightning, and about him the whole horde of his servants. And with him follows a crowd, you cannot imagine how great, of those who are eager to take pan in this migration of the Phrygians.

fr. 598:

Triptolemos

Tei 6' Et:6ma6E: XflJ>OS'is Tit &t:ul OlV If we could find someone to pass the linen through this seashell ...

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SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

fr. 323:

Kamikioi OpvL8os/iX.8' EnWvuµov nEp8tKoS lv KAE"tvolcr''A8T)valwvuciyms-

He came after killing a man who bore the name of a bird, Perdix. upon the famous hiUs of the Athenians.



II

Tragedy: Mothers

4

Tyro Keiromene AMYC. CLARK

So little is known of the Tyro tragedies of Sophocles that it is even a matter of dispute whether the poet really composed two distinct and different plays'. Of both works together, the 'first' and 'second' Tyro referred to in a scattered few of the sources, we possess little over a hundred words today. About half these words compose a single passage of ten iambic verses (Soph. fr. 659). There Tyro, in a simile of extraordinary beauty and pathos, likens herself to a filly whose mane is cropped by a rough hand. Catching sight of her reflection in the water she raves 1n sorrow and lamentation:

1

Pearson (1917) 273.4 gives a synopsis of the earlier views: Welcker and Dindorf

(the second is a revision of the first), Hartung and Engelmann(the second concerned what

is related in Hyginus Fab. 60). Pearson suggests the second 'may have comprised the earlier history of Tyro,' but concludes by concurring with Nauck (TGP p. 272). differentiam /jabularum/ rimari nunc non licet. Robert (1916) 3()().2 believes that the first Tyro concerned Tyro's exposure of the twins, while' in the second they rescued her: the plots corresponded to Euripides' Melanippe Sophe and Desmotis. Page (1942) 153 inclines to follow Welcker. Radt (1977) 463-4 records the evidence for two distinct plays. but does not distinguish the subject of the first. Lloyd~Jones ( 1996) 649 thinks the second a revised version oflhe first. Martino (1996) 202 follows Engelmann.

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K6µris 6£ niv8os Aayxdvw nWAou 6lK11v, T)TtS avvapnaa6Eiaa f3oUK6Awv&rro

µdv8pcus- fv i.TTlTfi.atotv d:yp(q XfPl 0lpo, &pu,6\j eaveovavxivwvlhro, TTAflyx8Elaa6 • Ev AnµWvt TTOTaµlwvnoTWv t6u atctOs fi6wAov ai,yacr6Ela' frrro Koupa1s dTlµws BlaT6!317v) is out of concert with this scene of a god's rough love upon a tender maiden: it indicates not heedless violence, but deliberate disfigurement and disgrace. What god ever treated his love thus? Then too the constant and unvarying focus on the hair is remarkable, with five or more words for hair and its cutting in the space of a few verses. Not rape, but some other act of violence suits Tyro's simile better: her stepmother Sidero has seized her and cropped her hair. Why? To chasten her like a lusty young mare, infers Aelian (Ael. NA 11.18): And a female horsedrivenmad for sex (E"sJlcracra frrl TI] aloxW1,1). This a1soSophocles alludes to in his drama the Tyro...

Aelian has in mind Aristotle's discussion of mares and copulation from the History of Animals (Arist. HA 572a8-b29). According to Aristotle the mare is most eager for copulation of all the animals, the younger ones foremost; when mares are shorn, they cease somewhat from their eagerness and become rather cast down (KaT17cj>,aTEpaL). Aristotle's text deserves more credit than Aelian 's as a record of the sort of animal lore from which Tyro's simile was drawn. But its linguistic details are of still greater interest. Mares [eager for copulation] are horsemad (\mroµavoixnv), says Aristotle; whence the word derived from this one animal is applied as term of abuse to those women without restraint in their sexual desire (l3Aaacj>17µlav ... ETTL Twv ciKoAciaTwvrr,pl TO cicj>po6,a,a(eo0a,). The condition in sows is called Karrpl(,,v (adopting the transposition of Th.) and Karrpiiv; there are also love-charms called the

92

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: mJDJES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAOMENl'S

i,nroµavis and Kallp[a to stimulate desire (577a8-13). The whole lexicon of female passion elucidates the difficult fragment from the A-tragedy given as an entry in Hesychius (Soph. fr. *652 = Hesych. K 873; attribution uncertain): KOTTpoµav,\,·els- Kopov ;euflp,,oooa.

LOootc;\:i\; Tupol a· VJ}(Jo;cod., v6o{>S'Soping. T\Jpo(a cod .. Tupoi. a· Schow. divine(?) sickness: that from a god. divine.

But a related Euripidean fragment argues rather that the sickness belongs to Tyro's father Salmoneus (Eur. fr. 14.3-4): ... QS'T' in' 'A)4>£wlJpools/ 8E:oiiµavflS' fppuJif lllXµw1'fVS' Mya. (For the sentiment compare Soph. Aj. 186. f;Km -yClpdv 0Eia v00QS' with its scholion. lmKf yClp flvat 8fla vOOQS'. &:ia 6E TlEK SfoD KaTaaKl)lpacra Eis alJT6v). By this account it seems Salmoneus was goaded by Zeus himself to adopt the god's thunderbolts and thereby bring himself to ruin. Such a report of Tyro's parent and his demise could well have been introduced at some point in the first play.

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AMY C. CL>.RK, TYRO KEJROMENE

woman and the mare with her proverbial qualities of luxury, haughtiness, and sexual attraction or impulse. But his poem, part didactic or wisdom literature, part invective, simply passes on well-known folk traditionsanimal lore and advice on raising and keeping a young wife like that of Hesiod before him (Works 695-705, cf. Ar. Clouds 1-80). Tyro's simile and its interpretation in Aelian and Plutarch follow in this same train. In Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae, the Athenian woman who is devoted to making good interest, not good offspring, is recommended for shearing by her fellows (oVS" rrAriyelaa rrErrov8evl

~Tol!To 6 · inrO

Tf\s-

ot6T)pouAC, ot6ripals II - uXriyfloa Nauck 2 : rrAri'YT) A .• rr,\rry«ts-cett.

Tyro, cheeks bruised in Sophocles; [and this she has gotten from being beaten by her stepmother Sidero].

These are one-of-a-kind masks, each created to represent an extraordinary character". Some are monsters or allegorical figures, but several are

returns here to seek them (like Creusa constantly. Antiope as soon as she is freed). The recollection of a Tyro tragedy in Menander shows the herdsman who leads them a character of paidagogos type (see pp. 111-2 n. 38 below). Since his clothing and person are described (Epitr. 327-8), he must have been present in the drama to 'telJ the affair, how he found them. how he took them up' (Epitr. 330): the tale should begin in the prologue, then be amplified in the later recognition scene. The old man enters with the twins and they identify the locus like Odysseus and Neoptolemus in the Philoctetes prologue, then ex.it or hide. Tyro is still visiting the spot in her constant hope of succour. Menander's description is not secured for Sophocles but one might expect his narrator's variation from that tragedy to lie in the smaller details (see pp. 86 above, 111 below). :is The gloss of Hesychius given in Bethe (E°KOKfua·TO:TTUPfTT6µfvaTTp6awTTa hrl 0101vfis-)is misleading if taken to indicate the masks of 'attendant' characters; it is plain from the names listed thal some have principal roles and others minor ones.

AMY C. CLARK,TYROKEIROMENE

101

humans who have undergone a transformation- perhaps a fabulous metamorphosis, as in the case of 'Actaeon with antlers' or 'Euippe turning into a horse,' perhaps a radical change of state brought on by the gods or the acts of another character. Thus we have Phineus blind, Achilles shorn for Patroclus- and Tyro bruised. It is likely that Tyro, like Pollux' Phineus and Achilles or the better-known Oedipus and Polymestor, changed masks during the play, emerging from the house with bruises and fresh-cropped hair". The effect is swift and striking; her suffering is evident, she pours forth her lament. This is a fine occasion for her simile: distraught with shock and pain, she explains her appearance, tells what she has done and suffered, and beseeches pity. We have the latter part of a speech in her fragment, as the 6l of its opening verse indicates- the simile on her hair. Perhaps she began with the vivid bruises. Neither cropping nor bruising could well belong to Tyro's sorrows in the later play. Tyro there has grown old in misery, suffering her daily servitude and longing for deliverance through her sons' return. But if she were calloused with abuse, there would be no call for the extraordinary mask. Only a beating that is fresh and unaccustomed will raise bruises; Tyro's mask signals an act of abuse as sharp, as recent, as the cropping represented in her simile. The sudden violence argues, in tum, an equally extreme and sudden cause: Sidero discovered a breach of chastity on the girl's part and exacted punishment". Probably the girl made her way

Pollux is silent here on Tyro's hair, when he mentions the cropped hair of the mourningAchilles immediatelyafter,becausethe 'shornmaiden·maskandcharacterwas standard,not extraordinary. 11 For this reasontoo it is not likely thatSiderocroppedthe girl's hairbeforeher union with Poseidon, to check a general wantonness- as the interpretationof her simile in Aelian, following Aristotle'srecordof Greekanimalhusbandry,would suggest (Ael. NA 11.18,seep. 91 above).Aelian's understandingof Tyro'ssimile is confusedin any case; elsewhere, in a discussion of breedingmules (NA 2.10. see p. 93 above), he cites it to suggest ratherthat one crops a mare'smane to humbleher to admita baserpartner(the ass), thoughthereis no mentionof the practicein Aristotle(cf. HA 577b). His text agrees with Plut. Mor. 153-4 in this interpretation; they may be drawingon commonsourcesof quotations (and commentary)for their ethical writings. On Aelian's sources and his ttansmissionof earliertexts see Kindstrand( 1998) 2973-7. JI!,

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homeward from her union at the river like Menander's Pamphile- dress tom, hair in disarray (see p. 93 above). Perhaps like her she was crying too; though she knew she had lain with a god, she may not have derived immediate comfort and confidence from the knowledge". Sidero came upon her and concluded the worst, beat her cruelly and shore off her hair. Tyro emerged with her new mask from within the house, and conveyed her sufferings lo a sympathetic listener or the chorus. Some of her rapelike suffering is figured in the simile, if ii does indeed trace in shadow the god's union with her even as it primarily conveys the punishment and humiliation from Sidero that attended it. Its imagery is overdetermined (see pp. 88-91 above). In Tyro's simile the filly's distress comes not al the cropping itself. but at seeing her reflection in the water, her 'outline disfigured with shearings lo her dishonor' (aKLns... Koupa'is aT(µws 8taTfTLAµEVl]S):she cowers in shame (alaxuV1Jwsrl61)f)W, Kal q>povo\KJaToVvoµa oUK olt:Tal 6UC1KAE°Lav fK ToUTou q:,ipHv 4>povoOOa Ahrens, Cobet (confirmant Vet Ant, sapiens nomen vertentes): cf,opoi)aaArist.

:-.Pelias should be an alternate title for the Tyro B. in which the youth had a principal role (Apollod. 1.9.8, p. 96 above). Could not 'Pelias' have been rather the name of the speaker of the verse, which came to supplant the name of the play? Although this sort of haplography is often found in such citations. it is unlikely here. Pelias was at most an infant in the Tyro A, and in the Tyro B it is difficult to conceive how he would have come by the knowledge or the occasion to impart it, since his mother was hitherto unknown to him- her childhood nourishment and complex.ion especially. I would much prefer to assign the fragment to the Tyro A, but the citation scarcely seems to pennit it. Perhaps there is a deeper corruption; the verse is defective in the first metron.

