Early Greek Epic: Language, Interpretation, Performance 9783110981384, 9783110993721, 9783110981407, 2022917159

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Christos Tsagalis Early Greek Epic: Language, Interpretation, Performance

Trends in Classics – Supplementary Volumes

Edited by Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos Associate Editors Stavros Frangoulidis · Fausto Montana · Lara Pagani Serena Perrone · Evina Sistakou · Christos Tsagalis Scientific Committee Alberto Bernabé · Margarethe Billerbeck Claude Calame · Kathleen Coleman · Jonas Grethlein Philip R. Hardie · Stephen J. Harrison · Stephen Hinds Richard Hunter · Giuseppe Mastromarco Gregory Nagy · Theodore D. Papanghelis Giusto Picone · Alessandro Schiesaro Tim Whitmarsh · Bernhard Zimmermann

Volume 138

Christos Tsagalis

Early Greek Epic: Language, Interpretation, Performance

ISBN 978-3-11-099372-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-098138-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-098140-7 ISSN 1868-4785 Library of Congress Control Number: 2022917159 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Editorial Office: Alessia Ferreccio and Katerina Zianna Logo: Christopher Schneider, Laufen Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com



For Jonathan Burgess

Preface Τhe 20 studies included in this volume represent a portion of my research in the field of early Greek epic during the last 20 years. They are preceded by an Introduction and are organized in four parts: Homer, Hesiod, the Epic Cycle, and the performance of epic. In the Introduction, I offer a general presentation of the progress made in the field of archaic Greek epic in the last decades and explain where my own contribution falls within this research field. In parts I-III, I begin with studies dealing with general topics, then I present those pertaining to more than one epic, and finally those concerning individual poems. Part IV begins with a general topic pertaining to performance, while the other three studies are presented according to the chronological order of the material they contain. Some of the studies included in this volume are reprinted in their original form, while others have been revised with additions and further bibliography. The purpose of this selective updating is to remedy certain infelicities, to engage with studies which appeared after the initial publication of my own work, as well as to make more thorough certain points which I have revisited in the course of time. All translations of Homeric passages are based on Lattimore 1951 and Rieu 2003 for the Iliad and the Odyssey respectively. For Cyclic epic, I have used the translation of Burgess 2001. For Apollodorus and Hyginus, I have consulted the translation of Scott Smith and Trzaskoma 2007. When I provide my own translation, I note it in a footnote. I am grateful to the editors of TCSV Franco Montanari and Antonios Rengakos, for including this book in their highly successful series. The dedication to Jonathan Burgess is a token of appreciation to a scholar who has been a source of inspiration for me during the last 20 years. Christos Tsagalis Thessaloniki, April 2022

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Contents Preface  VII List of Abbreviations  XI List of the Original Publication Venues  XIII List of Tables  XV Introduction  XVII

Part I: Homer 

Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis  3



Detextualizing Homer: Intonation Units, Background Knowledge, and the Proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey  34



The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics  43



Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character  68



Epic Space Revisited: Narrative and Intertext in the Episode between Diomedes and Glaucus (Il. 6.119–236)  83



Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers  110



Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610  133



Iliad 11.662: A Note  155



Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle: Odysseus’ False Tale to Eumaeus (Od. 14.199–359)  163

X  Contents

Part II: Hesiod 

Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus  209



Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women  256

Part III: The Epic Cycle 

The Gods in Cyclic Epic  283



γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων: Interformularity and Intertraditionality in Theban and Homeric Epic  312



Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration  355



Telegony  384



Verses Attributed to the Telegony  407

Part IV: The Performance of Epic 

Ἀοιδός and ῥαψῳδός: Methodological Problems and Assumptions  427



Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Archaic and Classical Periods  463



Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Hellenistic Period  511



Rhapsodes and Rhapsodic Recitals in the Imperial Period  543

Bibliography  577 General Index  609 Index of Hesiodic and Homeric Passages  623

List of Abbreviations DELG

P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Paris  [st ed.  – ].

D-K

H. Diels and W. Kranz (eds.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Berlin .

EDG

R.S.P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek,  vols. Leiden .

EGEF

C. Tsagalis, Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Genealogical and Antiquarian Epic. Berlin .

EGF

M. Davies, Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Göttingen .

EGM

R.L. Fowler, Early Greek Mythography,  vols. Oxford –.

EKM

L. Gounaropoulou and M.B. Hatzopoulos (eds.), Επιγραφές κάτω Μακεδονίας (μεταξύ του Βερμίου όρους και του Αξιού ποταμού), Α´ Επιγραφές Βέροιας. Athens .

EM

T. Gaisford (ed.), Etymologicum Magnum. Oxford .

FGrHist

F. Jacoby et al., Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden –.

GDK

E. Heitsch, Die griechischen Dichterfragmente der Römischen Kaiserzeit. Göttingen .

GEF

M.L. West, Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC. Cambridge, MA .

GEW

H. Frisk, Griechisches etylomogisches Wörterbuch,  vols. Heidelberg – .

HED

J. Puhvel, Hittite Etymological Dictionary. Berlin/New York .

Hesych.

Hesychii Alexandrini Lexicon,  vols., edited by: I.C. Cunningham (I: Α-Δ); I.C. Cunningham (II: Ε-Ο); P.A. Hansen (III: Π-Σ); P.A. Hansen and I.C. Cunningham (IV: Τ-Ω). Copenhagen/Berlin/New York –.

IChios

D.F. McCabe and J. V. Brownson, Chios Inscriptions. Princeton .

ICret

M. Guarducci, Inscriptiones Creticae,  vols. Rome –.

IDelos

Inscriptions de Délos.  vols. Paris –. Vol.  [], Nos. –, ed. André Plassart (); vol.  [], nos. –, ed. Jacques Coupry (); vol.  [], nos. –, ed. Félix Durrbach (); vol.  [], nos. –, ed. Félix Durrbach (); vol.  [], nos. –, ed. Félix Durrbach and Pierre Roussel (); vol.  [], nos. –, eds. Pierre Roussel and Marcel Launey (); vol.  [], nos. –, eds. Pierre Roussel and Marcel Launey ().

IEG

M.L. West (ed.), Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati,  vols. Oxford – [st ed. –].

IEphesos

H. Wankel et al., Die Inschriften von Ephesos, IGSK, –. Bonn –.

IG

Inscriptiones Graecae

IK

Inschriften griechischer Städte Kleinasiens

IPergamon

M. Fraenkel, Die Inschriften von Pergamon. Berlin –.

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XII  List of Abbreviations ISalamis

T.B. Mitford and I. Nicolaou, The Greek and Latin Inscriptions from Salamis. Nikosia .

ISide

J. Nollé, Side im Altertum. Geschichte und Zeugnisse, Band II, IGSK, .. Bonn .

ISmyrna

G. Petzl, Die Inschriften von Smyrna, IGSK –.–. Bonn –.

IThesp

P. Roesch, Les Inscriptions de Thespies: digital edition by G. Argoud, A. Schachter, and G. Vottéro.

Lexilogus

Ph. Buttmann, . Lexilogus oder Beiträge zur griechischen Worterklärung hauptsächlich für Homer und Hesiod,  vols. Berlin .

LfgrE

B. Snell, et al. (eds.). Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos,  vols. Göttingen/ Oakville, CT –.

LIMC

Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae. Zurich, –.

LSJ

H.G. Liddel, R. Scott, H.S. Jones and R. McKenzie (eds.), A Greek-English Lexicon, with Revised Supplement by P.G.W. Glare. Oxford .

OCD

Oxford Classical Dictionary.

OMS

L. Robert, Opera Minora Selecta: Epigraphie et antiquités grecques. Amsterdam –.

PEG

A. Bernabé, Poetae Epici Graeci: Testimonia et Fragmenta. vol. I. Stuttgart/Leipzig .

PMG

D.L. Page, Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford .

PMGF

M. Davies, Poetarum Melicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Oxford .

RE

G. Wissowa et al. (eds.), Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stuttgart –.

SEG

Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum.

Severyns

A. Severyns, Recherches sur la Chrestomathie de Proclos: la Vita Homeri et les sommaires du Cycle, Paris .

SH

Supplementum Hellenisticum.

TAM I

E. Kalinka, Tituli Asiae Minoris collecti et editi auspiciis Caesareae Academiae Litterarum Vindobonensis, I, Tituli Lyciae conscripti. Vienna .

TAM II

E. Kalinka, Tituli Asiae Minoris collecti et editi auspiciis Caesareae Academiae Litterarum Vindobonensis, II –, Tituli Lyciae Graeca et Latina conscripti. Vienna. –.

TrGF

Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta.

List of the Original Publication Venues 1. ‘Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis’, TC 3 (2012) 209–244. 2. ‘Detextualizing Homer: Intonation Units, Background Knowledge, and the Proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey’, Eranos 103 (2005) 55–62. 3. ‘The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics’, in: C. Tsagalis (ed.), Homeric Hypertextuality, TC 2 (2010) 323–347. 4. ‘Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character’, in E. Karamalengou and Eu. Makrygianni (eds.), Ἀντιφίλησις. Studies in Honor of Professor I.-Th. Papademetriou. Stuttgart 2009, 34–47. 5. ‘Εpic Space Revisited: Narrative and Intertext in the Episode between Diomedes and Glaucus (Il. 6.119–236)’, in: Ph. Mitsis and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Allusion, Authority, and Truth: Critical Perspectives on Greek Poetic and Rhetorical Praxis. Berlin 2010, 87–113. 6. ‘Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers’, in: C. Tsagalis and A. Markantonatos (eds.), The Winnowing Oar: New Perspectives in Homeric Poetry. Berlin 2017, 191–214. 7. ‘Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609-610’, in: E. Gasti (ed.), δόσις ἀμφιλαφής: τιμητικός τόμος για την ομότιμη καθηγήτρια Κατερίνα Συνοδινού. Ioannina 2020, 787–816. 8. ‘Iliad 11.662: A Note’, SIFC 113 (2020) 61–68. 9. ‘Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle: Odysseus’ False Tale to Eumaeus (Od. 14.199–359)’ in: F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Homer in the 21st Century. Berlin 2012, 309–345. 10. ‘Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus’, in: F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Hesiod. Leiden 2009, 131–177. 11. ‘Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women’, in: C. Tsagalis (ed.), Poetry in Fragments: The Hesiodic Corpus and its Afterlife. Berlin 2017, 191–215. 12. ‘The Gods in Cyclic Epic’, in: J. Clauss, M. Cuypers, and A. Kahane (eds.), Gods in Poetics: Writing Polytheism in Greek Hexameter Poetry. Stuttgart 2016, 95–117. 13. ‘γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων: Interformularity and Intertraditionality in Theban and Homeric Epic’, in: C. Tsagalis (ed.), Theban Resonances in Homeric Epic, TC 6.2 (2014) 357–398. 14. ‘Cypria, fr. 19 (PEG 1 & West): A Reconsideration’, RFIC 140.2 (2012) 1–33.

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XIV  List of the Original Publication Venues 15. ‘Telegony’ in: M. Fantuzzi and C. Tsagalis (eds.), The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception. Cambridge 2015, 380–401. 16. ‘Verses Attributed to the Telegony’, CQ 64 (2014) 448–461. 17. ‘Ἀοιδός και ῥαψῳδός: μεθοδολογικά προβλήματα και ερευνητικές προϋποθέσεις’, in: C. Tsagalis, Τέχνη ραψωδική: η απαγγελία της επικής ποίησης από την αρχαϊκή έως την αυτοκρατορική περίοδο. Thessaloniki 2018, 17–55. 18. ‘Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Archaic and Classical Periods’, in: J. Ready and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Narrators, and Characters. Austin 2018, 29–75. 19. ‘Performance Contexts for Rhapsodic Recitals in the Hellenistic Period’, in: J. Ready and C. Tsagalis (eds.), Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Narrators, and Characters. Austin 2018, 98–129. 20.‘Ραψωδοί και ραψωδικές εκτελέσεις στην αυτοκρατορική περίοδο’, in: C. Tsagalis, Τέχνη ραψωδική: η απαγγελία της επικής ποίησης από την αρχαϊκή έως την αυτοκρατορική περίοδο. Thessaloniki 2018, 155–189.

List of Tables Tab. 1: Tab. 2: Tab. 3: Tab. 4: Tab. 5: Tab. 6:

Undeveloped Orality.  31 Characteristics of Developed Orality and Literacy.  32 Achaean Heroes in the Teichoscopia and Helen’s Suitors.  189 Shared Features in the Episodes of the Cicones, Thrinacia, and Egypt.  195 Shared Features in Iliad 21 and the Telephi epyllium.  337 The Order of Victors in Athenaeus’ Report Describing Events of 324 BC (Left Column) and in a Hellenistic Inscription (Right Column) Pertaining to the Amphiaraea and Rhomaea.  469 Tab. 7: Instances of Rhapsodes Competing in more than one Type of Contest.  518 Tab. 8: Rhapsodes in the Imperial Period.  574

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Introduction The study of early Greek epic was always at the forefront of research activity in the field of Classics. One, and perhaps, the main reason was Homer, a poet who has been an icon of Greek poetry and culture throughout the centuries. It was only to be expected that the Iliad and the Odyssey would still attract intense scholarly interest, as they had already done in antiquity. In the last fifty years major developments have taken place, both in the field of Homeric studies and in the rest of early Greek epic. These developments have not only created a more solid basis for studying the Homeric epics, but they have also broadened our horizons with respect to the place of Homeric poetry within a larger cultural milieu. The impressive advances in Hesiodic studies, the more systematic approach to the Epic Cycle, the more nuanced use and re-evaluation of dominant twentieth-century theories like Neoanalysis and Oral Theory, the study of other fragmentary Greek epic, the cognitive turn, narratology, the performance of epic poetry in the ancient and modern world, the fruitful utilization of IndoEuropean material, and the widely accepted recognition of the close relation between Homer and the mythology and literature of the ancient Near East have virtually shaped anew the way we read and understand Homer. The studies collected in this volume, which represent part of my work during the last twenty years and are informed by most of the aforementioned sub-fields, span four research areas: (i) Homer; (ii) Hesiod; (iii) the Epic Cycle; (d) the performance of epic. They owe a lot to a host of scholars, whose scientific contributions have made me think, re-evaluate, and explore further the fascinating world of early Greek epic. In what follows, I offer a brief presentation of my own research input within the on-going dialogue pertaining to early Greek epic. (i) In the field of Homeric studies, Neoanalysis and Oral Theory have been injected with new blood. Several scholars have opted for a more nuanced and methodologically consistent version of the theoretical basis on which rests each of these two schools of Homeric criticism. Others have considerably broadened the range of material which can be employed as a backdrop for testing all relevant arguments. Georg Danek1 has masterfully applied the neoanalytical Quellenforschung to the entire Odyssey, while being alert to the impressive advances of the Oral Theory concerning traditionality and performance. On a methodological level, his main contribution is the notion of Zitat (‘citation’). Danek argues that the

 1 Epos und Zitat. Studien zu den Quellen der Odyssee, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-207

XVIII  Introduction Odyssey consistently ‘cites’ its sources by recourse to a system of references embedded into the text. Another principal contribution of Danek is his systematic and thorough exploration of alternative versions of Odysseus’ return that the Homeric Odyssey regularly employs as cues for its audience. In the Englishspeaking world, the main contributions are those by Jonathan Burgess2 and Bruno Currie.3 Both scholars have had a significant input with respect to several methodological issues, which an earlier form of neoanalytical criticism ignored. They have addressed crucial matters pertaining to the function of allusion in early Greek epic and discussed the controversial issues of text-fixity and symptomatic versus intentional thematic and phraseological repetition. Currie has also extended the scope of neoanalytical research by bringing into the discussion Greek hymnic and ancient Near Eastern poetry. Another strong voice is that of Margalit Finkelberg who has both enlarged the neoanalytical source-pool4 and offered refined and subtle arguments as regards the metacyclic nature of Homeric epic5 and the relation between oral-formulaic theory and the individual poet.6 Michael Reichel7 has meticulously studied the intratextual references in the Iliad, which display a remarkable precision and cohesion which he explained as the work of a single poet who used writing in the composition of the poem. Reichel has also debated the orality of Homeric poetry favoring the neoanalytical method. A special place is occupied by Ernst Heitsch8 who stands between Analysis and Neoanalysis. Heitsch claimed that a short poem on Aeneas is a source on which draw both the Iliad and the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite. He also accepts the basic neonalytical view about the influence of the Aethiopis on the Iliad. For him Homer is the last poet of the Iliad who gave the epic its final shaping in seventh-century Athens.

 2 ‘Neoanalysis, Orality, and Intertextuality: An Examination of Homeric Motif Transference’, 2006, 148–189; The Death and Afterlife of Achilles, 2009. 3 ‘Homer and the Early Epic Tradition’, 2006, 1–45; ‘The Iliad, Gilgamesh, and Neoanalysis’, 2012, 543–580; ‘Perspectives on Neoanalysis from the Archaic Hymns to Demeter’, 2012, 184– 209; The Art of Allusion, 2016. 4 ‘The Sources of Iliad 7’, 2002, 151–161 (= 2020, 140–149). 5 ‘Meta-Cyclic Epic and Homeric Poetry’, 2015, 126–138 (= 2020, 169–181). 6 ‘Oral Formulaic Theory and the Individual Poet’, 2012, 73–82 (= 2020, 95–103). 7 Fernbeziehungen in der Ilias, 1994; ‘How Oral is Homer’s Narrative?’, 1998, 1–22. 8 Aphroditehymnos, Aeneas und Homer: Sprachliche Untersuchungen zum Homerproblem, 1965; Epische Kunstsprache und homerische Chronologie, 1968; Altes und Neues zur Ilias: Überlegungen zur Genese des Werks, 2006.

Introduction  XIX

As regards the Oral Theory, Gregory Nagy has been the principal driving force behind its application to technical matters,9 interpretation,10 and the shaping11 of Homeric epic. His evolutionary model, which involves five periods corresponding to degrees of gradually increasing crystallization12 has given to the Oral Theory a depth that was lacking from its first stages. The evolutionary model amounts to a ‘response’ to criticism pertaining to the question of fixity and the process of fixation of Homeric poetry and is against the dictation theory13 that aimed at finding a middle ground between an oral and a writing Homer.14 A welcome ‘turn’ to the dictation theory has recently been suggested by Jonathan Ready,15 who draws on the testimony of folklorists and ethnographers engaged with the study of modern instances of the textualization of oral traditional works, and opts for a textualization of Homeric epic by means of a process involving a collector who had a poet dictate his version of the Iliad and the Odyssey to a scribe. For Ready, the Homeric text should be seen as the cocreation of the performer, collector, and scribe. Further boost to the Oral Theory

 9 Origins and function of the dactylic hexameter: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indic Meter, 1974. 10 The Homeric hero: The Best of the Achaeans. Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry, 1979; Early Greek Myth: Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past, 1990; Greek Mythology and Poetics, 1990. 11 The early transmission of the Homeric text: Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond, 1996; Homeric Questions, 1996; Homeric Responses, 2003; Homer’s Text and Language, 2004; the changing notions of ‘Homer’ and ‘Homeric’ poetry in the Pre-Classical, Classical, Hellenistic, and Imperial Greco-Roman world: Homer the Classic, 2009; Homer the Preclassic, 2012. 12 This evolutionary model postulates the existence of the following five phases: (a) a fluid period with no written texts from the 2nd millenium to ca. 750 BC; (b) a more formative period from 750 to 550 BC, during which the Homeric poems acquire Panhellenic status (still without written texts) and begin to be performed in Athens; (c) a more definite period (550–300 BC), centralized in Athens, during which the Homeric poems are used as transcripts accompanying (not substituting) performance; (d) a standardizing period (300–150 BC) marked by the reform of performance traditions and the creation of an official Athenian state script of Homer by Demetrius of Phalerum; (e) a last phase (after 150 BC) marked by the philological activity of Aristarchus that leads to an even more standardized text. 13 See the important contributions by M. Skafte Jensen (The Homeric Question and OralFormulaic Theory, 1980) and R. Janko (‘The Homeric Poems as Oral Dictated Texts’, Classical Quarterly 48, 1998, 1–13). 14 B. Powell (‘Homer and Writing, in A New Companion to Homer, 1997, 3–32) linked the invention of the Greek alphabet with the pressing need to record the dactylic hexameter, which is the meter used in epic composition. 15 Orality, Textuality, and the Homeric Epics: An Interdisciplinary Study of Oral Texts, Dictated Texts, and Wild Texts, 2019.

XX  Introduction has been given by John Miles Foley whose methodical, meticulous, and exceptionally erudite studies have substantially enlarged the reach of the oral theory and improved our knowledge of oral poetry across the globe.16 A special place among oralists is occupied by Oliver Taplin,17 who envisages an oral Homer, trained in oral traditional epic and composing the Iliad by employing the techniques of oral composition. Taplin explains the cohesion, interaction between scenes separated by thousands of verses, and structural unity of the Iliad by suggesting that Homer performed different parts of his epic at different venues throughout his life and continued to work on it, implementing changes, omissions, and adaptations. Taplin’s theory of an oral poet working over an extended period of many years is analogous to M.L. West’s theory of two poets who are also trained in oral traditional epic but compose the Iliad and the Odyssey respectively by recourse to writing over an extended period of his life.18 Oral Theory has also gained a great deal both by its creative use of linguistics and by using formulaic material in a more nuanced and interpretively meaningful way. In the field of linguistics, the contribution of Egbert Bakker is of special merit. By applying linguistic theory to the study of Homeric style, Bakker argued that formulas should be studied within the framework of spoken speech.19 For him, epic language contains devices which allow the performer of epic song to bring the past to the present. By employing discourse analysis, he has demonstrated that epic employs an entire deictic system that creates vividness, which lies at the heart of the performance of Homeric poetry.20 A chief representative of the study of the inspired and resourceful use of diction in Homeric epic is Richard Martin,21 who has studied direct speech in the Iliad. Being alert to the advances made in ethnography, sociolinguistics, literary theory and folklore studies, Martin treats speeches as authoritative speech-acts, where traditionality and spontaneity coexist. The surprising ways speakers combine, alter, adapt, and even misuse traditional diction results in the creation of individual idiolects that

 16 Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research. An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography, 1985; The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology, 1988; Traditional Oral Epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian Return Song, 1990; Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic, 1991; The Singer of Tales in Performance, 1995; Homer’s Traditional Art, 1999. 17 Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad, 1992. 18 The Making of the Iliad. Disquisition and Analytical Commentary, 2011; The Making of the Odyssey, 2014. 19 Poetry in Speech: Orality and Homeric Discourse, 1997. 20 Pointing at the Past: From Formula to Performance in Homeric Poetics, 2005. 21 The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad, 1989.

Introduction  XXI

mark each character’s voice as unique. Significant are also the contributions of Pietro Pucci and Ruth Scodel. Pucci showed how the interaction between the two Homeric epics on the level of phraseology creates meaning. His intertextual approach is bidirectional: from the Iliad to the Odyssey and from the Odyssey to the Iliad.22 Scodel has studied how oral poets tailored individual nuances to their audiences, while dealing with traditional material that they had learned from earlier poets. She has argued that the oral poet, while pretending that the content of his song is familiar to his audience, makes sure that all kinds of listeners can follow and enjoy it. Innovation and originality could hardly be identified by the audience, since Homeric epic tends to traditionalize what is new with respect to the performance and, at the same time, present it as authoritative.23 These are some of the studies which have played a key role in the fields of Neoanalysis and Oral Theory. Furthermore, progress in Homeric research has been also made possible by new textual editions and commentaries. The publication of the scholia vetera (Hartmut Erbse)24 and the D-scholia (Helmut van Thiel)25 to the Iliad, the ongoing publication of the scholia to the Odyssey (Filippomaria Pontani)26 the completion of the authoritative Lexicon des frühgriechischen Epos,27 the new Teubner editions of the Iliad28 and the Odyssey29 by M.L. West (accompanied by his Studies on the Text of the Iliad30 and his two commentaries),31 the extensive and detailed commentaries on the Iliad and the Odyssey by Cambridge32 and the Fondazione Valla33 respectively, as well as the ongoing publication of the Basler Kommentar34 on the Iliad have put at our disposal impressive and trustworthy research tools for the study of Homer.

 22 Odysseus Polutropos: Intertextual Readings in the Odyssey and the Iliad, 1987; The Song of the Sirens: Essays on Homer, 1998. 23 Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative, and Audience, 2002. 24 Scholia Graeca in Homeri Iliadem, 7 vols. 1969–1988. 25 Scholia D in Iliadem (proecdosis aucta et correctior), 2014. 26 Scholia Graeca in Odysseam, 4 vols. (I: α-β; II: γ-δ; III: ε-ζ; IV: η-θ), 2007–. 27 B. Snell, et al. (eds.). Lexikon des frühgriechischen Epos, 25 vols. 1955–2001. 28 Homerus: Ilias, 1998–2000. 29 Homerus: Odyssea, 2017. 30 Studies in the Text and Transmission of the Iliad, 2001. 31 See p. XVIII, n. 18 (this volume). 32 The Iliad: A Commentary, edited by G. Kirk, 6 vols., 1985–1993. 33 Omero: Odissea, edited by A. Privitera, 6 vols., 1981–1986 (translated and published in English by Oxford University Press, 1988–1992). 34 Edited by J. Latacz, 2000–.

XXII  Introduction The aim of my contribution has been to combine the insights of oralformulaic theory and Neoanalysis. I have argued that intertextual references operate between oral epic traditions and that a level of fixity, which is required for varying levels of allusion, can be achieved by a stable pool and established order of events, a consistent anchoring of characters to specific episodes, the success and subsequent wide diffusion of an authoritative version. The Iliad and the Odyssey have been composed orally and have been shaped during a long process by generations of singers. They draw not only on pre-Homeric oral cyclic epics as master-manifestations of cyclic myth pertaining to the Theban and Trojan War sagas, but also on a variety of other epic traditions, which involve an epic version of the story of Meleager, pre-Homeric poetry about Heracles, oral epics on the Pylian wars, pre-Homeric hymnic poetry on Aphrodite, a pre-Homeric *Argonautica, alternative versions of Odysseus’ return, and NearEastern poetry (the Dumuzi-Inanna Sumerian Songs, the Royal Hymns of the Sumerians, the epic of Gilgamesh in its standard Babylonian version). I have also maintained that phraseological transference beyond typical verbal reiteration is also possible between oral epic traditions, provided that the range of the repetition is extremely limited or that repetition is employed in a highly distinctive manner. Homeric poetry is deeply meta-poetic since it is characterized by a constant penchant to delineate its own identity. Its self-awareness is achieved by its systematic thematizing of both a large range of events falling outside its plot and various alternative versions of a potential deployment of the plot which are mentioned and rejected as poetically inferior, so that the audience realizes the poem’s claim to originality and success. Allusion is not a side-effect or secondary feature of Homeric storytelling. It lies at the heart of Homeric compositional technique and defines it pervasively. It is the trademark of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Ιn treating specific interpretive issues I have made ample use of various theoretical tools, ranging from traditional philology to historical linguistics, from meter and formulas to cognitive theory and narratology. It is my firm belief that as scholars we should use all means available to shed light on a problem that has not been treated adequately. To defend a transmitted verse of the Iliad (11.662) or unlock the function of a given distich (11.609–610) I have resorted to traditional philology, narratology, and the comparative method. Likewise, to study the use of Helen’s name I combine metrical observations, word localization, and verse-structure, showing how the traditional diction of Homeric epic has shaped epic action. Tackling complex semantical conundrums like the formula ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης requires the joint use of different methodological tools: lexicography, historical linguistics, and the utilization of Indo-European

Introduction  XXIII

and Near Eastern mythology and ritual. It is only then that a dictional fossil comes back to life and allows us to comprehend and appreciate the multifarious and convoluted but fascinating process of shaping of Homeric diction. To explore lists and catalogues in Homeric epic, I resort to cognitive theory that allows us to investigate the mental process behind the organization of dictional and thematic material. I interpret the friendly outcome of the famous encounter between Diomedes and Glaucus in Iliad 6 by revisiting the complex use of space: simple story space designating the setting of the episode, embedded story space pertaining to the places mentioned in the inset narratives of the speeches of the two protagonists of the scene, and another form of extratextual space which concerns the Greek and Lycian epic tradition. These different forms of space are effectively merged to bring the ancestors of the Greek hero Diomedes and the Lycian hero Glaucus close, thus turning the potential duel between them into a friendly encounter sealed by the exchange of gifts. (ii) The considerable progress made in the field of Hesiodic studies is observable in two areas: the interpretation of the two genuine works of Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, and the important advances in the exploration of the Catalogue of Women. The two monumental commentaries of M.L. West on the Theogony (1966) and the Works and Days (1978) have laid down the necessary groundwork for more nuanced interpretive studies, which would restore Hesiod to his proper status. Special attention was paid to the relation between these two poems and to various narratological issues concerning the persona of the narrator, the function of the Dichterweihe in the Theogony, the role of Perses as an internal addressee in the Works and Days, the different types of narrative employed in various passages of these two epics, and the poetic voice. Jenny Strauss Clay has argued for a complementary reading of the Theogony and the Works and Days which share a symbiotic relation embracing the divine and human worlds. This approach brings to the limelight the unity of the two major Hesiodic works and sees the Catalogue of Women as a work feeding not only on earlier catalogue poetry but also on the genuine Hesiodic epics.35 With respect to the Catalogue of Women, there has been impressive progress. On the basis of the work he had done together with Merkelbach with respect to determining the order of the news papyrus fragments pertaining to the Catalogue, M.L. West cut new ground in the study of catalogue poetry.36 Following suit, several scholars attempted to study the Catalogue as a work of art in its own right and explored new topics, such as the presentation of women in com 35 Hesiod’s Cosmos, 2003. 36 The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, 1985.

XXIV  Introduction parison to the Theogony and the Megalai Ehoiai, as well as generic issues concerning the nature of this poem and the place it occupies within catalogue poetry as a whole. One of the most stimulating studies was carried out by Ian Rutherford who focused on the thorny issue of the generic classification of the Catalogue.37 According to Rutherford, at a certain point during the Archaic Period non-genealogical ehoiai that employed catalogue-like principles for organizing their subject-matter underwent the influence of a Panhellenic tendency for organizing the Greek mythical past by recourse to genealogical schemata. The direct result was that narrations belonging to independent ehoiai were attached to a genealogical super-structure. At a later stage, ehoiai-narratives evolved into a secondary feature of this novel, generic amalgam through the process of automatization. Rutherford’s theory is a type of generic archaeology. By disclosing the existence of an early phase in the evolution of ehoiai-poetry Rutherford shed light to the generic identity of this new sub-genre. The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women is an epic hybrid, which marks the generic crossing of narratives of the ehoiai type with a catalogue-based genealogical structure. His work is paired up with a detailed commentary by Hirschberger (2004) on the Catalogue of Women and the Megalai Ehoiai. The establishment of the Catalogue as an indispensable part of Hesiodic poetry is reflected in the publication of a volume of collected essays, with the telling title The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Constructions and Reconstructions.38 This volume had a significant impact on the study of the Catalogue, especially in view of the wealth of its relevant approaches. The Catalogue was studied as a poetic work exhibiting a special kind of plot (R. Osborne), as part of a trilogy, next to the Theogony and the Works and Days (J. Strauss Clay), as well as an epic associated with sympotic culture and ideology (E. Irwin). It was also explored through the study of individual characters (Heracles: J. Haubold) and episodes (Mestra: I. Rutherford, Helen’s suitors: E. Cingano), by means of the relation between the Catalogue and other Hesiodic works (Aspis: R. Martin; Megalai Ehoiai: G.-B. D’Alessio), Greek Lyric (Pindar and Bacchylides: G.-B. D’Alessio), as well as with respect to the reception and influence of this epic in Greek (R. Hunter, H. Asquith) and Roman literature (Ph. Hardie; R. Fletcher). The tendency for a re-evaluation of the order of the fragments of the Catalogue marks the new Loeb edition of Hesiod by Glenn Most which replaced the earlier edition (1914) by H. Evelyn-White. This rich interpretive harvest created the need for an updated presentation and critical assess 37 ‘Formulas, Voice, and Death in Ehoie-Poetry, the Hesiodic Gunaikon Katalogos, and the Odyssean Nekuia’, 2000, 81–96. 38 The volume was edited by R. Hunter in 2005.

Introduction  XXV

ment of the progress made so far, especially since 33 years had passed after the publication of the relevant volume in the series Wege der Forschung. The Brill’s Companion to Hesiod published by F. Montanari, A. Rengakos, and C. Tsagalis (2009) offered a balanced exposition of the status quaestionis of various aspects of Hesiodic poetry. Interest in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women has continued ever since. Kirk Ormand39 has examined the intertextual relation between this epic and Homer, Hesiod (Theogony and Works and Days) and Cyclic epic.40 The Catalogue’s rich literary background is interpreted by Ormand against the backdrop of political and social changes in archaic Greece. The author argues that the poem’s emphasis on the importance of noble birth throughout the Greek world, as mapped by the various catalogues of the Greek gene, amounts to a reaction against the new political realities of the sixth-century polis and in favor of the old aristocratic values. It is against this background that I have been interested in exploring the poetry and poetics of the three major Hesiodic works. The generic variety observed when one compares the Theogony with the Works and Days and the Catalogue offers a unique opportunity for exploring matters pertaining to the role of the poet, the tradition, and the creative interaction by means of intertextual association between them. Whereas previous scholarship has focused on the relation between Homeric and Hesiodic epic, especially with respect to matters pertaining to ideology, divine presentation, and phraseology, my research focuses on issues of generic identity and poetic distinctiveness. I argue that each of the three main Hesiodic epics is an idiosyncratic poetic experiment that deviates in stunning manner from the generic orthodoxy of its relevant sub-genre. The Hesiodic Theogony is not a typical example of theogonic epic, the Works and Days is anything but a regular wisdom epic, and the Catalogue is an innovative epic hybrid of catalog-based genealogies cross-fertilized by ehoiai poetry. What matters more is that their generic hybridity is not an issue detected by modern hyper-interpretation but is observable in their structure, themes, and plot. It reflects their effort to find a place within their proper sub-genre of epic as well as within archaic Greek epic at large. The study of the hybrid nature of the Catalogue of Women has crucial interpretive consequences. It requires a special poetics, which reveals the inner mechanics of catalogue-based poetry that is enriched with narrative snapshots, the ehoiai, which have been transferred to

 39 The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women and Archaic Greece, 2014. 40 Throughout this book I capitalize the first letter of the word Cyclic when it refers to the poems of the Epic Cycle, whereas I write ‘cyclic’ when I designate oral epic traditions reflecting the poems of the Epic Cycle, as well as when I refer to cyclic myth.

XXVI  Introduction its complex structure. To this end, I have also been interested in studying one important feature of catalogue-based poetry, i.e. names. In contrast to widely held views about the purely ornamental and impressionistic aspect of lists of names, I have explored how names of every sort (proper, geographical etc.) are selected and deployed to achieve specific poetic goals. In this name-based poetic universe sound-effects are deftly exploited to highlight associations, prepare the presentation of a certain theme, conjure up an image, give vividness, enforce an idea, enhance parallelism, underscore an etymological link, draw attention, facilitate the unlocking of analogy on the part of the audience. (iii) Another field of intensive research activity concerns the Epic Cycle and fragmentary Greek epic of the Archaic and Classical Periods. Jasper Griffin41 and Malcolm Davies42 have shown the quantitative and qualitative differences between Homeric and Cyclic Epic. Burgess has trodden new ground with a thorough reconsideration of the way cyclic epic traditions interact with Homeric epic.43 The study of the Epic Cycle has been particularly promoted by the learned commentary of M.L. West,44 the series of commentaries that are being published by Malcolm Davies on individual poems of the Cycle,45 and the Companion to the Epic Cycle46 that has been edited by Marco Fantuzzi and me and covers a wide range of material pertaining to the notion and origin of the Cycle, the individual epics, language, narrative, aesthetics, artistic record on cyclic myth, and reception from Stesichorus and Ibycus to Imperial epic. In the field of fragmentary Greek epic, a major advance has been made possible after the publication of three standard editions of early Greek epic fragments by Alberto Bernabé,47 Malcolm Davies,48 and M.L. West,49 which have replaced Kinkel’s long outdated edition of epic fragments (1877). In the light of these editions, I have started a long-term project to provide fully-fledged commentaries on the extant remains of early Greek fragmentary epic, apart from the Epic Cycle, about which we are well served by the commentaries of M.L. West and M. Davies mentioned above. Two volumes have been published until now, one on Antiquarian

 41 ‘The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer’, 1977, 39–53. 42 The Greek Epic Cycle, 1989. 43 The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, 2001. 44 The Greek Epic Cycle. A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics, 2013. 45 The Theban Epics, 2014; The Aethiopis: Neo-Neoanalysis Reanalyzed 2016; The Cypria 2019. 46 The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception: A Companion, 2015. 47 Poetae Epici Graeci: Testimonia et Fragmenta. vol. I, 1987. 48 Epicorum Graecorum fragmenta, 1988. 49 Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC, 2003.

Introduction  XXVII

and Genealogical Epic50 and another one on Creophylus’ Oechalias Halosis and Pisander’s Heraclea.51 Two more (one on Panyassis’ Heraclea and the Theseis, and one on Choerilus’ Persica) are in the pipeline. Apart from these commentaries, my personal contribution to the study of Cyclic epic concerns theoretical, technical, and interpretive issues. In a joint study with Marco Fantuzzi, we have explored the evolution of the meaning and function of the Epic Cycle, tracing a process beginning with a notional Epic Cycle, continuing with a Panathenaic Cycle in sixth-century Athens, the actual invention of the Epic Cycle in the Classical Period, the limitation of the Cycle to a prose summary, and the final phase in which the Cycle is reduced to an excerpt accompanying the Iliad. On a technical level, I have studied the Cypria and the Telegony, showing how cautious we should be with respect to assigning a given fragment to a poem or author, the more so since we are faced with various problems originating by the diverse citation practice of different sources. As regards interpretive issues, I have explored both phraseological repetition in early Greek epic and the role of gods in the Epic Cycle. By investigating transferred phraseology and transferred motifs from the Theban and Trojan oral cyclic epic traditions to the Odyssey, I have argued that interformularity and intetraditionality operated between oral epic traditions of the Archaic Period which had achieved considerable stability in terms of diction and theme. Realizing that the Epic Cycle is a powerhouse for exploring the function of the gods in early Greek epic, I have studied several topics pertaining to the role of the divine in Cyclic epic. The emerging picture concerns a dichotomy not only between typical (wrath, rivalry, counseling, prophecies and signs, love, parentage of immortal and mortal children, joint intervention, messengers) and untypical epic themes (divine metamorphoses, conferring immortalization to humans) in the framework of which operate gods and mortals alike, but also between ‘unmarked’ and ‘marked’ forms of divine activity, the former being instrumental for the narrative, the latter playing no role in the unraveling of the plot. If these results are placed next to the neoanalytical theory that Cyclic epic reflects preHomeric oral epic traditions which functioned as sources for the Homeric epics, then we can see that the typical role of gods in oral cyclic epic was put in use by the Iliad and the Odyssey, whereas part of the untypical function of gods (im-

 50 Early Greek Epic Fragments I: Antiquarian and Genealogical Epic, 2017. 51 Early Greek Epic Fragments II: Kreophylos and Peisandros, 2022.

XXVIII  Introduction mortalization of humans)52 was transformed into heroic experience in Homeric epic.53 (iv) In the wake of the Oral Theory, the ‘word’ performance has become a buzz word in Homeric criticism. José M. González’s imposing monograph The Epic Rhapsode and his Craft: Homeric Performance in a Diachronic Perspective (2013) studies the performance of Homeric poetry across an impressive time span. It also calls attention to the ways mantic discourse, drama, and rhetorical practice help us understand how epic rhapsodes worked. Another important contribution that may be singled out is the volume Homer in Performance: Rhapsodes, Narrators, and Characters (2018), edited by Jonathan L. Ready and myself, with important contributions both about the history of rhapsodic performance and the function of Homeric narrators and characters as speakers. My own work, which consists in two chapters in the aforementioned edited volume and the monograph Τέχνη ραψωδική: η απαγγελία της επικής ποίησης από την αρχαϊκή έως την αυτοκρατορική εποχή (2018), focuses on the investigation of the performative context of epic poetry, and the historical and epigraphical study of rhapsodic performances of epic poetry from the Archaic to the Imperial Period. I lay special stress on the creative use of various elements of Homeric epic, which have been regularly employed as stylistic features, and treat them as performative pretexts, i.e. as cues that allow us to comprehend why they were used as props by rhapsodes while performing epic poetry. By surveying rhapsodic performances of epic poetry throughout the Greek world, I have argued for the wide geographical diffusion of performance venues of epic, a fact that testifies to the prestige of epic in the Archaic and Classical Period, as well as its use for the promotion of political aspirations. Following the spread and form of rhapsodic performance during the Hellenistic period, we see the process of creation of the rhapsodic profession. Rhapsodes no longer operate as individual performers of epic but belong to guilds of artists. New forms of epic are introduced and performed, and new epics are composed and performed next to Homer. The line drawn between the traditional rhapsode and the poet becomes gradually blurred, as the latter may perform his own poetry. The rise of the Homeristae who perform epic poetry in the theater is also a new development. This is a period of increase mobility, of multiple big festivals across the Greek world featuring rhapsodic contests, in which separate prizes are awarded for the best new

 52 A special case is presented by divine metamorphosis, which though narratively inactive in Cyclic epic became narratively significant in Homeric epic. 53 See also L. Slatkin, The Power of Thetis, 1991, 39, 121–122; M. Finkelberg, ‘Meta-Cyclic Epic and Homeric Poetry’, 2015, 137–138 (= 2020, 179–181).

Introduction  XXIX

epic poem and the best rhapsodic performance. This stunning diffusion of rhapsodic performance of epic poetry is turned on its head during the Imperial Period, when the geographical range of venues where rhapsodic performances are held dwindles, being mainly limited to areas associated with Homer and Hesiod, the two emblematic forefathers of Greek epic. Rhapsodic contests are now held only in a few places, and rhapsodes gradually lose their status, being restricted only to the performance of new epics or being subsumed by the Homeristae whose histrionics are better appreciated. The four parts of this volume (Homer, Hesiodic poetry, the Epic Cycle, and the performance of epic) delineate the framework of my research activity for the last twenty years. They reflect my belief in a balanced, multifarious, and nuanced study of early Greek epic that has not ceased to fascinate me.



Part I: Homer

 Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis The aim of this study is to offer a critical reassessment of the progress made in recent years with respect to two of the most fruitful schools of interpretation in Homeric research, i.e. Neoanalysis and Oral Theory. Though it is no novelty to argue that interpreting Homer in the 21st century asks for a holistic approach that allows us to reconsider some of our methodological tools and preconceptions concerning what we call Homeric poetry, there is still a ‘Great Divide’ in the scholarly community between Neoanalysis and Oral Theory.1 This division, which until recently was also a geographical and perhaps a cultural one, since most Neoanalysts came from the German-speaking world whereas most Oralists from the English-speaking countries,2 has often hindered open-minded discussions on a number of thorny issues, the more so since dogmatic approaches became so popular that a priori elimination of valuable arguments coming from the ‘other side’ was the rule.3 Before embarking on the presentation and exploration of a number of theoretical issues concerning these two schools of Homeric research, I would like to state that I strongly believe that both the neoanalytical and oral ‘booms’, which have to a large extent influenced the way we see Homer today, may be reevaluated if we are willing to endorse a more flexible approach to certain scholarly taboos pertaining to these two schools of interpretation. Song-traditions, formula, type-scenes, performance on the one hand, and motivgeschichtliche Forschung, Epic Cycle, on the other may not be so incompatible as we often tend to think. It is against this backdrop that I would like to discuss possible links and connections. In particular, some of the questions I would like to address are the following: is it possible to bypass the chronological barrier and see how oral epic traditions may have shaped, influenced, or even challenged the Homeric tradition? In what ways can the analysis of the formulaic system of Homeric language go beyond mere technical classification and open a window to specific

 1 See Fowler 2004, 230 n. 42: ‘It is difficult to reconcile Neoanalysis with an oral perspective, as the former thinks in terms of interrelations between fixed, if not written, texts’. He admits though that ‘[a]ny solution to these problems implies a view on Homer’s sense of text’. 2 For surveys of neoanalytical research in English, see Clark 1986, 379–384; Willcock 1997, 174–189. 3 See the apt expression by Thomas (1992, 35) with respect to the ‘Great Divide’ between ‘oral’ and ‘literary’ critics of Homer: ‘the result is deadlock and mutual disregard’. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-001

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis interpretive approaches?4 If certain formulas display features, which have been explained by their stemming from given formulaic prototypes, why is it not possible to trace the larger poetic and thematic patterns they belong to? If audience reception has played its role in the shaping of a tradition of Panhellenic authority, then what does it tell us about the other end of the communicative spectrum? What is the kind of tradition that emerges in this light? The nonlinear (strictly speaking) narrative progression of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, which is so much at odds with the chronological unraveling of the plot in the Cyclic Epics, has been explained as the result of the exquisite art of one or two monumental composers of the Homeric epics. But if we put aside the unprovable explanation of a historical poet, how are we to interpret the sophisticated management of time in the Iliad and the Odyssey? Why did these two traditions absorb and internalize so thoroughly specific narrative techniques, which have taken their ancient audiences by storm as early as the Archaic Period? Since orality rarely addresses questions like this and Neoanalysis ‘invents’ the solution of a historical poet (or at least it employs it as an end-product and a master key to quality), it is tempting to explore how a song tradition becomes qualitatively different (or even better) from other thematically and dictionally relevant song traditions. I have decided to classify the abovementioned questions into five separate sections that represent key aspects of what are generally thought to be the basic differences between Neonalysis and Oral Theory.5

. Textuality, Textification, and Text-Fixity By the term textuality I designate a number of attributes that comprise a text, while by the term ‘textualization’ I refer to the act or process of rendering as text, i.e. the ‘setting down as concrete and unchanging’.6 In the phrase ‘the novel textualizes the emotions’, the fact that the novel is composed in writing is not a necessary prerequisite for the creation of ‘concrete and unchanging emotions’. It is the ‘universe’ of the novel as a dynamic form of literature that de 4 For an excellent discussion of the flaws inherent in the equation between ‘formulaic’ and ‘oral’, see the pertinent remarks by Thomas 1992, 40–44. To rephrase what she has said, it is now beyond doubt that neither all oral poetry is formulaic nor is all formulaic poetry oral. 5 For two well-balanced discussions of similar theoretical issues, see Burgess 2006, 148–189; Currie 2006, 1–45. 6 Merriam-Webster s.v. ‘textualize’. I use this term almost in the same way with Ready (2019, 18) who employs the term ‘entextualization’.

Textuality, Textification, and Text-Fixity  

creases the fluidity of the emotions by embedding them into a cohesive system with its own rules and constraints. By the term ‘textification’7 I define the act or process of rendering as text by means of putting into writing, which can be either contemporaneous with the creation of the text or can operate as a transcript. In tandem with the aforementioned observations, textuality and textification represent two different forms of textual fixity: what is textualized is not necessarily textified though it can be textually fixed, and what is textified is textualized and usually, but not necessarily, textually fixed.8 A couple of examples will make this point clearer: a number of oral-derived epics such as the Nibelungenlied, Chanson de Roland, Mahabharata, or Digenes Akrites show high degrees of textuality before being textified, i.e. being put down to writing. Their textual fixity is thus prior and independent from their appearance in writing versions, provided that we do not interpret it in terms of textual variation, i.e. by means of variant readings in the manuscript tradition, but through factors such as diffusion, self-awareness, cross-referencing, and ‘a stable skeleton of narrative’.9 Let us turn our attention to an example in the Odyssey: when in 24.192– 202, the shadow of Agamemnon praises the absent Odysseus in the Underworld, he explicitly employs poetological terminology pertaining to an epic tradition of the *Nostoi that is later reflected in the post-Homeric Nostoi attributed to Agias of Troezen. Relative chronology proves beyond doubt that the Odyssey is here aware of an oral epic tradition (as indicated by the expression στυγερή ἀοιδή) dealing, at least partly, with the Atreidon kathodos and the murder of Agamemnon by Clytaemestra and Aegisthus. In other words, the oral epic tradition of the *Nostoi had acquired a high degree of textuality, since it is treated by the later epic tradition of the Odyssey as cohesive, having a specific identity, and being suitable for cross-referencing within the context of epic rivalry that can go so deep so as to suggest even thematic association through opposition.10 We can see in this example that text-fixity, as an identifiable and ‘stable skeleton of narrative’,11 has been achieved by means of textuality, not through textification, since the terminology employed in the aforementioned passage pertains solely and exclusively to song-traditions (στυγερή ἀοιδή — χαρίεσσα ἀοιδή).

 7 I use this term almost in the same way with Ready (2019, 108–109) who employs the term ‘textualization’. 8 See Finkelberg (2000, 9), who uses the thematic variation over secondary elements in the Cypria to show that writing does not necessarily lead to text-fixity. 9 Lord 20002, 99. 10 On the ‘internal’ expansion of the Odyssey, see Kullmann 1991, 447–449 (= 1992, 122–125). 11 Lord 20002, 99.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis During its first steps Neoanalysis argued that since the Iliad and the Odyssey clearly echo the Cyclic epics, then they should be dated after them.12 When it became evident that such a position was virtually untenable and given that some of these hypothetical unattested epics were, partly at least, ‘retraceable’ from the content of the Cyclic poems, Neoanalysts shifted to a more ‘mild’ position, according to which Homer had before his eyes a number of epic poems, parts of which have been later shaped in what we know as the poems of the Epic Cycle. In fact, Neonalysts attempted to reconstruct hypothetical written poems pre-dating Homer. To refer to a famous example, the second part of the postHomeric Aethiopis by Arctinus of Miletos is based on a lost pre-Homeric epic, the *Memnonis, which Schadewaldt attempted to reconstruct after using various sources and organizing the relevant material in four Books. Oral Theory was reluctant to accept the existence of written texts, at least as a prerequisite for performance. Written texts did exist but not before the end of the formative period of the Homeric tradition. According to Nagy’s evolutionary model for the making of Homeric poetry, it is first during phase 3 (from the middle of the 6th to the later part of the 4th century BC) that texts started to be used as transcripts in Athens.13 As a matter of fact, oralists who were ‘liberated’ from the idea of written texts predating ‘Homer’ could more easily accept that the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey represent song-traditions that have been formed through a systematic interaction with other song-traditions, among which cyclic traditions occupied a prominent place. Seen from this angle, the disparity between Neoanalysis and Oral Theory refers, as far as this matter is concerned, to the existence of written texts predating ‘Homer’. In fact, we would not be far from truth if we were to argue that the problem concerning written versus oral composition of the Iliad and Odyssey had been ‘transferred’ to the sources of Homeric poetry. Despite this obvious divergence between the two theories, few people would argue that, no matter what stance we take, it is extremely plausible that oral cyclic epics in the form of hexameter song-traditions pertaining mainly, but not solely, to the Trojan War mythical material would have existed before the definitive shaping of the Iliad and the Odyssey. In this respect, one should keep in mind that both these epic traditions and the Homeric epics may have shared  12 See e.g. the early attempts of Pestalozzi 1945, Schadewaldt 19654, and Kullmann 1960. Dihle 1970 rightly expressed his doubts about the priority of the Cycle. See also Griffin 1977, 39 n. 5, who was in favor of the idea that other, earlier poems dealing with the same themes may have influenced the Iliad and the Odyssey. For a revival of the old neonalytical belief that Homer had access to written texts like an*Achilleis or a *Memnonis, see Kopff 1983; Dowden 1996; Ballabriga 1998, 22–32. 13 Nagy 1996a, 42; 2003, 2–3; 2004, 27.

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certain central elements or pivots,14 which would also, at a later date, permeate the written epics of what we now call the post-Homeric Epic Cycle. I argue for the existence of such oral cyclic epics as master-manifestations of cyclic myth, namely of mythological traditions pertaining to the Theban and Trojan War sagas.15 The crucial question is though (a) what features we regard as constituting the nucleus of Cyclic poetry and (b) what reasons may have shaped this subtype of epic song in the Archaic Period.16 With respect to (a), I would basically repeat Monro’s, Rzach’s, Kullmann’s, and Griffin’s lists referring to the following features, which I classify into two groups comprising qualitative and stylistic-narrative elements:17 Qualitative: 1. The fantastic and exotic: the daughters (Oeno, Spermo, and Elais) of Anius in the Cypria produced what their names suggest and fed the Achaeans in Troy for nine years. 2. The miraculous: Medea rejuvenated Aeson in the Nostoi and Thetis took various shapes to escape from Peleus in the Cypria. 3. The romantic: Paris and Helen fell in love in Sparta, while Menelaus was absent (Cypria); Achilles had a love affair with Deidameia in Scyros (Cypria); Odysseus had a son from Penelope (Telemachus), a son from Calypso or Circe (Telegonus), and a son, Polypoetes, from the Thesprotian princess Callidice (Telegony). 4. Immortalization: Memnon was immortalized in the Aethiopis and Achilles was transported after his death by Thetis to the White Island. 5. Presentation of low human types and motives: heroes tried to avoid military service (Odysseus in the Cypria), Amphiaraus was also unwilling to participate in the expedition against Thebes (Thebais). 6. Individual villains: Tydeus had cannibalistic instincts and Capaneus was a blasphemer (Thebais). 7. Human relationships are neither deeply dramatized nor are they presented in their complexity. Over-simplification is the rule.18 In the Ilias parva, as far  14 Schoeck 1961, 101. 15 West (2011a, 36–37) re-employs the old analyst term Einzellied and offers a list of selfcontained episodes, which the poet of the Iliad himself had performed. 16 See Burgess 2006, 148–149. 17 Monro 1884, 1–41; Rzach in RE 8.2 s.v. ‘Kyklos’; Griffin 1977, 39–43. 18 See Rutherford 2001, 122–123. Only two or three features from Rutherford’s list can be employed with some degree of safety in drawing the line between the Homeric poems and Cyclic epic.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis as we can judge from the extant summary of Proclus, characters like Philoctetes and Neoptolemus on the Achaean side or Deiphobus in the Iliou persis on the Trojan side do not question the heroic code but are simply used as pawns that bring the war closer to its end.19 Likewise, Odysseus in the Telegony is not preoccupied at all with his return to Ithaca nor is he concerned with his military failure as leader of the Thesprotians against the Brygoi. 8. Predilection for oracles and prophecies: Helenus foretells the outcome of Paris’ journey to Sparta (Cypria); Cassandra prophesies about the future of Troy (Cypria); Helenus prophesies that Troy will only fall when the Achaeans bring Philoctetes from Lemnos and Neoptolemus from Scyros (Ilias parva).20 9. Realistic aspect: this is a noteworthy oxymoron of Cyclic epic,21 given its strongly deterministic character because of the oracles and prophecies and the romantic and miraculous features noted above. Still, episodes like the wounding of Philoctetes, the strife among the Achaeans, the famine, the passion for booty are some of the most typical manifestations of a historically oriented realism that the Iliad systematically downplays in favor of an internalization that seems to be lacking in Cyclic epic.22 Stylistic and Narrative: 1. Lack of a single protagonist around whose life and action the epic unfolds. There are multiple protagonists, each in one or two episodes, in the Cyclic epics. The Aethiopis and the Telegony seem to stand apart but more careful consideration shows that they are also different from the Homeric epics in this respect, since they represent a rather loose concatenation of events pertaining to the life of Achilles and Odysseus respectively, until their death. The Penthesilea and Memnon episodes are not linked but through Achilles, and they are very different in nature. The same is the case with the Elis and Thesprotia journeys of Odysseus in the Telegony, which are carried out for different reasons. In both epics, the first episode (Penthesilea, Elis) was more restricted in length and dramatic than the second one (Memnon, Thesprotia), after the completion of which the protagonist participated in a  19 Contrast the Iliad, in which both Achilles and Hector, the best heroes of the Achaean and Trojan armies respectively, are figures whose reactions to the heroic code are strongly problematized. 20 Kullmann (1960, 221–223) lists 17 cases of oracles and prophecies in the Epic Cycle. 21 This observation reinforces the argument presented in chapter 9 (this volume) about the ‘Proto-Panhellenic’ nature of Cyclic poetry. Typical of this early stage of Panhellenization was the co-existence of realistic and supernatural, magical, and fantastic features. 22 See Kullmann 1960, 223.

Textuality, Textification, and Text-Fixity  

brief third episode (fighting against Apollo and Paris, returning to Ithaca and facing Telegonus respectively) during which the hero died. Finally, both epics ended with one more episode: the Aethiopis with the strife for the arms of Achilles, the Telegony with the double marriages in Aeaea of Telemachus with Circe and of Telegonus with Penelope. 2. Speeches are not used as the main arena for conflicts between heroes or important developments for the plot. Their rhetorical and emotional impact may have been limited. The curse of Oedipus to his sons in the Thebais is left to the narrator and is given in reported speech.23 The situation is very different from Homeric epic, in which the narrator offers limited comments on the personalities of its heroes.24 3. Repetition and over-elaboration: the use of repetitive diction even in passages of prime importance (curse of Oedipus on his sons in the Thebais); there are too many epithets in the description of Aphrodite’s preparation for the Judgment of Paris (Cypria). 4. Fondness for doublets (Motivdubletten):25 the double prophecies of Calchas and Anius about the duration of the Trojan War (Cypria); the double deliverance of the Achaeans from the famine, first by the daughters of Anius and then by Palamedes (Cypria); the duplication of the prerequisite for the fall of Troy, as both Philoctetes and Neoptolemus need to be brought to Troy by Odysseus (Ilias parva). 5. Hastiness: in the Cypria Lynceus sees Castor and Pollux hiding in a hollow oak and the next moment he is attacking them at the tree. 6. Episodic narrative lacking a unifying thread:26 all the Cyclic epics progress in linear manner, containing various small episodes, some of which could  23 Griffin 1977, 49. In this respect, Cyclic poetry stands closer to Hesiod. See e.g. the episode of Pandora in Works and Days that is given solely in indirect discourse, despite the fact that it contains at least three occasions in which direct speech could have been employed (Zeus’ orders to the various gods, Hermes’ order to Epimetheus, and Prometheus’ advice to Epimetheus). 24 Rutherford 2001, 122. The conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles in the Iliad is basically the result of a series of speeches uttered by both heroes and some other Achaean leaders in Book 1. 25 Doublets are also attested in Homeric poetry, but the difference from Cyclic epic is that in Homer they do not refer to the same event, whereas in the Cycle they do. Homeric epic is particularly fond of the so-called ‘anticipatory doublets’, i.e. the ‘foreshadowing of a coming event, theme or scene by a minor replica of itself. The latter instance is usually more fully developed, emotionally intense, and significant’ (de Jong 2001, xi). 26 This does not mean that Cyclic epic is deprived of anachronies, i.e. analepses and prolepses or other sophisticated narrative techniques like retardation, on which see Rengakos 2015a,

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis be easily taken out without harming the plot.27 This is impossible in the case of the Iliad and the Odyssey where every single episode is crucial for the plot, the only exception being perhaps the Doloneia.28 As far as (b) is concerned (i.e. the reasons that have shaped Cyclic epic in the Archaic Period), I would like to postulate an early stage of the Panhellenic phenomenon, during which the strongest elements pertaining to epichoric or local traditions were able to make their way into the Panhellenizing tendency of Cyclic epic. The process of epicization and Panhellenization was not one and the same,29 since I believe that not only there were epic song-traditions that did not evolve into Panhellenic epic but also that there were different phases in the process of Panhellenization. In an early Panhellenic stage that I would like to call ‘Proto-Panhellenism’, proto-cyclic poetry that emerged from various songtraditions dealing with the two great heroic sagas of the Theban and Trojan wars, which related two great expeditions and were thus reflecting the rising Panhellenic phenomenon, was characterized by (i) a blending of epichoric material and a generalizing tendency overriding local versions, (ii) suppression but not elimination of supernatural features that were gradually ‘degraded’ into secondary elements,30 (iii) presentation of low human types and motives, and  160–161. The episodic nature of Cyclic poetry is evident in the clearly discernible building blocks of the plot, which create the impression of ‘piling up’ material. This becomes clear when one considers even the most typical examples of the alleged dramatic Cyclic epics, the Aethiopis and the Ilias parva: in the former, the episode of Penthesilea is solely connected to that of Memnon through Achilles, since it does not contribute in any significant way to the final countdown for Achilles; in the latter that has been rightly called ‘a fast-pace episodic epic with a lot of ground to cover’ (Holt 1992, 319), multiple prophecies concerning the fall of Troy do not bring any result, although the Achaeans carry them out without fail (Philoctetes is brought to Troy from Lemnos, the Palladium is stolen, and Neoptolemus is brought to Troy from Scyros). The poet of the Ilias parva seems to have tried to include in the plot too many different episodes that took place after the end of Achilles and before the sack of Troy. The scorn of Aristotle (Po. 1459b) seems reasonable. 27 On the cyclic impulse of episodic narratives in Odysseus’ false tales, see Tsagalis 2012a. 28 For contrasting views concerning Iliad 10, see Danek 1988; Dué and Ebbott 2010; Tsagalis (forthcoming (b) and (c)). 29 Contra Hölscher 19903, 170. 30 Supernatural features do exist in Cyclic epics, but they are not spread to the entire plot nor do they permeate their thematic agenda wholesale. Thus, there is no Cyclic epic in which crucial events are decided by a miraculous phenomenon. The daughters of Anius feed the entire Achaean army, but their function is subordinated to the Palamedes-Odysseus conflict. The fall of Troy requires the stealing of the Palladium but does not cancel the stratagem of the Wooden Horse.

Criteria for Originality and the Metacyclic Nature of Homeric Poetry  

(iv) a strongly episodic nature.31 To use a telling example, in an alternative version of Odysseus’ return as reconstructed by Odysseus’ false tales, we can still discern traces of the three aspects of ‘Proto-Panhellenic’ cyclic epic as described above: a visit to Thesprotia, the use of poisonous arrows by Odysseus for killing the suitors, a Phoenician cheat, and narrative linearity with the various selfcontained episodes of his wanderings involving heroes and/or armies coming from different places. Thus, it is plausible that cyclic poetry is an early manifestation of the phenomenon of Panhellenism, occupying the middle ground between ‘Pre-Panhellenic’ song-traditions and the full-blown Panhellenic Homeric epics.

. Criteria for Originality and the Metacyclic Nature of Homeric Poetry Whereas Neoanalysis has stressed that motif transference ‘the secondary Homeric reflection of a primary specific motif that exists in oral traditions’32 is a touchstone of Homeric poetics, Oral Theory has time and again emphasized that motifs and themes are typical and to that extent the very idea of priority becomes pointless. This is a rather thorny issue, both because the dichotomy between originality and typology has been treated as absolute and rigid and because both schools of thought have opted, at least at some point in the history of their development, for a kind of interpretive orthodoxy that leaves little, if any, room for significant and self-critical reappraisals.33 My analysis will take the form of a careful consideration of a list of criteria that I consider appropriate  31 Welcker (18822, 2.235–236) had drawn the line between chronographic epic (Cypria and Ilias parva) and dramatic epic (Aethiopis and Iliou persis), the former being a loose concatenation of various episodes with only a broad thematic unity and various protagonists, the latter concentrating on a limited space and time and a single character (Achilles) or episode (sack of Troy). According to this line of interpretation, the Nostoi (see Bethe 1922, 277) represent a combination of these two types of classification (chronographic and dramatic), since they are marked by ring-composition with respect to their structure (they begin and end with the Atreidai) and by the so-called ‘interlace technique’, i.e. that of interweaving parallel storylines. The Telegony may also be considered as oscillating between chronographic epic (in the sense that it is not limited to a single place and time) and dramatic epic in the manner of the Aethiopis (focusing on a single hero, Odysseus). All Cyclic epics, whether chronographic or dramatic, display an episodic nature. See Rengakos 2015a, 154–163. 32 Burgess 2006, 161. 33 Notable exceptions: Kullmann 1984, 307–323 (= 1992, 140–155); Burgess 2001; 2006; Currie 2006; Marks 2008; Tsagalis 2008.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis for dealing with the matter at hand, and then of a critical discussion of the notion of ‘metacyclic’ with respect to Homeric poetry at large.34 The criteria for discussing issues pertaining to arguments about the limits and limitations of typology are the following:

.. Limited Repetition Repetition is not in itself a feature pertaining solely to typical structures, for it permeates both traditional and non-traditional storytelling, oral and written alike. Limited repetition of motifs or themes is often significant. Pairing of elements points to stronger correspondence by decreasing the level of systemic coincidence which is endemic in typical structures. The fact that only Achilles in the Iliad and Memnon in the Aethiopis possess a suit of armor made by Hephaestus cannot be either accidental or typical. This is obvious from both the fact that other heroes have special weapons (Philoctetes has the bow of Heracles, Rhesus has magnificent horses, Achilles has horses with speaking abilities), but not a Hephaestus-made armor, and also because the fates of Achilles and Memnon are intricately entwined.

.. Weaker and Stronger Aspects within an Associative Mechanism We must distinguish between parallel and derivative (or anticipatory) doublets. With respect to the former, their duplication is not meaningful or significant but symptomatic. For example, in his longest false tale to Eumaeus in Od. 14, Odysseus the storyteller tells the swineherd that he was twice deceived by Phoenician and Thesprotian pirates. This doublet is a result of the use of a typical motif that is reiterated in the process of the false tale as it belongs to the larger narrative pattern ‘Double Salvation at Sea and on Shore of a Man Returning Home’. Conversely, in the case of derivative (anticipatory) doublets,35 one of the two elements is more peripheral to the semantical nucleus of the doublet, while the other is central and constitutes the target at which the association aims. Although the very idea of a doublet points to reiteration, there are at least two criteria that can help us examine the possibility of a relationship between them:

 34 On the term ‘metacyclic’, see Finkelberg 1998, 154–155; 2002, 160; 2003, 79. 35 Fenik 1968, 213–214; Edwards 1987, 50–51; 1991, 19–20.

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(i) the distinction between weaker and stronger aspects,36 and (ii) the relative importance of each of the elements of the doublet in the overall structure of an episode or epic. Let us look at the following example which has been time and again discussed in the past.37 The flame burning around the heads of Diomedes (Il. 5.4–8) and Achilles (Il. 18.205–214, 225–227) is not an accidental phenomenon but may well indicate a deeper association, since both of the above criteria are met: (i) Diomedes represents the weaker aspect, for the appearance of the flame above his head is used at the beginning of his aristeia in Book 5 that will have no significant result for the Iliad, whereas Achilles’ flame is used before his entrance to battle, which will lead to the death of Hector and will bring the Iliad to its destined end. Achilles is undoubtedly the stronger aspect of this associative mechanism, the ‘end’ — so to speak — at which the doublet aims.38 (ii) Apart from the fact that the link between Diomedes and Achilles is indeed extensive in the entire poem,39 the significance of Achilles for the Iliad is by far greater than that of Diomedes, a hero belonging to the core of the Theban tradition of the Epigonoi who has been ‘imported’ to the myth of the Trojan War and who, though a first-rank hero, is not directly linked to the theme of µῆνις.

.. Narrative Inconsistency Narrative fissures are often due to motif-transference from a context, in which they were primary and organically linked to the whole, to a new context where they have been adapted. Motifs are, when seen within the whole system of epic song-making, typical but through a process of structuration they can become specific, i.e. be tied to certain characters and actions. In other words, they are diachronically typical but synchronically specific. As such, their transference from a context where they are primary to a context where they are secondary

 36 See Olrik 1992, 97 § 157: ‘[…] it may also happen that a narrator imitates already existing ones out of his desire to create new episodes. In this way a derived doublet comes into existence, whose characteristic feature will be that throughout it is weaker than its model’. 37 Schoeck 1961, 75–80; Alden 2000, 169–175; see also Burgess 2006, 157 and n. 22: ‘Trojans explicitly compare the two at 6.96–101. Their prayer that Diomedes will fall at the Scaean gates at 6.306–307 could be an allusion to Achilles’ fate’. 38 I am not arguing that the motif ‘Flame about a Hero’s Head’ was used in the Theban or another oral tradition and was taken by the Iliad from there. On the contrary, the motif was reduplicated to be used peripherally for Diomedes within the context of his being a mirror of Achilles in the early parts of the Iliad. 39 See Wehr 2015, 15–48.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis often results in narrative dysfluencies.40 Thus, narrative inconsistencies in Od. 19.96–604 can be explained as a result of the adaptation of scenes and sequences from an earlier poem about Odysseus. In this poem Penelope herself washed Odysseus’s feet and not Eurycleia (Odyssey), then recognized her husband, plotted with him the killing of the suitors, and started to execute this plan by proposing the contest of the bow. In this way, dysfluencies like that of Eurycleia’s recognition of Odysseus having no consequence for the plot and the rather awkward fact of Penelope not recognizing the clothes of Odysseus, since they are part of a narrative set in the past, have resulted from the adaptation of material employed in an earlier epic tradition featuring an equivalent episode but with a radical shift in meaning.41

.. Intertextuality Given that there are stronger and weaker forms of intertextuality,42 allusive interaction between poetic versions is very much at work within epic songtraditions. This referencing can take the form of: (a) quotation of the source, which involves close and significant correspondence between two versions43 and is often expressed in poetological terms, i.e. the source is acknowledged not through verbal repetition or correspondence but by means of paying tribute to its existence as a distinct and identifiable poetic tradition:44 Ἀργὼ πᾶσι µέλουσα in Od. 12.70 (*Argonautica),45 στυγερή ἀοιδή in Od. 24.200 (*Nostoi). (b) Explicit or implicit references that amount to orientation of the audience towards recognizable song-traditions: when Diomedes (Il. 5.115–120) asks for the assistance of Athena who has helped his father Tydeus in the past,46 so that he may kill his opponent who boasts that he will put Diomedes to death, the audience would easily recall that Tydeus’ cannibalism in the Thebais may have been triggered by similar reasons.47 Tiresias’ prophecy that Odysseus will be finally free from suffering when he appeases the wrath of Poseidon by wandering with an oar on his shoulder in a land where people do not know of the sea in Od. 11.100–137 (=  40 See Rutherford 1996, 71; Currie 2006, 7. 41 Danek 1998, 41–71; Currie 2006, 16–20. 42 On intertextuality in Homeric epic, see Tsagalis 2008; 2011b, 413–414. 43 Currie 2006, 6; 2016, 47–55. 44 In this respect my classification is slightly different from that of Currie (2006, 6). 45 The phrase πᾶσι µέλουσα clearly indicates poetry that is widely sung. 46 An event of which the audience has been reminded in Il. 4.390. 47 See Torres-Guerra 1995, 59; Kullmann 2002a, 168.