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But she's a fighter, being rightly called Sidero;and steely in her thoughtsas in hername She thinksshe bears no infamy from this...

Parallel expressions for the proverbial •iron' temperament are plentiful in Homer: all-daring, all-enduring, unyielding, without compassion (Od. 5.191, 12.280, 23.103, //. 24. 521). Tyro's complaint of a pitiless handler in the simile accords perfectly with the nameless speaker's censure here: at some juncture Sidero's iron temper went beyond all bounds. She is unbending and impervious to shame. Sidero gives a strong foil to Tyro's radiant feminine virtue, the sort of juxtaposition and contrast Sophocles excelled in creating (like Neoptolemus before Odysseus, Antigone or the aged Oedipus before Creon). Tyro and Sidero, Steel and Chevre: significant names are important in Sophocles. Punning verges on prophecy and informs the very action of the drama: Aias the 'lamenter' (Aj. 430-2), Oedipus who 'knows about feet' (OT 391-8). In Tyro's case the general contours of a SnowWhite situation are clear from the telling names: the tender maiden wretched in the power of a harsh and jealous stepmother. And again Sophocles expresses the metaphor of the names in the very acts and figures of the tragedy: Sidero's pitiless Iron beats livid the girl's,SilowWhite complexion and crops the fabled beauty of her hair. / There are indications that Tyro knew some measure of hru'd usage ' tender nurture of her from the time of her arrival at Sidero 's house. The earliest childhood, the milk-fed rra,&[a, was past; Apollodorus tells us she wandered by the river keening her sorrows. His arrw6up,To, without parallel in either epic account, may give a hint of the tragic version (Apollod. 1.9.8)30 : Tupt;1 6( ... EpOKAfisTupol a' (N.: Tupdvvms-cod., Tupol Pierson).The Sophocleanword is uncertain,as is Nauck's readingof the lemmaand attributionto the A-play;the attributionof fr. *652 is likewise uncertain. ll

106

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN AUGMENTS

slight or accidental, introduced in passing, but rather central to the tragedy. The nexus of significant names extends to Tyro's sons. One often names a child after the character or experiences of his parent: here the mother's bruises give the name to her son Pelias (TT,>.las, rr,>.,6s, livid) VTJ>-iis). Since and her 'pitiless' sufferings name his twin Neleus (NTJAEUS, Sophocles alone is known to employ the passive signification ofVTJ>-iisreceivingor stirring no pity rather than offering none- he more than any other could have adopted or alluded to this etymology in his drama. In like manner Odysseus is called Hateful by his grandfather who was hated by many, and Sophocles echoes the Homeric passage (Od. 19.406-9, Soph. fr. %5, cf. Soph. Aj. 574-76). Antiope's twins are named for their mother's travail (Eur. frr. 181, 182, Hyg. Fab. 7)- Zethus because she sought (,(i'JTTJOE)a place to give birth, and Amphion because she gave birth by the road (aµ'boov)". In the Homeric scholia and in Apollodorus, Tyro's twins are named not by their mother's sufferings but their own, as abandoned infants. The fullest version is found in Schol. //. 10.334 (ed. Dindorf, assigned by Erbse to D, the minora): Tvp(ILpEeil'n,,1 al/Tfis- Tt~JVTfKl'l•JV, rrapfxoooa 61),\~p fTPfE. 1

Ti,v 6€

'lrrTTOS' KaTO. Ti, µEn,mm• ETTciTT]CTEll. fr;f,\0(H'Tf':, 0U1• o't 'trrrrocl>opPoici1•f,\./iµfl ol TE TU rrat6ia fTputmv, Kai t,'J1•l1µacroti Th1• {Ttpov

1

µh·. irrn6~

EK avv&poµf]-; diµan>-; frrf,\u:iOri. lh=,\(cw, Till' O' fTtpCiv TT£Al-6vTt Toll npooWTTou µEpos ETTo(T)O"EV. b & lTTTTc$,pflbsdµ4'oTlpous- TOVS-nat8as- dv,~6µ,vas l8p,.P,, Kal

Tov µtv TTwv, rrap1.6vrwv l mro.:ij 8aTi pou TWv i3PEwv nEM6v TL ToU TTpoaWTTou µEpos €:rrolricrev. 0 6£ lrrrroct,opfros dµVO"tv. (;)5' oU&:v Eaµo•. a'l i-fm µiv Ev rraTpOEt. 1-iTav&' is Tl/3rivf~tKC.:;µ£0'fµoKM1. rrap' 4). 4,iacr(, KpfiVflTLS' 'Y&aaa KaMiTm I Hsch. T 247 Schmidt Ta6pnov

204

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN f'RAGMENTS

meaningless letters ivya,, which Casaubon interpreted as a remnant of the words iv Aiyei. On the strength of this emendation Casaubon then proceeded to change Hesychios' version of the fragment from cirri> al ')'EL Taupou rroTaµou 2:cxj,ot(;\,fis T pot(fiva rrapa Kai KTT)VTJ u&aaa to LOoKAiiS Aly,1. cirri>Taupou rroTaµou rr,pt Tpot(fiva, rrap' S"6E (fr. 765 M.) irri Toii rrai.Ol'TO Eee>..01.'.n•nv Kai µa>..riTTfLVTi8t]cn, LooKAfis6f iv Alyf"i (Reitzenstein: Evopyfi cod.; cf. F23) n)v 9rtaia aTpi$o~'Ta Kol µoMTToVTa To\JS" AiryoVS"mxi')aaL OfaµCl T!.!1TalJpt!-1·Afyn 6E oVTtuS" " KNI.IO'Tj)f(H I.' ,;c_ '"' ... ~aµa . "As a scholion on Iliad XI, 378a (Erbse) proves: iv yali;i KaTfTTflKTO' i1•opyw,;' TTfpl TClS- rrAT)yO:srrmKLAlm•() TTOLTJnis-. mivu. 6L' O>..ou6! q>uJ..ciooETOL

C. HAHNEMANN, SOPHOKLES' ..MGEUS": PU/DOYER FOR A METHODOLOGY OF CAI.ff/ON

205

as an example of figurative usage for the verb 6pyaw: Ka86A0116£ TIOLKLAWS xpwvra,Tl\i 6v6µaTt'. Not surprisingly, Sophokles' depiction of Theseus' hands as spindles struck the ancient commentator as the opposite of plain. Consequently, ivapyii makes no sense in this passage and must be corrupt. By changing only two letters, Reitzenstein managed to solve the contradiction and assign the fragment to a specific tragedy: iv Alyei:.

Since fr. *25 clearly describes Theseus' capture of the Marathonian Bull, the inference that it comes from the Aigeus would be legitimate on the basis of its content alone even without recourse to paleographical probabilities. Nevertheless, this exercise of textual criticism on the passage is important for two reasons. First, because on the ascription of this fragment to the tragedy hinges the answer to the question which version of the myth Sophokles dramatized, as will be seen below. Second, because the same corruption of the play's title into a form of ivap'YllS has taken place in the sentence introducing fr. *23". Were it not for the analogy to fr. *25, the ascription of this fragment to the Aigeus would have to be regarded as rather tentative. As it is, however, we recognize in the variant readings of the manuscripts two successive stages of textual corruption: from iv Al ye1 to iv dpye, (L BEQ) to ivapyii (Photios) and

ivapyws (L V). There is only one fragment that Radt includes under the heading of the Aigeus on the basis of its content alone: fr. *24". In it, Aigeus gives an

Cf. above n. 7. LSJ lists our fragment under the entry for bpyJ..atotvyi.tpF. W. Schmidt (Krit. St. 1,248) I (1:lJuX>-o,a,v)or an inscrutable dative (,ii4>uXAo,cr,v)and no subject at all. The indefinite clause (Kliv dXAo µT)&sv)is missing a verb which we must supply from the d>,.M-clause". Finally, the very last word, TTT£p6v, if taken literally, arouses suspicion for two reasons. First, because it shifts the focus of the simile from the quivering leaves to a drifting feather, while Sophoklean similes usually have a single focus". Secondly, dvaKotxf,l(w does not mean to lift an external object but a part of oneself and thus is perfectly suited to govern Kapa"'. TTT£p6v, even if it could be used as a metaphor for fronds, makes

coll. A. Prom. 157; Klvfj TlS' ai,pa, TTciVTa KovJ.' op6c)v ok '(cm1o'lv, WOaUTWS 6€ ai, T}µdS' T' 6Tp1JVHS Kain-OS'iv Trj)WTOI.S' fTTl]. -" After Kci.vwe would have expected a subjunctive, a trace of which may survive in

the senseless KLV1)0'1;1S aUpcns-of the codices. .w Thus, for e'lample, Lloyd-Jones ( 1996) 21: ' ... a breeze moves its top and lifts a feather'. Presumably, Radt too takes rrTEp6v literally, since he considers fr. *23 merely the opening of a simile ( 1991) 97. While Homeric similes typically begin and end with a term of comparison ('like', 'as'. 'just so' etc.), Sophokles will sometimes blur the border between simile and narrative by anticipation or echo. Perhaps this innovation constitutes Sophokles' moderate response to Aischylos, who merges image!)' and reality so boldly that it is often impossible to tell, as it were, woof from warp. "°Cf. Soph. OT23-25: ,r6Als- yci.p, WO"rrEp Kairn'"l5" doopQs-. 0:yav 11611croAflJH KtlvaKnUS'. Xflf)Wv iv T~ CJTpiq>flv TT)v 1qx')t(TJv,WS' Kol TO q>U>..>.a Tii5' aiyflpou Kol 1:UK(VfJTa PQO[w,;Kol lJTT()n1xolx:n1s aUpas. t:.rs1ml ciVTf

WTa KUAA.ai.vwvKS &f rrciMv Kal civmx0Evn}5".n7!v µEv TTAfOVTwvov&v fq>Cli.v£TO, 0 6t NoUrrAto; T0v rrupcr()ll f~T]PKCltvoµEi'llS'd.v..vrrfi(f6at

dh!1,

T(;Jl' l((JK,;iL· )..{,\l")(Tpil'l!'·

('Farewell. if you can farewell beneaththe earth.I expect you can. Forwhereone cannot be painedby life, one can forgetone's troublesand so fare well.') " Tr:aTlJpwv, dit HCsiode (frag. 123,2 Merkelbach-West] - n'est

pas le retlet exageredu monde des hommes mais plutOt un contre-modCle de l'humanitC ... qui joue, pour I' Athenien spectateur des vases, sur la proxirnitC et la distance: suffisamment proche pour qu'il puisse s'y projeter, suffisamment distant pour ne pas se confondre avec lui.' Contra Sutton ( 1980) I O who opines that 'Satyr play was rarely. if ever, a vehicle for the expression of opinion about contemporary events in the arts or any other sphere•. On links between satyr-drama and comedy, see further Voelke, this volume.