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23.263–287) keys the audience to an oral epic tradition whose plot is the continuation of Odysseus’ saga after the end of the Odyssey and which is partly reflected in the Cyclic Telegony by Eugammon of Cyrene.48 (c) Epic self-reflexive tendencies, i.e. meta-traditional intertextuality: Helen’s reference to her own self as the subject of future song (Il. 6.357–358) and Agamemnon’s designation of the Odyssey as a χαρίεσσα ἀοιδή (Od. 24.197–198) constitute self-referential comments of the Homeric epics within the wider framework of oral songtraditions. (d) Implicit allusion to alternative versions of a given song-tradition which are not attested independently: the alternative Odyssey(s) lying behind the false tales of Odysseus and some other passages scattered here and there throughout the Odyssey allude to rival versions of the hero’s return.49 (e) Inversion of the source, in which the text- or tradition-receiver uses a source and turns it on its head: the Theban tradition of attacking a walled city has been employed by the Iliad so as to reverse aggressors and defenders. While there is hardly a siege of Troy since the Trojan army constantly exits the city and fights in the plain, the motif is inverted by means of the siege of the Achaean Wall by the Trojans. In this way, the Achaeans who are attacking Troy are turned into defenders, as they struggle to save their ships. Briseis may be a mirror of Helen as presented in the Epic Cycle at large but the Iliad partly inverts the context within which she functions: while Helen is the cause of the Trojan War between two peoples (Achaeans and Trojans), Briseis does the very same thing but within the Achaean army. (f) Parody of the source: the lion simile in Od. 6.130–136, in which Odysseus who tries to hide his nakedness with a branch is compared to a lion ready to attack sheep or cattle because it is forced by hunger (κέλεται δὲ ἑ γαστήρ), plays with an Iliadic lion simile (12.299–306), in which the formula κέλεται δὲ ἑ θυµὸς ἀγήνωρ is appropriately used for the carnivorous appetite of the lion. The fact that this parody works only for us as external audience reinforces the likelihood that it is an Iliadic resonance. For the internal audience of Nausicaa and her maids it is shockingly realistic.50 (g) Diachronically diffused associations between Homer and non-identifiable traditions reconstructed by the exploration of older Indo-European or Near Eastern strata: this is the weakest form of intertextuality, which many scholars would simply degrade to the level of a resonance. But the fact that we are not able to determine the specific poetic tradition from which the source stems should not deter us from treating this as a

 48 See Tsagalis 2008, 63–90. 49 On this topic, see Hölscher 19903 passim; van Thiel 1988; Schwinge 1993; Danek 1998. 50 See Rutherford 2001, 139–140.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis form of interactive evocation,51 a less strong form of allusive reference that refuses reference.52 The meaning of the formula νυκτὸς ἀµολγῷ53 may represent a diachronically diffused association that does not belong to a single text or tradition but can be reconstructed by means of various attestations of the mythical context from which it has originated as reflected in different Indo-European and partly Near-Eastern traditions. In this case, what Homeric epic ‘refuses’ is not the reference but its acknowledgment. (h) Window of allusion,54 in which an allusive reference points first to a given tradition (A) and then, through this tradition, to other older ones (B), parts of which have made their way into (A). The Thesprotia episode that recurs in Odysseus’ false tales passes through the ‘window’ of an alternative epic on Odysseus’ return and leads to epichoric traditions on Odysseus’ wanderings extending in a south-north Western Greek axis. Odysseus’ visit to the Underworld points to Greek katabasis traditions (e.g. Heracles), which go back to older Near-Eastern traditions, one of which we can still trace in the Utnapishtim episode in the epic of Gilgamesh.

.. Bifurcation or Splitting of the Source According to this Homeric technique, ‘the qualities of one character are split and distributed among two other parallel characters’.55 Bifurcation or splitting of the source can be either internal or external. The splitting and distribution of certain features of Achilles to the two second-best Achaean warriors, Diomedes and Ajax the Telamonian, is an example of internal bifurcation or splitting as it does not stem from an external source. On the other hand, two famous cases of external bifurcation or splitting are the following: ‘Memnon in the *Memnonis (Aethiopis) is reflected on both Hector and Sarpedon in the Iliad’.56 The CalypsoCirce doublet is the result of the split and subsequent distribution of qualities pertaining to the goddess Siduri in the epic of Gilgamesh (concealment through  51 On relevant terminology, see Currie 2016, 33–36. 52 Currie 2006, 7. 53 See Tsagalis 2003, 5–40 (= 2008, 153–187). 54 On the various types of allusion, see Thomas 1986, 171–198. 55 Louden 2006, 317 s.v. ‘bifurcation’. 56 Currie 2006, 38 and n. 167 and 2016, 55–67. Memnon-Hector (both kill Achilles’ best friend and are subsequently killed by Achilles; both are wearing at the moment of their fatal duel with Achilles a Hephaestus-made armor); Memnon-Sarpedon (their bodies are removed from the battlefield by Dawn and Hypnos and Thanatos respectively. Differently, Burgess 1997, 1–19; West 2003c, 1–14; Allan 2005, 1–16; Burgess 2009, 76–81.

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clothing — Calypso meaning ‘the Concealed’ and knowledge about the Underworld — Circe).57

.. Versioning By ‘versioning’ I define the creation and storing of a personal contribution within a given version or a hint to present performance. Versioning can take the following forms: (a) epic hesitation in the form of rhetorical questions: when the singer hesitates about how to begin a catalogue or narrative, he is employing what seems to be a completely traditional technique of rhetorical questions pertaining to the order in which he should present his material (‘whom should I mention first? Whom should I mention last?’). The strongly metaleptic effect of this mechanism is at the same time a ‘recording’ of the bard’s own process of delivering his song, but it has become during the shaping of Homeric poetry a typical device that is embedded, so to speak, in the system of traditional epic. At some stage in the process of the creation and shaping of Homeric song it may have represented an original feature of certain performances, the more so since it would signal to the audience that this specific singer is pointing to other versions of a given catalogue that his listeners had heard before, presumably by another bard. (b) If-not situations (Beinahe Episoden),58 in which the singer moves away from the predetermined course of the plot and seems to endorse a different approach. Whether we are dealing with entire episodes or the simpler contrary-to-fact conditionals (καί νύ κεν / ἔνθά κεν … εἰ µή / ἀλλά…) the emphasis lies on what has been coined ‘suspense of anticipation’. Apart from the dramatic effect of this narrative mechanism, the bards may have used this device to remind their audience of the constraints imposed by the core of the Trojan War saga which simply excluded certain options. The continuation of the unraveling of the epic’s plot is then presented through the lens of an alternative course of events that is never materialized. By creating and then annulling the illusion of a different outcome, the bards covertly reminded the audience of their being part of a system of rules allowing them only a partial shaping of the plot. (c) Ending a catalogue: the point at which the singer decides to stop a catalogue or list may be still seen in certain Homeric examples. In the catalogue of Nereids in Iliad 18 the final line (18.49: ἄλλαι θ’ αἳ κατὰ βένθος ἁλὸς Νηρηΐδες ἦσαν) points to the singer’s choice to select only a given number of Nereids from the stock of  57 On Calypso and Siduri, see Crane 1988, 131 and 134 n. 20 with further bibliography. 58 See Nesselrath 1992.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis names he is aware of and to indicate when he wants his list to be over.59 (d) Acknowledgment of the bard’s limited capacities: what seems a typical feature of Homeric poetry, i.e. the inability of the singer to remember the past without the help of the Muses, is at the same time a sophisticated way of avoiding blame for his performance. His ‘inability’ to recall the names and leaders of the Achaeans and Trojans makes more sense if seen within the framework of his concern for a positive reception by the audience. Such remarks have become crystallized as traditional rhetorical mechanisms of epic diction, but they reflect the very politics of the performance and as such contain in fossilized form features pertaining to individual contributions made by the singers. (e) Indirect reference to the present performance that is included in the totality of previous performances:60 the use of ἡµεῖς in Il. 2.486, µοι in Od. 1.1 and καὶ ἡµῖν in Od. 1.10 indicates that the present performance, though distinct and particular, belongs to a sum of previous performances by multiple bards. With respect to Il. 2.486, the here-and-now of the actual performance will soon (Il. 2.488–493) become evident by means of the first-person verbal forms (µυθήσοµαι, ὀνοµήνω, ἐρέω), the dative of the personal pronoun (µοι that is used twice), and by the indexicality of the particle αὖ (again, now).61 In the case of καὶ ἡµῖν in Od. 1.10, the bard may be simply saying that he asks the Muse to tell the story of Odysseus to him and his audience here-and-now. The enigmatic καί (‘too’) may, in my view, point to the actual performance (‘tell us too, as you have told others’, i.e. bards and audiences).62 (f) Covert allusion to different kinds of audiences by means of presenting contrasting models of an internal audience:63 given that Eumaeus and Alcinoos as internal audiences of Odysseus’ tales are so markedly different and that Odysseus has the opportunity to experience as an internal audience of Demodocus’ songs the fame he has already acquired as a hero of the Trojan War,64 it is not unthinkable that the Odyssey has internalized a variety of its own perfor-

 59 On this verse, see the pertinent observations of Kakridis 1949, 75. Differently Edwards 1991, 150; cf. Tsagalis 2010, 325 n. 6. 60 Nagy 1997, 188–189. 61 See Bonifazi 2008, 35–64. 62 Differently Bakker 2009, 134, who takes ‘too’ as indicating ‘in addition to Odysseus’, because the events narrated in the proem are the adventures of Odysseus as told by Odysseus. Apart from the fact that only a single adventure is mentioned (Thrinacia), it would be very awkward to ask the Muse for a singing ability which she will give to Odysseus only after the completion of 8 Books. Moreover, if that was the case, then the bard would not have asked for divine help with respect to narrating the rest of the Odyssey. 63 Louden 1999, 60. 64 Murnaghan 1987, 153.

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mance conditions. Different categories of audiences and circumstances of performance have been, therefore, filtered in and become a significant part of the poem’s agenda. In this light, the second-person apostrophe to Eumaeus may designate him ‘as a significant internal audience’.65

.. Explanation of Events by Reference to Fate or Divine Will This may be a sophisticated way that the system of epic song has developed, in order to refer to its avowal (κατὰ µοῖραν) or disavowal (ὑπὲρ µοῖραν) to tradition.66 Demodocus is asked by Odysseus to sing the story of the Trojan Horse κατὰ µοῖραν, which means ‘according to destiny’, i.e. according to the traditional version that epic song presented as the one prescribed by fate. On the contrary, when Poseidon intervenes so that Aeneas is saved, the audience (as well as Aeneas) are told that the Trojan’s death would have been ὑπὲρ µοῖραν (‘beyond destiny’), which means against the tradition determining that Aeneas will not die at Troy. Along the same lines, the ‘Will of Zeus’, which points to a preHomeric motif, has become in the Iliad synonymous with the largest part of the plot. The ‘Will of Zeus’ pertaining to the support he offers to the Trojans until the Achaeans realize how much they have insulted Achilles, is thus an alias of the Iliadic version of the theme of µῆνις.

.. Diachronic Skewing By diachronic skewing I define, following Nagy,67 ‘the ability and tendency of the medium of epic song to refer to itself in terms of earlier stages of its existence’. Thus, the presentation of Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey as performing their songs in the accompaniment of a stringed instrument (the κίθαρις or the φόρµιγξ) is at odds with the reduced melody and the lack of instrumental accompaniment that characterizes epic hexameter in the Classical and Hellenistic periods. In the words of Nagy, ‘just as the Homeric testimony about the performance of epic by singers at feasts belies the synchronic reality of the performance of epic by rhapsodes at Panhellenic festivals, so also the  65 Louden 1999, 62. 66 Pestalozzi 1945, 40; Kullmann 1956; Fränkel 19622, 62–64; Matthews 1976; Richardson 1990, 194; Nagy 19992, 40 and § 17 n. 2; Janko 1992, 6; Currie 2006, 7. 67 Nagy 1990a, 394 (= 2003, 39).

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis Homeric testimony about the singer’s singing to the accompaniment of the lyre belies the synchronic reality of the rhapsode’s reciting without any accompaniment at all’.68 In other words, the way Phemius and Demodocus are presented in the Odyssey ‘may be diachronically valid without being synchronically true’.69 Diachronic skewing can also create the illusion that it projects itself in time: one can see that in Il. 3.125–128, when Helen is described weaving a tapestry on which the deeds of the Achaeans and Trojans are depicted, the medium of epic song is embedding in its plot a proleptic reference to its future fame. The Trojan War and, by a slight inference, the Iliad have become poetry, i.e. they have been crystallized to such an extent that they cite themselves as future cultural creations. What Helen does is diachronically valid, though synchronically it is not. As it can be inferred from these two examples, the medium of epic song is able to ‘see’ itself within its diachronic evolution, by offering a glance to different stages of its history. Thus, a fifth-century audience listening to the Homeric epics would have realized that the Iliad and the Odyssey display even an awareness of the medium they belong to and the status they have, not only of the process of their own shaping.

.. Elliptical Reference and Traditional Referentiality The abbreviated and highly condensed nature of allusive references may be indicative of a telling gesture made by the singer to his audience, whose knowledge of other versions is assumed and put into use.70 In Il. 3.146–148, Tithonus is missing from the list of Trojan elders on the walls of Troy, because ‘Homer’ has changed the traditional simile based on the cicada-Tithonus imagery into a simile that is consonant with the Iliadic instead of the Aethiopic content of the epic.71 When the ellipsis of Tithonus’ name in the list of Trojan elders is combined with the simile of the cicadas a few lines later (Il. 3.151–152: ἐσθλοί, τεττίγεσσιν ἐοικότες οἵ τε καθ’ ὕλην/δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενοι ὄπα λειριόεσσαν ἱεῖσι), then it becomes clear that the singer is making a telling gesture to the audience: by assuming that they are aware of the transformation of endlessly ageing Tithonus into a cicada, he invites them to fill in the missing details and realize this carefully designed innuendo: what the elders do momentarily in the  68 Nagy 1990a, 24 (= 2003, 43). 69 Nagy 1990a, 394 (= 1996b, 20 n. 27 = 2003, 39). 70 Currie, 2006, 7. 71 Danek 2006, 66–67.

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world of the simile (speaking like cicadas) Tithonus has been condemned to do for ever in real life. The term traditional referentiality has been used to describe the fact that formulaic expressions or themes acquire their full semantical potential when they are interpreted within a galaxy of signifiers reflecting the entirety of their uses within epic song. In the words of Foley: traditional referentiality […] entails the invoking of a context that is enormously larger and more echoic than the text or work itself, that brings the lifeblood of generations of poems and performances to the individual performance or text. Each element in the phraseology or narrative thematics stands not simply for that singular instance but for the plurality and multiformity that are beyond the reach of textuality.72

Traditional referentiality ‘makes notionally present what is dictionally absent, i.e. it makes the text yield to the tradition, the individual formula ‘return’ to the family of formulas from which it originated’.73 Seen from this angle, ellipsis can be seen as one of the main features of traditional referentiality. This point is further strengthened, if we take into account that traditional phraseology functions as an index to various manifestations (be it a character, an object, or an event) of a wholeness encompassing the entire tradition.74 In both cases, invoking an absent context is at work, the difference being what kind of context (a given tradition or the tradition at large) we envisage this to be. The aim of this detailed presentation was to map out as consistently as possible the metacyclic nature of Homeric epic, which employs mythological traditions and cyclic epic material to implement its full meaning on the one hand,75 and displays a self-awareness both with respect to its status and medium on the other. Such a highly interactive character and self-consciousness indicate that allusive intertextuality was indeed operating between gradually fixed performance traditions. In this vein, an oral, intertextual neoanalysis76 is possible, one allowing for active reprise or evocation by motif transference. Oral, intertextual neoanalysis favors the idea of creative interaction between oral epic traditions and highlights narrative fissures as markers discernible by the audience.77 There  72 Foley 1991, 7. 73 Tsagalis 2008, 188. 74 See the pars pro toto principle of Foley (1999, 20). 75 Burgess 2006, 149. 76 See Burgess 2006, 166–177. 77 Burgess 2006, 170. Interaction with other epic traditions is a basic parameter of artistic creativity, which an inspiration-oriented tradition amply uses. See Finkelberg (1990, 293–303), who draws the line between South Slavic and Greek epic traditions, arguing that while the

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis is, however, a necessary caveat, which may take the form of an important question: in a highly oral medium such as early Greek epic, are we allowed to speak of intentionality either in terms of a historically determined author or a developed poetic tradition? In other words, is oral intertextual neoanalysis a product of authorial (personal or tradition-oriented) intentionality or simply a product of the system of traditional oral song, even a means by which oral epic grew and shaped itself? This demanding but important issue I will now try to explore.

. The ‘cf.’ Dilemma: Multiplicity of Traces and Significant Allusion In an exemplary essay published some years ago, Don Fowler spoke about the ‘cf. theory’, which refers to the almost inherent obsession of our commentarymarked discipline to gather parallels.78 By adding the word ‘dilemma’ in the title of this subsection, I emphasize the importance of discussing the direction towards which parallels work, how they interact with the ‘text’ in question and create meaning. This question is further complicated by the fact that, like human beings, texts or oral traditions do not exist in isolation but have grown out of their interaction (‘reading’ in some sense) of other texts or traditions, for otherwise they would have been virtually incomprehensible. There is no conceptio immaculata with respect either to the creation or the interpretation of any form of literature. Having said this, I would like to consider the following scenario, which abides by my approach concerning the applicability of an oral, intertextual neoanalysis to Homeric epic. In tandem with this approach, the ‘cf. theory’ needs to be seen with respect to the dilemma between the multiplicity of traces left by earlier poetic traditions and the possibility of significant allusion. Of course, various constraints need to be taken into consideration: (a) the distinction between mythological and epic traditions, (b) the determination of criteria for evaluating different audiences, and (c) the performance context. (a) If allusion is widely employed in the case of Homeric poetry, how are we to decide whether it is a ‘generic’ or a ‘systemic’ feature working on the level of myth and not one pointing to specific epic traditions? This question is different from the one posed in the previous section in that this time it is not allusion that is questioned but its application. It is no novelty of course to argue that ancient  former ‘are premised on the authority of the tradition’, the latter ‘are premised on the authority of divine inspiration’ (302–303). 78 Fowler 2000, 116–117.

The ‘cf.’ Dilemma: Multiplicity of Traces and Significant Allusion  

audiences possessed a collective knowledge of myth that they brought to a performance. This undoubtable fact seems to undermine the claim that ancient audiences were able to recognize allusive references, but the apparent distinction between mythological traditions floating in various forms in specific epic traditions, though prima facie categorical and rigid, is a form of modus tollens. Since epic poetry had reached a level of wide diffusion, acceptance, and an unprecedented status in archaic Greece, it is not unthinkable that mythological traditions would have acquired the status of epic traditions. Members of the audience had been aware about the Meleager myth through various media (general storytelling, epic songs, lyric, perhaps vase-painting), but the way it is presented and used in the Iliad would have keyed the audience to an epic note, since an extended narrative about him would have acquired fame and status basically through epic storytelling, which means a diffused tradition about this Aetolian hero sung in dactylic hexameter poetry. To use an example based on modern experience, rock concerts don’t inspire intertextual thought of sonatas, even if an audience member knows both rock and Bach. The elliptical nature of the myth as presented in Iliad 9 and its deeply rooted connection to the situation of Achilles does not speak of a vestigial, multiform trace, but of a specific cross-reference to an oral epic about Meleager.79 (b) Multiplicity of audiences has almost led to the acceptance of varying degrees of audience familiarity with other traditions, as well as ‘different levels of ability and interest’.80 Although I am not against the idea of individual differences, I would like to suggest that there is a fundamental and indispensable level of familiarity with tradition that is based on what we often call ‘immersion’ of the listeners in epic poetry. The average listener of Homeric song did not need to be introduced by the singer either to the rules governing epic storytelling or to the particularities of heroic myth. Nor was there any need, as the Homeric poems themselves amply testify, to offer a summary of previous events or ex-

 79 This interpretation is further strengthened by the entry on the Aetolian contingent being led by Thoas in Il. 2.638–642. This is the only case in both the Catalogue of Ships and the Catalogue of Trojans and their Allies in which the storyteller goes off his way to explain why the contingent under presentation is headed by a particular leader and not by another one. It is highly likely that this could only make sense if the audience was expecting someone of Oeneus’ offspring, like Meleager, as leader of the Aetolian contingent. The singer is probably trying to anticipate and answer a possible question or complaint raised by members of the audience, who would have been surprised to see Thoas as leader of the Aetolians. This is an overt allusion to an oral epic about Oeneus and Meleager, the more so since they are designated as would be chief commanders of the Aetolian army. 80 Scodel 2002, 1–41; Burgess 2006, 173.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis plain numerous other details whose knowledge by the audience was taken for granted. Homeric epic systematically refrains from making distinctions between different levels of mythical material: with respect to familiarity, myth is regarded as uniform, since it is considered well-known in its entirety. Seen from this angle, the cumulative uniformity of the audience is not unthinkable at all. In fact, the homogeneity of myth bespeaks the homogeneity of the audience as far as its acquaintance with myth is concerned.81 (c) The performance context is a decisive factor for screening out the multiplicity of traces and consolidating the function of significant allusion. The practicalities of the performance, few of which are retrievable today, would have exercised substantial pressure on the interpretation of mythological traces employed in Homeric epic.82 A useful comparandum may be the example of a modern rock concert. Huge crowds, great enthusiasm that often is out of control, shouting and responding to the rock star’s gestures,83 lack of space between the numerous spectators, standing instead of seating, loud noise, casual or provocative dress-code followed by both the rock band and the spectators are some of the performative circumstances that function as generators and constraints of meaning: the provocative content of many rock songs is thus mirrored on the entire performance procedure and, by extension, on the audience itself. It does not really matter whether spectators belong to different social strata or educational levels. Performance context erases difference and absorbs variation, when the band appears on stage.84 I would like to argue that performance con-

 81 The same is the case with respect to the way Homeric epic presents bardic performance: lack of contamination, fiction of ultimate independence of the singer, evaluation of the narrative on the basis of the pleasure it offers, unsuspicious reception. All these factors indicate a homogeneous reaction of the audience qua performance. See Scodel 1998, 171–194. 82 See Zumthor 1990, 118: ‘The text of a fixed performance tends to immobilize its superficial reflections, to harden them into a thick shell surrounding an ancient storehouse, a precious deposit that warrants enclosure: we stand at attention for the national anthem; we go to church on Christmas Eve if we want to hear the midnight service. In the end, the poem remains incomprehensible outside the situation’. 83 On the ‘corporeal structuration’, see Zumthor 1990, 153–164. 84 See Zumthor (1990), who explores conventional performance situations, i.e. cyclical time whose rhythm is fixed by custom. Ritualized human events and normalized social time marked by strong periodicity would also have colored the function of oral song. When listening to a religious service in the church, we are, as long as the service lasts, attuned to this particular kind of religious poetry, not to our overall knowledge of Christian beliefs. Likewise, we prefer listening to rembetika in Modern Greece (something like the ‘blues’) in the traditional environment of a special kind of taverna and not in a concert hall. The re-enactment of an original performance conditions interpretive variation by creating strong associative mechanisms with

The ‘cf.’ Dilemma: Multiplicity of Traces and Significant Allusion  

text was even stronger in archaic Greece as far as epic songs are concerned. A symposium or a religious festival as the locus of the performance, the bard, the size of the poem, the unchanging tone of the dactylic hexameter, the musical accompaniment of the phorminx, the silence of the audience, the duration of the performance, and of course the status of epic song itself would have channelled mythical allusion towards other songs performed under similar conditions. As modern rock fans would be tuned to the specific musical universe of a rock festival and not to that of a classical concert (even if both were dealing with the same topic, say love), so ancient audiences would be keyed to a specific poetic note, when listening to an epic performance, and not to myth in general. Under such conditions, mythological reference equals oral intertextual reference, and oral intertextual reference becomes poetic allusion. Multiplicity of traces has been mainly conceived as defying the very idea of temporal relation with earlier and later texts, which means that it has been based on the ‘nuclear’ idea of lack of any sort of chronological linearity. But as is the case with diachronic skewing, the medium’s ability and tendency to refer to itself in terms of earlier phases of its own existence, there can also be intertextual/intertraditional skewing, i.e. the use of a motif that mutates within a given system but with respect to which we are able to discern specific, textual or tradition-dependent manifestations, which create the tendency for correlation and referencing. Multiplicity may, therefore, be redefined by means of a less rigid interpretation of its ever-expanding mutation, since it is progressively anchored, within the thematic universe of a given poetic or cultural tradition, to specific characters as they function in specific sagas.85 Mutation then becomes particularized, and the evolutionary process arrives at a turning point after which a motif becomes an integral part of an epic tradition which it marks with its own lasting imprint. Seeing oral epic storytelling as a system allows us to conceive of crossreferencing as an innate feature of the web of myth, whose interrelated fabrics  the content of this kind of songs. Within this framework, allusive references acquire a specific meaning. Human types, like the typical for rembetika drug addict, i.e. a socially marginalized individual, become familiar and comprehensible even by audiences belonging to very different social strata and being strongly opposed to the kind of living such decadent figures used to symbolize. 85 Multiplicity or multiformity of narrative themes is not incompatible in the case of Homeric epic with a thematic text-fixity. See Finkelberg (2000, 1–11), who offers a good discussion of this topic. Fluidity in wording and in the unnecessary narrative parts of the story leaves ample room for Lord’s ‘stable skeleton of narrative’ and Kullmann’s (1960, 12–13, 15, 185, 234–235, 361) Faktenkanon. See also Dowden 1996, 51–53.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis invite the audience to access the entire wealth of mythical variations. In other words, intertextuality, which need not be private, author-based, and literaryoriented cross-reference, is a systemic element of epic storytelling. However, there is an important aspect in the case of Homeric poetry, a qualitative difference from the rest of cyclic epic: motif-transference86 as one of the most significant forms of intertextuality pertains to the metacyclic nature of Homeric epic, since it influences its thematic core, it shapes its Weltanschauung, it affects the formation of its principle characters. Motif-transference is not an idiosyncratic aspect of oral intertextuality. It grows ‘out of the methods of comparison and “reflection” that were inherent in oral traditions and in everyday life itself’.87 At the same time it is not a secondary, coincidental, and casual feature of Homeric epic. Lying at the very heart of significant allusion, it is the trademark of its distinctive nature, the emblematic crowning of its qualitative supremacy over cyclic poetry.

. Tradition and the Question of Authorship One of the most complicated issues belonging to the core of the neoanalysisorality ‘dissension’ is centered on the question of whether it is the individual poet or the tradition that shapes Homeric epic. My approach to this issue tries to eschew extreme positions not because a ‘third way’ is generally preferable due to its in-built tendency to refrain from taking sides and adopting a compromising tone, but because, as I will attempt to show, it stems from a synthetic understanding of the exigencies of archaic Greek epic. Although singers are not entirely free to choose their own paths with respect to the unraveling of the plot,  86 Motif transference was widely employed in metacyclic, i.e. Homeric epic, and a certain type of it, indirect reflection (e.g. of the scale observed in Iliad Books 2–7) stamps the contextuality of the Iliad as intertextual per se. Pucci (1987) has suggested that the two Homeric poems share a symbiotic relationship in the sense that they are highly interactive, though in practice it is the Odyssey that is more reactive to the Iliad. Nagy adopts a viewpoint that is not difficult to reconcile with the insights of Pucci, who has rightly highlighted the element of rivalry between the two Homeric poems. According to Nagy, intertextuality between the Homeric (and also Hesiodic) traditions amounts to a long-term influence and creative responsiveness, during a period of evolution and continuous shaping. Intertextuality is a complex phenomenon, which permeates Homeric epic tradition. It needs to be studied not only horizontally with respect to Cyclic epic, as Burgess rightly argues, i.e. with a thematic widening of its scope, but also vertically, through a distinction of its various sub-categories. 87 Burgess 2006, 176. On the different, yet comparable, poetic techniques used in mythological paradigms and motif transference, see Burgess 2009, 68.

Tradition and the Question of Authorship  

and their ability for innovation is not unlimited, they nonetheless are the agency which reproduces the thematic structure of the epic and gives to it its distinctive, ‘individual’, and unique identity. Homeric epic embodies the tension between a gradual process of formation under the influence of one set of rules and constraints pertaining to the tradition of epic poetry at large, and another set of choices made by, what I would like to coin, ‘poetic agency’, a term that I will immediately explain. The vagueness of this term may seem deliberate, in order to avoid using the term ‘poet’ or ‘singer/bard’, which would betray some sort, at least, of commitment to the neoanalytical or orality-oriented camps. On the other hand, ‘poetic agency’ may be just what is needed, if we intend to accept that an authority or authorities, after having mastered and followed the set of rules imposed by the tradition, become(s) at a certain point another form of structure, one that is not imposed by the system of epic poetry but one that an internal ramification developed within the tradition imposes upon it.88 In this way, the ‘individuality’ or distinctiveness that is so characteristic of the neoanalytical credo is seen as stemming from an internal development of the tradition, but this internal development becomes so strong that it virtually imposes itself on it, although it has grown from it in the first place. The connection between deep structure and agency is a fundamental element of this theory, for it comprises a duality that cannot be conceived of apart and is — at the end of the day — a ‘duality of structure’.89 At a basic level, this means that poetic agency has shaped Homeric epic, but is at the same time constrained by it. Poetic agency and traditional structure cannot be analysed separately, as structures are created, maintained, and changed through poetic agency, while poetic agency acquires meaning only against the background of and as an internal development or a distinct part of the structure: after a certain point, the line of causality runs to both directions making it impossible to determine what is changing what. Homeric epic is both made by poetic agency, and at the same time furnishes the material and becomes the medium for the constitution of a given poetic agency. In tandem with these observations, I will examine the structuration of the system of Homeric poetry, i.e. the creative interaction between generative rules, constraints, and resources on the one hand and human agents whose activity

 88 See Niles (1999, 24) on the singer as ‘tradition-bearer’. 89 Thomas (1992, 39–40) argues in favor of an oral poet who works and corrects his song over a period of years. Stability is thus achieved, if the poet finally shapes his song in a way that satisfies him. There is indeed improvisation during his performances but there are different levels of improvisation, which do not prevent either creativity or stability.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis within the structure and in relation to the responsiveness of general phenomena (Panhellenism) are manifested in the structure by providing common frames of meaning. The set of rules, constraints, and resources does not simply allow poetic agency to create a new synthesis; it enables it. The structuration of Homeric epic aims to trace its compositional dialectics that represent a dynamic relationship within the ‘duality of structure’ described above. In contrast to the standard tension between individuality and plurality, author and tradition, I suggest that the evolution and shaping of Homeric songtraditions must be seen rather through a process of self-actualization than by means of the intervention of an external authority, the historical poet, who through the use of writing reappropriates the tradition for himself. On the other hand, when I argue that ‘tradition’ should be treated as a dynamic process and not a static artefact, I do not mean that ‘text-fixity’ cannot be realized orally,90 but that the inherent dynamism of the oral medium conditions and is conditioned by the degree of its actualization, i.e. by (i) its performative communication with the audience, (ii) its interaction with other epic song-traditions, (iii) its reaction to larger cultural phenomena, and (iv) the reasons explaining why Homeric diction is used the way it is.91 The gradual shaping of Homeric epic is determined by changes made by the bards, but this kind of ‘poetic agency’ represents the reaction and creative response of the medium to the four factors mentioned above. In the case of the Iliad and the Odyssey, I posit the following levels of selfactualization: (i) Performative communication with the audience: performer-audience interaction is a given for any form of oral performance and as such it is not particular to Homeric epic. On the other hand, the various elements that form a tradition may have become the locus of constant interaction between singer and audience.92 The gradual erasure or downplaying of local elements, the emphasis on a Panhellenic viewpoint (see above ‘The “cf.” Dilemma’), the conditioning or regularization of the performance under the ritualized framework of a festival or a Panhellenic event, the increasing demand for competence and rivalry are only  90 Text-fixity is not the necessary result of written composition. Just as there are written uniform texts and written multiform texts (see Finkelberg 2000, 9 who argues that this is the case with the Cypria), so oral uniform traditions (with respect to the stable skeleton of narrative themes or the Faktenkanon) and oral multiform traditions are also conceivable. 91 García 2002, 34–35. 92 Scodel (1996, 65–66) rightly argues that self-correction and stylized pseudo-spontaneity indicate that both fully extemporaneous (by skilled singers) and thoroughly rehearsed performances were possible.

Tradition and the Question of Authorship  

some of the aspects of this interaction. The emphasis given in the Odyssey on the presentation of singers and epic singing, as well as of storytelling in general, may well mirror a higher degree of self-awareness that is fully compatible with the emergence of a new context for performance, where competence would be a key factor. (ii) Interaction with other epic song-traditions: the famous Spiegelungseffekt of Homeric poetry stands at the crossroads of tradition and ‘poetic agency’. The constant evocation of and meaningful allusion to other oral epic traditions, mainly but not solely those of cyclic epic, is a manifestation of the inherent dynamism of Homeric epic. Dynamic and creative contact between epic traditions requires both the operation of a system of rules and resources for the activation of such mechanisms, and knowledgeable singers, who employ these rules and resources that they have mastered in the course of time. Thus, to the question concerning who or what reacted to other traditions or general cultural phenomena so as to shape Homeric epic, my answer is ‘the system of epic song in its dual structure’, the set of rules, constraints and resources called ‘tradition’, and the poetic agents of this system, called ‘singer’, ‘bard’ or, with the caveats described above, ‘poet’.93 (iii) Reaction to larger cultural phenomena: the phenomenon of Panhellenism in its various manifestations and through its globalizing impact reinforced the diffusion of traditions endorsing a Panhellenic viewpoint. This approach is, I am afraid, one-sided, for it treats Panhellenism only as an external factor modifying and fixing Homeric epic. But if we posit (see above) a first phase of Panhellenism (‘Proto-Panhellenism’)94 that is reflected in oral cyclic traditions, then we see that Homeric epic, which belongs to a second, more mature phase in the development of the Panhellenic phenomenon, becomes itself a remarkable manifestation of Panhellenism and a means for its further stratification.95 In

 93 For a similar observation on the basis of breaches in the formulaic system of Homeric poetry, see Finkelberg 2012: ‘it is probable, then, that quite a few breaches in formulaic economy were due to the poet’s intention to express something for which his tradition has provided no ready-made solution. This testifies to the fact that the individual poet cannot be regarded as in every respect identical to the system of formulaic diction: rather than acting as a passive medium of his tradition he employs this tradition ad hoc in his own idiosyncratic manner’. 94 See Marks 2008, 102–103. 95 An equivalent, mutatis mutandis, phenomenon may be seen in the transition of the eighth/ seventh-century Panionia to the sixth-century Delia, and then the early sixth-century Panathenaea and the later fifth-century Panathenaea with respect to the performance of Homeric poetry. On this topic, see Murray 19344, 191–192; Durante 1957, 106 n. 44 and 1976, 197 n. 2; Frame 2009, 553 n. 97; Nagy 2010, 18–27, 50–58, 69–73.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis other words, I would argue for a dynamic interaction between Panhellenism and Homeric epic, comprising two phases: in the first early phase, poetic agents react to Panhellenism (mainly but not solely manifested in oral cyclic traditions) and shape Homeric epic so as to acquire strong and distinctive Panhellenic aspects (but without complete removal of local elements), whereas in the second phase, the modified set of rules, constraints, and resources of Homeric epic becomes the mouthpiece of the Panhellenic perspective. (iv) The reasons explaining why Homeric diction is used the way it is: the study of dialect mixture in early Greek epigram has shown that there was such a widespread substitution of local forms by their epic equivalents even when there was no metrical reason, that it is fair to argue that ‘though meter plays a role in the arrangement and patterning of poetic diction, it cannot be said to motivate the diction per se’.96 If what has been observed in the case of metrical inscriptions can be extended to Homeric epic, then it becomes obvious that metrical rules and constraints can neither explain the basically epicized Ionic dialect of the Homeric poems nor can they tell us why the compulsion to use the dactylic hexameter did not result in the substitution of all local forms, archaisms, and loan words. Poetic agency (in the way I have defined it above), i.e. as reflecting a different part of the structure of oral song, may have conditioned the extent to which linguistic variation would be used. Archaisms or local forms may have been employed by the bards within the ritual context of the performance so as to index specific situations.97 The language of the gods in Homeric epic, to use a representative example, does not simply hint to the gulf separating the divine from the human world, but covertly attests to the role of poetic agency in using linguistic variation in this marked form of ritual speech. Marking a situation as special may well be the outcome of the singer’s contribution to the performance.

. Degrees of Orality The discussion about orality and literacy in Homeric epic has taken until now the form of two different, yet complementary questions: (a) is our Iliad and Odyssey the result of the use of alphabetic writing either as a means for a different kind of composition or on the basis of the dictation theory? Or, put differently, are we allowed to talk about orally derived texts that have been standardized  96 García 2002, 34. 97 See García 2002, 50–53.

Degrees of Orality  

and shaped by writing? (b) Is it possible that in the case of Homeric poetry we are facing a complex situation and that it is more productive to speak of different levels of orality sharing some of the standard features of written literature? This is, of course, a topic that exceeds by far the scope and limits of the theoretical considerations presented in this study. In this light, the sole aim of this section will be a brief discussion of different levels of orality and their relation to literacy. I, therefore, posit two degrees of orality that increasingly share more common features with literate texts.98 Tab. 1: Undeveloped Orality.

1.

practically no textuality (limited diffusion, no self-awareness and crossreferencing) 2. text-fluidity 3. mechanical repetition of dictional elements 4. rigidness of formulas, lack of expansion or mutation 5. symptomatic reuse of material featuring in other fluid traditions 6. lack of self-awareness of the medium 7. no reference to performance conditions In the first steps of the evolution of oral epic traditions, the lack of a coherent set of rules, constraints, and resources due to the underdevelopment of the medium and the instability of performance conditions would have resulted in both high degrees of fluidity with respect to certain features and in low degrees of sophistication with respect to the operation of internal structures. In this kind of orality, there is yet no developed system of oral song, but only loose performance contexts, mechanical use of repetition, and absence of a sense of cohesion of the tradition. In the process of time, orality evolves as performance contexts become more stable, singers get better by being trained by other singers, proliferation and diffusion of epic song creates higher expectations by more trained audiences, and the medium begins to shape itself by more profound processes of selfactualization. This developed form of orality, which will experience the advent of literacy in the Archaic Period, may have acquired independently certain features

 98 I am not talking about types of orality in the text, on which see Oesterreicher 1997, 190–214. I am discussing levels of orality in an oral medium like traditional epic poetry sung or recited in performance.

  Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis that literacy itself also developed.99 According to my approach, it would not make sense to assume both that orality did not evolve in the process of time and that the introduction of alphabetic writing led so quickly to a level of sophistication just by the use of a new medium.100 In the case of developed orality, most (but not all) of the constituent markers of (developed) literacy may have been shaped.101 Tab. 2: Characteristics of Developed Orality and Literacy. Developed Orality

Literacy

. textuality

. textuality . textification

. text-fixity (potential)

. text-fixity (potential)

. symmetrical organization

. symmetrical organization

(microstructure)102 . authentic linguistic variation (within the system)

(macrostructure) . simulated orality (borrowed variation)

. oral cross-referencing

. written cross-referencing

. self-awareness of the medium

. self-awareness of the medium

. reference to performance conditions

. reference to the act of writing

 99 See Thomas 1992, 49: ‘writing in the eighth and seventh centuries probably merely duplicated orally composed poetry than cutting it dead’. 100 This argument is outmoded. Sophistication, like text-fixity, is not the necessary outcome of written composition. 101 See Thomas 1992, 30, who rightly argued that ‘literacy and orality are flexible and highly variable in their manifestations, indeed that we should blur the line usually drawn between ‘literate’ and ‘oral’ and examine their interpenetration’. She also observes that ‘[d]iscussion of orality is still often too generalized, uncritical, and woolly, the alleged character of ‘orality’ surprisingly often a matter of faith rather than evidence’. Ong’s (1982, 37–57) list of various properties of orally based thought and expression seems to me off the mark, if seen as drawing the line between orality and literacy. Most of the properties he discussed are also observable in written literature and some of his generalizations are not true for oral traditions. Additive style is not, for example, restricted to oral cultures nor is it true that ‘oral culture has no vehicle so neutral as a list’ (1982, 42). Is Proclus’ additive style typical of an oral culture or what about the list of Nereids in Il. 18.39–48, who are not presented in the process of some activity like the Greek leaders in the Catalogue of Ships? Such features cannot be used as an argument for orality, in the same way that formulaic style is not the definitive proof or orality, since (as noted above) there are non-formulaic oral traditions as there are formulaic written poems. See Thomas 1992, 40–44. 102 On the symmetrical organization on the micro- and macro-level with respect to Homeric epic as markers of orality and literacy, see Gordesiani 1986, 26–67.

Degrees of Orality  

These observations, which are readily applicable to a special kind of epic song such as Homeric epic, show that different degrees of orality can explain even the most elaborate features of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The advent of literacy was no doubt a very important cultural event; it must be evaluated, though, within the wider matrix of cultural changes that shaped archaic Greece and not as the watershed for a profound internal development of early epic poetry.103 Orality and literacy coexisted for a very long period by following parallel routes.104 The eclipse of the former, at least as a means for performing poetry, happened much later, under very different political, social, and cultural circumstances.105 It was then that the almost residual orality106 of Greek epic traditions was replaced by textification, even a belated one.107

 103 See Scodel 1996, 62: ‘it seems very unlikely that writing, in the archaic period, was an important medium for the transmission and reception of poetry on an everyday basis. It may not have been very central to composition either. But it can hardly fail to have had an effect as a way to stabilize and preserve texts, to protect them from tampering and guarantee them. The various stories about early texts being dedicated in temples — Hesiod and the Theogony, the Book of Heraclitus — point in this direction’. 104 See Thomas 1992, 48. On orality’s tenaciousness, see Ong 1982, 115–116. 105 See Nagy 1996b, 110 (periods 3 and 4 of his evolutionary model). 106 See Havelock 1982 and 1986, who argued that Greek society was principally oral down to the fourth century BC. 107 I have borrowed the term ‘residual orality’ from Tziovas 1989, 321–335. On the enormous ‘oral residue’ of primary oral and early literate cultures, see Ong (1982, 69–71), who argues that outsized heroic figures (or bizarre beings) are generated because it is with them that oral memory works effectively. The choice, though, between the typified heroic figures of Homeric epic instead of bizarre or exotic beings that would have been equally memorable is an internal one, i.e. produced by the particular nature of Homeric epic and not one imposed by oral memory at large.

 Detextualizing Homer: Intonation Units, Background Knowledge, and the Proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey The proems1 of the Iliad and the Odyssey have attracted much scholarly attention2 with respect to both their similarities and differences and their sufficiency, i.e. their appropriateness as introductions to the two epics respectively. The aim of this study is to briefly reconsider the similarities between the two proems from the interpretive angle of Oral Poetics, and in particular through discourse analysis. Discourse analysis, I will argue, is able to shed light on matters concerning the relation between the Iliadic and the Odyssean proems not in terms of a more or less sophisticated imitation of the former by the latter but as manifestations of the kind of discourse Homer is, i.e. as special speech.

. Structure Even a cursory reading of the two proems reveals multiple resemblances in word-order and syntax. This striking likeness can be exemplified if we focus our attention on the following features: 1. The very first word (the accusative of a non-proper name used as the object of the main verb) of both proems describes the main epic theme (μῆνιν – ἄνδρα). 2. There is a divine invocation of an anonymous female deity, the Muse of epic poetry in the very first line (θεά – Μοῦσα). 3. The basic epic theme which was denoted by the proems’ first word is modified by a four-syllable word that stands in apposition (οὐλομένην – πολύτροπον). 4. This adjective is used as a starting point for further elaboration and is expanded by a relative clause (ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε – ὃς μάλα πολλὰ |

 1 On how Greek and Roman poems begin, see Romeo 1985; Race 1992, 13–38. 2 The secondary literature on the proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey is vast. For the proem of the Iliad, see especially Griffin 1980, 118–119; Kirk 1985, 51–53; Latacz 19973 [1985], 98–104; 2000, 11–23. For the proem of the Odyssey, the best studies include: Basset 1923, 339–348; van Groningen 1946, 279–294; Rüter 1969, 28–52; Clay 1976, 313–326; Lenz 1980, 49–64; Clay 1983, 9–53; Dimock 1989, 5–12; Ford 1992, 18–31; Pedrick 1992, 39–62; Walsh 1995, 392–403 [385– 410]; Pucci 1998, 11–29; de Jong 2001, 5–8. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-002

Structure  

5.

6.

7. 8.

9. 10.

11. 12.

πλάγχθη) adding more information about the initial theme (μῆνιν – ἄνδρα) and the way it has been characterized by the two four-syllable words (οὐλομένην – πολύτροπον).3 The relative clauses are further elaborated by δέ-clauses, three in the Iliadic proem (πολλὰς δ᾿… | ἡρώων. αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια … | οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή), two in the Odyssean (πολλῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων … ἔγνω, | πολλὰ δ᾿ ὅ γ᾿ ἐν πόντῳ … θυμόν). In both proems the vastness of the topic of each poem is systematically underscored through the use of adjectives modifying certain aspects of the main epic theme (μυρί᾿ … ἄλγε᾿, πολλὰς δ᾿ ἰφθίμους – πολλῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα, πολλὰ … ἄλγεα). Both proems emphatically indicate that the woes to be described are linked to the epic’s principal topic (ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε – πάθεν ἄλγεα). Some form of ring-composition4 can be detected in both proems. This is more obvious in the Odyssey (μοι ἔννεπε Mοῦσα – θεά, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν), where one can trace both the existence of an internal ring-composition pattern with respect to the order of the elements constituting the external ringcomposition (A: [dative of personal pronoun – μοι], B: [verb – ἔννεπε], C: [vocative of invocation – Mοῦσα]/ C: [vocative of invocation – θεά] B: [verb – εἰπέ], A: [dative of personal pronoun - ἡμῖν]), and the transition from singular (μοι) to plural (ἡμῖν). In the Iliad, the ring-composition pattern is less obvious, but still the verse μῆνιν … Ἀχιλῆος is linked to ἐρίσαντε … Ἀχιλλεύς. In both proems a god is involved (Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή – Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο … ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ). Both proems presuppose a general familiarity with the epic tradition.5 The audience could easily locate Achilles’ wrath in the tenth year of the Trojan War and, likewise, the reference to πολύτροπος ἀνήρ would make Odysseus emerge at once in the listeners’ mind.6 In both proems one can easily notice the speed with which the poet brings the audience to the beginning of his tale.7 In both proems, there is an effort to determine a departure point for the unraveling of the plot (ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα- τῶν ἁμόθεν γε).

 3 Cf. Bassett 1923, 340. 4 On ring-composition, see van Otterlo 1944; Gaisser 1969a, 1–43; Lohmann 1970, 12–30; Thalmann 1984, 8–12; Edwards 1991, 44–48. 5 West 1988, 67. 6 Bassett 1923, 341. 7 Bassett 1923, 339.

  Detextualizing Homer

. Homeric Discourse and Epic Openings These similarities have been until now examined in a linear manner: the Odyssey poet, composing his song after his Iliadic counterpart, used the proem of the Iliad as his model ‘attempting an exercise of auxesis upon the Iliadic pattern’.8 Such an approach presupposes not only that the Odyssey postdates the Iliad, but also, and more importantly, that both the Iliad and the Odyssey are fixed texts in the modern sense of the word and that they are tightly linked to a fixed chronology, which represents their literary birth. Oral Poetics adopts a different stance, one that examines what we call the Iliad and the Odyssey not as texts composed by writing and, consequently, tied to a fixed date, but as oral compositions representing rival poetic traditions that coexist and grow parallelly during the Archaic Period. In addition, formal characteristics (as those listed above) are not to be interpreted from a rhetorical point of view, namely as traits pertaining to a literary perspective. Paratactic or adding style versus hypotactic organization, ‘primitive’ versus ‘developed’ are terms belonging to the established philological approach to written literature and as such aim at explaining stylistic subtleties by adopting a historical or even genetic approach. The picture is very different when we study Homer as oral poetry. Bakker has argued that Homeric discourse functions as special speech. By using the path-breaking discoveries of the linguist Chafe, he divides Homeric passages into intonation units, i.e. speech-segments which verbalize relevant foci of consciousness.9 In this way, Bakker is able to detextualize the salient properties of Homeric style and reevaluate them in ‘terms of the spoken discourse of which our text is a transcription’.10 With these observations in mind, let us then proceed to analyze the two proems as speech-segments starting with the Iliadic proem (Il. 1.1–7). (a) Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεά (b) Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος (c) οὐλομένην, (d) ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε, (e) πολλὰς δ᾿ ἰφθίμους ψυχάς (f) Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν (g) ἡρώων, (h) αὐτοὺς δ᾽ ἑλώρια τεῦχε (i) κύνεσσιν  8 Pucci 1998, 13. 9 Chafe 1980, 9–50; 1994. 10 Bakker 1997a, 292.

Sing of the wrath, goddess, of the son of Peleus, of Achilles, the accursed [wrath] which caused numerous woes to the Achaeans. and many brave souls, [it] sent [them] forth to Hades, of heroes, and made them a feast, for the dogs

Homeric Discourse and Epic Openings  

(j) οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι, (k) Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή, (l) ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα (m) διαστήτην (n) ἐρίσαντε (o) Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν (p) καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς

and all the birds, and Zeus’ will was being fulfilled, from the moment when –see– for the first time they stood in division after they had quarreled both [the] son of Atreus, the lord of men and godlike Achilles.

Let us now proceed by applying the same speech-segment analysis to the Odyssean proem (Od. 1.1.–10): (a) ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Mοῦσα, (b) πολύτροπον, (c) ὃς μάλα πολλὰ | πλάγχθη, (d) ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσε (e) πολλῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα (f) καὶ νόον ἔγνω. (g) πολλὰ δ᾿ ὅ γ᾿ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα (h) ὃν κατὰ θυμόν, (i) ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν (j) καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων. (k) ἀλλ᾿ οὐδ᾿ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, (l) ἱέμενός περ (m) αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο, (n) νήπιοι, (o) οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο | ἤσθιον (p) αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ (q) τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, (r) θύγατερ Διός, (s) εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.

Tell me, Muse, about the man, the resourceful one, who has wandered a great deal, after he sacked the holy citadel of Troy; and [he] saw the cities of many men and became aware of their minds, and [he] suffered much at sea in his own heart, trying to save his own soul and [make possible] the return of his comrades But still he did not save [his] comrades despite his will; for out of their own wrongdoings [they] perished, fools, who devoured the cattle of Hyperion’s son, Helios; but he deprived them from their day of return. From some place or other, goddess, daughter of Zeus, tell us too

The above speech-segment analysis should be read with a rather mandatory caveat in mind: the translation offered is deliberately idiosyncratic as it tries to bring out as clearly as possible the peculiarities of the Homeric text. Using this analysis as our guide, we can now tackle each of the similarities of the two proems, not from the viewpoint of a mimetic process according to which the Odyssean proem has been composed upon the pattern offered by its famous Iliadic predecessor, but as exemplifying a mental process of orientation, framing and organization οf information.

  Detextualizing Homer 1.

2.

Similarities 1–2 concerning the epic theme (μῆνιν – ἄνδρα) and the divine invocation (ἄειδε, θεά – ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα) belong to the same intonational unit, which coincides with a metrical slot, the central third-foot caesura (masculine in Il. 1, feminine in Od. 1). In the process of retrieving information that will be used in the proem, the speaking voice begins with the first focus of consciousness that comes to mind: the principal theme. However, the principal theme can be triggered only through the appeal to divine assistance (ἄειδε, θεά – ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα). Therefore, the grammatical particularities observed by traditional critics (such as the initial accusative, the vocative used for divine invocation) have not so much to do with the mimetic tendency of the Odyssean proem with respect to the Iliadic one, but rather with the information-processing organized by the human mind.11 The description of the main epic theme first by a single word in apposition (οὐλομένην – πολύτροπον), second by relative clauses (ἣ μυρί᾿ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾿ ἔθηκε – ὃς μάλα πολλὰ | πλάγχθη), and third by δέ-clauses (πολλὰς δ᾿… | ἡρώων. αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια … | οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ᾿ ἐτελείετο βουλή – πολλῶν δ᾿ ἀνθρώπων … ἔγνω, πολλὰ δ᾿ ὅ γ᾿ ἐν πόντῳ … θυμόν)12 is typical of the so-called expansion aesthetic, one of the expressive highlights of Homeric discourse.13 The thematic nucleus is expanded by appositional devices, in the manner of either one-word adjectival forms or relative clauses or strung-on paratactic δέ-clauses. Items 3–5 in the above list virtually fall into this category of additional material supplemented within the same framing. These item-pluses are true landmarks of epic verse-making,14 since they exemplify a specific mental strategy in the deployment of information around an initial thematic kernel. Moreover, they play a key-role in the listener’s orientation. The detailed, albeit brief, description of the central theme, directs the audience to the kind of song they should be expecting to hear.

 11 The beginnings of two cyclic epics, the Thebais and the Epigonoi display a similar trait. The former (fr. 1 GEF: Ἄργος ἄειδε, θεά, πολυδίψιον, ἔνθεν ἄνακτες) begins with the designation of Argos, the city associated with the army of the Seven who will attack Thebes; the latter (fr. 1 GEF: νῦν αὖθ᾽ ὁπλοτέρων ἀνδρῶν ἀρχώμεθα, Μοῦσαι) starts with the designation of the younger generation, the Epigonoi, who will lead a new, this time successful, expedition against Thebes. Although these epics may have been composed by writing, they presuppose earlier versions which circulated orally. In this vein, their beginnings still reflect the same attempt of the bards to start their song with the principal theme or an aspect pertaining to it. 12 These word-groups also form intonation units representing the dictional verbalization of specific foci of consciousness. 13 The expansion aesthetic is a term coined by Martin 1989, 206–230. 14 Russo 1994, 374; Bakker 1997b, 90.

Homeric Discourse and Epic Openings  

These orientation devices look at the same time backwards and forwards. They are anaphoric (in the sense that they are related to left-located, or at times dislocated, terms) and deictic (since they acclimatize the listener to the exigencies of the plot and align him to the epic’s perspective). This orientation process aims at limiting the wide scope of the basic theme, thus enabling the listener to situate himself/herself within the coordinates of the plot. Items 12–13 (general familiarity with the epic tradition and speed in situating the listener at the beginning of the plot) also stem from the nature of the orientation technique explained above. Homeric discourse aims at placing the audience within a specific version of a well-known myth with remarkable speed. Any delay may highlight other rival stories belonging to the same mythical pool, which the epic voice deliberately and systematically downplays. Homeric speech15 speedily moves to the beginning of its own cherished version of events in the same way human discourse hastens to promote its own undisputed authority. 3. Items 6–7 refer to the vastness of human losses. The analysis into speechsegments shows that each mention of a loss is presented by a single intonation unit.16 At first glance, one may get the impression that the Odyssean proem is imitating the Iliadic, in fact this has been interpreted as a form of auxesis. The correspondence between intonation units and completion of syntactical clusters shows that we may be dealing here with another authority-conferring technique. The story to be told is of great importance and status among other stories of the same kind because it may deal with a single theme (the wrath of Achilles – Odysseus, the Man), but the implications of this theme are, indeed, of outstanding proportions. It is not the version of the theme that is vast, but what results from this version. We are dealing with a mental process of emphasizing the momentousness of the story to be told. Speech advertises itself and promotes its special power and supremacy. The cornucopia of πολυ- compounds and πολλά adjectives in both proems is not based on rhetorical effect but rather manifests a conferringauthority process typical of Homeric discourse. 4. Ring-composition has been felicity coined ‘an index of the ways in which this [archaic] style, as special speech, draws on the resources of ordinary speech’.17 The repetition of some form of the basic idea expressed in the beginning of the ring-composition structure should not be seen as a return to  15 Cf. Hor. De arte poetica, 148: semper ad eventum festinat. 16 See the analysis above. 17 Bakker 1997b, 120.

  Detextualizing Homer or recapitulation of previous meaning but as a statement made by the speech itself. It amounts to acknowledging the new reality which has been produced after the previewed initial reference. Homeric discourse as a form of special speech should be considered a flow of speech through time. It is in this respect that what lies between the two statements, initial and catalectic, of any ring-composition device displays the narrative movement from point A to point B and, what is more important, the realization of this movement by speech itself through phraseological repetition.18 Viewed in this light, the reiterated phraseology occurring towards the end of the two Homeric proems (item 8) is a feature pertaining to human discourse at large, and is parallel to topic boundary markers which represent topic-shifts in written discourse. These topic boundary markers are, in the case of spoken discourse, called paratones;19 they are a sort of speech paragraphs employed by speakers to mark a topic-shift. Thus, ring-composition may be seen as a feature of spoken discourse, a device of special speech (such as Homeric speech) indicating the flow of speech, the realization of this flow and the preparation of speaker and audience for making one narrative step forward. 5. General familiarity with the entire epic tradition (item 10) on the part of the audience must be taken for granted. What has escaped notice, however, is that such form of assumed knowledge is typical of mental structures employed for organizing information in an economical way and, moreover, of interpreting reality upon established patterns like tradition-innovation and whole-part.20 Homeric speech, as a form of special speech, cognitively involves the audience in the ‘processes that create both language and story’.21 Psycholinguists have long debated on determining the importance of one or multiple factors (sentential form, focal stress, speaker-dependent intonation) in the process of signaling information status. In the case of Homeric speech, ‘strong syntactic and rhythmic expectations established by the formulaic style, together with the metrical and specifically colometric constraints demanded by the hexameter, provide ideal frames for carrying out the more

 18 On ring-composition and the grammar of discourse, see Bakker 1997b, 115–121. 19 The term paratones has been coined by Brown 1977, 86. 20 See Hornby 1972, 632–642; Clark and Clark 1977, 93; Brown and Yule 1983, 176–189. 21 See Russo 1999, 169.

Homeric Discourse and Epic Openings  

stylized or ‘ritually expected’ features of the language’.22 Therefore, the audience’s familiarity with the topic which is taken for granted in both the Iliadic and the Odyssean proems is manifested by the elliptical and condensed nature of the informational data processed (brevity, lack of a summary of the plot), but most of all by the implied and evoked entities (situational and current-textual)23 triggered in the audience’s consciousness after the initial theme, the left-most constituent element in the linear organization of our printed text. Typographical considerations tend to iconize the central theme by locating it at a spot readily seen by the human-eye, thus making it easily discernible by the modern reader. In an oral performance, emphasis is created by the placement of the epic theme in the first foot of the hexameter (one of the most emphatic positions), where thematic staging is best effected.24 Thus, among the implied entities, which the audience would associate with the words μῆνις/ἀνήρ, are the par excellence ‘wrath’, i.e. that of Achilles, and the par excellence ‘man’, i.e. Odysseus;25 likewise, the most prominent evoked situational entities by the Iliadic proem would be the tenth year of the war and by the Odyssean proem the post-war wanderings of Odysseus. Current-textual evoked entities are, as Chafe has neatly put it, ‘lexically attenuated’, and are expressed with substitutive devices such as pronouns.26 The anaphoric pronouns αὐτούς in Il. 1.4 and αὐτῶν in Od. 1.7 express endophoric relations, tying cohesively the previous references to heroes (in Il. 1.3) and to the comrades (in Od. 1.5–6) with what follows. The heroes and the comrades are thus entities well known to the audience and, therefore, the singer feels free to cut several corners in the presentation of his material and point to them with minimalistic pronominal forms. 6. The search for a temporal point to begin the narration (item 12) finds its rest towards the end of the proems, and displays a specific mental strategy used

 22 Russo 1999, 163. Russo points to ‘the tendency for relative and other subordinate clauses to begin most regularly in the fifth or fourth colon (ὃς μάλα πολλά, Od. 1.1) and secondarily in the second colon (οὐλομένην, in Il. 1.2), or with a conjunction linking the first to the second colon (πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης, Od. 1.2)’ (163). 23 Brown and Yule 1983, 184–187. 24 On ‘staging’, see Brown and Yule 1983, 134–138. Another ‘strong’ position for effecting ‘staging’ within the metrical constrains of the hexameter is the end of the verse. See Bakker 1997b, 162–183. 25 The systematic suppression of Odysseus’ name in the beginning of the Odyssey shows that the audience could easily recognize Odysseus through the reference to a ‘man’ and that no confusion would be created. 26 I owe this reference to Brown and Yule 1983, 185.

  Detextualizing Homer in human discourse with respect to material-organizing. It is only after the explicit reference to the most important element surfacing human thought that the mind is able to retrieve the causal incipit. This is done towards the end of the initial frame set by the proem and only when the description has been regarded as complete. The above observation will no doubt strike a familiar note to discourse analysts and linguists at large, since it is this scientific discipline which has determined that in representing background knowledge the human mind uses scenarios, ‘extended domains of reference’ employed as interpretive devices behind a text. One particular element of the scenario-based comprehension (corroborated by relevant experiments with real subjects) is that understanding and effectiveness speeds up (item 11) when a specific scenario is mentally activated. It is noteworthy that in both proems, just before the temporal localization of the plotdeparture point, there is a specific mention to the role of a god (item 9), Zeus in the Iliadic proem, Helios in the Odyssean. It seems that the speaking voice in both proems tries to find a rest, a pause in mapping the scope of his theme, and that this stop is reached at the moment a specific divine action is stated. The reference to concrete action (note the opposition between the anonymous losses of heroes or comrades and the action of eponymous gods) creates a juncture in the speaker’s consciousness, as if a red light has been suddenly turned on. When the mind moves from the general to the particular, the introduction can be regarded as complete: it is now time for the poem to begin.

 The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics Electronic hypertext catalogues provide an important channel for information provision. One relatively traditional set of tools for creating hypertext in Homeric oral song is names. For example, names within the web of oral epic song provide users with visual maps linked together by meter. Hypertextual lists and catalogues challenge the very foundations of producing unified, coherent texts, narrative and poetry. Consider the following formulation by Pucci: The catalogue, as a speech act, manifests a prowess of memory, and points to poetry as its privileged means. Cataloguing constitutes the supreme distillation of poetry’s capabilities for truth, rigor, order, history, sequentiality: mere names, mere numbers, and no mêtis; or as we would say no connotations, no rhetoric, no fiction. Almost no poem.1

Catalogues, as hypertextual tools, advocate teaching a ‘rhetoric of expectations and arrivals’2 that encourages listeners to understand where certain nameentries working like nodes may lead them and how they should respond to these nodes. Since name-nodes are, within the environment of epic catalogues, bi-focal, they can create hypertextual spaces leading the audience to multiple conceptual strata. Hypertextual catalogues also involve listening in a different manner. Within the medium of oral epic song, the audience realizes that the catalogue invites them to transgress a linear approach and instead make a leap to an entryleading world, where the given item of a list can be the focal point of interest or simply an item in another list. While listening to the list, the audience may follow the order offered by the singer and then engage in interpretation. By selecting a name, the bard opens a path to the hypertextual web of myth, to a labyrinthine mental adventure where relevance is open-ended and conceptual navigation the norm.

 1 Pucci 1996, 21. 2 Bolter and Grusin 1998, 10. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-003

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics

. From List to Catalogue Lists and catalogues are often employed as synonymous among Homerists, although the latter is an elaborated version of the former. Consider the following formulation by Sammons:3 A catalogue is a list of items which are specified in discrete entries; its entries are formally distinct and arranged in sequence by anaphora or by a simple connective but are not put into any subordinating relation to one another, and no explicit relation is made between the items except for their shared suitability to the catalogue’s specified rubric. […] By rubric I mean the stated category or class which legitimates the inclusion or exclusion of potential items; by entry I mean the component which is marked off by anaphora or connective and contains the specified item; by item I mean that person, thing, place etc. which is specified in the entry and whose specification is sufficient to render the entry intelligible under the rubric. All content of the entry not necessary to render the entry intelligible under the rubric, I will call elaboration. For the sake of this definition, I will assume that a catalogue has at least three entries.4

Let us consider three Homeric examples, one of a list (a), a second one of a simple catalogue (b), and a third one of a complex catalogue (c): (a) List of Nereids in Il. 18.37–49: θεαὶ δέ μιν ἀμφαγέροντο, πᾶσαι, ὅσαι κατὰ βένθος ἁλὸς Νηρηΐδες ἦσαν. ἔνθ’ ἄρ’ ἔην Γλαύκη τε Θάλειά τε Κυμοδόκη τε, Νησαίη Σπειώ τε Θόη θ’ Ἁλίη τε βοῶπις, […] ἔνθα δ’ ἔην Κλυμένη Ἰάνειρά τε καὶ Ἰάνασσα, Μαῖρα καὶ Ὠρείθυια ἐϋπλόκαμός τ’ Ἀμάθεια, ἄλλαι θ’ αἳ κατὰ βένθος ἁλὸς Νηρηΐδες ἦσαν. and the goddesses gathered around her, all who along the depth of the sea were daughters of Nereus. For Glauke was there, Kymodoke and Thaleia, Nesaie and Speio and Thoë, and ox-eyed Halia; […]

 3 Sammons 2007, 11–12. Various terms have been employed to describe the entries or items of a list or catalogue. See Beye 1964; Powell 1978; Edwards 1980; Barney 1982, 191–192; Thalmann 1984; Minchin 1996, 4–5; 2001, 74–76. 4 See Matz 1995 for three entries. Conversely, Minchin (2001, 75) argues for a minimum of four entries.

From List to Catalogue  

Klymene was there, Ianeira and Ianassa, Maira and Oreithyia and lovely-haired Amatheia, and the rest who along the depth of the sea were daughters of Nereus.

This is a typical example of a Homeric list, whose rubric is ‘Nereids’. The list contains 33 items, which are organized into entries juxtaposed by connective particles (καί and τε). In this case, entries cannot be distinguished from the individual items, since the list is virtually deprived of elaboration, except for the epithets βοῶπις, ἀγακλειτή and ἐϋπλόκαµος. The list is not complete,5 but seems to be a mere selection from a longer list or catalogue. It is pointless to ask whether the singer has chosen the abovementioned entries at random and stitched them together or whether he has cited them verbatim. Aural associations, assonance and alliteration as well as the Hesiodic Catalogue of Nereids show that observations of this kind stem from systemic features of hypertextual lists and catalogues since they are ‘listener- and singer-friendly’, i.e. they facilitate composition, memorization and interest. (b) Od. 11.225–332: νῶϊ μὲν ὣς ἐπέεσσιν ἀμειβόμεθ’, αἱ δὲ γυναῖκες ἤλυθον, ὤτρυνεν γὰρ ἀγαυὴ Περσεφόνεια, ὅσσαι ἀριστήων ἄλοχοι ἔσαν ἠδὲ θύγατρες. […] ἔνθ’ ἦ τοι πρώτην Τυρὼ ἴδον εὐπατέρειαν, ἣ φάτο Σαλμωνῆος ἀμύμονος ἔκγονος εἶναι, τὴν δὲ μέτ’ Ἀντιόπην ἴδον, Ἀσωποῖο θύγατρα, ἣ δὴ […] τὴν δὲ μετ’ Ἀλκμήνην ἴδον, Ἀμφιτρύωνος ἄκοιτιν, ἥ ῥ’ […] μητέρα τ’ Οἰδιπόδαο ἴδον, καλὴν Ἐπικάστην, ἣ […] καὶ Χλῶριν εἶδον περικαλλέα, τήν ποτε Νηλεὺς […]  5 Homer omits the rest from a bigger Nereid list, on which he has drawn his material, (Kakridis 1949, 75 argued that this list was part of a Pre-Homeric *Achilleis), since the same expression is used in verse-initial position in a list of deities in Hom. Hymn 3.95, where the omission argument does seem probable, especially since both lists are organized in the same way (Hom. Hymn 3.92–95: θεαὶ δ᾽ ἔσαν ἔνδοθι πᾶσαι, | ὅσσαι ἄρισται ἔσαν, + list + ἄλλαι τ᾽ ἀθάναται νόσφιν λευκωλένου Ἥρης – Il. 18.37–49: θεαὶ δέ μιν ἀμφαγέροντο, | πᾶσαι ὅσαι κατὰ βένθος ἁλὸς Νηρηΐδες ἦσαν + list + ἄλλαι θ’ αἳ κατὰ βένθος ἁλὸς Νηρηΐδες ἦσαν). The case of Il. 2.649, used by Edwards 1991 on Il. 18.49 against Kakridis 1949, is different since there is no initial πᾶσαι cut short by ἄλλαι. See also Sammons 2007, 13.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics καὶ Λήδην εἶδον, τὴν Τυνδαρέου παράκοιτιν, ἥ ῥ’ […] τὴν δὲ μέτ’ Ἰφιμέδειαν, Ἀλωῆος παράκοιτιν, εἴσιδον, ἣ δὴ […] Φαίδρην τε Πρόκριν τε ἴδον καλήν τ’ Ἀριάδνην, κούρην Μίνωος ὀλοόφρονος, ἥν ποτε Θησεὺς […] Μαῖράν τε Κλυμένην τε ἴδον στυγερήν τ’ Ἐριφύλην, ἣ […] And now, impelled by august Persephone, there came up all the women who had been the wives or the daughters of the great […] The first I saw was high-born Tyro, who told me that she was the daughter of the noble Salmoneus […] The next I saw was Antiope, the daughter of Asopus, who […] After Antiope I saw Alcmene, Amphitryon’s wife, who […] Then I saw Oedipus’ mother, the lovely Epikaste, who […] Next I saw the great beauty Chloris, whom once upon a time Neleus […] Then I saw Leda, wife of Tyndareus, who […] After her, I saw Iphimedeia, the consort of Aloeus, who […] Phaedra I also saw, and Procris, and the lovely Ariadne, that daughter of baleful Minos whom Theseus once […] Maera too and Clymene I saw, and the hateful Eriphyle, who […]

This Catalogue of Heroines contains 13 items, 9 of which receive considerable elaboration by being expanded into and specified by entries. The rubric under which they all fall is ‘wives and daughters of important men’. The various entries are introduced by the ‘τὴν δέ µέτ’ ἴδον’ formula. Such a technique recalls the ἠ’ οἵη formula, which is used in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Elsewhere I have argued:6 West contends that the ἠ’ οἵη formula with its ‘disjunctive’ nature presupposes an initial paradigm, which would have been introduced by a simple ‘οἵη’ and that this may have been the case with Pyrrha.7 This is an attractive hypothesis. In other epic catalogues or lists containing internal catalogue-features, a word is usually repeated with the addition of a particle indicating the addition of further items. An interesting example is the description of the shield of Achilles in Il. 18.478–608. The scenes depicted in each band of the shield are introduced by the ecphrastic-descriptive formula ‘ἐν δὲ’, which recapitulates a single ‘ἐν µὲν’ employed only for the central boss of the shield, which is described first. The same is the case with the ‘τὴν δὲ µέτ’ ἴδον’ formula, which is used in the first Nekyia (Od. 11.225–332). This stereotypical lemmatization mechanism is based on the expression ‘πρώτην + acc. of feminine noun + ἴδον’, which introduces the first entry in the Catalogue of Heroines, Tyro.8 Given that this technique is similar to the use of the ἠ’ οἵη formula in the Catalogue of Women, West’s suggestion is strengthened even more. It seems that this

 6 Tsagalis 2009, 165 (= chapter 11, p. 243, this volume). 7 West 1985, 56; Rutherford 2000, 83. 8 See Rutherford 2000, 93–94.

From List to Catalogue  

mechanism of creating an internal taxomonical principle of organization, which would be based on an initial itemizing device, is corollary to the technique of ‘increment recall’ employed in list-learning.9 According to this method of memorization, a person first learns a part of a list and rehearses it several times, until the list has been firmly memorized. He then proceeds by learning another part, which he rehearses separately and then, when memorized, adds to the first part. The learner can go on in this way, building only upon solid memory-acquired foundations. In this light, the use of an itemizing device based on an initial taxonomical mechanism (such as the ‘οἵη formula’ or the ‘ἐν μὲν formula’) facilitates ‘seriation’,10 the practice of sequential data-processing, since the repetition of such an ‘oral lemma’ would key the singer or the performer of a list on the required note and trigger in his memory the subsequent chunk of relevant material.