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On first apprehending the title several responses are possible, among which are: 'What impotency jokes in lchneutai?', or even whether it is a joking matter at all. Another is to doubt that there are any jokes in lchneutai - beyond the satyrs' impersonation of dogs for the purpose of 'enlivening of the pursuit scene' and the 'deflation of the pompous hypocrite' Silenus'. The speech on cowardice (145-68) which reveals Silenus as a hypocrite when he turns tail and flees is a harangue and includes, or is, one of the 'jokes' of the title: µot i/J64)ov cfx>l3[E'icr8€J Kal 6nµa(VfT£, µdA&i,S'dvayva uwµaT' fKµEµayµiva, T(

KciKlO'TO 0r)pfuv 6v8[( ',

i ]v

1Tci01J O"KLQ.

q,6[3ov l3MrroVTES',mivra 6oµaTo(lµtvot, dvEupa K.wcraa Kal cf,aAT)TES'; El 6i nou oil]. rrtcrTol A6yotolv Ovrts- lpya cf,E(ryETE. Totou& TTOTp6s, w Kd.KlO"TO &i,plwv, oO rr6XX' €4) ~131)5' µVl)µaT' dv6PELOS'Urro K£lTat nap' olKOLS'vuµct,tKols-f1crK11µ£va. oVKEls lJY11v KA(vovTOS', oii 6nAouµ€vou, oooi if,64,otcn TWv 6Pft Tp6cf>wvf,oTWv TTn'loaovros, ci.U' a[lx]µalcrtv E€Hpyacrµ£vou a vVv ixp' VµWv Mµ[np' d]troppwa(VfTat $~ vtwpft K6A0.Kt rrmµ€vwv rro8fv. T() 611 q>()l3ela&: TTai&s- &.; rrplv Elcrt&iv. TT.\oiiTov6t xpoo64>avrov €€a$i.ETE ()v 4>o'il3oS'Vµ'iv E11TEKdvE6E€aTo, Kal Tllv !Afu8ipwoLv Jlv KaTl)vEcrfv l.lµ'iv TE Kciµol· Tafrr' dcpfVTES-EOOfTE. Ei µ11 'vavOOTT!aavns £6xvt=00ETE TOS [3oi>;-frrn:i ~E(3.0aK6s Henderson ( 1975) also lists a connection between being softened and being deceived, in modem American parlance, 'being fucked [over]' (40), or 'being

'The tenn PriTopLKTl was only coined c. 400 and the only description for this kind of speech prior to this date was TTEl8w,persuasion, Halliwell (1997) 124. However, this paper will utilise the tenn 'rhetoric' to describe persua,;ive speech, in the fonn in which it may have been learned, from Sophists, and practised in Athens during the fifth century. A justification of this attribution of equivalency is Plato Gorgias 453a2, where rhetoric is the worker of rrd6w. 6

The link between persuasive, i.e. female speech, and deceptive speech and deceptive

speech and rhetoric is explored in some small part in OKell, 1999. This paper associates rr1:[8t!Jwith uncodified, untaught, persuasive speech as utilised by females. if this is so the presentation of demagogues as unschooled, as noted by Carey ( 1994) 77, is part of their feminisation by comic authors. 1 Although Cleisthenes' effeminacy is prevalent enough in comedy to be an integral part of the man himself, it is possible that it is partially a result of his political profile and ability with words. Cleisthenes makes thirteen appearances in Aristophanes, all of which emphasise his effeminacy and six of which have a reference to political activity (a eunuch in the ambassadorial entourage Ach. 118, an ambassador Vesp. 1187, a Spartan agent acting as go-between for the women Lys. 621. a protector of women's interests Tires. 574ff., a-. a speaker before the boule. he effects an arrest, Thes. 763, 929). Cf. Philoxenos the big talker from Diomeia (Ach. 605), a female (Nub. 682) and a homosexual (Vesp. 84), who was an ambassador c. 426 and proposed a decree c. 420: see Storey ( 1995).

E. OKELL THE 'EFFEMINACY' OF THE CLEVER SPEAICER

287

screwed'. This usage is particularly common in comedy in the context of the relationship between the demagogue and his audience. The audience can be on the receiving end (e.g. from Kleon in Knights) but it is more usual to find the orator as the passive partner, either during training, or in the sense that he prostitutes himself to his audience. Thus, in Knights Kleon himself was buggered while training to be a politician (876) and is now trying to eliminate passive homosexuals for fear that his position will be challenged. That being a 'softie' and a passive homosexual yields a career in politics is stated most explicitly at Ecclesiazusae 111-2 where the most successful orators are those who get buggered the most often. A similar sentiment appears in Plato Comicus fragment 202.5 where a rhetorical question is answered thus: KfKoAAOTTfVKas-· TOLyapoW

Pll8wp Ecrn.

'You've been buggered?You'U be a politician.'8

Thus, it appears that there is an emerging connection between adult sexual passivity, oratory and effeminacy/softness - being a woman, someone who cannot, in the vernacular, 'get it up''. Although it is not usual to view impotency and passivity/effeminacy as similar, these states coincide at the level of visible arousal (or rather of its absence)". A similarity also exists in that adult sexual passivity and impotency are both failures to meet the requirements of a masculine identity. The connection between passivity, oratory and femininity can also be seen in the list of comic komodoumenoicharged as, or made out to be, effeminate: most of whom are known as ambassadors, state prosecutors or the proposers or

Furtherexamples:Ar. Eq. 423-8, 1242 and Pl. Symp. 192a. See Storey( 1998) for a discussionof politiciansandaccusationsof sexualdeviancy. includingcunnilingus(which implies thata mouthis all politicianshave at theirdisposal: cf. the possibilitythatthe satyrsare tongueand phallusin one at 150-1). 10 Many Atheniandepictionsof passive homosexualpartnersshow a distinctlack of arousal.Althoughthis may reflectan ideal ratherthanthe actuality.it is preciselywith the ideal/image/normthat I am concerned.On non-arousaland the ideal see Dover ( 1978) ij

9

125-6.

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SHARDS FROM KOWNOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN f'RAGMENTS

supporters of decrees". All of these were necessarily men who spoke persuasively in public, and the strength of the association I am outlining may indicate that, in the case of insults regarding anandria, given that '[i]t is more probable that most of them [komodoumenoi known only through comic insult] were publicly known for other reasons' (Sommerstein (1996b) 331), the target was a politician unknown to us from surviving decrees. However, this is not the end of the cluster of associations as many of these effeminate orators are also credited with cowardice, or being draft dodgers, or sycophants ('professional' prosecutors for personal gain) and either takers of bribes or embezzlers. In other words the sexually passive have oratorical ability and are all mouth, unless motivated to dishonourable action by the possibility of personal gain or gold". This is Silenus' motive too - gold and freedom - attained for himself and his sons (51, 63) and the satyrs themselves are motivated by desire for the gold they have been shown (77)". However, he attaches the charges of cowardice to his sons and differentiates himself as a member of the previous, hard[y], generation. His harangue presents his deeds in military terms: in youth he exceeded in feats of the spear, his valour set up trophies 11

For a complete catalogue of komodoumenoi and their known political activity

(accounting for at least 115 individuals out of the 224} see Sommerstein (1996b). 11

That this is a generic consensus among comic poets is noted by Carey (1994) 71,

who observes this is surprising enough to require explanation. He suggests that the link between willingness to submit to buggery and political aspirations is that of taking a patron, 72, but I would respectfuJlysuggest, and hope to demonstrate,that there is more to it than that. Henry (1985) 13-16, 19-24, 29 considers the evidence from Old Comedy which connects politicians with prostitution and prostitutes. Halperin ( 1990) discusses the punishment of atimia in connection with prostitution as punishment for a civic crime: namely that of greed and servility, which indicates the potential to speak words against the intefests of the polis (90-97). In this connection he fails to note that the punishment for misleading the people is also atimia. u Silenus responds to a public appeal (such as is made in the agora for news of lost children) by Apollo and 51-63 is a verbal contract. That the gold is an important factor is apparent not only from Silenus • wrangling with Apollo, but also from his panicked flight at 206-8: airrOS' oii Taii8' [OTTlJ6€Ans-/ (11Tfl TE KdetxVE"UE Kal n.\oU{Tfl AOl3wv/ TCIS lloVSTE Kol TOv xpoo6v 'You look and search them out as you please, and catch the cattle and the gold and get rich quick.·

a:.u·

E. OKELL, THE ·EFFEMINACY'OF THE CLEVERSPEAKER

289

- and here is the unexpected thrust of his argument - in the nymphs' abodes. He is speaking not of military but of sexual conquests and his spear is his phallus. He contrasts himself, the spear wielder, with the younger satyrs who are both tongues and phalluses in one, who are allowing their spears to tarnish, to rust unused in the pursuit of sexual encounters with nymphs. In other words, the entire thrust of his harangue is their masculinity, or, more accurately, their lack of it. Interestingly Hermippus fragment 47 contains a similar charge of cowardice, made towards the same combination of spearless, rusty, mouthy satyr. (3aalAfU :W.Ti>pwv,Tl rroT' oUK f8EAHS OOpu[3aaTJ..a A6yovs µEv TTE"pl Toll noMµou 6HvoUS naPfXIJ, tpuXT)6E TfAT'jToSVl'Tfcrn· Kdyxnpl6lou 6 • dK6VTjlmou Avyl(ou TE:µv8ots-, OTToi.av 0€>.Ets flattV ..6xµ1J TI ns Trl8r)KoSKIJ[36'O:rro8uµai.vflsTlvL Tl TaVTa; noU )'Tls Eµ0.8E:T';iv TTol4>T6TT4>; 011µflvaT'·oU yClp i.6pts Elµl Toll Tp6rrou. T[ls ~ T->-~VTJS aelvos, 0TOU µEv oWEK' ~A.8ov UO'TEpov cf,pciow· TO q,8lyµa 6' ~µ1v ToOO'OTrfPq,wv,1 q,paaov, Kal TLS'TTOT'airr4) 6LaxapcicraETQl!3poTWV.

Chorus:Deep-girdlednymph,ceaseto be angry!I do notcometo bringyou strifeof warorenemies,nordo I thinkthatanyunfriendlyfoolishwordfrom us shall reachyour heart!Ah no, do not assail me with taunts,but readily disclose the secret - who is here below the ground,who sp:,keto amazeus witha voice divine? Cyllene: This is a gentlermannerthanthe other:if you huntlike this, you will learn far more than by shows of strength and attempts upon a frightened

"Seaford (1984) 41-42 identifiesthe riddlecontest.particularlyto guess identity.as 'a topos of the genre'(41).

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SHARDSFROMKOLONOS:STIJDIESIN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

nymph! I do not like loud quarrels staned in argument! Now be calm and tell me clearly just what you want! Chorus: Queen of this region, mighty Cyllene, I will tell you later why I came. But explain to us this voice that is sounding, and tell us who among mortalsis exasperatingus with it!

The satyrs explain they do not come with war, but with words, and they ask questions to which Cyllene responds that this gentler manner will have a greater chance of success. She categorises it as preferable to shows of strength and attacks on a frightened nymph who doesn't like to get hot and bothered in a forceful argument. Zagagi ( 1999) n.84 discusses the compound 6p6o,.ovrou529)' and is referred to on several occasions as the 'luck-bringer' (,p,ouv,os-, 3, 28)". In this same work the speed with which Hermes translates thought into action is described by the metaphor, 'as bright glances flash from the eyes' (45) which strongly echoes the reference to the stranger in this play as the 'one with flashing eyes' (fr. 269a.56). It is not too great a leap then to suggest that the 'dark stranger' encountered by !nachos in the play is none other than Hermes", who has the divinely-granted means to bestow wealth on mortals. Hermes has been suggested by others as the 'stranger' charged with the transformation of lo", but none has suggested that he may also have functioned as the one who, in his own right, was able to bestow wealth as well. And if wealth should also include a restoration of fertility to the land, we need look no further than Hermes as a god closely associated with animal, if not vegetal productiveness". Whether we accept that Hermes appears as an ambassador of Olympian or Chthonian Zeus, he is capable of doing in his own name, everything that seems to have been done in the context of the play".