The only entries, which are deprived of any elaboration are the ones embedded in three-item verses, where only the last item is expanded by a relative clause (Φαίδρην τε Πρόκριν τε ἴδον καλήν τ’ Ἀριάδνην, […] ἥν ποτε Θησεύς — Μαῖράν τε Κλυµένην τε ἴδον στυγερήν τ’ Ἐριφύλην, ἥ […]). The rest of the entries are further divided into sub-entries, which allow the singer to provide not just genealogical information but also short (in general) but extended (for catalogue standards) narratives. In certain cases, these narratives do not concern the initial entry but one of the sub-entries. The item ‘Iphimedeia’ becomes an entry by the addition of a relative clause referring to her husband Poseidon (τὴν δὲ µέτ’ Ἰφιµέδειαν, Ἀλωῆος παράκοιτιν, | εἴσιδον, ἥ δὴ φάσκε Ποσειδάωνι µιγῆναι); this is further elaborated by reference to her offspring, Otus and Ephialtes. At this point, a new sub-entry is created, which is expanded by a whole narrative about her two sons (καὶ ῥ’ ἔτεκεν δύο παῖδε […], οὓς δὴ …). The last two verses, just as it is the case with the list of Nereids in Iliad 18, indicate that the catalogue is incomplete: πάσας δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, | ὅσσας ἡρώων ἀλόχους ἴδον ἠδὲ θύγατρας· (Od. 11.328–329). This almost formulaic way of indicating the inability of the singer to perform a complete catalogue has been interpreted as a way to highlight the importance of the Muses in the performance of his song (cf. Il. 2.488–490). Alternatively, the lack of a full catalogue may be seen as a covert statement of the fact that no oral catalogue can be complete, that all epic catalogues refer to other catalogues with which they constitute a totality disrupted or destabilized by the particular epic performance. In other words, the authority of a catalogue lies exactly in its  9 See Baddeley 1990, 40–42, 156–158. See also Minchin 2001, 89 n. 41, to whom I owe the previous reference. 10 On ‘seriation᾽, see Mandler and Dean 1969, 207–215. I owe this reference to Minchin 2001, 89 n. 41.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics lack of completeness not only internally, i.e. in reference to the lack of a cohesive narrative, but also externally, i.e. with respect to its fragmented, dispersed, transient, borderless nature. It seems that the declaration of the singer’s inability to complete his task constitutes an implicit statement of his loss of control over his catalogue, particularly of its beginning and end. As the entries begin to become independent, to take a life of their own and be aware of the innate thematic principle of the rubric they seem to partake of, they defy linearity and progression. To use an example from the Catalogue of Heroines, the entry of Epicaste, mother of Oedipus, constitutes a fragment which is self-contained to the extent that it has no vertical associations with other parts of the catalogue. At the same time, it is a kind of dispersed text, since it is horizontally linked to other texts pertaining to Theban myth, like the Thebais, the Oedipodia, the Epigonoi. When the audience listens to this material, it would at once activate in its mind myths pertaining to the Theban tradition, with the result that this fragmented text would be disseminated, almost ‘spilled over’ into the Theban material.11 This part of the catalogue is also transient: its force is temporary, fleeting, ephemeral, since it flows out of the Homeric tradition or the Odyssean plot and crosses over to another epic tradition. What seems at first glance static, unchanging and rigid thus becomes kinetic and open-ended, coming alive every time an audience hears it performed. To this extent, this thematic unit of the catalogue is boundless, for its borders are only present in its encapsulation within the Odyssean Catalogue of Heroines. In fact, this is only a link, treading a path to other mythical material, a window determining the end but also an exit, an everexpanding, incomplete threshold defying the fetishism of a closed object. (c) Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.484–510): ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι— ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε, πάρεστέ τε, ἴστέ τε πάντα, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν— οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν· […] ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω, νῆάς τε προπάσας. […] Βοιωτῶν μὲν Πηνέλεως καὶ Λήϊτος ἦρχον Ἀρκεσίλαός τε Προθοήνωρ τε Κλονίος τε, οἵ θ’ Ὑρίην ἐνέμοντο καὶ Αὐλίδα πετρήεσσαν

 11 See also Ebbott 2010.

From List to Catalogue  

[…] τῶν μὲν πεντήκοντα νέες κίον, ἐν δὲ ἑκάστῃ κοῦροι Βοιωτῶν ἑκατὸν καὶ εἴκοσι βαῖνον. Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos. For you, who are goddesses, are there, and you know all things, and we have heard only the rumour of it and know nothing. Who then of those were the chief men and the lords of the Danaans? […] I will tell the lords of the ships and the ships numbers. […] Leïtos and Peneleos were leaders of the Boiotians, with Arkesilaos and Prothoenor and Klonios; they who lived in Hyria and rocky Aulis […] Of these there were fifty ships in all, and on board each of these a hundred and twenty sons of the Boiotians.

The Catalogue of Ships (CS) has been regarded as the Homeric catalogue par excellence, with the result that in the Hellenistic period the entire second Book of the Iliad where it belongs was named after it. The CS is a complex form of catalogue for although its rubric is expressed in a straightforward manner, it is basically subdivided into two (occasionally three) items featuring in each entry. As early as 2.493, the poet defines his rubric as ‘leaders of the ships and all the ships’ (ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω νῆάς τε προπάσας); he then proceeds to describe the individual items, which are developed into two-level entries, one for each leader and one for the number of ships. Although reference to geographical location is constantly made and the CS follows some sort of geographical blueprint,12 it is fair to say that geography is not the guiding principle, since ‘no entry begins with a relative marker such as “to the north, south of there”’.13 The CS is a good example of the transformation of time into space that is so typical of catalogues. The lack of subordination characterizing the CS is best seen in the complete absence of any temporal markers, the most elementary prerequisite of all narrative. Conversely, spatial pointers are abundantly attested, translating chronological references to the Mycenaean past into a threecycle spiral movement of the CS based on geographical contiguity. By creating a notional map with respect to the origin of the Achaean army, the Iliadic tradition invites its listeners to leap back in time as they ‘move’ from one place to  12 Various theories have been put forward concerning the way the CS proceeds with respect to the geographical placement of the Greek troops. See Visser 1997 and Brügger et al. 2003, 153– 154 with a summary of previous bibliography. 13 Sammons 2007, 17 n. 28.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics another. By interpreting time in terms of space, the various entries of the CS resemble hyperlinks, which allow the audience to ‘traverse the linked units without regard to their serial structure’14 and de-emphasize or even erase temporality by parataxis, fragmentation, and omission of temporal references. In this light, the role of the audience becomes even more central, as listeners visualize the past by adapting it to their own mental template of the distribution of Achaean kingdoms in the Greek-speaking world. The CS aims at anchoring the distant past of the Homeric world into the audience’s cognitive scripts, which will, in their turn, allow for the reactivation of schemas of coherence, turning unknown time into familiar space.15

. Hyperlinks: Explicit and Implicit Hypertextuality By using techniques pertaining to epic dialect itself, lists and catalogues function as a hypetextual network whose nodes (items or entries) can be tailored to the audience’s knowledge and needs but also to the tradition’s specific aspirations. The result is a dynamic hypertext, formed by high-flexibility catalogues and lists able to cater for a significant amount of variation that goes far beyond name-chains prepared in standardized form for nonspecific use and lacking originality or individuality as if mass-produced (canned seriation). One of the primary, defining features of Homeric lists and catalogues is that they can be used to create hypertextual links between various oral traditions. In creating such links, rather than being limited to one single text or tradition, the boundaries between singer and audience are blurred and listeners begin to build a dynamic interaction with both the material within their text as well as with that which the specific items or entries can conjure up from other traditions. Unlike the printed catalogues with their singular arrangement, in oral Homeric lists and catalogues, remediated on a specific register, the arrangements are plural. Items do not simply represent an information pile but are defined by links. By creating both internal and external links, oral lists and catalogues generate multiple contexts, strata, and layers: in such a hypertextual world, arrangement and delivery are integral aspects of invention. Eschewing the impasse of rigidity and solidification, Homeric lists and catalogues use names not simply as lexical items but as putative links to a larger totality, a

 14 See Routledge Encyclopedia of Literary Theory, s.v. ‘digital narrative’, p. 108. 15 This function of the CS is very different and should, therefore, not be confused with Bakhtin’s (1981) chronotopes or timespaces, the convergence of time and space.

Hyperlinks: Explicit and Implicit Hypertextuality  

brilliant creation of oral song inviting audiences to break free from the oppressive constraints of sequential writing and navigate in the high seas of archaic myth. Let us consider the following case, which is based on the Iliadic and Hesiodic Catalogues of Nereids:16 Νησαίη Σπειώ τε Θόη θ’ Ἁλίη τε βοῶπις, Κυμοθόη τε καὶ Ἀκταίη καὶ Λιμνώρεια καὶ Μελίτη καὶ Ἴαιρα καὶ Ἀμφιθόη καὶ Ἀγαυὴ Κυμοθόη Σπειώ τε Θόη θ᾽ Ἀλίη τ᾽ ἐρόεσσα Πασιθέη τ᾽ Ἐρατώ τε καὶ Εὐνίκη ῥοδόπηχυς καὶ Μελίτη χαρίεσσα καὶ Εὐλιμένη καὶ Ἀγαυὴ Nesaie and Speio and Thoë, and ox-eyed Halia; Kymothoë was there, Aktaia and Limnoreia, Melite and Iaira, Amphithoë and Agauë (Il. 18.40–42) Kymothoë and Speio and Thoë and beloved Halia and Pasitheë and Erato and Eunike of the rosy arms, and Melite the graceful, and Eulimene and Agauë (Th. 245–247)

The similarities of these verses are striking. Verses 40 and 245 follow the same pattern, which is filled by identical entries in the exact same order with the exception of the first entry (Νησαίη — Κυµοθόη) and the epithet-modifier of the last entry (βοῶπις — ἐρόεσσα). This is a case of explicit hypertexuality, since the shift at the two ends of the verse highlights the fact that the two catalogues belong to a totality which transgresses the two epic traditions, the Homeric and the Hesiodic. The question of priority or the search of an Ur-catalogue of Nereids is pointless for — apart from being completely arbitrary — it falls into the trap of historic reductionism. As listeners mentally navigate in a ‘sea of epic traditions’, it becomes clear to them that this process is decentralized or rather recentralized, since their own organizing principle can be the only guiding nous.17 At the same time, the flow of names within a catalogue transcends verse boundaries and creates small networks of interconnections with no top or bottom, a Barthian plurality of associations.18 In this vein, explicit hypertextuality is accompanied by implicit hypertextuality. The latter, unlike the former, is not  16 In Th. 245 I have opted for the proper name Θόη (printed in OCT) than the epithet θοή (West 1966). 17 Landow 19972, 36–37. 18 Pagels 1989, 20.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics generated by specific links placed on the aural platform of the verse; it is created through the interaction of small networks of nodes distributed over a series of verses. Implicit hypertextuality emerges within a ‘forest of links’ defying a clear-cut structural blueprint. In the Iliadic passage from the Catalogue of Nereids quoted above, the entry Κυµοθόη, which is not part of the verse-limited series of links in verse 40, appears in the very beginning of the following verse introducing a three-name sequence (Κυµοθόη — Ἀκταίη — Λιµνώρεια). Another three-name sequence (Πασιθέη — Ἐρατώ Εὐνίκη) is attested in Th. 246, i.e. in the verse following the use of Κυµοθόη in the verse-limited link discussed above. In addition, verses 42 and 247 are introduced and capped by the same links (καὶ Μελίτη and καὶ Ἀγαυή respectively). This network of links challenges linearity as it unfolds unexpected associations. It turns out that the entry Κυµοθόη is not simply a direct node leading to another entry-link of the Hesiodic tradition but an indirect link generating the reactivation of a network of links tagged on the incipient entry Κυµοθόη. In this way, oral hyperlinks help listeners go beyond simply accessing and processing information, since they encourage them to construct and reflect on mythical knowledge. The very performance of a catalogue, whose entries are not mere lemmata in a dictionary-fashioned manner but links to other relevant material, are easily reactivated within the web of myth. Such an approach simply defies our concept of myth as a vast storehouse of knowledge or an enormous databank of information. Names in a list or catalogue are virtual pathfinders as they facilitate the continuous creation of a dynamic, open-ended performance, one that is created by listeners who are invited to challenge all the basic tenets of our Aristotelian notion of a text. Characterized by atemporality, lack of narrative sequentiality and almost complete absence of syntactical structure, Homeric catalogues resemble Barthes’ writerly text, ‘a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds’,19 which annuls the literary dichotomy between author and reader or singer and audience. Seen from this vantage point, variations between epic catalogues dealing with the same material should not be traced to the dependence of one catalogue on the other (as it has been argued for the Catalogue of Nereids in the Iliad and the Theogony respectively) but must be rather seen as a systemic feature of the hypertextual nature of oral catalogues, who lack a fixed center and a narrative goal.

 19 Barthes 1974, 5.

Etymologizing as a Hypertextual Note  

. Etymologizing as a Hypertextual Note Tagging or annotating lists may result in catalogues. In oral epic song this is mainly done by etymologizing or adding explanatory information with respect to a ‘favorite’ entry. The use of relative clauses to effect tagging or annotating specific entries of a catalogue should not simply be seen on the level of syntax but also on that of creating reference markers that are aurally superimposed upon the main name-list. In this way, the tagging relative clause with its clearly defined beginning (introduced by a relative pronoun) and end (before the appearance of a following entry) constitutes an almost independent aural document, not an auxiliary accretion upon the main list.20 The Homeric list and the Hesiodic catalogue of Nereids should not be seen within the limits of the vexed question concerning their relative chronology and priority of the one versus the other. Rather, they represent within the maze of lists and catalogues of gods and heroes current during the Archaic Period two hypertextual versions aiming at pursuing their own agenda by using different built-in goals which they try to fulfill, directing listeners to items or entries particular to their objectives. The etymologizing principle permeating the Hesiodic version, which evolves during the process of its performance from a list into a catalogue, may be seen as exploiting long-term discourse history by making use of a strategy into which the audience has been initiated in the preceding Hesiodic (Theogonic) discourse. This pointing backward technique of selecting a given name (focused entity) for etymological explanation is produced when reference is made to another entity which is either (a) a potential point of confusion with respect to the focused entity from which it needs to be distinguished or (b) easily recognizable by the listeners and therefore suitable for comparison and description of the new entity. In Th. 252–253, Κυµοδόκη is followed by a relative clause explaining her specific function, while special emphasis is given to her being distinct from Κυµατολήγη, whose similarity of name may result in confusion. Likewise, in Th. 262 Νηµερτής is etymologized on the basis of a salient feature of her father Nereus, who is an effective comparator by which the new entity can be described, since he has been already introduced to the audience as, among other things, a flawless divinity (νηµερτής).21

 20 See Landow 19972, 5–6. 21 Th. 233–236.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics

. Reconfiguring Authorship Freedom of exploring information seems to be restricted by coherence arising from the goals or targets which a particular poetic tradition aims at accomplishing. Since etymologizing is a form of hypertextual note that the Hesiodic tradition consistently uses to append or tag an entry, then it becomes clear that it attempts to exercise a considerable amount of control over the links it makes available to the audience. This is certainly true but given the hypertextual web of myth and the high accessibility of mythical material, listeners tend to continually reflect on the relevance and quality of the information made available to them. The result is a ‘shuttering’ of centrality, a questioning of privileged descriptions and presentations. The authoritative voice of the tradition is not annulled but challenged by an antihierarchical tendency for evaluation that is made possible by hypertextual nodes. The phenomenological distance between singer and listener is considerably narrowed, since the two ends of the performative spectrum are significantly entwined. Oral epic catalogues testify to what might be called collaborative authorship, a reconfiguration of the historical author effected by the joint efforts of singer and listener, poetic tradition, and audience. Before the advent of the hypertext, there were three traditional modes of collaboration: (a) ‘sequencing’, when the first person produces a small part of a piece of work (e.g. a line of a song) and the second corrects or comments on it; (b) ‘editing’, when the first person produces a draft of the whole work and the second person makes additions, corrections etc.; (c) ‘assembly-line model’, when two individuals divide from the beginning the whole work into two parts and work independently.22 The hypertext has made it possible to combine all three previous modes into one by ‘emphasizing the presence of other texts and their cooperative interaction’ and by making ‘all additions to a system simultaneously a matter of versioning and of the assembly-line model’.23 Thus, a catalogue can be framed by a clear declaration of collaborative work, which is presented in the form of a pressing need: the singer is unable to carry out his task without the help of the Muses whom he invokes. The difficulty of this task is not only explained by the amount of material the bard must retrieve in his memory but also, as I maintain, by his covert reference to his audience:

 22 See Landow 19972, 104–105. 23 Landow 19972, 105.

Reconfiguring Authorship  

ἔσπετε νῦν μοι, Μοῦσαι Ὀλύμπια δώματ’ ἔχουσαι— ὑμεῖς γὰρ θεαί ἐστε, πάρεστέ τε, ἴστέ τε πάντα, ἡμεῖς δὲ κλέος οἶον ἀκούομεν οὐδέ τι ἴδμεν— οἵ τινες ἡγεμόνες Δαναῶν καὶ κοίρανοι ἦσαν· πληθὺν δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, οὐδ’ εἴ μοι δέκα μὲν γλῶσσαι, δέκα δὲ στόματ’ εἶεν, φωνὴ δ’ ἄρρηκτος, χάλκεον δέ μοι ἦτορ ἐνείη, εἰ μὴ Ὀλυμπιάδες Μοῦσαι, Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο θυγατέρες, μνησαίαθ’ ὅσοι ὑπὸ Ἴλιον ἦλθον· ἀρχοὺς αὖ νηῶν ἐρέω, νῆάς τε προπάσας. Tell me now, you Muses who have your homes on Olympos. For you, who are goddesses, are there, and you know all things, and we have heard only the rumour of it and know nothing. Who then of those were the chief men and the lords of the Danaans? I could not tell over the multitude of them nor name them, not if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, not if I had a voice never to be broken and a heart of bronze within me, not unless the Muses on Olympos, daughters of Zeus of the aegis, remembered all those who came beneath Ilium. I will tell the lords of the ships and the ships numbers. (Il. 2.484–493)

The fluctuation between the plurals ἡµεῖς, ἀκούοµεν, ἴδµεν and the singulars ἐγώ µυθήσοµαι, ὀνοµήνω, and ἐρέω is not simply a matter of syntactical variation but an issue pertaining to singer-audience relations. The well-known phrase ‘I could not tell over the multitude of them,24 not if I had ten tongues and ten mouths, not if I had a voice never to be broken and a heart of bronze within me’ is rather puzzling when seen in the light of the aforementioned discussion. What does it really mean to have ten tongues and ten mouths? Is this a covert statement pointing to a bard with outstanding abilities or to a group of bards working together? Is it possible that the epic is saying that even if ten bards collaborated, they would not have been able to do what the Muses (also plural) can do? Is the plurality of the Muses to be taken as symmetrical to a putative plurality of epic singers hidden behind the plurals, ἡµεῖς, ἀκούοµεν and ἴδµεν? The singular ἐγώ µυθήσοµαι οὐδ’ ὀνοµήνω seems to refute this interpretation but, even if this is so, the singer may be taken as if representing his own profession, i.e. bards in general who find recourse to divine assistance to perform a catalogue.

 24 On this interpretation of πληθύν, cf. Il. 15.295–296. I owe this observation to Ford 1992, 72– 73.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics Viewed from this vantage point, this framing inescapably leads, to another, equally important question: why is divine help sought, apart from the proem, before the beginning of some catalogues such as the CS?25 The answer must be sought in the very content of the CS, which contains ‘factual material’, mere data about the past and can therefore be contentious and politically dangerous. In fact, the emphasis given on a superlative ability of the Muses to possess a complete knowledge of the past (ἴστέ τε πάντα) is consonant with the singer’s attempt to assert the authority of his catalogue. In the words of Scodel:26 The passage [2.484–493], then, is an implicit defense against anyone who wants the catalogue to be different. The poet does not imply here that human report is wrong, but he needs the Muse to guarantee the passage.

The CS is clearly Panhellenic in scope, but this does not mean at all that it is void of local contentions and disputes. Given that different audiences may have reacted differently with respect to a given part of the catalogue, the bard aims at bestowing to his endeavor undisputed authority, of the kind that only the Muses can bequeath. To this extent, the collaborative participation of the audience is an indispensable part of the performance of epic song. Evaluation of the content of a ‘historically overloaded’ chunk of song like the CS was, in all probability, even more demanding, the more so since the bard had to deal with a large variety of expectations depending on local claims and other politically colored aspirations. Such a performance was undoubtedly fraught with high risk and always imbued with the danger of failure, of letting down audiences or being judged as incompetent. The constant disclaimers concerning both the singer’s inability for absolute accuracy (Il. 2.488–492) and completeness (Od. 11.328–329) are audience-oriented and in this respect testify to the notion of hypertextual collaborative authorship. Ford has argued that the ‘gap between the multifariousness of experience and an account of it in speech […] is repeatedly portrayed by Homer as a gap between the powers of sight and speech’.27 I tend to view this gap as being part of a performance strategy adopted by the singer who is commissioned with the task of reminding his external audience that his song is an authoritative instantiation of the past and that the joint effort of his listeners is required so that his version of the story is enriched via the reactivation of the links he puts at their  25 See Cingano 2005, 118–152. 26 Scodel 2002, 72. 27 Ford 1992, 75.

Reconfiguring Authorship  

disposal. In Odyssey 3 Nestor replies to Telemachus’ question about Odysseus in the following way: ὦ φίλ᾽, ἐπεί μ᾽ ἔμνησας ὀϊζύος, ἣν ἐν ἐκείνῳ δήμῳ ἀνέτλημεν μένος ἄσχετοι υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, ἠμὲν ὅσα ξὺν νηυσὶν ἐπ᾽ ἠεροειδέα πόντον πλαζόμενοι κατὰ ληΐδ’, ὅπῃ ἄρξειεν Ἀχιλλεύς, ἠδ᾽ ὅσα καὶ περὶ ἄστυ μέγα Πριάμοιο ἄνακτος μαρνάμεθ᾽· ἔνθα δ᾽ ἔπειτα κατέκταθεν ὅσσοι ἄριστοι· ἔνθα μὲν Αἴας κεῖται ἀρήϊος, ἔνθα δ’ Ἀχιλλεύς, ἔνθα δὲ Πάτροκλος, θεόφιν μήστωρ ἀτάλαντος, ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐμὸς φίλος υἱός, ἅμα κρατερὸς καὶ ἀμύμων, Ἀντίλοχος, περὶ μὲν θείειν ταχὺς ἠδὲ μαχητής· ἄλλα τε πόλλ’ ἐπὶ τοῖς πάθομεν κακά· τίς κεν ἐκεῖνα πάντα γε μυθήσαιτο καταθνητῶν ἀνθρώπων; οὐδ᾽ εἰ πεντάετές γε καὶ ἑξάετες παραμίμνων ἐξερέοις, ὅσα κεῖθι πάθον κακὰ δῖοι Ἀχαιοί· πρίν κεν ἀνιηθεὶς σὴν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἵκοιο. Ah, my friend, what memories the name of Troy brings back! The miseries we fierce Achaeans endured there — raid after raid across the misty seas in search of plunder wherever Achilles led, fight after fight around the very walls of royal Priam’s town! There our best men fell. There warlike Ajax lies. There lies Achilles, there Patroclus, wise in counsel as the gods. There too Antilochus, my own dear son, as strong as he was handsome, a fast runner, and what a fighter too! Nor is that the full sum of what the noble Achaeans endured at Troy. There is no man on earth who could unfold to you the whole disastrous tale, not though you sat and questioned him for half a dozen years, by which time you would have grown weary and gone home. (Od. 3.103–117)

After a short list of heroes who perished in Troy, Nestor refers to time as the reason explaining human inability to find out what happened in such a long period in the past. However, the focalization is that of Telemachus and not that of Nestor, for the emphasis is on asking about the past, not on telling someone about it. In other words, the capping frame of this list highlights the importance of the audience (both internal and external) in the shaping of the ensuing narrative. Since it becomes clear that the storyteller’s narration is, partly at least, conditioned by his audience, then the names in the list function as nodes conjuring up in the listeners’ minds information that the following narrative will not deal with. In fact, Nestor’s brief list contains only names of heroes who died in the war (Ajax, Achilles, Patroclus, Antilochus), whereas the story that the Pylian king will tell Telemachus refers to the returns of certain Achaean leaders. It may then be assumed that the bard expects from his audience to activate their knowledge of material pertaining to the Trojan War, while he will offer them a selected version of post-war events.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics In Odyssey 4 Helen adopts the language of the poet and declares her inability to narrate all the stories she knows about Odysseus: πάντα μὲν οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ᾽ ὀνομήνω, ὅσσοι Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονός εἰσιν ἄεθλοι, ἀλλ᾽ οἷον τόδ᾽ ἔρεξε καὶ ἔτλη καρτερὸς ἀνὴρ δήμῳ ἔνι Τρώων, ὅθι πάσχετε πήματ’ Ἀχαιοί. It is, of course, beyond me to describe or even number all the daring feats of dauntless Odysseus. But here is one marvelous exploit which he had the nerve to conceive and carry through in Troy when you Achaeans were hard pressed. (Od. 4.240–243)

Instead of invoking the Muses, Helen reminds her audience (Menelaus, Telemachus, and Pisistratus) of the unsurpassable power of Zeus, who can give at one point each mortal what is good and later to another what is bad (Od. 4.235–237). The reference to Zeus’ ability to achieve all things (ἅπαντα) is implicitly opposed to that of Helen who cannot describe or number all the deeds of Odysseus (πάντα μὲν οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, | ὅσσοι Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονός εἰσιν ἄεθλοι).28 This initial framing of the ensuing narration becomes all the more significant given that the ineffable πάντα alludes to other stories about Odysseus which the audience or parts of the audience, both internal (Menelaus) and external, have heard about him. It should be also taken into consideration that prior to this speech the narrator has informed us (Od. 4.220–221) that Helen has given a φάρµακον […] | νηπενθές τ’ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων to all those present, who are going to be her audience so that they forget their sufferings. It is no wonder that her story offers a positive outlook at Odysseus’ past, an outlook that will bring healing. Her choice is also conditioned by her audience, both Telemachus who must find out about an exceptionally dauntless and ingenious deed of his polytropic father, and Menelaus who takes up the narrative after her and narrates the story of the Trojan Horse. Even this last episode narrated by Menelaus is conditioned by the partly new (Helen), partly stable (Telemachus) internal audience, since Helen’s cunning tricks are outdone by Odysseus’ even greater resourcefulness. In this process, storytellers and audiences shift. In the first case, Helen is the narrator and Menelaus and Telemachus the audience, while in the second, it is Menelaus who becomes the storyteller and Helen and Telemachus the audience. This is an exceptional case of collaborative storytelling with no catalogues. Menelaus’ story silences a putative catalogue of Greek he-

 28 Od. 4.240–241.

Reconfiguring Authorship  

roes inside the Trojan Horse whom Helen addressed by name. It is clear that what happens in the plot is analogous to what the singer attempts to do on the level of the performance: as the stories about Odysseus’ past are endless, the bard allows different characters to select individual episodes of the hero’s life and narrate them alternatively, assuming that his audience will understand that the choice of these incidents is conditioned by their own knowledge of events, that the collaborative effort of storytellers and audiences on the level of the plot mirrors the collaborative effort of singer and audience on the level of the performance. Helen’s inability to narrate everything is an implicit indication to the audience that they will hear only part of Odysseus’ past and that as Menelaus as audience works together with her and adds another story to her initial narrative, so their collaborative effort is required so that Odysseus’ past comes alive within the multitude of stories they have undoubtedly heard or know themselves about the great king of Ithaca. In Od. 11.516–537 Odysseus selects only two episodes of Neoptolemus’ Trojans exploits: (a) the death of Eurypylus (Od. 11.516–522) and (b) the Trojan Horse (Od. 11.523–537): (a) πολλοὺς δ’ ἄνδρας ἔπεφνεν ἐν αἰνῇ δηϊοτῆτι. πάντας δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, ὅσσον λαὸν ἔπεφνεν ἀμύνων Ἀργείοισιν, ἀλλ’ οἷον τὸν Τηλεφίδην κατενήρατο χαλκῷ, ἥρω’ Εὐρύπυλον, πολλοὶ δ’ ἀμφ’ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι Κήτειοι κτείνοντο γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων. κεῖνον δὴ κάλλιστον ἴδον μετὰ Μέμνονα δῖον. Many were the men he brought down in mortal combat. I could not tell you of all those he killed in battle for the Argives, nor give you their names; but well I remember how the heroic Eurypylus son of Telephus fell to his sword, and how many of his Hittite men-in-arms were slaughtered at his side, all on account of a bribe that a woman had taken. He was the handsomest man I ever saw, next to the godlike Memnon.

Odysseus’ selection of these two episodes is based on the addressee of his speech, Achilles, who — he assumes — will at once use his own knowledge of events to fill in the necessary gaps and complete the story. As far as the episode of Eurypylus is concerned, the framing πάντας δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ’ ὀνομήνω, | ὅσσον λαὸν ἔπεφνεν ἀμύνων Ἀργείοισιν is followed by the introduction of a single person not by his name but by his patronymic (Τηλεφίδην), which functions as a hyperlink leading both the internal audience (Achilles) and the external to the reactivation of supplementary information. As Odysseus expects that Achilles will immediately recall that during the Teuthranian expedition he had wounded the Mysian king Telephus, so the singer assumes that

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics his audience will conjure up in their memory not only the story of Telephus but also that of Priam’s bribing Astyoche, Eurypylus’ mother, to convince her son to take part in the war after the death of Achilles. In fact, the whole phrase πολλοί δ’ ἀμφ’ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι | Κήτειοι κτείνοντο γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων functions like a link facilitating access to the episode of Priam’s giving a golden vine made by Hephaestus to Astyoche (γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων). Both incidents, which were undoubtedly part of pre-Homeric saga, formed part of the Cyclic epics, the wounding of Telephus featuring in the Cypria (arg. ll. 126–128 Severyns), the bribing of Astyoche (fr. 29 PEG = 6 EGF = 6 GEF) and the death of Eyrypylus in the Ilias parva (arg. ll. 219–220 Severyns).29 (b) αὐτὰρ ὅτ᾽ εἰς ἵππον κατεβαίνομεν, ὃν κάμ᾽ Ἐπειός, Ἀργείων οἱ ἄριστοι, ἐμοὶ δ’ ἐπὶ πάντα τέταλτο, ἠμὲν ἀνακλῖναι πυκινὸν λόχον ἠδ’ ἐπιθεῖναι, ἔνθ᾽ ἄλλοι Δαναῶν ἡγήτορες ἠδὲ μέδοντες δάκρυά τ᾽ ὠμόργνυντο, τρέμον θ᾽ ὑπὸ γυῖα ἑκάστου· κεῖνον δ᾽ οὔ ποτε πάμπαν ἐγὼν ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν οὔτ᾽ ὠχρήσαντα χρόα κάλλιμον οὔτε παρειῶν δάκρυ’ ὀμορξάμενον· ὁ δέ με μάλα πόλλ᾽ ἱκέτευεν ἱππόθεν ἐξέμεναι, ξίφεος δ᾽ ἐπεμαίετο κώπην καὶ δόρυ χαλκοβαρές, κακὰ δὲ Τρώεσσι μενοίνα. ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ Πριάμοιο πόλιν διεπέρσαμεν αἰπήν, μοῖραν καὶ γέρας ἐσθλὸν ἔχων ἐπὶ νηὸς ἔβαινεν ἀσκηθής, οὔτ᾽ ἂρ βεβλημένος ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ οὔτ’ αὐτοσχεδίην οὐτασμένος, οἷά τε πολλὰ γίνεται ἐν πολέμῳ· ἐπιμὶξ δέ τε μαίνεται Ἄρης. Then again, when we Argive captains took our places in the Wooden Horse that Epeus had constructed and it rested with me to throw the door of our ambush open or to keep it shut, all the other Danaan chieftains and officers were wiping the tears from their eyes and every man’s legs were trembling beneath him. But not once did I see your son’s handsome face turn pale or catch him brushing a tear from his cheek. On the contrary he begged me time and time again to let him jump out from the Horse and kept handling his sword-hilt and his heavy bronze spear in his eagerness to inflict disaster on the Trojans. And when he had brought Priam’s city tumbling down in ruins, he took his share of the spoils and his special prize and embarked safe and sound on his ship without a single wound either from a flying spear or from a sword at close quarters. Such wounds are common in battle: the War-God in his fury is no respecter of persons.

In the second episode Odysseus highlights Neoptolemus’ lack of fear (κεῖνον δ’ οὔ ποτε πάμπαν ἐγὼν ἴδον ὀφθαλμοῖσιν | οὔτ’ ὠχρήσαντα χρόα κάλλιμον οὔτε  29 See chapter 13 (this volume).

Versioning  

παρειῶν | δάκρυ’ ὀμορξάμενον), eagerness for battle (ὁ δέ με μάλα πόλλ’ ἱκέτευεν | ἱππόθεν ἐξέμεναι, ξίφεος δ’ ἐπεμαίετο κώπην), and invulnerability (ἀσκηθής, οὔτ’ ἂρ βεβλημένος ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ | οὔτ’ αὐτοσχεδίην οὐτασμένος). His underscoring of these characteristics of Neoptolemus has been determined by the fact that he is speaking to Achilles, whose lack of fear, excellence and desire for fighting, and invulnerability were ironically cut short by his epic fate: he abstained from war because of his wrath against Agamemnon and he was killed by the concerted efforts of Paris and Apollo. By reminding Achilles of his own fate, Odysseus emphasizes the positive side of Neoptolemus even more. The singer expects from the audience to use the mere references that Odysseus makes to different incidents of the Trojan War saga as pathways leading to the retrieval of relevant material. The bard offers them a starting point, an initial hyperlink turning on their storehouse of mythical material. By collaborative effort, meaning is constructed based on the retrieval of other traditions and their cooperative interaction, through a plurality regained via the active participation of the audience in the performance.

. Versioning Versioning is a technical term used in hypertext technology to describe the storage and management of previous copies of a piece of information, for security, diagnostics, and interest. This term is directly applicable to the performance of oral poetry since it allows us to explore the possibility that some bards may have been interested in showing their own contribution to traditional material during the performance. Moreover, if a singer aimed at storing a given version in such a way that he could claim authority, he should be able to demonstrate what his personal input was. Is it possible to trace certain cases where a ‘personal’ version or piece of information has been ‘stored’? Let us consider the Catalogue of Zeus’ concubines in Il. 14.315–328: οὐ γάρ πώ ποτέ μ’ ὧδε θεᾶς ἔρος οὐδὲ γυναικὸς θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσι περιπροχυθεὶς ἐδάμασσεν, οὐδ’ ὁπότ’ ἠρασάμην Ἰξιονίης ἀλόχοιο, ἣ τέκε Πειρίθοον, θεόφιν μήστωρ’ ἀτάλαντον· οὐδ’ ὅτε περ Δανάης καλλισφύρου Ἀκρισιώνης, ἣ τέκε Περσῆα πάντων ἀριδείκετον ἀνδρῶν· οὐδ’ ὅτε Φοίνικος κούρης τηλεκλειτοῖο, ἣ τέκε μοι Μίνων τε καὶ ἀντίθεον Ῥαδάμανθυν· οὐδ’ ὅτε περ Σεμέλης οὐδ’ Ἀλκμήνης ἐνὶ Θήβῃ, ἥ ῥ’ Ἡρακλῆα κρατερόφρονα γείνατο παῖδα· ἣ δὲ Διώνυσον Σεμέλη τέκε χάρμα βροτοῖσιν·

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics οὐδ’ ὅτε Δήμητρος καλλιπλοκάμοιο ἀνάσσης, οὐδ’ ὁπότε Λητοῦς ἐρικυδέος, οὐδὲ σεῦ αὐτῆς, ὡς σέο νῦν ἔραμαι καί με γλυκὺς ἵμερος αἱρεῖ. For never before has love for any goddess or woman so melted about the heart inside me, broken it to submission as now: not that time when I loved the wife of Ixion who bore to me Peirithoös, equal of the gods in counsel, nor when I loved Acrisius’ daughter, sweet-stepping Danaë, who bore Perseus to me, pre-eminent among all men, nor when I loved the daughter of far-renowned Phoenix, Europa who bore Minus to me, and Rhadamanthys the godlike; not when I loved Semele, or Alcmene in Thebe, when Alcmene bore me a son, Heracles the strong-hearted, while Semele’s son was Dionysus, the pleasure of mortals; not when I loved the queen Demeter of the lovely tresses, not when it was glorious Leto, nor yourself, so much as now I love you, and the sweet passion has taken hold of me.