Although the tenn may have originally referred to 'swiftness' prior to its association with rapid and unexpected good fortune. Cf. Bowra ( 1934) 68 for discussion and relevant il

bibliography. Lloyd-Jones ( 1960) refers to Callimachus Hymns 3.55, where Hennes appears covered in soot in order to frighten children, to support his conjecture that the 'dark stranger' in question is Hennes. Contra Seaford (1984) 23. 1 ~ Cf. Sutton ( 1979) 61 disguised as an Egyptian, ( 1980) 50. Sommerstein (200 I) 187 is prepared to accept a disguised Olympian Zeus. l'I At h.Her.90-93, Hennes offers a prohibitive warning to a vintner reminiscent of the oath required of initiates to keep the sights and sounds of the Mysteries at Eleusis secret. That the Mysteries were associated with vegetal fecundity is generally accepted, while Hennes, through the Kerykes clan, gains an important place in the rites, presiding over initiates and sacrifice. 16 S.R. West (1984) argues that Hennes cannot do everything 2.eus can do (i.e. impregnating Jo) but this aspect of the myth would seem to be well outside the part of the cycle dealt with by the play. 11

314

SHARDS f'ROM KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN AtAGMENTS

Hennes' place as divine spokesperson in the ancient myths is mirrored to some degree by the activities of Iris. Indeed, in iconography and in literary descriptions, they are often represented by the same attributes: winged feet, traveller's cap and kerykeion, their staff of office, sometimes said to be 'magic'. And just as Hermes most often functions as the herald of Zeus (or Hades), Iris is most frequently represented in service to Hera. Again, this observation is not new, and other have proposed that each appears in /nachos as representative of the more austere gods whom they serve". Unlike Hermes, however, Iris is seldom given any other office than that of divine messenger and this may be why scholars are hesitant to give her much of a role in the play. Dana Sutton ( 1979) 63 suggests that she appears twice: first to inform !nachos and the chorus of the dark stranger's identity; then to explain the imposition of Argus as Io's protector. However, the similarities between Hermes and Iris suggest to me that something much more interesting may have been done with her character, something very much in keeping with some of the Dionysiac elements that satyr-plays often employed, to be discussed shortly. Beyond these observations, Hermes' place in the myth is secure. As noted previously, in all versions it is he who overcomes lo's guardian. though the methods used differ among the various tellings". In Sophocles' treatment of the myth, it appears that Hermes does serve in this capacity as well. And this brings me to the figure of Argus. Outside the lo myth, Argus is represented as a benevolent protector of Arcadian pastures. According to Apollodorus 2.1.2, there was a tale about his killing of a wild bull that was ravishing the Arcadian countryside, and another that relates how he killed a satyr who was raiding Argive cattle. This last notice, in fact, may give us a clue as to the natureof the satyrs'initial involvementin !nachos~ to which I will return in my reconstruction of the play. Yet it is generally held that it is the grotesque monster with multiple eyes, Argus Panoptes, who appears in Sophocles' /nachos - the sort of 'villain' we would expect

11

Cf. Lloyd-Jones ( 1996) 115

'' Killedby a stone-cast:[Apollod ]2.1.3; L Aesch. PV 561; 1 HomerJI 2.103. Lulled to sleep by flute music and killed with a sword:Ovid Met 1.668-721.

ARLENEL ALLAN.CA.7TlE•STF.AUNG SA.1YRS JNSOPHOCU:s·JNACHOS

315

to find in a satyr-play. And if the encounter between Argus and Hennes occupies a place of importance in the play, we would expect that Argus would be the title character as is the case with other satyr-plays named for their monstrous villains". That the play is not named for him but for !nachos suggests that Argus' role is of minor importance and the most important action in the play lies elsewhere. This leads us to a consideration of the myths in which !nachos plays a part, other than those concerned with the transformation of his daughter. Little survives in this area. He has a very confused genealogy, being in one instance the river-offspring of Ocean and Tethys ([Apollod.) 2.1.1) and in another, the quasi-divine first ruler of the land of Argos who is later transformed into a river to which he gave his name"'. The only other myth in which he has a central role is mentioned but briefly in a few sources without much elaboration. It is said that !nachos once had the responsibility of choosing the patron god for his land. The two deities competing for the privilege were Hera and Poseidon. !nachos chose Hera and Poseidon, in anger at the slight, caused a drought to befall the entire land of Argos. Apparently, Hera was unable to reverse the actions of her fellow-god, and a continuation of the story suggests that Argos had to wait for the return of Io's descendants before a source of water was revealed to them by Poseidon himself. The consequences of Inachos' choice in this version, quite clearly are devastating and long-lasting. Indeed, it is because of him that Argos gets its reputation for being a 'thirsty land' (Eur. Alk. 560). !nachos, it seems, is a figure who causes others to suffer for his choices. In this we would not style him as a dedicated 'villain' although he certainly has the potential to become a figure worthy of ridicule by an Athenian audience, along with his helpless patron-goddess Hera. Finally I come to the satyrs. Although they differ in their assessment of the function of satyr-plays in the context of the dramatic festivals for which they were written, both Sutton ( 1980) and Seaford ( 1976, 1980) 144 have greatly enriched our understanding of the nature of both the genre

1 ~

Aeschylus, Sphinx; Euripides. Bouseiris, Cyclops; Sophocles, Amykos. Kerberos.

• Cf. M.L. West (1985) 76-77.

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and the satyrs themselves. Seaford ( I 980) 33-40, in particular, has identified six key themes to be found in the genre. Not all of them will feature in every satyr-play, but the evidence for most known satyr-plays seems to suggest that at least two of these elements were present in each play. Of probable relevance to Sophocles' /nachos are three: the captivity, servitude and liberation of the satyrs; the introduction of marvellous inventions and creations; and sex, with the possible inclusion of a fourth, emergence from the underworld. Moreover, if Seaford's view of the importance of Dionysiac themes to the genre is accepted, we should expect to find these incorporated into the story-line as well. These include elements that play with the pattern of birth-death-rebirth, or that make use of riddles, doubling or mirroring, gender inversion (or confusion) and festive celebration, to name but a few. As to the nature of the satyrs, both Sutton and Seaford emphasize their 'hedonistic' tendencies, especially in matters sexual, as well as their mischievous behaviour and their initial bravado followed by cowardice in threatening situations. Satyrs· primary interest is, at all times and in all places, self-gratification - and they are not in any way averse to outright theft in their attainment of it. Nor do they have an aversion to the rapid switching of allegiances either. Any reconstruction of the story-line in /nachos must take these factors into account. These, then. are the elements which I have taken into consideration in my reconstruction of the play. It needs to be said, however, that the one thing this reconstruction does not attempt is to 'fill in the blanks' literally; that is, I do not attempt to provide words or parts thereof to complete or compliment the extant fragments. On the contrary, in certain instances I have refrained even from using the conjectures of others, so as to avoid including whatever interpretive bias they may have brought to the text. I find little reason to doubt that Hermes appears in the opening scenes disguised as the 'dark stranger' referred to in the P.Oxy. fragment 269a-b - a fragment that probably comes from the second episode in the play, where I, following others, have placed it in my own plan. To justify this key element in the play 's reconstruction I offer the following observations. Sophoclean prologues are generally presented as an exchange between two characters and, with the exception of the 'Theban plays', neither of the prologue speakers is the title character of the

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play". Even the opening of lchneutae shows this tendency with Apollo delivering a 40-line speech and Silenos as his interlocutor. Prologues are employed to explain not only the physical setting of the play, but also the events that have led up to the situation now unfolding; therefore, in the case of satyr plays, an explanation for the satyrs' presence must also be given before their entry. Moreover, as the satyr chorus is either oppressed by the title character or, as in the lchneutae, about to engage in an activity that will change their relationship with their master, the speaker of the prologue must be someone •in the know•, both of their present situation and of what it takes to change it". Taking these things into account in relation to the proposed characters in /nachos we are left with five possible combinations for prologue speakers: Iris/Argus, Iris/Hermes, Iris/Silenos, Silenos/Argus and Silenos/Hermes. Both Euripides' Cyclops and Sophocles' /chneutae have Silenos as speaker in the prologue and this may tend to strengthen the case for the same to hold in /nachos. However, neither lris/Silenos nor Silenos/Argus make much sense dramatically as an opening scene given what the fragments suggest about the later course of the action. Silenos/Hermes has possibilities, but under examination fails to satisfy. If Hermes is undisguised in their encounter, then most of the confusion evidenced in the fragments by the satyrs• later meeting with him is rendered nonsensical. Yet if Hermes is disguised, there appears to be no opportunity to reveal the disguise to the audience, as following the prologue the chorus enters. Moreover, it is generally the case that the play's namesake appears in the first episode. According to the marking on the papyrus, episode two, beginning around line 280 (early in fr. 269a), is concerned with Jo's transformation and !nachos' declaration that he knows who the stranger is. There is not much point in this scenario if

~

1

Aias: Athena and Odysseus; El.: Orestes and Paidagogos;Phil: Odysseus and

Neoptolemos;Trach.Deianeiraand Nurse. 12 Sutton( 1979) 61 insists thatevery reconstructionmust make good dramaticsense. He posits an interviewbetweena disguisedHermesand lnachos in the prologue;Calder ([1958)1989)141 prefers !nachos as the opening speaker. while S.R. West (1984) 297 suggests Inachosand the stranger,who in her opinionis not Hermes.

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neither audience (internal or external) has been given any reason to believe that the stranger's identity should not be taken at face value. Thus, while seeming to hold some potential, it must be concluded that a Hermes/Silenos pairing in the prologue does not fit with the extant fragments. Of the other two options, Iris/Argus seems untenable, if only because their presence as opening speakers seems very premature in light of the fragments' contents and the myths on which the play seems to be based. This leaves the Iris/Hermes pairing open to further consideration. As noted above, Iris and Hermes share the same iconography and each is a divine messenger. In this we may already see the potential for exploitation of 'doubling' and mirror imaging so strongly associated with the Dionysiac elements of satyr plays. As also noted previously, each has the tendency to be associated with opposing deities - Iris with Hera and Hermes with Zeus - so that here they can respectively serve as the agents of these two gods who are traditionally at odds over the fate of lo in the myth. When we add to this the assumptions that appear in Athenian tragedy that only a man can perform certain actions", the potential for the exploitation of false assumptions is also intensified. How, then, would this translate into a prologue that is both logically and dramatically satisfying? Let us suppose that Hermes is the first speaker to appear and consider the following scenario. Hermes begins by revealing to the audience that he is standing outside the Argive Heraion having recently arrived at the palace of !nachos disguised as we see him now, a dark figure whom the chorus and !nachos have assumed to be Ploutos, god of wealth". Until

~

1

Such assumptions make the elders in Aeschylus' Agamemnon (1251-3) certain that

Agamemnon'smurdererwill be a man(even when Ka"sandra in 1231 hadex.plicitlytold them otherwise):similarlyKreon in Sophocles'Anligone (289-314) takes it for granted that it is a man, for political reasons. who has defied his prohibition on the burial of Polyneikes. 1~ Sutton (1980) 63 n.49 suggests that Sophocles 'anticipated Aristophanes· pun IIAoUTos= IIAoUTwv'.In the contextof /nachos, whereagriculturalbountyseems to have

accompaniedthe god, a furtherconflationof identitiesamongthe TTMVTdeities is put in play. While the Eleusinian Ploutos' strongest associations were with agricultural abundance,and the ChthonianPlouton'swith a subterraneantreasury,a second Ploutos seems to have been the bestowerof riches of all sorts above ground.Perhapsbecauseof Hades'reputedinvisibility,a conceptualassociationdevelopedbetween the unseen and