Although the rubric of this catalogue is ‘Zeus’ concubines’, special emphasis is given to his offspring in the sense that they are the products of the materialization of his erotic desires.30 This female catalogue with its emphasis on genealogy bears similarities to a specific form of genealogic poem, the Ehoiai or Catalogue of Women.31 The catalogue of Zeus’ concubines consists of seven entries (daughter of Ixion, Danae, daughter of Phoenix, Semele, Alcmene, Demeter, Leto) briefly expanded by references to Zeus’ solely male offspring: Peirithoos, Perseus, Minus and Rhadamanthys, Heracles, Dionysus. In the two last entries (Demeter and Leto) there is no mention of children. The first three entries are organized in distichs, the first having the form of ‘when I loved X-woman’ and the second ‘who bore to me X’, the next two (Semele and Alcmene) are juxtaposed in a single verse and their offspring are given one verse each but in ring form (Semele-Alcmene-Aclmene’s son Heracles-Semele’s son Dionysus), whereas the last two, which are deprived of any mention of offspring, occupy one verse each. The catalogue has the following shape (A1/A2-B1/B2-C1/C2-D1+E1/ E2/D2-F1/G1): Entry 1 (A1): … not that time when I loved the wife of Ixion (A2) who bore to me Peirithoös, equal of the gods in counsel,

 30 See Sammons 2007, 103–104. 31 I am not referring to the Megalai Ehoiai because it cannot be used for my argumentation due to lack of material.

Versioning  

Entry 2 (B1): nor when I loved Acrisius’ daughter, sweet-stepping Danaë, (B2) who bore Perseus to me, pre-eminent among all men, Entry 3 (C1): nor when I loved the daughter of far-renowned Phoenix, Europa (C2) who bore Minus to me, and Rhadamanthys the godlike; Entries 4–5 (D1-E1): not when I loved Semele, or Alcmene in Thebe, (E2) when Alcmene bore me a son, Heracles the strong-hearted, (D2) while Semele’s son was Dionysus, the pleasure of mortals; Entry 6 (F1): not when I loved the queen Demeter of the lovely tresses, Entry 7 (G1): not when it was glorious Leto

What gives this catalogue its special tone is the use of the priamel. This is a rhetorical device employed in lists, which aims at highlighting the preeminence of the last element that is approved after the rejection of a series of other items belonging to the same rubric. Seen from the vantage point of epic versions abbreviated into items of the genealogical type that we encounter in Zeus’ catalogue of concubines, the priamel indicates not only that the last item-version in this list is the authoritative one but also that the bard is fully aware of the other items/versions which relate that Zeus had slept with various women. The singer aims at pointing to his audience that it is his versioning of traditional mythical material referring to Zeus’ love affairs that results in accentuating the ‘current’, Iliadic version of making love to Hera. By storing mythical data within a catalogue, the singer can present them in miniature form to his audience and underscore the authority of the performance at hand, the one emphasizing — through a priamel — the supremacy of the singer’s preferred version. Another form of versioning, i.e. of data storage in the hypertext technical lingo, is the relvar (relation variable). In a relational database, all data are stored and accessed through relations, which are sometimes called base relvars. Some relvars do not have their data stored in them but are a result of applying relational operations to other relvars, which are sometimes called derived relvars, meaning that their information is derived from other sources. In oral epic song, when an element or entry in a given chain is different from a metrically equivalent element of the same chain in another set or list, then we can see that it is not a question of priority of the one list versus the other but of the two possible values of a given element. By belonging to the same chain of items, Νησαίη (Il. 18.40) and Κυµοθόη (Th. 245) are relational variables. In a hypertextual environment they both constitute the two possible expressions of the same element of a given set or chain. To this extent there is no substitution of one by the other but two manifestations of the same entry in a list using a catalogue-specific

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics language, which has its own Boolean grammar: it is relational and bi-focal. This aspect of the hypertext may strike a familiar note to all oralists who are used to formulaic flexibility. This time though there is no replacement strategy at hand but activation of the hypertextual web of myth, whose nexus of associations is a systemic feature, a built-in, so to speak, quality. In fact, navigating may be conditioned but not really determined as listeners are able, partly at least, to select the labyrinthine path they wish to follow. In the words of Bakker,32 [l]ike text or the internet, the world of myth is a network within which one has to find one’s way, and the one who is capable of weaving the primary units of mythic narrative may not have control over the paths that connect them.

When the singer decides to use the names of the Achaean leaders, of the Nereids, of the Underworld heroines, of Zeus’ concubines or of the suitors of Penelope and to present them in the special register of a catalogue form, which, unlike narrative, defies any form of subordination, then these names are turned from mere items or entries into hyperlinks, i.e. they cease to exist by themselves.

. Beginnings and Endings How does an oral epic catalogue begin or end? On what grounds does the singer decide about the point he should begin his listing of items or entries and when does he consider it fit to bring his catalogue to a halt? Is completeness synonymous to the ‘end’ or is it better to turn, once more, to plurality and talk about ‘beginnings’ and ‘endings’? Beginning is, by definition, pointing to the future, to a later time, whereas the end is looking backwards to a prior time. This is of course only one of the two ways the beginning and the end can be constructed. It is also possible to talk about them not in terms of presence, but of absence: in this respect, a beginning defines a time, place or action not-after something else, while the end describes a time, place or action not-before something else. This double-aspect of beginning and end is of crucial importance for the hypertext since the ability of readers to navigate from whatever point they choose renders the very idea of a beginning null and void. Within the world of oral epic song, the beginning of a catalogue is often determined with exceptional emphasis since the singer either invokes the Muses or expresses his inability to perform this task on his own or both. Such preoccu-

 32 2001b, 149–160.

Beginnings and Endings  

pation with determining the starting point reminds one of the proems of the two Homeric epics:33 In the process of retrieving information that will be used in the proem, the speaking voice begins with the first focus of consciousness that surfaces the mind: the principal theme. But this theme can be triggered only through appeal to divine assistance (ἄειδε, θεά — ἔννεπε, Mοῦσα). Therefore, the grammatical particularities observed by traditional critics (such as the initial accusative, the vocative used for divine invocation) have not so much to do with the mimetic tendency of the Odyssean proem with respect to the Iliadic one, but rather with information-processing organized by the human mind.

The rubric of a catalogue is expanded by appositional devices in the manner of relative clauses or strung-on paratactic δέ-clauses. These item-pluses are bifocal and play a key-role in the audience’s orientation since they look at the same time backwards and forwards. They are anaphoric (in the sense that they are related to left-located, or at times dislocated, terms) and deictic (since they acclimatize the listener to the particulars of the rubric). Homeric speech34 speedily moves to the beginning of its own cherished version of events in the same way human discourse hastens to promote its own undisputed authority. Reiterated phraseology occurring in oral epic catalogues (like the Homeric list of Nereids in Iliad 18 and the Hesiodic catalogue of Nereids in the Theogony) and general familiarity with the epic tradition as a whole on the part of the audience stand for typical mental structures employed for organizing information in an economical way and, moreover, for interpreting reality upon a given-new pattern.35 Homeric speech, as a form of special speech, cognitively involves the audience in the ‘processes that create both language and story’.36 The search for a point of exit in a catalogue or list is conditioned by a specific mental strategy employed in hypertext technology with respect to material organizing.37 Another possible form of hypertextual literary organization involves parataxis, which is produced by repetition rather than sequence. Barbara Herrnstein Smith explains that in literary works that employ logical or temporal organization, ‘the dislocation or omission of any element will tend to make the sequence as a whole incomprehensible, or will radically change its effect. In paratactic structure, however (where the principle of generation does not cause any one element to ‘follow’ from another), thematic units can be added,  33 Tsagalis 2005, 61–62 (= pp. 41–42, this volume). 34 Cf. Hor. de arte poetica, 148: semper ad eventum festinat. 35 See Hornby 1972, 632–642; Clark and Clark 1977, 93; Brown and Yule 1983, 176–189. 36 See Russo 1999, 169. 37 Landow 19972, 186–187.

  The Dynamic Hypertext: Lists and Catalogues in the Homeric Epics omitted, or exchanged without destroying the coherence or effect of the poem’s thematic structure’. According to Smith, ‘variations on a theme’ is one of the two most obvious forms that paratactic structure may take. The other one is the “list”’. The main problem with which parataxis, like hypertext, confronts narrative is that any ‘generating principle that produces a paratactic structure cannot in itself determine a concluding point’ (Poetic Closure, 99–100).38

Given the multimodal, performative nature of oral epic song, bards tend to employ aural means as part of creating links between the entries included in their lists and catalogues. Since these aural links however cease to exist when the singer is about to ‘abort’ his catalogue, they produce a satisfying halt by creating both the illusion of an end, although they are only closures, and a ‘promise’ for a new beginning, once they are encountered in another list. The following elements describe certain aural links observed in the list of Nereids in Il. 18.39–48. It is to be noted that assonance and alliteration of the sort described hereafter are clearly associative, i.e. they effect connections and enhance transitions. It is exactly this quality of this aural network that informs the audience that what they hear is only the aural nature of links and not their borders, just as memory-friendly addresses in the web have beginning and end, but the texts they lead to are virtually borderless and can be endlessly expanded. (a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g)

(h)

word-initial and verse-initial assonance: ∆ωτώ / ∆εξαµένη / ∆ωρίς ‘progressive’ assonance and alliteration: Θάλειά τε Κυµοδόκη — Θόη θ’ Ἁλίη — Κυµοθόη — Ἀµφιθόη — Ἀµφινόµη verse-initial word-initial and terminal assonance: ∆ωτώ τε Πρωτώ τε verse-internal word-terminal assonance: Ὠρείθυια — Ἀµάθυια verse-internal word-initial assonance: Ἰάνειρά τε — καί Ἰάνασσα verse-terminal assonance and alliteration: Καλλιάνασσα — καί Ἰάνασσα verse-internal alliteration: τε Θόη θ’ Ἁλίη τε ἀγακλειτὴ Γαλάτεια two- (44, 46, 47)39 or three-step (39, 43, 45) progressive syllable increase: ∆εξαµένη — Ἀµφινόµη — Καλλιάνειρα (4–4–5)40

 38 Landow 20063, 223–224. 39 Two-digit numbers in parenthesis indicate verses. 40 One-digit numbers in parenthesis indicate number of syllables per word.

Beginnings and Endings  

Νηµερτής — Ἀψευδής — Καλλιάνασσα (3–3–5) Κλυµένη — Ἰάνειρα — Ἰάνασσα (3–4–4) Γλαύκη — Θάλεια — Κυµοδόκη (2–3–4) ∆ωτώ — Πρωτώ — Φέρουσα — ∆υναµένη (2–2–3–4) ∆ωρίς — Πανόπη — Γαλάτεια (2–3–4)

Acoustic associations between juxtaposed names and more sophisticated aural patterns should be regarded not only as means facilitating memorization but also as effective tools attracting the audience’s attention and collecting data in the form of compact aural chains. In any oral epic catalogue, each item is presented by a single intonation unit.41 This convergence is directly paralleled to one of the most basic features of hyperlinks where each item corresponds to a different link. The highlighting of the singer’s inability to offer a complete catalogue is a ‘clinch’ to the audience that conclusiveness and stability should not be expected and that closure is heavily conditioned by performance-practicalities. In this respect, catalogues have no end, only ‘endings’, whose plurality is an invitation to the audience to go on in their own mind, to conjure up more information from other traditions or sources, to transcend the limitations of any given list, to be alert to the existence of a totality that song can never fully achieve.

 41 See the analysis above.

 Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character . Introductory Remarks This study investigates how localization, meter and verse-structure play a significant role in determining the semantic function of a Homeric character, in this case Helen. Since traditional epic diction has played an important role in the shaping of epic, it can be plausibly argued that it has also influenced the way epic characters are presented. Clader has shown how the epithet system and the themes associated with Helen in archaic epic poetry have been shaped by traditional epic diction.1 I will therefore argue that Helen’s special status in the Iliad is not only manifested ‘in the epithets and themes through which the tradition defines her’2 but also in the treatment of her name.3

. Localization, Text and Semantics Here follows a complete list of all the attestations of Helen’s name in the Iliad:

.. Helen in the Nominative Case 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

τὸν δ’ Ἑλένη μύθοισιν ἀμείβετο δῖα γυναικῶν τὸν δ’ ἠμείβετ’ ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα τὸν δ’ Ἑλένη τανύπεπλος ἀμείβετο δῖα γυναικῶν ὣς ἔφατ’· ἔδδεισεν δ’ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα ἔνθα καθῖζ’ Ἑλένη, κούρη Διὸς αἰγιόχοιο Ἀργείη δ’ Ἑλένη μετ’ ἄρα δμῳῇσι γυναιξίν τὸν δ’ Ἑλένη μύθοισι προσηύδα μειλιχίοισιν τῇσι δ᾽ ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένη τριτάτη ἐξῆρχε γόοιο

(3.171) (3.199) (3.228) (3.418) (3.426) (6.323) (6.343) (24.761)

In the nominative, Helen’s name is never employed in verse-terminal position, which should be considered a typical heroic feature.4 Is this because she is de 1 See Clader 1976, 41–61. 2 Clader 1976, 40. 3 I have decided to limit my investigation of Helen’s name to the Iliad. 4 See Kahane 1994, 119. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-004

Localization, Text and Semantics  

prived of any heroics or is it simply due to metrical constraints dictated by her name’s prosody? Since the metrical shape of Helen’s name (⏑ ⏑ −) makes its localization at verse-end impossible, it seems that the question we have asked is easily answered. However and before embarking on an examination of the treatment of Helen’s name in the nominative we should consider the way the Iliad deals with the only mortal woman,5 whose name presents the same metrical peculiarities as Helen’s name:6 Hecuba (⏑ ⏑ −). Hecuba’s name is attested 5x7 in the nominative case: 3x between positions 3.5–7 and 2x between positions 5.5–7.8 Therefore, Hecuba’ name is never placed at verse-terminal position. The same observation applies to other women. Andromache’s name is attested 6x in the nominative case: 3x between 3–5 and 3x between 1–3; Briseis’ name is found 2x in the nominative: 1x between positions 1–3 and 1x between 3–5; Cassandra’s name 1x between 3–5; Chryseis’ name 1x between 3–5. From the information gathered above, it becomes obvious that none among the chief female mortal characters has its name placed in verse-terminal position. The question we have initially set still stands; for we have not yet shown how the Iliad handles a name that did not fit the metrical needs of the hexameter’s terminal position but was expected to belong to an important epic figure and, therefore, should be placed in verse-terminal position. This is the case with proper name nominatives referring to female divinities. Thetis’ name (⏑ ⏑) cannot fit the last foot of the hexameter, but the Iliad is able to accommodate her PNN (proper-name nominative) at positions 9–10 by having it followed by the epithet ἀργυρόπεζα occupying the terminal adonic.9 The same is the case with the PNN of Artemis that is placed quite often towards the end of the hexameter, either between positions 9–10 (followed by a two syllable-word occupying the spondee of the sixth foot) or between positions 7.5–8 (followed by the epithet ἰοχέαιρα occupying the terminal adonic).10 Traditional epic diction attributes typical epic features to characters whose status is considered to have a certain grandeur (and this is the case with goddesses par  5 The focus here is on the relation between semantics and localization within the hexameter with respect to female characters. 6 All statistics concern the Iliad. 7 The sign ʻxʼ stands for the number of times a word is attested in the Iliad. 8 For the metrical structure of the hexameter, see O’ Neill 1942, 113; Higbie 1990, 15, and Kahane 1994 (metrical notation). 9 Attested 9x Il.: 9.410; 16.222; 18.127 (= 19.28), 18.146, 18.369, 18.381; 24.89, 24.120. Cf. the socalled default mode: (1.538 = 1.556) ἀργυρόπεζα, Θέτις θυγάτηρ ἁλίοιο γέροντος. 10 9x Il.: 5.51, 5.53, 5.447; 6.205, 6.428; 9.533; 19.59; 20.39; 24.606. Cf. the default mode: Ἄρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα, κασιγνήτη Ἑκάτοιο.

  Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character excellence) and employs their PNNs as close as possible to the verse-end which is reserved for the expression of heroic features. The emblematic nature of this localization typifies the role of an important character.11 This approach is corroborated by the localization at verse-terminal position of the PNNs of key goddesses such as Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.12 In the Iliad, their PNNs are placed at the end of the hexameter 59x, 87x and 22x respectively. The above data confirm the special status of these characters whose names were metrically suitable for the ‘privileged’ verse-terminal position.13 Now, it is time to return to the name of Helen. The way the Iliad treats her PNN shows that she neither has a heroic identity (like the male epic protagonists) nor does she share any typical heroic features. Therefore, she is treated as a typical mortal woman (whose PNN is not localized at verse-end as she is not an epic protagonist). However, she possesses certain divine features by sharing an epithet system, which is used for goddesses14 (κούρη Διός, ἠΰκομος, τανύπεπλος are all epithets attributed exclusively or mainly to female divinities).

.. Helen in the Genitive Case 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

τείσασθαι δ’ Ἑλένης ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε τείσασθαι δ’ Ἑλένης ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε δῖος Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο δῖος Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο δῖος Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο Ἀτρείδης; ἦ οὐχ Ἑλένης ἕνεκ’ ἠϋκόμοιο; αὐτὰρ Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο εἰ μὴ Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο εἵνεκα ῥιγεδανῆς Ἑλένης Tρωσὶν πολεμίζω

(2.356) (2.590) (3.329) (7.355) (8.82) (9.339) (11.369) (11.505) (19.325)

Helen’s PNG (proper-name genitive)15 is attested 9x in the Iliad (2x between positions 3.5–5 and 7x between 5.5–7) making the metrical slot after the mascu 11 See Kahane, 1994, 119–120. 12 On naming women in Homer, see Higbie 1995, 111–145 and, for Helen in particular, 127–129. 13 On the validity of quantitative factors as interpretive means in epic poetry, see Kahane 1997, 326–342. 14 Clader (1976, 41–44) offers an exhaustive list of all the epithets attributed to Helen in the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Homeric Hymns. 15 Kahane 1994 examines PNVs (proper-name vocatives) and PNNs (proper-name nominatives), which are not oblique cases. He also considers what he calls ‘accusative theme-word

Localization, Text and Semantics  

line caesura the most prominent one regarding Helen’s PNG. The above list of Helen’s PNGs can be divided into two distinct categories: (a) those attested in narrator-text and (b) those attested in character-text.16 (a) Helen’s PNG is attested (2x) between positions 3.5–5 (items 1–2). Let us examine each of these two cases after quoting the exact passages: τὼ μή τις πρὶν ἐπειγέσθω οἶκόνδε νέεσθαι, πρίν τινα πὰρ Tρώων ἀλόχῳ κατακοιμηθῆναι, τείσασθαι δ’ Ἑλένης ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε. Therefore let no man be urgent to take the way homeward until after he has lain in bed with the wife of a Trojan to avenge Helen’s longing to escape and her lamentations. (Il. 2.354–356)

Nestor tells the Achaeans that they should not hasten to return home before lying in bed next to a Trojan’s wife and taking revenge for Helen’s longing to escape and the grief she has caused. The old king of Pylos usually speaks like an ἀοιδός, being an intermediary between a remote past, which he uses as a paradigm for his fellow warriors, and the present in which he participates. Conversely, in this passage the focalization is that of the subject of the infinitives κατακοιμηθῆναι and τείσασθαι and not of Nestor himself.17 He assumes the position of the soldiers who are the addressees of his speech and tries to persuade them to stay at Troy until their goal is accomplished.18 Nestor acts as an authoritative figure foreshadowing the Catalogue of Ships that will soon follow and presents

 patterns’ because of the thematic function of the accusative (1994, 43–79) through pattern deixis. My approach to the attestations of Helen’s name in the genitive case tries to combine what we know about localization patterns and attributive discourse or, in general, the distinction between narrator and character-speech. In this study, I try show how an internal narrator (character-speech) can alter even the most traditional pattern with respect to the inflection of a person’s name, in order to express his own reaction to that person. 16 Narratological considerations have come to the foreground of Homeric studies since the pioneering work of de Jong 1987. On other important contributions; see e.g. Richardson 1990; de Jong 2001. The differences between narrator’s and characters’ diction in Homer have been carefully sketched by Griffin 1986, 36–57. 17 See de Jong 1987, 30–40; Maronitis 1995, 65–66 (= 2004, 124–126 = 20052, 179–180). 18 For a thorough discussion of Nestor as an authoritative figure, the similarities he shares with Calchas and the function of his placement after the negative example of Thamyris in Il. 2.594–600, see Dickson 1995, 47–100.

  Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character the army’s point of view, namely a negative picture of Helen who is regarded as a cause of struggles (ὁρμήματα) and groans (στοναχάς).19 τῶν οἱ ἀδελφεὸς ἦρχε, βοὴν ἀγαθὸς Mενέλαος, ἑξήκοντα νεῶν· ἀπάτερθε δὲ θωρήσσοντο, ἐν δ’ αὐτὸς κίεν ᾗσι προθυμίῃσι πεποιθώς, ὀτρύνων πολεμόνδε· μάλιστα δὲ ἵετο θυμῷ τείσασθαι Ἑλένης ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε. Of these his brother Menelaus of the great war cry was leader, with sixty ships marshalled apart from the others. He himself went among them in the confidence of his valor, driving them battleward, since above all his heart was eager to avenge Helen’s longing to escape and her lamentations. (Il. 2.586–590)

This passage belongs to that part of the Catalogue of Ships where the external narrator refers to the kingdom of Menelaus and the army he brought with him from Greece. It is exactly at this point that he explains Menelaus’ eagerness to fight because of his determination to avenge the struggles and groans Helen has caused. Unlike the case of Nestor (Il. 2.356), the focalization here is that of Menelaus, who is the grammatical subject of ἵετο θυμῷ (Il. 2.589) on which the expression τείσασθαι Ἑλένης ὁρμήματά τε στοναχάς τε syntactically depends. Therefore, the external narrator avoids the dilemma of Helen’s innocence or guilt and focalizes Menelaus’ own opinion, namely that Helen has been a cause of pain and grief. All five attestations (items 3–5 and 7–8) of Helen’s name in the genitive between positions 5.5–7 are found in narrator-text and belong to the same whole 19 There is a long-standing controversy concerning the meaning of this line, since the ‘struggles and groans’ could either belong to Helen or be caused by her. The first interpretation (with a subjective genitive Ἑλένης) has been supported by the following scholars: Ameis and Hentze 1882–1900, ad Il. 2.356; Groten 1968, 33–39; Kakridis 1971, 25–53; Homeyer 1977, 6; Erbse 1986, 97–98. The latter option (with an objective genitive Ἑλένης) has been advocated by Leaf 1900, on Il. 2.356; Linsday 1974, 17; see also Kirk 1985, 153 on Il. 2.356, who rightly emphasizes the absurdity of what Priam tells Helen in Il. 3.164 (οὔ τί μοι αἰτίη ἐσσί, θεοί νύ μοι αἴτιοί εἰσιν), if she had been innocent and the ‘struggles and groans’ belonged to her in a subjective sense. Moreover, how could the Achaeans (Il. 2.356) and Menelaus (Il. 2.590) be willing to pay back (τείσασθαι) the struggles and groans belonging to Helen herself? See also Il. 3.126–128, where Helen is weaving a great web with a representation of the numerous struggles (of both armies) ‘which they endured because of her’ (οὓς ἕθεν εἵνεκ’ ἔπασχον). I side with those who take the genitive as objective, referring to the struggles and groans Helen has caused to others. For a typical neo-analytical approach to this issue (namely in relation to the sources of the Iliad), see Kullmann 1960, 248–256.

Localization, Text and Semantics  

line formula: (− ⏑) Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο. So, it seems that a pattern can be discerned in this case, especially since Alexander is formulaically defined as the husband of Helen.20 The origin of such an expression remains obscure, but it is a tempting hypothesis that it has been metrically accommodated upon the old phrase πόσις Ἥρης ἠϋκόμοιο (Il. 10.5).21 The ‘non-priority’ of the expression used for Helen is indicated by the metrical inconvenience of the false long syllable at the masculine caesura: (− ⏑) Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο ( ⏑ | − − | −5 ⏑ ⏑ | − ⏑ ⏑ | − ⏑ ⏑ | − −). (b) Helen’s PNG is also twice attested between positions 5.5–7 in characterspeech, when the speaker is Achilles. Achilles is the only character in the Iliad who gives a negative color to Helen’s picture,22 complaining because he has found himself fighting for her sake a war he detests (items 6 and 9 in the list above). In both these cases, Helen’s PNG forms part of a prepositional phrase with ἕνεκα/εἵνεκα, although the epithets attributed to Helen are quite different (the generic ἠϋκόμοιο in 9.339 and the hapax ῥιγεδανῆς in 19.325). Achilles either alters the formula Ἑλένης πόσις ἠϋκόμοιο or creates a new coin (ῥιγεδανῆς). His treatment of the formulaic system referring to Helen is linked to his main preoccupation with the heroic code, as he moves away from the external narrator’s typical representation of Helen and offers (through the use of ἕνεκα/ εἵνεκα) an explanation for his involvement in the war.23 The examination of Helen’s PNG has shown that textual considerations when combined with word placement within the hexameter help us understand the interaction between localization, name-inflection and meaning. If my approach is correct, then it is at least plausible to argue that Helen’s PNG is used to allude to her defaming tradition:24 Nestor and the external narrator present the focalization of the Achaean army and Menelaus respectively by referring to

 20 Helen and Hera are the only women in the Iliad whose epithet-name system is employed to describe their husbands. On the similarities between Hera and Helen and the control they exercise on their husbands, see Clader 1976, 14–15 and Higbie 1995, 127. 21 See Clader 1976, 47–48 who points to the expression ἐρίγδουπος πόσις Ἥρης (Il. 7.411; 10.329; 13.154; 16.88; Od. 8.465; 15.112, 15.180). 22 I exclude Nestor (Il. 2.356), since he expresses the established view about Helen, i.e that she is to be held responsible for the sufferings of the Achaeans. This is also the view of the external narrator. 23 For a detailed analysis of Achilles’ idiosyncratic use of formulas and his special speaking patterns, see Martin 1989, 146–205. 24 There are reasons to believe that there was a defaming tradition about Helen reflected in Homeric epic. See Graver 1995, 41–61; Worman 2001, 19–37; Tsagalis 2008, 112–134.

  Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character this tradition in general terms, whereas Achilles offers his personal, highly involved, and emotionally overloaded tone with respect to Helen.

.. Helen in the Dative Case 1. 2. 3.

συμβάλετ’ ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι οἴους ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι Ἶρις δ’ αὖθ’ Ἑλένῃ λευκωλένῳ ἄγγελος ἦλθεν

(3.70) (3.91) (3.121)

Helen’s name is attested 3x in the dative in the entire Iliad and is placed between position’s 3.5–5. The cases available to us for studying the semantics of Helen’s PND (proper-name dative) are extremely limited, and so any attempt to establish a recurrent pattern would be based on insufficient data. With extreme caution I will draw attention to the fact that in all the above attestations of Helen’s PND the context points to her conjugal status. In Il. 3.70 and 3.91 (items 1 and 2) the connotative meaning of the PND is reinforced by the following verses (the two passages are virtually identical, as Hector is repeating verbatim what Alexander had just said: Alexander: συμβάλετ’ ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι· ὁππότερος δέ κε νικήσῃ κρέσσων τε γένηται, κτήμαθ’ ἑλὼν εὖ πάντα γυναῖκά τε οἴκαδ’ ἀγέσθω to fight together for the sake of Helen and all her possessions. That one of us who wins and is proved stronger, let him take the possessions fairly and the woman, and lead her homeward. (Il. 3.70–72)

Hector: οἴους ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι μάχεσθαι· ὁππότερος δέ κε νικήσῃ κρέσσων τε γένηται, κτήμαθ’ ἑλὼν εὖ πάντα γυναῖκά τε οἴκαδ’ ἀγέσθω· to fight alone for the sake of Helen and all her possessions. That one of them who wins and is proved stronger, let him take the possessions fairly and the woman, and lead her homeward. (Il. 3.91–93)

In lines 3.70 and 3.91 Helen is paratactically linked to κτήμασι ‘possessions’ (ἀμφ’ Ἑλένῃ καὶ κτήμασι πᾶσι) whereas in 3.72 and 3.93 the two terms are placed

Localization, Text and Semantics  

together in reverse order (κτήμαθ’ ἑλὼν εὖ πάντα γυναῖκά τε οἴκαδ’ ἀγέσθω). These chiastic structures25 show that the references to Helen in 3.70 and 3.91 are semantically ‘equal’ to the expression γυναῖκά τε οἴκαδ’ ἀγέσθω in 3.72 and 3.93 respectively, which mean ‘to carry home as a wife, i.e. to marry’. In Il. 3.121 (item 2) Helen is designated by the epithet λευκώλενος (24x for Hera and 3x for Andromache in the Iliad) which, despite Parry’s contention about its generic nature,26 may be safely regarded as an epithet particular to Hera (24x attestations) ‘borrowed by the poet for other ladies’.27 But what are the specific semantics of this epithet which triggered the idea of using it for both Helen and Andromache? Metrical reasons must be excluded, for Hera’s name scans − −, Helen’s ⏑ ⏑ −, and Andromache’s – ⏑ ⏑ −. The semantics of λευκώλενος seem to relate to the conjugal status of these three female characters. In fact, the Iliad expands the use of this epithet, traditionally linked to Hera (who is the divine consort par excellence) to two mortal women, who represent two contrasting examples of the poem’s preoccupation with the theme of marriage: Andromache is the positive example of the wife and Helen the negative one.28 The context in 3.121 reinforces this interpretation. The ancient scholia interpreted Iris’ summoning of Helen with the following explanation (I 379 Erbse): δηλονότι παρὰ τοῦ Διός· οὐ γὰρ αὐτάγγελος. θῆλυ δὲ θήλεϊ πείθεται· ἐρωτική τε θεός ἡ Ἶρις (b[BCE3 E4]T). καὶ εἰ συμπαροῦσα τῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ Ἶρις (b[BCE3E4]). I don’t agree with Kirk who thinks that in this case the ancient scholia offered a superficial explanation.29 The following remarks will corroborate, I hope, my line of argument. When Iris visits Helen, she takes the form of Laodike, one of Alexanders’ sisters: Ἶρις δ’ αὖθ’ Ἑλένῃ λευκωλένῳ ἄγγελος ἦλθεν, εἰδομένη γαλόῳ, Ἀντηνορίδαο δάμαρτι, τὴν Ἀντηνορίδης εἶχε κρείων Ἑλικάων, Λαοδίκην, Πριάμοιο θυγατρῶν εἶδος ἀρίστην. τὴν δ’ ηὗρ’ ἐν μεγάρῳ· ἣ δὲ μέγαν ἱστὸν ὕφαινεν, δίπλακα μαρμαρέην, πολέας δ’ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους Tρώων θ’ ἱπποδάμων καὶ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων, οὓς ἕθεν εἵνεκ’ ἔπασχον ὑπ’ Ἄρηος παλαμάων.

 25 The underlined phrases and the bold characters are used to show which phrases are paralleled: A (Ἑλένῃ), B (κτήμασι πᾶσι), B (κτήμαθ’ ... πάντα) A (γυναῖκα). 26 Parry 1971, 148–152. 27 Clader 1976, 45. 28 See Maronitis 1995, 55–73 (= 2004, 117–132 = 20052, 167–191). 29 Kirk 1985, on Il. 3.121.

  Naming Helen: Localization, Meter, and Semantics of a Homeric Character Now to Helen of the white arms came a messenger, Iris, in the likeness of her sister-in-law, the wife of Antenor’s Son, whom strong Helicaon wed, the son of Antenor, Laodice, loveliest looking of all the daughters of Priam. She came on Helen in the chamber; she was weaving a great web, a red folding robe, and working into it the numerous struggles of Trojans, breakers of horses, and bronze-armored Achaeans, struggles that they endured for her sake at the hands of the war god. (Il. 3.121–128)

The family term γαλόῳ (nom. γαλόως) shows that Helen is regarded as a member of Priam’s royal family. Moreover, she is doing what wives usually do at home: she is weaving a great web, a shining folding robe, in the manner of Andromache in Il. 22.441, who was also weaving at home while waiting for Hector. A comparison of the two verses shows remarkable similarities: δίπλακα μαρμαρέην, πολέας δ’ ἐνέπασσεν ἀέθλους (Il. 3.126)30 δίπλακα πορφυρέην, ἐν δὲ θρόνα ποικίλ’ ἔπασσεν (Il. 22.441)

Andromache is the typical example of the good wife and Helen’s assimilation to her (in this respect) is an attempt to emphasize her marital status, which is to be decided in the ensuing scenes. Iris addresses Helen as νύμφα φίλη (Il. 3.130) and tells her that Menelaus and Alexander will fight for her sake and that she will be proclaimed wife of the winner of this duel (Il. 3.136–138: αὐτὰρ Ἀλέξανδρος καὶ ἀρηΐφιλος Mενέλαος | μακρῇς ἐγχείῃσι μαχήσονται περὶ σεῖο· | τῷ δέ κε νικήσαντι φίλη κεκλήσε’ ἄκοιτις). In addition, Iris’ speech, left in Helen’s heart sweet desire for her previous husband, her city, and her parents (Il. 3.139–140: ὣς εἰποῦσα θεὰ γλυκὺν ἵμερον ἔμβαλε θυμῷ | ἀνδρός τε προτέροιο καὶ ἄστεος ἠδὲ τοκήων). The above analysis does not deal with PNDs in general and there is no assumption concerning their overall placement and use within the hexameter. What I have tried to map here is the coincidence between case-inflection and meaning with respect to a single character’s PND. On the other hand, the localization of Helen’s PNDs only between positions 3.5–5, namely after a word-end at position 3 and before a word-end at position 5.5, may be a significant factor reinforcing the interpretation presented above. For it has been argued that ‘metrical pauses, at positions 3, 8, 5, 5.5, 2 and 7, which correspond to the conventional system of metrical pauses, are also the most distinct positions at which  30 The comparison is striking even if we adopt (following West 1998 ad loc.) the reading μαρμαρέην instead of πορφυρέην in Il. 3.121.

Localization, Text and Semantics  

sense-pauses occur’.31 In this vein and on the basis of my analysis on (a) wordlocalization at a position where a sense break usually occurs, (b) metrical shape that is determined by case-inflection, and (c) context-associations, I would like to put forward a tempting suggestion, according to which Helen’s PND is used by the Iliad to denote her marital status.

.. Helen in the Accusative Case 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

Ἀργείην Ἑλένην, ἧς εἵνεκα πολλοὶ Ἀχαιῶν Ἀργείην Ἑλένην, ἧς εἵνεκα πολλοὶ Ἀχαιῶν οἳ δ’ ὡς οὖν εἴδονθ’ Ἑλένην ἐπὶ πύργον ἰοῦσαν ὣς ἄρ’ ἔφαν· Πρίαμος δ’ Ἑλένην ἐκαλέσσατο φωνῇ αὐτὸς ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένην ἐχέτω καὶ κτήματα πάντα Tρῶας ἔπειθ’ Ἑλένην καὶ κτήματα πάντ’ ἀποδοῦναι αὐτὴ δ’ αὖθ’ Ἑλένην καλέουσ’ ἴε· τὴν δ’ ἐκίχανεν ὑμεῖς δ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην καὶ κτήμαθ’ ἅμ’ αὐτῇ αὖτις δ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην Mενέλαος ἄγοιτο Ἀργείην Ἑλένην· σέο δ’ ὀστέα πύσει ἄρουρα τὴν ὁδόν, ἣν Ἑλένην περ ἀνήγαγεν εὐπατέρειαν δεῦτ’ ἄγετ’, Ἀργείην Ἑλένην καὶ κτήμαθ’ ἅμ’ αὐτῇ μήθ’ Ἑλένην. γνωτὸν δέ, καὶ ὃς μάλα νήπιός ἐστιν αἵ κε μετ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην κάλλισται ἔωσιν αἵ κε μετ’ Ἀργείην Ἑλένην κάλλισται ἔωσιν οὐκ εἴασχ’ Ἑλένην δόμεναι ξανθῷ Mενελάῳ καί οἱ ὑπόσχωμαι Ἑλένην καὶ κτήμαθ’ ἅμ’ αὐτῇ

(2.161) (2.177) (3.154) (3.161) (3.282) (3.285) (3.383) (3.458) (4.19) (4.174) (6.292) (7.350) (7.401) (9.140) (9.282) (11.125) (22.114)

Helen’s PNA (proper-name accusative) displays the largest number of examples in the Iliad. In almost half of them Helen’s proper name is preceded by the epithet Ἀργείην, an awkward choice for Helen of Sparta.32 Clader has argued in favor of an interpretation connecting Argos to ἀργός (νέομαι, νόστος) means ‘return to life and light’,34 Clader suggests that ‘Helen’s epithet Ἀργείη ( ‘sea’ > ‘salty water’ > ‘salt’? Let us turn our attention to the use of this word as a place name and then to its nuanced treatment by various authors.  20 See Puhvel, HED vol. 5 s.v. lapana- (a ‘Luwianism’) with all the relevant examples from the Ulmi-Tessub treaty. 21 In Bo 86/299 ll. 4–5, it is decreed that no goat/sheepherder is allowed to enter the area delineated by the Hūlaya river, which is the boundary of the land of Tarḫuntašša. The continuation of the text of the treaty shows that this prohibition is made with an eye to the saltlick rights of Kuruntas in the land of Tarḫuntašša. It seems then that, at least in this case, measures were taken against bringing goats and sheep to a saltlick to feed.

Goats and Waves  

. The Place Name Αἰγίλιψ (Il. 2.633) Janko argues that the use of Αἰγίλιπα (qualified as τρηχεῖαν, Il. 2.633) as a place name on Ithaca ‘is surely invented, since our Ionian bard knew little of Ithake but that it is αἰγίβοτος and τρηχεῖα (Od. 4.606; 13.242)’. His interpretation is based on the assumption that this place name pertains to the island of Ithaca, which would then have been designated with three names in a single entry in the Catalogue of Ships. This approach goes back to Leaf22 and is repeated in most modern commentaries. Though a plausible suggestion, I would like to entertain an alternative explanation. With respect to the place name Αἰγίλιψ, ancient testimonia offer contradictory information, Stephanus Byzantius (s.v. Κροκύλειον) opting for a place name on Ithaca, Strabo (10.2) for a place name on the mainland (Acarnania). Visser (1997, 592–594) opts for Strabo’s view with strong arguments, taking Αἰγίλιψ to be a rock used as a landmark on the mainland. The epithet τρηχεῖαν (‘steep’) has been conditioned by the way the bards understood Αἰγίλιπα. If taken as ‘steep’ (according to LSJ), then τρηχεῖαν is a pleonasm, though not an awkward one. It does not need to be built on the metonymical meaning of Αἰγίλιπα, it can simply be a general epithet designating a common feature of almost any Greek landscape. The same is the case with the other ‘competitive’ etymology. If the word means ‘sea-washed cliff’, then we are again dealing with a pleonastic use of τρηχεῖαν since cliffs are by definition steep. In the case of Αἰγίλιπα τρηχεῖαν we should (tentatively) argue that the bards understood the place name as meaning simply ‘of goats’, perhaps as a place where goats were nourished (Goat Island; see Eustathius’ interpretation under [4] above), i.e. a steep, rocky place, a typical Mediterannean Goat Island. All in all, it seems likely that the incomprehensibility of the etymology of αἰγίλιψ led to a new interpretation and, in fact, to one that was conditioned by its use as adjective or place name.

. Goats and Waves In light of the preceding observations, we are faced with an odd situation: a dictional fossil that is anything but transparent on the basis of its etymology has survived the test of time either within a formulaic expression or as a place

 22 Leaf 1900 ad loc.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers name. The relevant term has lost its original denotations but has active connotations that are part and parcel of its use. In cases like this we should draw a clear line between the etymology of the word and the way it is employed. The reason lying behind this approach is that the origins of the word’s meaning are not recognizable by its users, with the result that some of them have interpreted it by recourse to the most widespread meaning of the first part of the compound, i.e. αἴξ (‘goat’). In fact, we have examples in which this process is almost guaranteed and, what is even more remarkable, it applies to the meaning and use of the word αἴξ in the plural (‘goats’ and ‘waves’). The first relevant passage is Herodotus, 8.19–20: νόῳ δὲ λαβὼν ὁ Θεμιστοκλέης ὡς εἰ ἀπορραγείη ἀπὸ τοῦ βαρβάρου τό τε Ἰωνικὸν φῦλον καὶ τὸ Καρικόν, οἷοί τε εἴησαν τῶν λοιπῶν κατύπερθε γενέσθαι, ἐλαυνόντων τῶν Εὐβοέων πρόβατα ἐπὶ τὴν θάλασσαν, ταύτῃ συλλέξας τοὺς στρατηγοὺς ἔλεγέ σφι ὡς δοκέοι ἔχειν τινὰ παλάμην τῇ ἐλπίζοι τῶν βασιλέος συμμάχων ἀποστήσειν τοὺς ἀρίστους. ταῦτα μέν νυν ἐς τοσοῦτο παρεγύμνου, ἐπὶ δὲ τοῖσι κατήκουσι πρήγμασι τάδε ποιητέα σφι εἶναι ἔλεγε, τῶν τε προβάτων τῶν Εὐβοϊκῶν καταθύειν ὅσα τις ἐθέλοι (κρέσσον γὰρ εἶναι τὴν στρατιὴν ἔχειν ἢ τοὺς πολεμίους), παραίνεέ τε προειπεῖν τοῖσι ἑωυτῶν ἑκάστους πυρὰ ἀνακαίειν· κομιδῆς δὲ πέρι τὴν ὥρην αὐτῷ μελήσειν ὥστε ἀσινέας ἀπικέσθαι ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα. ταῦτα ἤρεσέ σφι ποιέειν καὶ αὐτίκα πυρὰ ἀνακαυσάμενοι ἐτρέποντο πρὸς τὰ πρόβατα. οἱ γὰρ Εὐβοέες παραχρησάμενοι τὸν Βάκιδος χρησμὸν ὡς οὐδὲν λέγοντα οὔτ᾽ ἐξεκομίσαντο οὐδὲν οὔτε προεσάξαντο ὡς παρεσομένου σφι πολέμου, περιπετέα τε ἐποιήσαντο σφίσι αὐτοῖσι τὰ πρήγματα. Βάκιδι γὰρ ὧδε ἔχει περὶ τούτων ὁ χρησμός· φράζεο, βαρβαρόφωνος ὅταν ζυγὸν εἰς ἅλα βάλλῃ βύβλινον, Εὐβοίης ἀπέχειν πολυμηκάδας αἶγας. Τούτοισι δὴ οὐδὲν τοῖσι ἔπεσι χρησαμένοισι, ἐν τοῖσι τότε παρεοῦσί τε καὶ προσδοκίμοισι κακοῖσι παρῆν σφι συμφορῇ χρᾶσθαι πρὸς τὰ μέγιστα. Themistocles thought that if the Ionian and Carian nations were removed from the forces of the barbarians, the Greeks might be strong enough to prevail over the rest. Now it was the custom of the Euboeans to drive their flocks down to the sea there. Gathering the admirals together, he told them that he thought he had a device whereby he hoped to draw away the best of the king’s allies. So much he revealed for the moment, but merely advised them to let everyone slay as many from the Euboean flocks as he wanted; it was better that the fleet should have them, than the enemy. Moreover, he counselled them each to order his men to light a fire; as for the time of their departure from that place, he would see to it that they would return to Hellas unscathed. All this they agreed to do and immediately lit fires and set upon the flocks. Now the Euboeans had neglected the oracle of Bacis, believing it to be empty of meaning, and neither by carrying away nor by bringing in anything had they shown that they feared an enemy’s coming. In so doing they were the cause of their own destruction, for Bacis’ oracle concerning this matter runs as follows

Goats and Waves  

when a strange-tongued man casts a yoke of papyrus on the sea, then take care to keep bleating goats far from the coasts of Euboea.23 To these verses the Euboeans gave no heed; but in the evils then present and soon to come they suffered the greatest calamity.

Standard commentaries explain Bacis’ oracle by endorsing a literary interpretation of πολυμηκάδας αἶγας. The epithet πολυμηκάδες is a hapax legomenon in Greek literature. It immediately recalls the Homeric expression μηκάδες αἶγες (‘bleating goats’: Il. 11.383, 23.31; Od. 8.124, 244, 341). The compound πολυμηκάδες seems to have been formed to fit this particular oracle.24 What should be highlighted here is that while in the narrative immediately preceding the oracle, Herodotus attempts to bridge Themistocles’ advice to the Euboeans with the content of the oracle, he utterly fails. First, the oracle refers exclusively to goats, whereas Themistocles to cattle in general.25 Second, Themistocles did not advise the Euboeans to keep the animals away from Euboea but to sacrifice them, in order to hinder their use as food by the Persian army. Primary prophetic speech is context-determined; it is a sign, not a meaning, a sign that needs to be decoded within the context to which it belongs. Oracles attested by means of a literary source, such as Herodotus, are the result of a filtering, often to be attributed to the priests in Delphi, who ‘translated’ the primordial, exclamatory suspension of prophetic speech into a secondary form of deixis pertaining to polysemy, ambiguity, and homonymy, as they are expressed by double entendre, sense pauses, syntactical vagueness with respect to the subject or object, contradictions, animal imagery, adynata, kennings, synecdoche, metonymy, etc.26 Herodotus is citing an oracle the deliberate ambiguity of which he does not comprehend. The expression πολυμηκάδας αἶγας ‘plays’ with the semantic oscillation between ‘much-bleating’ (πολύ–μηκάομαι) and ‘very long’ (πολύ–μῆκος)

 23 Translation by Godley (1920) with slight modifications. 24 The false etymology from μῆκος is already recorded in the ancient scholia to the Odyssey (on 9.124 Dindorf: μηκάδας] ἤτοι μηκωμένας, ἀπὸ τῆς φωνῆς. Q V μηκὴ γὰρ λέγεται ἡ τῶν αἰγῶν φωνή. ἢ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐπὶ μήκη κίειν, ὅ ἐστι πορεύεσθαι V). 25 This is probably the correct rendering of πρόβατα here, which do not mean exclusively ‘sheep’; for this meaning in Hdt., see e.g. τὰ λεπτὰ τῶν προβάτων (‘small sheep and goats’) in 1.33, 8.137. 26 See Christidis 2001, 1024–1025. Although not solely devoted to oracular speech, the recent work of Beta (2016) is a valuable contribution to the study of oracles.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers paired by the double entendre ‘goats’ and ‘waves’ (αἶγας).27 Herodotus understands the oracle only in relation to the first widespread meaning of αἴξ, which determines the sense of the hapax legomenon πολυμηκάδας, in accordance to the Homeric expression μηκάδες αἶγες (‘much-bleating goats’).28 Thus, the oracle may have well ‘played’ with the semantical ambiguity of πολυμηκάδας αἶγας in an attempt to suggest to the inhabitants of northern Euboea to stay away from the ‘very long waves’29 [falling on the shores] of this region of the island. The same semantical interplay between the two meanings of the word αἴξ (‘goat’ and ‘waves’ in the plural) is at work in the following passage from Longus (2.15): ἤλθομεν εἰς τούτους τοὺς ἀγροὺς θηρᾶσαι θέλοντες. τὴν μὲν οὖν ναῦν λύγῳ χλωρᾷ δήσαντες ἐπὶ τῆς ἀκτῆς κατελίπομεν, αὐτοὶ δὲ διὰ τῶν κυνῶν ζήτησιν ἐποιούμεθα θηρίων. Ἐν τούτῳ πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν αἱ αἶγες τούτου κατελθοῦσαι τήν τε λύγον κατεσθίουσι καὶ τὴν ναῦν ἀπολύουσιν. εἶδες αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τῇ θαλάσσῃ φερομένην, πόσων οἴει μεστὴν ἀγαθῶν; οἵα μὲν ἐσθὴς ἀπόλωλεν, οἷος δὲ κόσμος κυνῶν, ὅσον δὲ ἀργύριον. τοὺς ἀγροὺς ἄν τις τούτους ἐκεῖνα ἔχων ὠνήσαιτο. ἀνθ᾽ ὧν ἀξιοῦμεν ἄγειν τοῦτον, πονηρὸν ὄντα αἰπόλον, ὃς ἐπὶ τῆς θαλάσσης νέμει τὰς αἶγας ὡς ναύτης. We came into these fields to hunt. Wherefore with a green sallow-with we left our ship tied to the shore while our dogs were hunting the grounds. Meanwhile his goats strayed from the mountains down to the sea, gnawed the green cable in pieces, set her at liberty, and let her fly. You saw her tossing in the sea, but with what choice and rich good laden! What fine clothes are lost! What rare harness and ornaments for dogs are there! What a treasury of precious silver! He that had all might easily purchase these fields. For this damage we think it but right and reason to carry him away our captive, him that is such a mischievous goatherd to feed his goats upon those other goats, to wit, the waves of the sea.30

Another example is offered by the word Αἰγαῖος,31 which is employed to designate both land and sea: a mountain in Crete (Hes. Th. 484: Αἰγαίῳ ὄρει), a plain near Crisa in Phocis ([Hes]. Cat. fr. 220 M-W: Αἰγαῖον πεδίον), and the Aegean  27 Papanastasiou 2000, 407–408; Bowie (2007, 112) suggests that πολυμηκάδας αἶγας may be a reference to the ‘many different languages spoken in the Persian army’. This interpretation seems to me very strained, given that it is not supported at all by the context (see 8.19–20). 28 Il. 11.383, 23.31; Od. 9.124, 244, 341. 29 It is also possible that the pair πολυμηκάδας αἶγας could mean ‘much-sounding’ waves. 30 Translation by Thornley 1916, 89 and 91. 31 Carruba’s suggestion (1995, 7–21) that there was a pro-Greek form *Αἰγα (seen in Hittite Aḫḫijā), by which the Greeks designated the coastal Asianic area and the Aegean islands (hence the adjective Αἰγαῖος was formed), and that the root *Αἰγ- and Aḫḫijā go back to Indo-European *akw-ā seems to me far-fetched, a case of mere ‘straight-jacketing’. Interestingly enough, Carruba does not discuss at all the meaning ‘waves’ for αἶγες.

Goats and Waves  

Sea as πόντος or πέλαγος or κῦμα (e.g. Ibyc. S151.28 PMGF; Aesch. Ag. 659; Hdt. 2.97.1, 4.85.4 etc.; Eur. Hel. 130, 776, Tr. 88; Thuc. 1.98.2, 4.109.2; Strabo 1.2.20, 2.5.21, 7.7.4 etc.; Plut. Cimon 8.5; Paus. 1.1.1, 2.22.1, 5.21.10 etc.; Opp. Hal. 5.427). The use of both meanings of the stem αἰγ- (‘goat’ and ‘waves’ in the plural) for different place names testifies to the fact that they were both current at a very early period. Moreover, the examples offered with respect to the use of Αἰγαῖος for the Aegean Sea show that it was ‘initially’ connected to the notion of ‘stormy sea’, in particular with reference to the return of the Greeks from Troy.32 A third example is given by the use of the stem αἰγ- in proper names or epithets modifying proper names. Again, the root is attested in both its meanings: Αἰγίπαν (‘Goat Pan’: [Erat.] Catast. 27; Plut. 19.311b), Αἰγεύς (Theseus’ father who alternates with Poseidon in various mythical versions: e.g. Bacch. 17.33–36; Apollod. 3.15.7; Plut. Thes. 2c; Paus. 2.33.1), Αἰγαῖος Ποσειδῶν (Pher. 28 EGM) and Αἰγαίων θεός (sc. Ποσειδῶν: Callim. Aet. fr. 59.6 Pf. = 54i.6 Harder), Αἰγαῖον πέλαγος (through Αἰγεύς), Αἰγαίων (different name of the sea-creature Briareos; see Il. 1.403–404: ὃν Βριάρεων καλέουσι θεοί, ἄνδρες δέ τε πάντες | Αἰγαίων’, ὃ γὰρ αὖτε βίην οὗ πατρὸς ἀμείνων and Eum. Tit. fr. 3 EGEF where he lives in the sea and is designated as son of Gaia and Pontos).33 All three examples show that the stem αἰγ- was contextually determined and that it was employed either with respect to the widespread meaning ‘goat’ or with the less known meaning ‘waves’, ‘sea’.34 There is, though, an important consideration that decidedly weakens this meaning in the compound αἰγίλιψ. Although the stem αἰγ- in the plural is a secondary meaning for the ‘goats of the sea’ (waves) and constitutes a metaphor with widespread diffusion and representation in various IE languages,35 to be tempted to treat it as a direct translation of the Luwian expression ‘saltlick’ and to equate it with salt on the basis of

 32 For a review of the relevant cases, see Papanastasiou 2000, 412. 33 On Aigaion/Briareos in Eumelus, see Tsagalis 2017a, 26, 47 n. 68, 49, 53–57, 59, 78, 87, 97– 98, 108. 34 A brief note on the semantic field designated by the words αἰγίς, ἐπαιγίζω, καταιγίζω: the word αἰγίς designates the goaskin of Zeus, Athena, and Apollo, but because of its magical force the verbs ἐπαιγίζω and καταιγίζω (‘to rush upon’) display a variety of uses, since they are applied to the winds (Il. 2.148; Od. 15.293; see also Aesch. Sept. 63), streams, (Opp. Hal. 2.125), dolphins ([Opp.] Cyn. 2.583) etc. Again, we see that the stem αἰγ- can express, even within the same family of words, different meanings. 35 I draw the following examples from Papanastassiou 2000, 409: ‘white horses’ (British English) and ‘white caps’ (American English), ‘palomas’ (= ‘doves’ in Spanish), ‘cavalloni’ (= ‘white horses’ in Italian), ‘moutons’ (= ‘sheep’ in French), ‘προβατάκια’ (= ‘small sheep’ in Modern Greek) etc.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers the fact that the waves are tautological to the sea and sea water (which is salty) is a precarious interpretive leap requiring the metonymical metamorphosis of a metaphor. And that is, obviously, too much.

. Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals In cases in which the data available from a given language are not completely illuminating, it is advisable to turn our lens to relevant material from other languages, especially (but not exclusively) those belonging to the same family. In this vein, I will now follow the path trodden by eminent Indo-Europeanists and examine pertinent cases in Hittite culture that partially share phraseology with the Homeric examples at hand. I begin with a presentation of the ‘Homeric’ material. The compound αἰγίλιψ is attested 4x in Homer (only in the Iliad) and 1x in the Homeric Hymn to Pan: A1. Il. 2.632–635: οἵ ῥ᾽ Ἰθάκην εἶχον καὶ Νήριτον εἰνοσίφυλλον καὶ Κροκύλει᾽ ἐνέμοντο καὶ Αἰγίλιπα τρηχεῖαν, οἵ τε Ζάκυνθον ἔχον ἠδ᾽ οἳ Σάμον ἀμφενέμοντο, οἵ τ᾽ ἤπειρον ἔχον ἠδ᾽ ἀντιπέραι᾽ ἐνέμοντο. Τhose who held Ithaca and leaf-trembling Neriton, those who dwelt around Crokyleia and rigged Aigilips, those who held Zakynthos and those who dwelt about Samos, those who held the mainland and the places next to the crossing.36

A2. Il. 9.13–15: ἂν δ᾽ ᾿Aγαμέμνων ἵστατο δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος ἥ τε κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ· and Agamemnon stood up before them, shedding tears, like a spring dark-running that down the face of a rock impassable drips its dim water.

 36 Although, I have printed the translation ‘impassable’ for αἰγίλιπος, I do not agree with it. This is done only for convenience.

Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals  

A3. Il. 13.62–65: αὐτὸς δ᾽ ὥς τ᾽ ἴρηξ ὠκύπτερος ὦρτο πέτεσθαι, ὅς ῥά τ᾽ ἀπ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης περιμήκεος ἀρθεὶς ὁρμήσῃ πεδίοιο διώκειν ὄρνεον ἄλλο, ὣς ἀπὸ τῶν ἤϊξε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων. and burst into winged flight himself, like a hawk with quick wings who from the huge height of an impassable rock lifting leans to flight to pursue some other bird over the wide land; so Poseidon shaker of the earth broke away from the Aiantes.

A4. Il. 16.2–4: Πάτροκλος δ᾽ ᾿Aχιλῆϊ παρίστατο ποιμένι λαῶν δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος, ἥ τε κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ. Meanwhile Patroclus came to the shepherd of the people, Achilles, and stood by him and wept warm tears, like a spring dark-running that down the face of a rock impassable drips its dim water.

A5. Hom. Hymn to Pan (19) 1–4: ἀμφί μοι Ἑρμείαο φίλον γόνον ἔννεπε Μοῦσα, αἰγιπόδην δικέρωτα φιλόκροτον ὅς τ’ ἀνὰ πίση δενδρήεντ’ ἄμυδις φοιτᾷ χοροήθεσι νύμφαις αἵ τε κατ’ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης στείβουσι κάρηνα ……………………………………………………………………………. σὺν δέ σφιν τότε νύμφαι ὀρεστιάδες λιγύμολποι φοιτῶσαι πυκνὰ ποσσὶν ἐπὶ κρήνῃ μελανύδρῳ μέλπονται, κορυφὴν δὲ περιστένει οὔρεος ἠχώ·

4 19

About Hermes’ dear child tell me, Muse, the goat-footed, two-horned rowdy, who roams about the wooded fields together with the dance-merry nymphs: along the precipitous crag they tread the summits ……………………………………………………………………………. with him then the clear-singing mountain nymphs tripping nimbly by a dark spring, dance and sing: the echo moans round the mountaintop.37

 37 Translation by West 2003b, 200.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers In examples (A2) and (A4),38 the compressed nature of the fountain simile applies to Agamemnon and Patroclus respectively. The repeated simile associates two characters both reacting to Achilles’ refusal to return to battle. From the point of view of cognitive science, visual patterning of this sort is primarily mental: the epic tradition has thematized simile space by making ‘the dark spring symbolize in its pictorial metalanguage ‘distress’ in the face of a difficult situation’.39 This thematization conjures further associations resulting from the traditional language of lament. The default idea ‘he cried’ is so effectively intensified by its visual representation as a constant flow of water that it is developed into a whole simile which in turn reshapes the specific manifestation of the default idea. The falling of water from a cliff makes a sound (see also e.g. Pi. fr. 52 f.1 — 11 Snell-Maehler: ὕδατι γὰρ ἐπὶ χαλκοπύλῳ | ψόφον ἀϊὼν Κασταλίας) that is interpreted as ‘heavy groaning’ (βαρὺ στενάχων), a formulaic expression of lament that surfaces in both passages where the fountain simile is employed (Il. 9.16; Il. 9.20).40 Passages (A1)-(A5) from Homer and the Homeric Hymn to Pan should be combined with the imagery of the black-water spring that is also part and parcel of the majority of the examples above: B1. Il. 16.156–162: οἳ δὲ λύκοι ὣς ὠμοφάγοι, τοῖσίν τε περὶ φρεσὶν ἄσπετος ἀλκή, οἵ τ’ ἔλαφον κεραὸν μέγαν οὔρεσι δῃώσαντες δάπτουσιν· πᾶσιν δὲ παρήϊον αἵματι φοινόν·  38 (A1) has already been discussed above; (A3) containing only the imagery of the formula ἀπ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης has been ‘reduced’ to a connotative field of such meanings as ‘high’ (notice περιμήκεος) and ‘steep’; (A5) is clearly imitating the Homeric similes but dissociating the two sets of imagery, the rock-face (ἀπ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης) and the spring (κρήνη μελάνυδρος). 39 Tsagalis 2012b, 325. 40 See Ready 2011, 165–173, especially 172–173; also Σ on Il. 9.16a that explain στενάχειν as including δακρύειν which was mentioned before. The simile, though only two verses long is remarkable for its symmetry and aural effects: both lines end in a near-similar sound (υδρος – ὕδωρ); the same verb is repeated in both verses (χέων – χέει) and placed just after the simile’s beginning and end (third word from the beginning and second word from the end); blackness is highlighted twice (μελάνυδρος – δνοφερόν); the designation of the place from where water falls is effected by two bisyllabic feminine nouns of the first declension both containing a consonantal cluster ‘stop+liquid’ and two long e sounds (κρήνη – πέτρη); the liquid ρ is appropriately repeated no less than six times in these two verses either within a cluster or on its own so as to imitate the flowing of tears/water (δάκρυ, κρήνη, μελάνυδρος | πέτρης, δνοφερόν, ὕδωρ).

Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals  

καί τ᾽ ἀγεληδὸν ἴασιν ἀπὸ κρήνης μελανύδρου λάψοντες γλώσσῃσιν ἀραιῇσιν μέλαν ὕδωρ ἄκρον ἐρευγόμενοι φόνον αἵματος And they, as wolves who tear flesh raw, in whose hearts the battle fury is tireless, who have brought down a great horned stag in the mountains, and then fed on him, till the jowls of every wolf run blood, and then go all in a pack to drink from a spring of dark-running water, lapping with their lean tongues along the black edge of the surface and belching up the clotted blood

B2. Il. 21.257–264 ὡς δ᾽ ὅτ᾽ ἀνὴρ ὀχετηγὸς ἀπὸ κρήνης μελανύδρου ἂμ φυτὰ καὶ κήπους ὕδατι ῥόον ἡγεμονεύῃ χερσὶ μάκελλαν ἔχων, ἀμάρης ἐξ ἔχματα βάλλων· τοῦ μέν τε προρέοντος ὑπὸ ψηφῖδες ἅπασαι ὀχλεῦνται· τὸ δέ τ᾽ ὦκα κατειβόμενον κελαρύζει χώρῳ ἔνι προαλεῖ, φθάνει δέ τε καὶ τὸν ἄγοντα· ὣς αἰεὶ ᾿Aχιλῆα κιχήσατο κῦμα ῥόοιο καὶ λαιψηρὸν ἐόντα As a man running a channel from a spring of dark water guides the run of the water amongst his plants and gardens with a mattock in his hand and knocks down the blocks of his channel; in the rush of the water all the pebbles beneath are torn loose from place, and the water that has been dripping suddenly jets on in a steep place and goes too fast even for the man who guides it; so always the crest of the river was overtaking Achilles for all his speed of foot

The simile of text (B1) refers to a pack of wolves ‘lapping with their lean tongues along the black edge of the surface of a spring with dark water’ (ἀπὸ κρήνης μελανύδρου | λάψοντες γλώσσῃσιν ἀραιῇσιν μέλαν ὕδωρ).41 λάψοντες is fut. part. of λάπτω, which (as argued above) is cognate with Hittite lap(h)- (IE *lab [h]‐), Old English lapian, Armenian lap̔em, Alb. lap, Lat. lambo, Old High German laffan. All these verbs mean either ‘lick’ or ‘drink by licking’. Here, then, is  41 In the RV (3.33.1), river water flows down in great speed ‘like two bright mother cows who lick their calves’. This association does not seem to pertain to the Homeric examples, where the licking concerns the water and not the offspring of the animals. In the example from the RV, the tertium comparationis is the huge size of the cows’ tongues. On this example, see West 2007, 275.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers a case attested in the context of a Homeric simile, of an imagery pertaining to the etymology suggested above (6). Given that the κρήνη μελάνυδρος appears together with the expression κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης in Il. 9.13–15 and 16.2–4, we may be dealing with the complementary distribution of the connotations inherent in two separate imageries (the black water spring and the goat-licked rock face), which suggests that λάπτω (aor. ἔλαψα, fut. λάψω) and the noun λάψις (‘licking’)42 may be cognate with λιψ-, i.e. the second part of the compound αἰγίλιψ. But how was this Luwian expression transferred into Greek? There are two possible scenarios. For the sake of a balanced discussion, I will mention both of them, though I am inclined to endorse the second, as will become apparent from what follows. (a) It is possible that in the formula αἰγίλιψ πέτρη we can trace a process similar to that suggested by Watkins43 with respect to ἠλίβατος (πέτρη). As it may well be that the first part of the compound (ἠλι‐) comes from the Luwian adjective āli- (‘high’, ‘steep’, ‘lofty’), as in Latin al-tus, and that ‘may have been borrowed, perhaps as a toponym, by Mycenean Greek speakers and transformed into ἀλίβατος (πέτρα Pindar, Aeschylus) and ἠλίβατος (πέτρη Homer)’, so it is possible that αἰγίλιψ (πέτρη) that is derived from αἰγ- (‘goat’) and λάπτ-ω (‘lick’, ‘drink by licking’) was borrowed by the Myceneans who had contacts with populations speaking Luwian, perhaps (but not necessarily) by means of a place name, and was later transformed because of its incomprehensibility into ‘pertaining to goats’, i.e. ‘high’, ‘steep’, ‘difficult to access’.44 It may not be accidental that the Bronze Tablet treaty, in which the expression šalli lāpani’ wāniya (‘great saltlick rock face’) is attested, concerns the king of Tarḫuntašša45 that like Karkamis (another kingdom of the Luwian south zone) and Taruwisa/ Tru(w)isa (Troy) were places where Mycenean Greeks had contacts with Luwian populations.

 42 See Hesych λ 468 s.v. λάψοντες (γλώσσῃ) [II 730 Cunningham]: τῷ ἄκρῳ τῆς γλώσσης πίνοντες. 43 Watkins 1995, 145. 44 It should be noted that, as argued by Watkins (1995, 145 n. 19), in the ‘Conjuration of Water and Salt’ (a bilingual Hittite-Luwian text of the 14th c. going back to a 15th c. archetype) the place where salt comes from is designated as āli- (‘high’, ‘steep’, ‘lofty’) and modifies unwāni(‘rock face’, ‘cliff’, ‘escarpment’), while the Bronze Tablet treaty of the king of Tarḫuntašša makes provisions that the livestock is driven from the Ḫulaya river to the šalli lāpani’ wāniya (‘great saltlick rock face’). 45 Tarḫuntašša derives its name from the storm-god Tarḫunna or Tarḫunta (Luwian Tarḫunza, Palaic Taru); see West 2007, 247.

Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals  

(b) The second scenario is based on the assumption that the way this idiom had penetrated Greek is closely associated with its most typical manifestation in Homeric Greek, i.e. within the environment of a simile. In a path-breaking and admirable balanced article, which Hellenists have rather overlooked, Puhvel has carefully set the methodological framework within which a fruitful exploration of the antecedents of Homeric similes should be developed. Given the importance of Puhvel’s approach for my topic, I quote this passage in full: Compared to such vague echoings, cultural universals, and diffusional debris, which tend to wash over Hellenism in periodic waves of eastern flotsam like those of the Cyrus Gordon […], a firm grasp on our topic requires a narrower gauge and straiter gate. We need to compare actual records of adjacent, interacting, perhaps overlapping people, places, and times, in order to determine whether under the surface ‘noise’ of the text there may lurk a coherent thematic structure still discernible in formulaic petrifaction.46 Even if the yield should be meager, such is the only rigorous way of comparing Homeric and Hittite similes. The Iliadic elaborated simile is […] an innovational extravaganza in its own right, and there is little point in trying to find antecedents or parallels. The simple comparison or embryonic simile, on the other hand, is so basic that thematic matchings are probably random […] Some may be poetic […], some hyperbolic (Iliad 9.14 δάκρυ χέων ὥς τε κρήνη μελάνυδρος ‘shedding tears like a dark-watered spring’; KUB VIII 48 I 18 [Gilgāmeš] nu-ssikan ishahru parā PA5.HI.A-us mān [arser ‘his tears flowed like irrigation ditches’). But there remains a distinct middle ground where precise comparison of Homeric and Hittite similes is possible. This is the well-balanced extended simile, expanded beyond the embryonic but not elaborated out of joint, with both parts in expressional equilibrium. In Hittite this type is common in utterances of analogic magic where verbatim matching of parallels is essential to the efficacy of the procedure.47

Puhvel’s approach is on the right track, insightful but not overambitious, as it warns us of the various caveats of such an undertaking. Having said this, I would like to note that it is really a pity that one of his Iliadic examples (‘the dark-watered spring’) is cited only partially and not in its fullness. Puhvel is right that the ‘shedding tears like a spring’ simile is so elementary that it may well be called ‘universal’. In such cases, tracing specific antecedents is almost malpractice, not least because this approach silently adopts the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. But we need to draw a line between the embryonic simile and the short one, the abbreviated and elliptical nature of the latter camouflaging its expressive potential and, sometimes, its antecedents. In this light, I suggest that we follow Puhvel’s insight concerning the link between certain Homer 46 My own emphasis. 47 Puhvel 1991, 23 (with slight modifications of punctuation). For analogic magic in Hittite, see Oettinger 1976.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers ic similes and Hittite expressions of analogic magic and ritual utterances or spells, which are marked by the same inbuilt parallelism, between the Wie-Satz and the So-Satz the former, and between its two parts the latter. To make this point clear, let us quote one of Puhvel’s examples:48 izzan GIM-an Im-anza pittenuzzi n-at-kan aruni parranta pedai kēll-a parnas ēshar papratar QATAMMA pittenuddu n-at-kan aruni parranda pedāu as the wind sweeps chaff and carries it over the sea, let it likewise sweep the blood-defilement of this house and carry it over the sea (KUB XLI 8 II 15–19)

Now, compare Od. 5.368–370: ὡς δ’ ἄνεμος ζαὴς ἠΐων θημῶνα τινάξῃ καρφαλέων, τὰ μὲν ἄρ τε διεσκέδασ᾽ ἄλλυδις ἄλλῃ, ὣς τῆς δούρατα μακρὰ διεσκέδασ’ as a gale wind scatters a heap of dry chaff and spreads it all over, thus it shattered the long timbers of the raft …

The internal parallelism between the two parts of the Hittite ritual and the parallelism between the Wie-Satz and the So-Satz of the Homeric simile are based not only on their structural scaffoldings but also on repeated phraseology (n-atkan aruni | διεσκέδασ᾽). It is exactly this dictional reiteration that reinforces the two parallelisms, which pertain not only to situations but also to specific objects or people. In this light, we may focus our attention on several Hittite rituals using the phraseology pertaining to saltlike imagery, which we have posited as the phraseological antecedent of the Homeric formula ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης. The first example has been called ‘the conjuration of water and salt’ and pertains to the Puriyanni, a private household ritual of sympathetic magic to ward off evil. The relevant text is bilingual, the first paragraph being in Hittite, the second in Cuneiform Luwian.49 nu=ššan ANA GAL GIR4 kuit wātar lāḫuwan MUN=ya=kan anda išḫuwān n=at=kan É-ri anda papparašzi ANA BEL SISKUR=ya=ššan šarā papparašzi nu kiššan memai

 48 Puhvel 1991, 26. 49 I print the text and translation from Watkins 1995, 144–145.

Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals  

—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—––wāarša=tta ÍD-ti [nan]amman MUN-ša=pa ālāti uwā[niyati] upamman wāarša=tta zīl[a ÍD-i] anda nāwa iti MUN-ša=pa=[tta z]ila āli uwāniya nā[wa it]i (Hittite) The water which is poured into the clay bowl and the salt which is shaken in it he sprinkles in the house and sprinkles on the celebrant and speaks as follows: —–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—–-—––(Luwian) The water is led from the river and the salt is brought from the steep rock face; the water to the river nevermore will go back and the salt to the steep rock face nevermore will go back.

Commenting on this bilingual text Watkins draws attention to ‘the rhythmic, grammatically parallel, syntactic strophic style of the Luvian spell, which is clearly verbal art’.50 Water and salt are here used positively, i.e. as protective devices, that will ‘cleanse’ the household and keep pollution away. The second case study concerns a parturition ritual performed when pregnancy comes to an end. In this ritual the Sun-God is invoked, whereafter she comes and has a feast, so that the gods Anzili and Zukki are appeased, and the pregnant woman overcomes the suffering of delivery. At a certain point it is stated that ‘as the salt of the meadow from the saltlick is not exhausted, […] and [may] this one [i.e. so the life of the offerand] forever after [not be exhausted]’.51 Here salt symbolizes permanence.52 A third example is offered by the magic ritual of fḪantitaššu (CTH 395.1 A) in Kbo XVI 14 I 20 ff.:53 š]e-er-ra-aš-ša-an ZÍD.DA ZÍZ MUN-ya šu-uḫ-ḫa-I nu kiš-an me-ma-i M]UN-an GIM-an UDUḪI.A li-li-pa-an-ti nu ú-id-du kụ-u-uš ḫ-u-uk-ma-uš dUTU-uš QA-TAM-MA li-li-pa-iš-ki-iddu nu IGI-zi pal-ši ud-da-na-aš EN-aš dUTU-i kiš-an ḫu-u-uk-zi On it [the smoking cedarwood, oil, and honey] he sprinkles spelt-meal and salt, and speaks as follows: ‘as sheep lick salt, so may the Sun-God come and lick these conjurations’. And for the first time the sacrificer conjures [before] the Storm-God as follows.54

 50 Watkins 1995, 145. 51 Beckman 19832, 76–77; Moga 2009, 269. 52 See Moga 2009, 269. 53 For its duplicate (KUB XLIII 57 I 20′-24), see Watkins 1975, 182 (= 1994, 481).