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319

now, !nachos has refused to send out his daughter lo as Zeus' oracles demanded because Hera, his land's patron goddess, had also requested that she be given the girl to serve as her temple priestess. Thus disguised as a divine figure of some importance, and taken to be a third party interested in !nachos' daughter", Hermes intends to secure possession of lo, not for himself, but for Olympian Zeus. In exchange for the hospitality with which he was first received, Hermes has already caused a miraculous replenishment of Jnachos' storehouses, and has promised to make !nachos flow once more through 'thirsty Argos' in exchange for lo. He does. however, have a contingency plan should her father fail to grant his request. Having already enlisted the aid of !nachos' satyr-herdsmen. his backup plan will involve transforming the girl into a cow and hiding her amongst Jnachos' herd. But the satyrs know only that they may be required to steal a white cow and to guard her until he can come and claim her. In return for their assistance, he has promised them their freedom". But now he must go to find the chorus so that the plan can be put into action. As he is about to leave, Iris arrives and addresses him hostilely. It

the unseeing, leading to the attribution of blindness to the god of wealth - it never appears to have been explicitly stated that Hades himself was blind. The situation is further confounded by the reference to the Eleusinian Ploutos in Hesiod (Thg. 973-4) as a bestower of general wealth on those he visits. All this apparent confusion in the identity of the wealth-god(s) created the opportunity for poets and playwrights to make play with these figures, leading their audiences to first assume one figure as referent only to discover that he is another. Thus, in /nachos. the characters may assume the god to be the bestower of weaJth Ploutos and then be led to assume that he is Plouton. through the latter's negative association with 'curses' and ill-fortune-when, in fact, the final twist in the play between duplicate names and mistaken identities involves Hennes. also a giver of wealth, and Iris. i., Sutton's suggestion of a third-party appeal is attractive given Inachos· double bind between Zeus and Hera, but we need not posit a dark-skinned Egyptian 10 account for the stranger's own darkness when the three TTAoVTgods all have underworld associations, as does Hennes himself. ~ Freedom is a reward for assistirig Apollo in his quest to find his stolen cattle (stolen by Hennes!) in Jchneutai. My suggestion here would be the inverse of that situation: this time the chorus will be rewarded for assisting in the theft of a cow by Hennes. Note that ps.-Apollodoros in his discussion of Argus (2.1.2) makes reference (admittedly not in connection with lo) to cattle-stealing satyrs.

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is possible that the question, 'Who is this woman who has stolen the Arcadian cap?' (272) belongs here in the prologue, as Hermes sarcastically responds to her arrival. Iris would reveal that Hera knows all about Zeus' interest and Hermes' mission to get the girl for him. A brief taunting exchange could ensue wherein Hermes indicates that he has 'backup' and to which Iris responds that she too will have help. Hermes exits hastily and Iris remains to just long enough to let the audience know that she has a plan to foil that of Hermes. At the sound of the approaching chorus, Iris exits into the skene, representing Hera's temple. According to this scenario all the elements of the 'traditional' myth are set in place, with a few new points as well. Zeus has designs on lo of which Hera is aware. A god is present who has the ability to transform one thing into another in the person of Hermes, and Iris is set to intervene. We know from the Iliad that Iris can change her voice and appearance, so that a disguised Iris is not out of keeping with her myths. At this point each god's representative is poised to affect that transformation and either might be equally motivated to do so. By tradition, this transformation took place in the countryside, not in the house of !nachos. The reference to the ooµot in 269a.33 (cf. also i[v]wrrlwv 'forecourt' 269a27), can equally well be taken to apply to the 'house· of a god, in this case, Hera 's temple". Moreover, the reference in the same line to the 'sacred tables' that are located in this 'house'" work particularly well as reference to those spread in celebration of a god's festival. If it is likely that the prologues of satyrplay occupied between 60-70 lines, the amount of information suggested for delivery here could easily be accommodated within this allotment. In the parodos the chorus no doubt sing of the state of affairs in Argos and !nachos• domain and their own changing situation. Originally servants of the ruler of 'thirsty Argos•, they celebrate the arrival of the god of wealth and the opportunity it holds for their release. One would expect

" Scholarshipgenerally has accepted that the play is set in front of Inachos' palace, althoughCarden( 1974) 56 questionsthe necessity of a palace setting. ~ The use of plurals for the house and tables may also allude to the double feasting thatthe strangerhas receivedfromInachos.firstat his houseandthen at the houseof the goddess.

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a rather short section here, perhaps 30-40 lines as in both Sophocles' lchneutai and Euripides' Cyclops. Episode one, probably taking between 140-160 lines, would begin with the entrance of Silenos and !nachos (possibly with a mute lo in tow). The chorus, no doubt, take this opportunity to make a few lewd remarks about the desirability of lo and the good fortune !nachos now has because of her. The book fragments (273-7, 286) which seem to contrast the former wasted state of !nachos' domain with the new abundance that accompanied the arrival of the stranger, probably belong to the initial part of this first episode. !nachos could then reveal his plan to invite the 'stranger' to join in a feast of Hera in the temple precinct, after which, or at which, he intends to give lo to him in exchange for the rest of the promised blessings. At this point, Iris, now disguised in attire that is identical with Hermes' own in the prologue, would make an appearance again from the temple". The invitation is thus duly extended and accepted and !nachos and Iris exit into the temple. The chorus is none the wiser; however, the audience will note the deception now under way. The chorus now would sing a brief ode, perhaps I0-20 lines, possibly congratulating themselves on the anticipated receipt of rewards without having had to do any work! Sutton (1979) 61 has noted that the marks on the papyrus fragment just before the beginning of the second episode are indicative of a lyric passage. It is certainly true that some marking of time needs to intervene here, however brief. It is highly possible that at the end of the ode, Iris makes a hurried exit from the temple and across the orchestra without uttering a word. !nachos would follow almost immediately shouting the command 'Hold him! Oh! Oh!' (269b). Taken by surprise, the satyrs, or more probably, Silenos would naturally enquire as to why !nachos appears so aggravated. It

Mirrordressingoccursin tragedyat Eur.Ba. 91Sff, wherePentheusis madeto wear female attirethatrendershim the image of his mother,while also mirroringthe long hair and dress of Dionysos beside whom he is standing.S.R. West( 1984) 295 has suggested thatperhapssomethingsimilaroccurredin Eur.Alkmene with OlympianZeus appearing disguised as Amphitryon.Aristophanes,too, made use of mirroring,when he costumed Dionysos in thetraditionalgarbof Heraklesandthen broughtthetwo of themface to face 211

(Frogs 45-47).

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would then be !nachos who claims to know the 'real' identity of the 'dark stranger' (269a.23, 45, 49, 54). The chorus, for their part, are hesitant if not wholly incredulous. Without hearing more of what transpired inside they are unsure as to whether they should defend themselves or prepare to take flight. Certainly, if they caught sight of the fleeing figure of Iris, they would be somewhat confused at the behaviour of the person whom they believe themselves to be covertly serving. But once !nachos reveals the effect that the stranger has had on lo, the satyrs express total shock and no doubt feel a sense of betrayal. They are at first rendered 'speechless• (269a 46) and as they recover they seem to make the connection between the figure, Ploutos, whom they think they have met and Plouton, the Chthonian 2.eus, who they now seem to think is the real power with whom they have compacted"'. No wonder they are so aghast at !nachos' revelation. It is possible that !nachos attempts to correct the chorus on this point immediately, having himself already realized that the darkness, deception and magic used against him have as much in common with Olympian 2.eus' messenger, Hermes, as they do with the nether god. Moreover, the fact that he has been refusing to comply with the supreme god's demands will probably alert him to the likelihood that this 2.eus is behind the action. It would certainly seem to be the case that in the next scene where we can be reasonably sure that !nachos is the speaker, some connection is made between trickiness or contriving, 2.eus (µ11xavq.TOti.iov, 269c33)" and the figure implicated in the preceding line as associated with slander". Before this scene can commence, however, I suggest that anotherintervenes.

)0

It would seem fromthe referencesto darknessand deception,and from the much-

discussed phraseology at fr. 269a.55-56 (0 µfv ... 0 &') that through this contrasting construction the chorus are making some connection between Ploutos and Plouton,

implyingthatthe one is actuallythe other. 31 For convenience,I will use the line numbersgiven by othereditorswho place this fragment ('269c col. iii', lines 32--48) sequentially after 269c col. ii, although in my constructionthis section would actuallyprecedeit. 1 ' This may representan additionalconflationof mythic figures into one another.as Argusthe earth~OOm is madeto seem like Argus,son of Zeus and Niobe.

ARLENE L. AU.AN, CATTLE-STE.AUNG SATYRSIN SOPHOCLES'INACHOS

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The next logical thing to occur should be for !nachos to order the chorus to join him in pursuit of his ungracious guest. He exits hurriedly from the orchestra, but before the satyrs can follow, Hermes, still in disguise, appears to keep his appointment with Jo's father. When the satyrs fail to respond enthusiastically to his presence, he would naturally question their reserve. It is likely that in the course of this conversation Silenos has cause to respond with the fragmentary reply, 'Such is the god of wealth ... for me, so as to avoid blame ... ' (283) as he attempts to make excuses for their behaviour while showing deference to the figure they now believe to be Chthonian Plouton. Hermes would ask if they have seen !nachos and they would say, in all honesty, that !nachos had just left in search of him. Hermes may then order them to 'stay put' while he tries to catch up with his host, prompting the satyrs to make some comment about getting the transformed lo out of the temple while the coast is clear. This will serve to alen Hermes that something is amiss, while his rapid exit without taking the cow-girl will only serve to funher confuse the chorus. Following his exit, !nachos returns and chastises the chorus for their failure to follow. While they are being thus upbraided, the 'monster' Argus enters singing, (281a) and the satyrs are terrified by his appearance. It is possible, though not at all essential, that Argus summons a mute lo out of the temple", as this would allow the satyrs to make a few more lusty comments on the attractively-attired cow-maiden. It seems likely that 269c col iii belongs to this scene, along with 281, 281a - the scholia on Ar.Wealth (80-81 ). Prior to the beginning of our fragment, we may posit that, after Argus explains that he has been sent to protect the cowmaiden for his mistress Hera (which is the truth), he is accused of being a 'crafty slanderer', and a 'tricky son of Zeus', probably by an !nachos indignant at the suggestion that Hera would have anything to do with this horrendous transformation. The satyrs, for their pan, question whether Argus is really Zeus' lackey, as assumed by !nachos: 'Is it Zeus, is it Zeus indeed whose lackey he is?' (269c.34), not yet willing to let go of the idea

S.R. West (1984) 302 allows that if lo appearedat all. it would have been priorto ratherthanafterher transfonnation. u

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that Chthonian Zeus is still somehow involved. However, before they can debate the point amongst themselves, Argus attacks, motivated perhaps by the insults just received from !nachos and the chorus. In the more broken section of this fragment, there appears to be a reference to the satyrs being threatened with a club (µ1) Aly' a ... EK KopuVJ1S, 269c.46) in the context of a skirmish while, dramatically, the less than effectual assault of the chorus on an adversary would seem to be a typical scene in the satyr play genre. It is thus probable that Silenos is taken captive (cf. Eur. Cyc. 585-9) and forced to exit the stage along with lo and Argus". Thoroughly distraught now, the chorus discuss how to proceed, when someone notices the sound of a syrinx" coming from the direction in which Argus left with lo and Silenos. The syrinx is associated with Hermes in the myth and serves as confirmation for !nachos that Argus and Hermes are working together. Urged on by !nachos, an attempt is made by the satyrs to go to the pasture, but something seems to blocks their path, something not yet visible". The first assumption is that it is Chthonian Zeus or Hades, but when !nachos, emphatically says that it is Hermes himself, the suggestion is readily accepted by the respondent". It makes sense here for the satyrs to finally relinquish their belief that Chthonian Zeus is involved. Far better to think one is under attack by Hermes than the Lord of the Dead. Moreover, before the nature of the assailant becomes clear, the assumption that it is Hermes operating under the cap of invisibility makes sense of the satyrs' inability to see the source of the

" Sutton( 1980) 140 notes that 'Silenus'onstage presenceis by no meanscoterminous with that of the chorus .... he is apparently free to come and go as he pleases.'

Carden (1974) 53, 81 and Seaford (1980) 36 assume that the syrinx is a new innovation.(Eiipriµa and Ti pas-) which frightensthe satyrs.Sutton(1980) 157 disagrees 'j

becausethe chorusrecognizesthe soundand namesthe instrumentcorrectly.

Lloyd~Jones(1965) assumes it is an invisible Hennes who blocks the way. Sutton ( 1980) 51 andKamerbeek(( 1975) 115 likewise take an invisibleHennes' syrinx-playing to be the cause of the satyrs'agitation. "Lloyd-Jones (1965) followed by Seaford (1980) 23 and (1984) 41n.122 notes the riddlingnatureof this exchangeas typical of satyrplays. On the cap of invisibilitysee Seaford( 1980) 24; Sutton( 1979) 6 suggests that Hennes· use of Hades'cap heremay be Sophocles·own innovation. Jf,

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325

noise (269c col ii.22) while the following comment that, 'It is likely that, before you can blink, your second effort will be fruitless' (24) is typical of the false bravado expressed by satyrs in the early stages of a confrontation with a hostile opponent. Lines 23 and 24, which appear in the fragments to have been uttered by different speakers, might suggest that the chorus has been split into two or more groups by their attacker. Eventually that which was, at first, not visible comes into view, as evidenced in the question, 'Do you see?' (eoopqs; 269c.col.ii.25) and the following statement, 'It's best to keep away!' - something that would be impossible to do if the attacker were really invisible. For this reason I suggest that the assailant is not Hermes, but the gadfly, which gains support with the satyrs' exclamation in line 27, 'It drives you mad to hear it' (cf. Aesch. PV 574-5). Just as lo does in the PV, the chorus respond to the assailant as though they can see it; however, from the audience's perspective, there is nothing to be seen. The

Cet echo exclut l'interpfetation de Maas ( 1912a), d.oTptOl'.l.>J.iov clansJeslslhmiastes d"Eschyle(fr. 78a.28); encoreceueconjecturea-t-elle l!tl!l"CCemment contesteepar Henry& NOnlist(2000). 61 Voir ainsi )'hypothesis de cette piece (PCG iv 140). ~:Sur cette fonction cohesive, voir Voelke (200 I) 403-8.

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351

la tragedie. Des Iors, a I' inverse des chreurs tragiques, les chreurs comiques et satyriques n' ont pas aprendre en charge les emotions suscitees par le destin funeste des heros, en leur donnant une expression esthetisee et ritualisee. Depourvus d'une telle fonction qui va le plus souvent de pair avec une identite dramatique qui place le chreur en marge de !'action, les chreurs comiques et satyriques peuvent non seulement participer a cette action, mais de plus integrer en elle leurs mouvements de danse et de marche, creant ainsi des effets mimetiques dans lesquels les deux genres se rejoignent.

VI

Satyr-drama or tragedy?

16

The anger of Achilles, Mark One: Sophocles' Syndeipnoi' ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN Centre for Ancient Drama and its Reception, University of Nottingham

One of the earliest products of the great age of Athenian tragedy was also one of its most audacious, when Aeschylus put the Iliad on stage and made Achilles the central figure of a tragic trilogy. Sophocles, so far as we can tell, never attempted to emulate him in this; but he was certainly extremely interested in Achilles, and also in his son Neoptolemos. Indeed, they play significant roles, on or off stage, in something like one in nine of all the plays Sophocles ever wrote'. Five of these plays have to do with Achilles at the threshold of his career - before the Trojan War or in its early stages; and one of them is

' I am grateful to all who took part in formal or infonnal discussion of this paper at the conference, and in particular to David Carter, Amy Clark, Chris Collard, David

Harvey, Andre Lardinois, Jenny March and Katerina Zacharia. In addition to Syndeipnoi = Achai6n Syllogos, the plays concerned with Achilles are, in approximately chronological order of the saga, AchilleOs Erastai, lphigeneia, Poimenes, Troilos. Aichmalotides, Memnon (probably identical with Aithiopes}, and 2

(with Achilles dead but far from forgotten) Aias and Polyxene; those concerned with Neoptolemos are Skyrioi, Philoktetes, Eurypylos, Peleus, and Hermione = Phthiotides.

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the play on which this paper will concentrate. This play is sometimes cited as The Gathering of the Achaians (Achai6n Sy/logos) and sometimes as The Banqueters (Syndeipnoi)'. There is, I would argue, no cause for serious doubt that these two titles denote one and the same play'. Not only is it once cited under the hybrid name Achai6n Syndeipnon (Alben. 1.17c, citing fr. 565), but the situations presupposed in the two plays are thoroughly compatible. In Syndeipnoi, we have a quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus (frr. 566, 567), in the context of a feast, somewhere in the vicinity of Troy but before the actual landing (fr. 566)' - in other words, a combination of the quarrel between these two at a feast, alluded to in Odyssey 8.75-78, and the story reported in Proklos • summary of the Kypria' of Achilles quarrelling with Agamemnon after being invited late to a feast at Tenedos; and Philodemos (On Anger col. 18.14ft) confirms that Syndeipnoi blended these two stories, when he speaks of 'the Sophoclean Achilles' causing disruption (as he certainly did in Syndeipnoi, with Odysseus as one known target) because he had been

) Sometimes also as The Banquet (Syndeipnon). Sutton (1980) 56 claims that this is the name given to the play by the majority of ancient writers who cite it; in fact they are almost equally divided, and two (Athenaios and Hesychios) cite the play at different points under both titles. • This identification, originally proposed by Toup. is regarded as probable, though not certain. by Radt (I 977) 163, 425. and Lloyd-Jones (1996) 280. For half a century it was rejected, because a papyrus fragment (PBerol 9908 = S. fr. 142 Pearson) published by Wilamowitz (1907b}, and assigned by him to AchaiOn Syllogos, seemed to show that that play dealt with the story of the healing ofTelephos; but this fragment is now known. from an overlap between it and P.Oxy. 2460, to belong to Euripides' Telephos (E. fr. 727c Kannicht; see Handley & Rea (1957), esp. 11-14, and M.J. Cropp in Collard et al. (1995) 36-39, 49-51). s Achilles could hardly have been accused, as he is in fr. 566, of being scared by the mere sight of 'the Trojans' homes' (TO:Tpwulv t:icroptllvE"&'.iXw} and the proximity of Hector, if the landing, the death of Protesilaos, and the victory gained through Achilles' slaying of Kyknos, had already taken place - and Proklos' summary of the Kypria strongly suggests that all these events occurred on the same day. The Trojan 'homes' referred to are presumably viUages in the southern Troad, facing Tenedos at a distance of three or four miles. ~ Lines 64-67 Davies.

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357

'rejected' by the host of a banquet' (as he was by Agamemnon in the Kypria story). From Sy/logos we have no specific reference to a banquet (or even to Achilles), but we do know that the fleet is completing a long voyage (for some of them are still at sea after dark, cf. fr. 143 VVKTlpov vaVKAl)p[as) and someone, probably Agamemnon', is advised (fr. 144) to call the roll of the army (or rather of the leaders who 'joined in the oath', presumably the well-known oath to support the rights of Helen's husband) and to note the identity of any absentees; both ideas are appropriate to the expedition's arrival at the east side of the Aegean, i.e. at Tenedos. I assume, then, that the two plays are one ( which I will henceforth call Syndeipnoi), that the scene is Tenedos - more precisely, outside the quarters there of Agamemnon, who hosts the banquet - and that the story is based on the two accounts of quarrels involving Achilles, at or about this point in the saga, in the Kypria and Odyssey respectively. Agamemnon was a character, but the main quarrel appears to have been with Odysseus. By giving Odysseus a central role Sophocles will have been able, if he wished, to evoke recollections of the Embassy scene of the Iliad - which, perhaps significantly, Aeschylus had apparently omitted from his Achilles trilogy, retaining only the role of Phoinix' - and/or of 1

Eninbav TO K8ivnsUTT6[nvos-1 fanl~VTOS', :1:0JoVS" "Ax,/v.£&s ....

""'"P lol

' For the speaker envisages him as chairing the assembly (iv 8p6vmot). ' Our surviving information about Aeschylus' Myrmidons gives no positive indication that Odysseus or Aias were either speaking or non-speaking characters in the play. A. fr. 132b not only establishes that Phoinix had a speaking pan (v. 6) but shows that Achilles had spoken to no one in the play until he answered Phoinix (note the tense of TTciAaL v, 8). See Sommerstein (1996a) 338-343. The tempting suggestion of Garzya CJLWTTW, ( 1995) 52 that before Phoinix 's speech there had been one by Odysseus, to which Achilles had made no reply, would require this to be a three-actor play and therefore a late one and yet the only positive evidence for Odysseus' presence in the scene comes from a series of vase paintings (see Doble (1967); Kossatz-Deissmann (1981) 106-114; H.A. Shapiro (1994) 19-20; Ganya (1995) 46-47) which, if they are indeed based on Myrmidons, would force us to date it to the 490s (and, very surprisingly, to conclude that it did not win first prize, since Aeschylus' first victory was not gained until 484). Michelak.is ( 1998) 42 points out that in the vase paintings ·Achilles' face and eyes are visible', whereas in Aeschylus, according to Ar. Frogs 911, they were not; it is reasonable to conclude that if. as is not unlikely, the paintings are based on a poetic model, the model

358

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STIJDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENTS

the courteous conversation between Odysseus and the shade of Achilles in the Odyssean Nekyia'°. Achilles, Odysseus, Agamemnon, then, as characters, and probably also Nestor and Aias. There was a play of Sophocles (fr. 855)" in which Aias reviled Nestor and Nestor soothingly said to him 'I don't blame you; you may be a bad speaker, but you 're a good doer'. This fits together with frr. 563-4 in which someone says 'This man is [i.e. I am] like a working ox, who can only work when he has eaten well' and an older man" criticizes him for gluttony: the comparison to an ox fits Aias excellently (cf. Aias 1253ff)", as does the remark (fr. 564.3) that a man like him 'ought not to be called the son of Belly when you could be called the son of your father', i.e. of Telamon ('Shieldstrap'). Nestor, too, is independently known to have had a role, or at least been referred to, in Achaion Sy/logos (fr. 144a pE It should be remembered that the narrow avoidance of disaster was considered no less appropriate for tragic drama than the actual occurrence of disaster. Aristotle indeed can speak of this as the best kind of tragic plot (Poet, 1454a4-9), and it was a favourite with Euripides at least from the 420s (Kresphontes, Jon, lphigeneia in Tauris, Orestes). See Sommerstein (2002a) 17-19. JT Notably Voelke, L6pez Eire, and Redondo, this volume. 31 Among recent adherents of this view are Bates (1936) 21, Sutton (1974b) 138-140, Palutan (1996), and L6pez Eire and Redondo, this volume. Those who have maintained that the play was a tragedy include Wilamowitz ( 1907b) 72 and Pearson (1917) ii 200-1; both of these, however, thought of the play as prosatyric, like Euripides' Alkes1is. LloydJones (1996) 281 is non-committal, as are Heynen & Krumeich (1999) 396-8, who find none of the arguments advanced on either side to be compelling. I would certainly not myself wish to put any stress on the statement of Pollux (2.224) that ii ... J_paJwf?lqTT}v ciµlbo oUpcivr,vfKciAf:oEv,which may only be a careless way of saying that oupcivri occurs in this sense in the works of tragic poels; though one might wish to attach rather more importance to the fact that the resolution of a dangerous or deadlocked situation by a deus ex machina (such as Thetis in our play) is more characteristic of tragedy than of satyrdrama. i• Eum. I J7. 13l.

ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN, THE ANGER OF ACHIUES, MARK ONE: SOPHOCLES' SYNDEIPNOI

369

to vomiting"', belching", urination", nappy-washing", muddy water" and pickled fish", and a queen talking about her own and others' sex lives in public in frank and sometimes crude terms" - and that list is by no means exhaustive". I venture to suggest that if the Oresteia had been lost except for (say) twenty fragments, and one or two of the passages referred to above had been among them, they would have been thought to provide strong support for the view that the plays in question were satyric rather than tragic. More relevant still, because we know that it was in Sophocles' mind when he was writing this play, is another play of Aeschylus, Ostologoi", in which, as we have seen, Odysseus had likewise spoken of a chamber-pot being thrown at him. This fragment (A. fr. 180), and another ( 179) referring to Eurymachos (who kept flicking the dregs of his cup at Odysseus' head, as if he were a target in the game of kottabos''), are clearly part of a long speech, or series of speeches, by Odysseus describing the insults he had received (when disguised as a beggar) at the hands of the suitors; and the use of demonstrative pronouns in both passages" strongly suggests that the corpses, or perhaps the ash-urns, of the leading suitors are present on stage. One can easily envisage Odysseus, having killed the suitors, thus defending his action to a chorus consisting of their initially vengeful kinsfolk, who (as in Odyssey 24.4157) come to collect the bodies from Odysseus' house for burial and (in

• Ag. 1599. Eum. 184. 730. " Eum. 53. •

1

n

Cho. 156; cf. Wessels & Krumeich(1999) 207 n. 14. Cho. 159-1fJJ.

Eum. 694-5. • Cho. 296. * Ag. 1431-47. 1 • For a full discussion see Sommerstein(2002b), a Discussed by Wessels & Krumeich( 1999) 205-7, who arguethat it is a tragedyon somewhatdifferentgroundsto those stressedhere. Sutton(1974b) 128 had regardedit as definitely satyric on the basis of the references to lwttabos and the throwing of the chamber-pot ""ThewordKooaaf3o1sactuallyappearsin the text. •oirras(fr.179.1),oo'(fr.180.IJ. .u

370

SHARDS FROM! KOLONOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGME.'•HS

contrast with the Odyssey) find Odysseus still there; it would have to be a chorus, because the surviving fragments alone refer or allude to at least three dead men - Antinoos (implied by fr. 179.1-2 Eupuµaxos ollTOS iiMgs: ov&v fjgcrgyas u~pt(' u~p,aµol/5'), Eurymachos, and the thrower of the chamber-pot - and any individual kinsman (for example Eupeithes. the most prominent of this group in the Odyssey) would be primarily interested in only one of them. But to accuse one's dead enemies of hybris. however truthfully, would not be a rhetorically sensible move in the presence of a chorus of the notoriously hybristic satyrs - it would be more likely to make them sympathize with the victims! - and Odysseus is hardly the speaker to misjudge his audience so badly. Furthermore. Aeschylus' other known plays include two tragedies (Psychagogoi and Penelope) and one satyr-play (Kirke) based on episodes from the Odyssey, and Psychagogoi at any rate, dramatizing as it does an episode (the Nekyia) that consisted entirely of retrospect and prophecy, can hardly have been an independent tragedy; it is therefore likely (and, indeed, it has been the usual assumption") that we are dealing with an Odyssean trilogy (corresponding to Aeschylus' well-known lliadic trilogy) with Kirke as its accompanying satyr-play - and Osto/ogoi as its third tragedy. And if Ostologoi was a tragedy, there remains no reason why Syndeipnoi should not be one as well. Perhaps the most striking feature of Syndeipnoi. if it went roughly as I have sketched, is its relationship to the Iliad. On one level. the feast given by Agamemnon recalls that of Iliad 9.89-178, and all the principal human dramatis personae have important roles in that section of the poem". On another, the action of the play as a whole anticipates that of the Iliad as a whole. A dispute involving Achilles, small in itself, but fuelled by a background of resentment''. escalates with terrifying speed

"So. cautiously (perhaps too cautiously). Gantz (1980) 151-3. l have discu!>sed the tetralogyin Sommerstein( 1996a) 348..tJ11µov· ciVTl relates at the opening of the play: KaA.OUO"l 6' £iilwv f3axxn,µciTwv/ :rrolgl'O,S: KUKAWuas-civoolou TTOU!_alvoµE!!. (Cycl. 24-26). Seaford (1984) 33~36 notes that it was something of a convention in satyr play for the satyrs to find themselves as slaves to a harsh master, a situation that allowed them to contrast their current unenviable lot with the pleasant life they once lived in the service of Dionysus. While it is not explicit in Cyclops that the shepherding profession was in itself unworthy, their attitude toward it implies that it was on the low end of the social spectrum; the fact that they have no objection in principle to servitude (since they are happily Dionysus' slaves), but rather to the type of servitude indicates that their disdain for their present occupation arises from basic snobbishness. Certainly lines 77-81, where the satyrs complain that they now have to wear the lowly goat-skin as a mark of their new status, imply as much. as Seaford ( 1984) 118. notes: EyW6 • 0 ooS rrp6uoAQS'" / KUKA.WrrL 8JiTtlJW/ Tlflµovo6Ep!(TQ6oVA.OS' d>..alvwv/ crWTQ.&Tpdyou x>..aiVQ µEAf°QI ads xuipls

qx>Jas.

378

SHARDS FROMKOLONOS:STIJDIESIN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

sing. It may not, in short, have been inconceivable for shepherds to be portrayed sympathetically in a tragedy, but actually naming a tragedy after such a conspicuously lowly chorus does seem a little unlikely. The play's title, however, is only the beginning, and might not have caused much anxiety were it not for fr. 50 I : KYKNOr

Kal µ~v ($p((oVT· auTov lK /lci6pwv l>-w. f}UTT)ptKpolJWvyAOuTOviiTTTlounob&,; I µ~v Brunck µ~cod.a· ante

u~p.add Dindorf

... that I destroyyou utterlywho do violence [to me], hitting yourbuttockswith the bottomof my foot servingas a whip.

This fragment is cited by Hesychius for the phrase pu,ijp, Kpouwv,and is ascribed to a character Cycnus. The second line is also quoted by Photius and attributed explicitly to Sophocles. Welcker first made the connection with Poimenes,which seems reasonable, given what is known ofCycnus' role in the myth behind the play". The text of the first line is not entirely certain, but in Radt's version seems to mean 'that I destroy you utterly who do violence [to me], hitting your buttocks with the bottom of my foot serving as a whip.'" Hesychius records an alternative explanation, namely that the foot referred to is not Cycnus', but rather that of the enemy as he flees, meaning that he will run away so vigorously that the flat of his own feet will hit his buttocks. Now, this is one of those cases in which scholars have assessed the tone of the passage largely by intuition: as a boastful threat, it is hardly out of place in a tragedy, but both the word yAOUToS,and the image of someone's foot kicking that anatomical part, shade over into comic slapstick. The word y AOUT, itself is curious. for it is not intrinsically comic-in fact it does not even occur " Welcker (1839) 115. Other variationsare possible,dependingon one's readingof the thirdword of the fragment. Lloyd-Jones (1996) prints Dindorf's supplement, Kal µT) o' i,j3pl(wv, and ii

translates:'and in case I do you violence and wreckyou utterly... • For textualdiscussion see Pearson (1917) ad loc, p. 151, and Radt ad Joe. p. 3%.

RALPHM. ROSEN.REVISn"fNGSOPHOCLES'POIMENES: TRAGEDY OR SAITR PLAY?

379

in Aristophanes. Yet, insofar as it is essentially a technical tenn, common enough in the Hippocratic corpus (17 times) and Galen (32 times)", though relatively rare elsewhere, when it does occur outside of a technical context, it seems inevitably to draw a smile. Kenneth Dover has discussed the category of 'technical language' on several occasions, especially as it pertains to the analysis of comic diction", and he rightly suggests caution in designating an expression technical. In particular, he urges that 'before we label any phenomenon .. technical" we ask ourselves "how else could it be expressed"?'" In the case of y/,.oUTc\s,this is a trickier question to answer than might first appear, for in fact if one wanted to say •kick in the buttocks,' anatomically speaking, probably there was no other way to put it. Homer certainly uses it matter-of-factly to describe where spears occasionally land". But there were several other ways to express the idea of kicking the posterior with less physiological precision than y/,.oUTc\s-fonns of TTuy,\,for example. Tluy,\ virtually always had a comic flavor", but in fact, graphic as it is, it is less graphic than y)..ouTc\s,which is even more anatomically precise. In this sense, y/,.oUTc\sturns out to have a valence rather like our word 'buttocks': that is, in ordinary speech, we would probably say 'butt,' 'bum,' 'ass,' etc. But our doctors (for example) would not use these words; rather he or she would refer to a condition in that area as one that affected the 'buttocks.' It might in fact be mildly amusing to hear even a doctor utter the tenn, but not nearly as funny as hearing it in a nonmedical context. The hunches of previous scholars about the tone of y/,.oUTc\sin fr. 501 seem, therefore, dictionally justified: it is likely that Kyknos' boast, and his choice of words, was written to provoke some level of laughter. Certainly, the rhetoric of mockery and boasting-which

•~Cf. Craik,this volume 50-l. "Dover ([1970(1987) 224-25: see also (1997) 114-19. "Dover (1997) 115. "Iliad 5.66. 8.340. 13.651. 11 See Henderson{1975) 201-202; Henderson notes that rruyii is not especially

common in Old Comedy (unlike TTPUJK'.ToS°, which is). and that in its many occurrences outside of comedy,especially in compoundwords, it has only a mildly vulgar(andso. I would add, humorous)tone.

380

SHARDS FROM KOWNOS: STUDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN f'RAGMENTS

must have suffused this passage-easily encouraged the use of words which, if not always overtly aischrological, could raise a smile by their off-col or usage". It is difficult, of course, to assen categorically that under no circumstance could yAovT6s have appeared in a tragedy"', but other fragments of Poimenes reinforce strongly the idea that its plot was not 'serious.• In fact, fragments 503 and 504 nearly clinch the identification of the play as nontragic, although, surprisingly enough, scholars who have argued that it was a satyr play have not marshalled these two frr. with any particular vigor. To put it simply, these fragments are demonstrably at home in a comic genre, while very awkward in a tragedy:

Fr.503 fv0' T) TTcipOLKoS TTfl.\aµlJS'xnµci(ETOl rrcipauAo-; tAAriarrot>Tl,;. l:..ipala 0f povsn!.1 Bocnroplru· TU& yClp Oaµi(ETaL

there where the neighboring pelamys [an immature tuna) spends the winter. dwelling nearby in the Hellespont. fully mature in the summer for the BosJX>rusdweller; for that's where it usually goes

ft 504 Kllµol.at rrAEKTol,;rropq>Upa,;q>8ElpH yfvo;(he?) destroys the race of the purple fish [Myrex trunculus. LSJ] with [in?] woven fishing-basket

One might think that early commentators would have been suspicious of the source of fr. 503, namely Athenaeus. At 319a Athenaeus is in the thick of a long catalogue of seafood: immediately preceding our citations was a prolonged discussion about octopuses, and a short entry about See, for example. fonns of rniyl) in derisive iambographic contexts in Archilochus. frr. 187 and 313W (the latter suspected by West). lll One might, for C:iLample, imagine a situation in which the word was used to describe an instance of wounding on the battlefield, in a deliberate allusion to Homer (especially in the legendarily 'Homeric' Sophocles). But there can be little doubt that the tone of its usage in fr. 501 is mockingly humorous and deprecating. 1 •

RALPH M. ROSEN,REVISIDNG SOPHOCLES' POIMENES:TRAGEDY OR SATYR PUY?

381

crabs. Then begins the paragraph on the 'pelamys,' the term for tuna under a year old: TIT)Mµ{,s-·cf>pWlX05'E"v Mot)CJOlS'µVT)µovtl!El. 'AplCJTOTE°AT)S' 6' iv rrE"µTrT4) {oK>..:f1siv TTotµfCJtV . . . (fr. 503) Pelamys: Phrynichus mentions them in Muses. Aristotle, in the fifth book of Parts of Animals, says: 'the "pelamyds" and the tunnies spawn in the Black Sea, but nowhere else.' Sophocles also mentions them in Poimenes (fr. 503).

Throughout such passages about foods, Athenaeus consistently cites two basic types of evidence: writers in comic genres and technical or scientific writers. While it is not inconceivable that a tragedy would mention a species of fish, one is hard pressed to imagine how the level of humorously trivial detail in this particular fragment would have worked in a tragedy. Welcker and Pearson assigned fr. 503 to a messenger who announced the arrival of the Greeks at Troy", though if so, he speaks more like someone anticipating a new shipment of caviar than one fearful of an imminent war! Pearson suggested that fr. 504 also occurred 'in the same context'; but this does not make his case any more palatable; needless to say, it is rather unsettling to see yet more detail about fish in a context that is supposed to be about war. A scholiast on Aristophanes Knights 1150 preserves the quotation from Sophocles that gives us fr. 504 in describing the use of the

KT)µos". K11µi>s... TT>..iyµan fK crxmv[wv ylviiµE1•ov (lµotov ~0µt\J, ~ T0srrop$1Jpas Xaµ[kiPooou,, El[,oµa, or TTTuov, «winnowing shovel», employed both by Aeschylus and Sophocles in A. fr. 210.2 (Proteus*) µloaKTa TTMvpa rrpos TTTUOtS" TTETTAT]YµEVT]V and S. fr. 1084 (Jab. inc.) rrruov, or o.µas in A. fr. 214 (Proteus*) aµa8a, explained as TT)V vaw•,and there are many hapax /egomena too as, for instance, A. fr. 114 (Kirke*) airr6cj>opJlos, an equivalent of airr6ayos, or S. fr. 117 (Amphiareos*) aMta[8p1ov, 'screening from chill air', S. fr. 288 (/nachos) Kvaµ6[3o>.os,'chosen by beans', S. fr. 318 (lchneutai*) [3o6KM,ji,'stealer of oxen', S. fr. 643 (Tympanistai) 6paKav>.os, 'living with a snake', or in the Euripidean Cyclops 19 µovo6€pKTT]S,'one-eyed', 459 ltarrotww, 'sharpen well', 601 iKrra[&vµa, 'child', 620 4'LAOKL6pov, 'fond of wearing ivy', 658 e,vo6a[TT]S, 'devourer of guests', 661 l€o6vvMcvos,'made from Mos' (a rare form of 4>1u>,6s, 'tree bark'), is used both by Herodotus (3.98) and Euripides (fr. 284, from Autolylcos*) OXOL v[vas yap '(TTTTOL(Jl,pA6, vas- i\v[as 11AEKE L. Satyr-plays are very fond of foreign words designating animals or foreign products that were used in connection with eating, drinking, perfuming" and making love. Aeschylus used the Mysian" word aµ,v8€us, 'mouse' (fr. 227, Sisyphos), instead of the properly Greek equivalent term µus; the rare noun ~v~ALS, 'antelope' (fr. 330, Jab. inc. ), a term firstly used by Herodotus (4.192.1) and later on by Aristotle (HA 5l5b34); the epithet Mµrroup,s, 'of the bright tail' to denote the fox (fr. 433,fab. inc.), a kind of naming that reminds us of the kenningar often employed by Hesiod and by Aeschylus himself. Similarly Achaeus, a fifth-century tragedian who had a particularly high reputation as an author of satyr-plays", included in his satyric vocabulary Lydian words such as 10

This is the Doric verbequivalentto Ionic 6alvoo0al or Ionic-AtticflJWXflcr8al.Cf.

Epich. 139 8wcouµ,8a. 11

AnotherDorism,which becamea poeticism afterbeing used by Pindar,is the verb * TT.-ya&s. 'milch-cows' (S. fr. 314.11, /chneutai*); cip~ 'unbreakable' (S. fr. 156, Achil/eos Erastai*); 6t11AL~S. 'sleek with unguents' (S. fr. 564.1, Syndeipnoi); ouµrro611'YfTEw,'join in guiding' (fr. 314.169, Ichneutai*); XUTfl0[611s.'pot-shaped', and KaTfpptKvwµtfvos, "shrivelled" or "curved", in S. fr. 314.295 (lchneutai*), etc. Euripides in his Eurystheus•, instead of referring to death as the TEpµa of life (cf. A. fr. 362), used another term, unattested in drama but common in Ionic": T€p8pov, literally 'end of the sail-yard'". There is, then, in satyr-drama a tendency to verbal innovation and the use of striking words. Moreover, there are, probably, words that were employed in satyr-drama to the exclusion both of tragedy and comedy. One of them is, perhaps, the verb i3aui3ov. •~Ar. fr. 336 WZEUrroAUTiµr,8',olov EvfrrvEoo' 6 µlapos' / $d:crKwAf>S' Eu8US'AUOµt:1-0Sµm Toi)µ&pcm/ Kal {3aKKdpt6o,;-. Eq. 343 0Tlf1Mynv oloSTEKd.yWKal Kapu,mrro1£lt•. "Cf. Hp. Mui 2.125, Emp. fr. 100.4 D-K, h.Horn.Herm. 322. "Cf. e.g. Gal. 19.145 Kuhn. n So too Chantraine ( 1968) s. v. (Xw(¼(,}.

A.

L6PezEIRE.Tl«GEDY

391

AND SA.ll'R-DRAMA: UNGUISTIC CRflERIA

Sophoclean satyr-plays. In S. fr. 173 (Dionysiskos*) we find 8w)(8E(s, which has the same meaning as 8wpl])(8Els.aorist passive participle of 8wpftaaw, 'make drunk', evidently an Ionism" adopted by Attic", where it is used as a colloquial, funny and unconventional variant of µ£0uw. It is possible that this form 8wx0£ls, never used in tragedy or comedy, is an archaic Attic expression for 'intoxicated by wine' and derives from the root of 0ftyw,«sharpen», «excite»". Another word of this kind, found in S.Fr. 1086 (Jab.inc.) and Ion fr. trag. 66 (both treated as satyric by Steffen 1952) is pd, 'easily', an equivalent form to the Homeric />iiaand likewise derived from an older form *f po.a. Notwithstanding these differences, the language of satyr-drama is very close to the language of tragedy, much closer to it than to the language of comedy. In its lyric parts the percentage of Doric forms can vary; for example, while in Euripides• Cyclops they are used consistently (e.g. 362 Ii&, 499 66oii (S. fr. x.\,6avlis), in Sophocles' /chneutai beside e.g. Tlia6' 314.376) we also find vuµT] (243), 6µft (329), etc. In its spoken lines, satyr-drama contains some Ionisms and Homerisms that do not occur in the language of comedy. For instance, Sophocles uses ~µap for iJµtfpa both in tragedy (Phil. 798) and in satyrdrama (fr. 314.277, lchneutai*)", whereas ~µap is not found in the entire comic corpus. Again, in verbs and nouns alike, where tragedy has -craand comedy, inscriptions and most Attic prose literature normally have -TT-, satyr-drama follows tragedy, e.g. S. fr. 314.261 (lchneutai*) 81axapdaa£TUL, S. fr. 314.158 (lchneutai*) rrnjaaOVTOS',S. fr. 567 (Syndeipnoi) rrpdaawv, A. fr. 46a.3-4 (Diktyoulkof'I (Al Tl ao, ...... And in satyr-drama as in tragedy ,t,vMaaw . .. I (B)El 11ou /JaJ..daC7TJ, the consonantal group -pa- retains its form, as in Ionic, whereas in Attic (and consequently in comedy) it has become -pp-: cf. A. fr. 110 (Kerykes*)

;e

"er. Hp. Epid. 2.5.10 . .,..Cf. Ar. Ach. 1134. If the word were native to Attic it would have the (unattested) fonn~TTw. v Chantraine( 1968) s. v. *8waaw.

• Note that KaT' ~µap here follows Ka8'T]µfpavin the immediatelyprecedingline (276).

392

SHARDS F'ROMKOLONOS:S11JDIESIN SOPHOCLEANFRAGMENTS

rrupao.-6paovwith A. Pers. 316 rrvpa,jv (contrast Ar. Eccl. 329 rruppov), A. fr. 47a.804 (Diktyoulkoi*)elfTo.

befits neither the dignity of tragedy nor the decorum preserved even by a •

1

Cf. however Sommerstein (this volume), who argues that both are tragedies.

400

SHARDS FROM KOLONOS: STIJDIES IN SOPHOCLEAN FRAGMENTS

prosatyric play like the Euripidean Alcestis. Such ludicrous indecency as the throwing of a stinking chamber-pot over a hero's head and the detailed description of a rowdy banquet are thoroughly incompatible with tragedy and point clearly to these being satyr-dramas. References to sex, excretion, the physical aspects of eating and drinking, and anatomical features connected therewith, are typical of satyrdrama and give rise to many vulgar words and expressions found in satyrplays. Many of these derive from the unrestrained sexual activity of satyrs, both heterosexual and homosexual, of which we have abundant evidence in vase painting. Satyrs are always looking for an opportunity to have sex. In Aeschylus' Dictyoulkoi (A. fr. 47a.82 l-30) they are eager to enjoy Danae, who they suppose fully reciprocates their desires: A. fr. 47 a.825-6

rravu iJouM>µivriv Ti\s /jµET