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers This text comes from the Ritual of Hantitassu of Hurma that was performed when a person’s years ‘are mobilized/disturbed’.55 In this case, salt has negative connotations. It must be absorbed, ‘licked away’ by the Sun-God, as happens with sheep that lick and swallow it in a saltlick. The material we have gathered indicates that salt and salt-licking imagery were used in incantations and spells pertaining to Hittite ritual. We have also adduced evidence from the Hittite Ulmi-Tesub treaty that saltlicks were important resources indicating wealth and prestige. In this light, I would like to argue that ritual constitutes the performative framework by means of which imagery like a ‘saltlick cliff’ passed to Greek speakers in geographical areas where the two peoples, Greeks and Hittites, met and communicated. This cultural transmission is especially pertinent to the case of the Homeric simile, which shows traces of borrowings from Hittite ritual.56 The antiquity57 of the expression ‘as sheep lick salt’ that is attested, as we saw above, in the magic ritual of fḪantitaššu amounts to ‘sheeplicked salt’ and, by a small extension indicating the locale of this activity, further to ‘sheepfrequented saltlick’. This means that the ‘saltlick cliff’ of the Hittite Ulmi-Tesub treaty functionally equals ‘an animal frequented saltlick rock or cliff’, i.e. an αἰγίλιψ πέτρη. Such a process, which must have taken some time, resulted in the semantic defamiliarization of an arcane Hittite idiom that entered epic language as a dictional fossil. Since the formula αἰγίλιψ πέτρη was incomprehensible to the Ionian bards (having lost its denotative force pertaining to salt-licking), the licking aspect was recontextualized and associated with a familiar imagery (Il. 16.156–162), i.e. that of a mountain spring, where animals satisfy their thirst, licking with their tongues the flowing, clean water.58 The similes in Il. 9.13–15 and 16.2–4 may  54 Text and translation from Watkins 1975, 181 (= 1994, 480). 55 See Bachvarova 2016, 94 n. 71. 56 On this matter, see Puhvel 1991, 21–29. 57 See Watkins 1975, 181–182 (= 1994, 480–481), who argues that Latin and Hittite both offer ‘two entirely homologous structures as models of religious and cultural behavior’ with respect to two rituals in which salt plays a pivotal role. He also forcefully maintains that on linguistic grounds the utterance ‘as sheep lick salt’ reinforces the ‘antiquity of the presence of salt in the [Hittie] ritual’. 58 On μελάνυδρος, see Σ (A) Il. 9.14b (II 399 Erbse): πολύυδρος – τὸ βάθος; Σ (bTa) Il. 16.3b (156 III Erbse): ἡ βαθύυδρος, ᾗ κατὰ τοὺς φυσικοὺς μέλαν ἐστὶ τὸ ὕδωρ; Suda μ 464 s.v. μελάνυδρος [III 351 Adler]: βαθεῖα, κυρίως δὲ καθαροῦ ὕδατος; Hesych. μ 656 s.v. μελάνυδρος [II 806 Cunnignham]: ἐν βάθει τὸ ὕδωρ ἔχουσα An. ἢ πολύϋδρος; Eust. on Il. 9.14 (II 647 van der Valk): μελάνυδρος μὲν οὖν κρήνη οὐ μόνον διότι καθόλου τὸ ὕδωρ μέλαν εἶναι δοκεῖ μὴ φωτιζόμενον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς ἐκ βάθους ἀνάγουσα τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ ὡς πολύϋδρος. See also Οd. 20.158 (αἱ μὲν ἐείκοσι

Homeric Formulas and Hittite Rituals  

have resulted from the combination of two types of imagery, the saltlick rock to which animals (goats included) are attracted, in order to lick the salt on the mineral surface, and the clean-watered spring where animals drench their thirst. For the Ionian bards αἰγίλιψ πέτρη had lost its original meaning, but (as is the case with iconyms) had preserved some of its connotations: the rock face on which minerals are found, the image of the animals licking, the rural environment. Although the multiple examples in various modern languages pertaining to the analogy of tears and fountain or spring suggest that the imagery is almost universal (given the liquid form shared by tears and water), there are interesting parallels between Ugaritic, Hittite, and Homeric usage of the weeping idiom. In the words of West, [t]wice in the Iliad a hero who is about to make a lachrymose speech is described as standing and shedding tears like a fountain whose water pours down a steep rock-face. In a fragment of the Hittite version of Gilgāmesh, Enkidu related his doom-laden dream, and then ‘he lay before Gilgāmesh, and his tears [flowed] like irrigation channels’ before he spoke again. We cannot say whether the simile was in the Akkadian original, but it is paralleled in other Hittite texts.59

In the context of a rock face environment, it may have been reinforced by the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia (< παρά + εἴδωλον) that involves an external stimulus, which the human mind reinterprets (by recourse to a familiar pattern) as something that does not exist. Through the process of formation, weathering, or erosion, rocks and cliffs may come to mimic various recognizable

 βῆσαν ἐπὶ κρήνην μελάνυδρον), where Euryclea commands the female servants to fetch water from a dark-water fountain, i.e. a fountain with a lot of clean water. This interpretation of black water pertains to spring water at large. Given the weeping context of the similes in Il. 9.13–15 and 16.2–4, the stress on the darkness of water is clearly aimed to create an analogy with the black tears of Agamemnon and Achilles respectively. Hainsworth (1993, 61 on Il. 9.14–15) argues against Fränkel’s (1921, 21) association of δνοφερός and μελάνυδρος with Agamemnon’s dark mood on the basis of the fact that these epithets do not always have gloomy connotations, but in the context of this visual image Fränkel’s observations are correct; see the pairing of the ‘neighboring’ similes of Il. 9.4–8 and 14–16 (κῦμα κελαινὸν … | ἔχευεν – δάκρυ χέων… μελάνυδρος | δνοφερὸν χέει ὕδωρ). The former simile uses wind-water imagery for the distress and desperation of the Achaeans, the latter employs water imagery for the distress and desperation of Agamemnon. As a big black wave casts huge seaweed along the shore, so a black-water spring makes tears pour over Agamemnon’s cheeks. The black water falling from a spring situated on a cliff (κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης) is paired to the image of the black wave rising and falling on the shores of the Troad. 59 West 1997, 231 and n. 47 for other references in Hittite texts.

  Ἀπ᾽/κατ᾽ αἰγίλιπος πέτρης: Homeric Iconyms and Hittite Answers forms such as a human face, a common feature of pareidolia. In Jewish tradition, certain rock-salt formations on the eastern shore of the Dead Sea were thought to ‘picture’ Lot’s wife who was turned into a stele of salt because of her lack of faith.60 Likewise in ancient Greek culture, the weeping rock with Niobe’s face (who was punished for her arrogance towards Leto) is a well-known example of this phenomenon.61

 60 See Latham 1982, 70. 61 Il. 24.613–617 (ἣ δ’ ἄρα σίτου μνήσατ’, ἐπεὶ κάμε δάκρυ χέουσα. | νῦν δέ που ἐν πέτρῃσιν, ἐν οὔρεσιν οἰοπόλοισιν, | ἐν Σιπύλῳ, ὅθι φασὶ θεάων ἔμμεναι εὐνάς | νυμφάων, αἵ τ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ ᾿Aχελώϊον [᾿Aχελήσιον quiam ap. Σ (Τ): ᾿Aχελήϊον agn. Σ (AD), As: ᾿Aκελήσιον West] ἐρρώσαντο, | ἔνθα λίθος περ ἐοῦσα θεῶν ἐκ κήδεα πέσσει). Dué (2010, 291) has argued that the fountain simile in Il. 9.14–16 ‘recalls the iconic lamenter of Greek myth, Niobe, whose example is invoked by Achilles as he and Priam mourn for fathers and sons in the lament-filled Iliad 24. Niobe in her grief for her twelve children was transformed into such a weeping rock’.

 Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 Iliad 11.609–610 has been under the spotlight of critics since the earliest phases of analytical scholarship. It constitutes an interpretive crux with large repercussions for the poem. In this paper, I will revisit this passage to clarify some misconceptions which, in my view, still persist today, at least in a part of modern scholarship. My take on these lines employs both oral theory and other modern interpretive tools (such as narratology) and uses them to show that raised eyebrows because of over-skepticism are sometimes marked by a tendency to see the tree instead of the forest. νῦν ὀΐω περὶ γούνατ᾽ ἐμὰ στήσεσθαι Ἀχαιούς λισσομένους· χρειὼ γὰρ ἱκάνεται οὐκέτ’ ἀνεκτός. It is now that I think the Achaeans will come to my knees and stay there in supplication, for a need of past endurance has come to them. (Il. 11.609–610)

Few other lines of the Iliad have attracted so much scholarly interest as 11.609– 610, which for all analytical scholars constituted one of the strongest indications that the Embassy (Iliad 9) did not belong to the Ur-Ilias and that it was added to the epic at a later phase by another poet.1 For several scholars Achilles’ words are a strong hint that the Embassy has not yet happened. I will soon review many of the arguments employed in the past to support this approach, but before I embark on this task, it is instructive to alert the readers to the fact that the same end-result, i.e. an Iliad without an Embassy, is also adopted by scholars who do not belong to the analyst camp. Currie2 who takes a neoanalytical stance, considers the possibility that in 11.609–610 the Iliad refers to an earlier version from which it is departing. West,3 who is a unitarian since he thinks that the Iliad has been composed by a single poet who worked on the poem with additions, adaptations, expansions etc. throughout an extended period of his life, maintains that these lines were composed when the poet of the Iliad ‘still intended to place the Embassy during the following night’. We may pause for a moment and consider the views of Currie and West before focusing on the analytical arguments. Both approaches have the merit that they accept the text as it  1 For a detailed presentation and discussion of the various analytical and unitarian views in 19th-century scholarship, see Ameis and Hentze 1887, 118–135; on Il. 11.609–610, see Ameis and Hentze 1888, 75–76. 2 Currie 2016, 74. 3 West 2011a, 259. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-007

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 is. Currie explains these lines by recourse to an earlier version which we may call another Iliad that did not have an Embassy and from which our Iliad is departing. The essential point is that the poet of the Iliad composed his poem with an Embassy but when he wrote lines 11.608–610 and 16.72, he had in mind another Iliad which did not feature an Embassy. The aim of the poet of our Iliad was to recall the earlier version without an Embassy by highlighting for his audience narrative inconsistency. However, problems remain. If the previous approach is adopted, we would have a case in which our Iliad reacts to an Iliad without an Embassy by introducing an Embassy (Book 9) but then alludes to that other Iliad (which does not have an Embassy) by means of a passage which falls completely outside the framework of the Embassy of Book 9. Currie’s argument would work well for cases in which the ‘new’ section of the text contains signs of its reaction to an ‘earlier’ version. I remain skeptical with respect to 11.609–610 since it is not part of the Embassy. Moreover, Currie draws attention to the duals in Iliad 9, which may be reminding the audience of another version of the Iliad, in which the Achaeans sent two, not three, envoys to Achilles.4 This latter line of thought concerning the duals is possible, but complicates the issue. For, in that case, we would have an Iliad without an Embassy to which Il. 11.609–610 reacts and another Iliad with an Embassy involving two envoys to which Il. 9.182–198 responds. This line of thought requires that our Iliad reacts in two (or three) different passages to two earlier versions, one without an Embassy and another one with an Embassy with two envoys. This is a fascinating explanation, though more demanding. West’s view is based on the idea of a single poet who composes by writing. He worked on his text over many years and initially planned to place the Embassy ‘during the following night’, which means after the long day of fighting that begins with Il. 11.1 and ends with Il. 18.617.5 West endorses a long-held view that the poet of the Iliad composed at a first stage Books 1–2 (without the Catalogue of Ships), 11, and 16 (without the death of Sarpedon), which he then expanded by ‘tectonic’, episodic, and subepisodic additions.6 According to this view, lines 11.609–610 fit perfectly the initial composition (primary layer), since they are corroborated by a few passages in Book 16 (see below).7 The poet neglected to make the necessary altera-

 4 Currie 2016, 74. 5 West 2011a, 259. 6 West 2011a, 58. 7 West (2011a, 251–252) sees in Zeus’ words to Iris (that Hector should hold back until Agamemnon is wounded and takes to his chariot) a pointer to the fact that at an initial stage Book 16 came immediately after Book 11.

Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610  

tions after inserting the Embassy (it is not clear whether Books 3–9 were inserted all at once). This is a completely different explanation to the one suggested by Currie. ‘Intention’ has now given its place to ‘neglect’.8 West also thinks that the notorious duals in Book 9 result from a similar neglect by the poet of the Iliad. He first composed an Embassy with two envoys (Odysseus and Ajax), in which the duals made perfect sense, and at a later stage introduced a third envoy, Phoenix. The poet wrote an entire new speech for Phoenix, an answer by Achilles, made several adjustments to Book 9 concerning Phoenix’s stay with Patroclus and Achilles after the departure of the envoys from Achilles’ hut, but neglected to change the duals. Hence the problem with the three envoys and the dual forms. This ‘solution’ seems to me puzzling. Here we have a poet who is negligible à la carte:9 he does not forget to make adjustments for Phoenix at the end of Iliad 9 but forgets to change the duals; he intends to make a serious and important insertion in the poem by means of the introduction of the Embassy but neglects to change 11.609–610 (as well as a few passages in Book 16)10 which were supposedly written before he inserted an Embassy. In other words, this poet desires to improve his work and returns to it continuously through his lifetime, inserting new scenes, adapting material, probably re-writing some passages, but fails, at times, to bring the new material in line with the old one he had already written. This kind of reasoning can be used to explain almost any problem. Discrepancies can be thus screened out by recourse to ‘neglect’. Be that as it may, we should be alert to the way ‘discrepancies’ are defined. What I mean is that the criteria by which discrepancies are determined are often filtered by each scholar’s (or school’s) interpretation of Homeric poetry. To return to the problem at hand, we should ask ourselves whether all forms of request are of equal weight.11 Is the offering of gifts of the same force as mere supplication? Is speech and argumentation of the same tone with begging? If, for a moment, we change perspective and look at things not from the viewpoint of

 8 The same kind of reasoning pertains to West’s explanation of the notorious readings known to Zenodotus in Od. 1.93 and 285 Κρήτην instead of Σπάρτην; on this issue, see my discussion in chapter 9 (this volume). 9 The same observation applies to the often rehearsed claim that there was a poet of the Doloneia, who neglected to create links with the following books of the rest of the epic, although he did the exact opposite with respect to the preceding Books of the Iliad (e.g. 10.12: reevokes 8.553–554, 9.77, 234; 10.59: 9.80–86; 10.106: 9.651–655; 10.251–253: presupposes Book 9). This line of thought assigns to the poet of the Iliad and the poet of the Doloneia the same occasional neglect. 10 See West 2011a, on Il. 11.609–610. 11 Page (1959, 305–306) wrongly treats the Embassy as a supplication.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 the party making the request but from the viewpoint of the party asked, then we may see that there is a crucial difference between an organized, fully rational, and formal attempt aiming to lure somebody to a course of action and a spontaneous, informal, and utterly desperate effort of begging.12 The former is about satisfaction and compensation, the latter about compassion and pity.13

. Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages The debate about the authenticity of 11.609–610 involves the consideration of various passages, which the analysts adduced as evidence for the late addition of the Embassy into the Ur-Ilias. These passages are of varying importance, since some of them are employed by most analytical scholars, while others by Unitarians.14 I will present them in the order they appear in the text of the Iliad. (a) Il. 9.421–422, 9.520–522, 9.626–627, 9.640–642: ἀλλ᾽ ὑμεῖς μὲν ἰόντες ἀριστήεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν ἀγγελίην ἀπόφασθε, τὸ γὰρ γέρας ἐστὶ γερόντων do you go back therefore to the great men of the Achaeans, and take them this message, since such is the privilege of the princes ἄνδρας δὲ λίσσεσθαι ἐπιπροέηκεν ἀρίστους κρινάμενος κατὰ λαὸν Ἀχαιϊκόν … he has sent the best men to you to supplicate you, choosing them out of the Achaean host

 12 See in the section ‘From Request to Supplication’, the discussion on Il. 9.301–303. 13 Wilson (2002, 10), who argues that Agamemnon offers Achilles ἄποινα (‘ransom’), whereas Achilles feels he is owed ποινή (reparation’), interprets Agamemnon’s offer as an attempt to ‘subjugate’ Achilles by making him abandon the idea of reparation. On a different note, it should be noticed that Agamemnon’s offer in Il. 9.120 is a dramatic replay of Chryses’ offer to Agamemnon in Il. 1.20, the more so since they are both expressed in similar diction. Agamemnon is experiencing by means of Achilles in Iliad 9 the same negative attitude and rejection he has shown to Chryses in Book 1. This time, though, he is willing to return a slave girl (Briseis) to Achilles, while in Iliad 1 he was the one who refused to return a slave girl (Chryseis) to her father. 14 The three passages of greater weight (Il. 16.52–59, 72–73, 85–86) are also cited by both Currie and West in their respective studies.

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

… ἀπαγγεῖλαι δὲ τάχιστα χρὴ μῦθον Δαναοῖσι … … it is best to go back quickly and tell the story to the Danaans …

… ὑπωρόφιοι δέ τοί εἰμεν πληθύος ἐκ Δαναῶν … … see, we are under the same roof with you from the multitude of the Danaans …

In 9.421–422, 626–627, and 640–642 the envoys have been sent not just in the name of Agamemnon (9.520–522) but of the entire army as well.15 Why is then Achilles still waiting in 11.609–610 for an embassy by the Achaeans? The answer is that Achilles is not waiting for a second embassy, i.e. a formal plea by anyone.16 What he is expecting is a different kind of call for help by the Achaeans, not an attempt to convince him to fight by gifts and arguments. In 9.111– 113, when Nestor first suggested that an embassy is sent to Achilles, he described it as a formal effort to satisfy and convince Peleus’ son by pleasing gifts and soothening words (ὥς κέν μιν ἀρεσσάμενοι πεπίθωμεν | δώροισίν τ᾽ ἀγα-

 15 Bethe (1914, 75 n. 5) rightly rejects older Unitarian arguments drawing a line between Achilles’ feelings towards Agamemnon and the army. Differently Duckworth (1933, 87), who stresses the fact that the offer made to Achilles in Iliad 9 emanates from Agamemnon and the council of first-rank heroes, not from the assembly of the army. This is a valid point, the more so since it (partly) explains the double assemblies in the beginning of Iliad 9, that of the army (which has no result) and that of the chiefs (which decides to send and embassy to Achilles). 16 See Eust. on Il. 11.609–610 (III 263 van der Valk): ὅτι ἀνάγκης καὶ κατεπείξεως τὸ ‘νῦν οἴω περὶ γούνατ᾽ ἐμὰ στήσεσθαι λισσομένους Ἀχαιούς· χρειὼ γὰρ ἱκάνεται οὐκέτ᾽ ἀνεκτός’. ἐρεῖ δὲ αὐτὸ ὁ ἐλπίζων ἱκετευθῆναί ποθεν κατ᾽ ἀνάγκην. […] σημείωσαι δὲ ὅτι ἀναθεὶς ὁ ποιητὴς τὸν τοιοῦτον νοῦν τῷ Ἀχιλλεῖ ἐμφαίνει δύνασθαι καὶ δευτέραν πρεσβείαν ἄρτι στεῖλαι εἰς Ἀχιλλέα. καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐποίησεν ἂν οὕτω, εἰ μὴ τὸ μονοειδὲς ἐξέκλινε, προτιμώμενος τὸ ἑτέρως πως ἐξαγαγεῖν τὸν ἥρωα εἰς μάχην καὶ μὴ διὰ πρεσβείας κοινῆς, ἣν φθάσας ἐκεῖνος ἀπεδοκίμασε. (Achilles says) ‘It is now that I think the Achaeans will place themselves around my knees in supplication, since a need has come to them that cannot be endured any longer’. This is said by somebody who believes that at some point he will be supplicated because of necessity. […] Note that the poet, having given such a way of thinking to Achilles, indicates that he is able to send now a second embassy to Achilles. And he would had done it, if he did not avoid uniformity, preferring to bring the hero out to battle in some other way and not by means of an ordinary embassy, which that man (Achilles) had already rejected.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 νοῖσιν ἔπεσσί τε μειλιχίοισιν). In 11.609–610 Achilles is waiting for something quite different. (b) Il. 13.115: ἀλλ᾽ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τοι φρένες ἐσθλῶν no, sooner let us heal it, for the hearts of great men can be healed

This verse, spoken by Poseidon to a group of young Achaeans immediately after referring to the insult of Agamemnon to Achilles, has been interpreted as an attempt to placate Achilles.17 This argument is based on a misunderstanding of Poseidon’s words. Verses 13.108–119 make it clear that Poseidon (having taken the shape of Calchas) has explained the Trojan advance to the ships as a result not only of Achilles’ refusal to fight but also because of the ‘hanging back of our people who have made their quarrel with him, and will not stand in defense of our fast-running ships, but instead they are killed against them’.18 It is exactly this ‘hanging back of the army’ (μεθημοσύνη) that Poseidon/Calchas wants to change. Agamemnon’s insult to Achilles and the latter’s abstaining from war is no reason for the army to hang back from defending the ships (13.114: ἡμέας γ᾽ οὔ πως ἔστι μεθιέμεναι πολέμοιο). The troops, flattered by expressions like πάντες ἄριστοι ἐόντες ἀνὰ στρατόν (13.117) are urged to recall their fighting spirit and save the ships. By placing the ‘indirect reminder of Achilles’ obduracy’ (13.115)19 between these two direct references (114 and 117) to what the army needs to do, Poseidon/Calchas makes his message sound loud and clear: ‘no, sooner let us heal it; for the minds of brave men can be healed’ (ἀλλ᾽ ἀκεώμεθα θᾶσσον· ἀκεσταί τοι φρένες ἐσθλῶν).20 The brave men are the warriors to whom Poseidon/Calchas tries to instill courage. In fact, his words are perfectly in tune with 11.609–610. There Achilles was expecting the Achaeans to fall on their knees and supplicate him.21 Here Poseidon/Caclhas tells them that Achilles’  17 See the discussion in Kiene 1864, 326–327. 18 ἡγεμόνος κακότητι μεθημοσύνῃσί τε λαῶν, | οἳ κείνῳ ἐρίσαντες ἀμυνέμεν οὐκ ἐθέλουσι | νηῶν ὠκυπόρων, ἀλλὰ κτείνονται ἀν᾽ αὐτάς. 19 Janko 1992, 58. 20 According to the exegetical scholium on Il 13.115c, some ancient scholars thought that this phrase was meant for Achilles. This line of argument is clearly wrong. The explanation offered by the scholium is typically aestheticizing: ‘for an erring behavior by good men can be corrected more easily᾽ (ῥᾷστον γὰρ πρὸς ἐπανόρθωσιν τὸ ἁμαρτηθὲν τοῖς ἐναρέτοις ἀνδράσιν). 21 Notice the stress on Achilles’ (who is the supplicandus) knees. Knees, chin, and hands are those body parts to which the suppliant directs his/her gestures (Gould 1973, 96); on the sa-

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

obstinacy can be left aside. The army can and must remedy the situation with its own strength. It is not Achilles’ anger that must be healed but rather the way of thinking of the entire army. Instead of supplicating, the Achaeans must act and save themselves.22 (c) Il. 16.52–59: ἀλλὰ τόδ᾽ αἰνὸν ἄχος κραδίην καὶ θυμὸν ἱκάνει, ὁππότε δὴ τὸν ὁμοῖον ἀνὴρ ἐθέλῃσιν ἀμέρσαι καὶ γέρας ἂψ ἀφελέσθαι, ὅ τε κράτεϊ προβεβήκῃ· αἰνὸν ἄχος τό μοί ἐστιν, ἐπεὶ πάθον ἄλγεα θυμῷ. κούρην ἣν ἄρα μοι γέρας ἔξελον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν, δουρὶ δ᾽ ἐμῷ κτεάτισσα πόλιν εὐτείχεα πέρσας, τὴν ἂψ ἐκ χειρῶν ἕλετο κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων Ἀτρείδης ὡς εἴ τιν᾽ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην. But this thought comes as a bitter sorrow to my heart and my spirit when a man tries to foul one who is his equal, to take back a prize of honor, because he goes in greater authority. This is a bitter thought to me; my desire has been dealt with roughly. The girl the sons of the Achaeans chose out for my honor, and I won her with my own spear, and stormed a strong-fenced city, is taken back out of my hands by powerful Agamemnon, the son of Atreus, as if I were some dishonored vagabond.

The repetition of γέρας, which is effectively paired with ἂψ ἀφελέσθαι and ἔξελον (referring the former to Agamemnon, the latter to the army), the jingle between ἔξελον and ἐκ χειρῶν ἕλετο (pertaining the former to the army, the latter to Agamemnon), and the use of the phrase ὡς εἴ τιν᾽ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην (‘as if I was some dishonored vagabond᾽), all these features indicate that Achilles is still thinking in terms of the insult Agamemnon committed against him. The return of Briseis to him cannot change the fact that he has been insulted in the eyes of the army. This is because it was the army that had consented to Achilles’ getting Briseis as an award for his military exploits. The insult is about the very recognition of Achilles’ heroic identity, of receiving the respect he deserves within the community of heroes to which he belongs. By saying that Agamemnon has deprived him of the γέρας he has been bestowed by the army,  credness of these parts of the body, see Onians (19882, 97, 132–133, 174–175, 180–181, 198 n. 1, 233, 235). 22 Il. 13.117–119: οὐδ᾽ ἂν ἔγωγε | ἀνδρὶ μαχεσσαίμην ὅς τις πολέμοιο μεθείη | λυγρὸς ἐών· ὑμῖν δὲ νεμεσσῶμαι περὶ κῆρι.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 Achilles is not ignorant of the Embassy and Agamemnon’s promise to return Briseis. On the contrary, the verbatim repetition of 9.648 (= 16.59) shows that Achilles is alluding to the Embassy, where the same line has been employed by him. The syntax in 9.648 is smooth, here rather forced. The accusatives τιν᾽ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην are in apposition to μ᾽ ἀσύφηλον (ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἔρεξεν | Ἀτρείδης) in 9.647, whereas here there is no preceeding accusative designating Achilles to which τιν᾽ ἀτίμητον μετανάστην can be tagged. In this light, Achilles is emphatically stressing that his feelings are the same as in Iliad 1. For him the insult remains. (d) Il. 16.72–3: εἴ μοι κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων | ἤπια εἰδείη (‘if powerful Agamemnon | treated me kindly’)

This is the cornerstone of anti-Embassy analytical criticism.23 The phrase ἤπια εἰδείη is considered an uncontestable indication that Agamemnon has not sent an embassy to Achilles. Previous attempts by Unitarians were rather unconvincing, since in the pre-Parryan period of Homeric philology scholars lacked an understanding of how traditional phraseology works.24 The focus, therefore, will be on the expression ἤπια + οἶδα. This phrase is used for Odysseus and Agamemnon in the Iliad and for Eumaeus in the Odyssey.25 In the Iliad it is nobody else than Agamemnon himself who declares to the son of Laertes that he (like him) has only ideas of kindness in his heart. The use of this expression only by Agamemnon (Il. 4.361) and for Agamemnon (Il. 16.72–73) suggests that its function is particularized, i.e. that it pertains to the role of the king of Mycenae in the Iliad. The expression ἤπια + οἶδα is also used in the Iliad by Achilles, who complains that Agamemnon ‘did not have kind thoughts in his mind with respect to him’. It is no chance that the other person involved in this dictional game is Odysseus, the first and perhaps most important of the three envoys in the Em 23 See Page 1959, 310. 24 E.g. Fäsi (non vidi; I owe this reference to Bonitz 18815, 54–55) argued that ‘the proud Achilles still does not want to admit that the main reason of the disaster that had occurred lies in him, and in particular does not remember that Agamemnon in Book 9 has offered everything possible for a reconciliation. He does not want to be in the wrong’. Bonitz (18815, 67) rightly refuted this psychological explanation by stating that ‘Fäsi could hardly deny that to achieve such an aim the poet had to use and apply other means. The explanation (of Fäsi) substitutes the text with something else’ (both translations are my own). This is Bonitz’s second refutation of a Unitarian argument with respect to Il. 11.609–610. 25 I am excluding the expression ἤπια φάρμακα (Il. 4.218, 11.515, 11.830), which pertains to the use of drugs for the healing of a wound.

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

bassy sent to Achilles in Iliad 9. In fact, Achilles’ reply to Odysseys touches upon the hypocrisy of speakers who say one thing but have something different in their mind (ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν, | ὅς χ᾽ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ).26 This statement is Achilles’ negative comment to the ‘kind thoughts’ (ἤπια) of Agamemnon and Odysseus. It does not matter that Achilles has not heard what Agamemnon had told Odysseys in Book 4. What matters is that the phrase ἤπια + οἶδα has undergone an even more pointed particularization. By having Achilles resent in Il. 16.72–73 that Agamemnon ‘had kind thoughts’ (ἤπια εἰδείη), i.e. reject the way of mind Agamemnon had attributed to Odysseus (the strongest mouthpiece of the Embassy) and to himself, the epic brings to the limelight the huge gap between Agamemnon and Achilles. The audience now knows that Agamemnon has not displayed the attitude (ἤπια εἰδέναι) he regards as typical of himself and of his principal envoy. When Achilles uses the expression ἤπια εἰδείη in Iliad 16, he is overtly referring to his quarrel with Agamemnon in Iliad 1 but covertly to Odysseus’ speech in the Embassy, where Laertes’ son acted as the mouthpiece of Agamemnon. This is because the phraseology ἤπια + οἶδα carries with it the full semantical arsenal that stems from its traditional referentiality and activates the entire referential range of this set phrase.27 (e) Il. 16.83–86: πείθεο δ᾽ ὥς τοι ἐγὼ μύθου τέλος ἐν φρεσὶ θείω, ὡς ἄν μοι τιμὴν μεγάλην καὶ κῦδος ἄρηαι πρὸς πάντων Δαναῶν, ἀτὰρ οἳ περικαλλέα κούρην ἂψ ἀπονάσσωσιν, ποτὶ δ᾽ ἀγλαὰ δῶρα πόρωσιν. But obey to the end this word I have out upon your attention so that you can win, for me, great honor and glory in the sight of all the Danaans, so they will bring back to me the lovely girl, and give me shining gifts in addition.

‘What in Book 9 Achilles had rejected, the return of Briseis and other gifts with her, is exactly what he describes as the aim of his quest᾽. It is by these words that Erhardt28 summarized what he considers to be a stark opposition between

 26 Il. 9.312–313. 27 For the term ‘traditional referentiality’, see Foley 1991, 24; Danek 2002, 3–19. 28 Erhardt 1894, 285. Bethe 1914, 72 calls it ‘der schärfste Widerspruch der Ilias’ (‘the sharpest contradiction of the Iliad’), which indicates that ‘hier stoßen zwei unvereinbare Vorstellungen

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 9.336–337 (τῇ παριαύων | τερπέσθω ‘let him lie beside her | and be happy’) and 16.84–86.29 Page adds that Achilles has renounced Briseis and the gifts ‘forever, unconditionally᾽ in Il. 9.378–391.30 What Erhardt and Page (as well as others) have missed is that 16.84 reshuffles what has been said by Odysseus to Achilles in 9.301–303 (σὺ δ᾽ ἄλλους περ Παναχαιούς | τειρομένους ἐλέαιρε κατὰ στρατόν, οἵ σε θεὸν ὣς | τείσουσ᾽· ἦ γάρ κέ σφι μάλα μέγα κῦδος ἄροιο ‘at least take pity on the other | Achaeans, who are afflicted along the host, and will honor you | as a god. You may win very great glory among them’). Towards the end of his long speech to Achilles in the Embassy, Odysseus opted for what I would call ‘plan B᾽ or ‘second line of defense’ of his argumentation. To this end, he drew a dividing line between Agamemnon and the rest of the army, requesting from Achilles to pity the troops, in case he did not care for Agamemnon and his gifts. In 16.84–6 Achilles basically transfers to Patroclus the practical aspect of Odysseus’ request to him in 9.301–303, keeping the end-result unaltered: (9.303) ἦ γάρ κέ σφι μάλα μέγα κῦδος ἄροιο (‘for you may win very great glory among them᾽) – (16.84–85) ὡς ἄν μοι τιμὴν μεγάλην καὶ κῦδος ἄρηαι | πρὸς πάντων Δαναῶν (‘so that you win great honor and glory for me in the sight of all the Danaans᾽). It is here that Achilles seems to be following ‘plan B᾽ of the request suggested to him by Odysseus in 9.301–303 with the all-important change of the person who is going to satisfy the practical aspect of fighting off the Trojans. Odysseus had asked for Achilles, Achilles sends Patroclus. Why is that? Because Achilles receives a supplication, just as he had expected in 11.609–610, albeit a figurative one.31 This supplication is not expressed by the Achaeans themselves but by Patroclus who becomes their mouthpiece. The situation is partly being shaped as Achilles had foreseen, but the important difference, i.e. that Patroclus (the silent figure during the Embassy at Iliad 9, the person who has heard Odysseus ‘plan B’ and has repeated verbatim Nestor’s request [11.794–803 = 16.36–46]) becomes the supplicating proxy of the Achaeans to Achilles, results in the par-

 des Haupthelden der Ilias aufeinander’ (‘here two incompatible concepts of the Iliad’s main hero collide’: 73). 29 Immediately after making this statement Erhardt added that it would amount to rush judgment to consider Iliad 9 a late addition to the epic, since there are other passages which display knowledge of or agree with Iliad 9 (on which see the section ‘From Request to Supplication’). 30 Page 1959, 309. 31 For the difference between complete and figurative supplication, see Kopperschmidt 1967, 20–21; Gould 1973, 77. On other supplication scenes in the Iliad, see e.g. 1.500–502 (and 512), 8.371–372, 9.451, 10.454–455, 24.478–479 (prepared by 465–467).

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

tial change of his friend’s mind.32 By a superb shift, the Iliad changes the bearer of the request, turning the envoy into a suppliant. Still, this is an incomplete supplication, at least in Achilles’ eyes. Just as the Achaeans did not come themselves to supplicate him but it was his friend who acted on their behalf, so it will be his friend, not Achilles himself, who shall help them. This is effected by the transfer of the divine arms from Achilles to Patroclus, a brilliant device not only for immediate-practical reasons (the Trojans will retreat thinking Patroclus is Achilles) but also in the long run (Hector will take Achilles’ armor from the dead Patroclus, Achilles will get a new armor from Thetis etc.). Before I turn my attention to the claim that Patroclus’ request amounts to a supplication, I would like to briefly dwell on Page’s claim that Achilles has renounced Briseis and the gifts unconditionally. Achilles’ stance about the course of action that he will follow has been changing ever since he quarreled with Agamemnon: he first declared that he will return to Phthia (Il. 1.169–171, 9.357–363 and 428–429), he then stated that he will decide the next day whether to go back or not (Il. 9.619), and he finally stated to Ajax that he will stay and fight when Hector arrives at the huts and ships of the Myrmidons (Il. 9.650–655). The statement made in Il. 11.609–610 presupposes an Achilles who has decided to stay in Troy and this statement has been clearly made to Ajax in Il. 9.650–655. The gradual shift in Achilles’ stance is paralleled by his stance with respect to Briseis and the gifts. In Il. 9.378–91, Achilles rejects Agamemnon through Briseis and the gifts but after Phoenix’s speech it is clear that the gifts acquire a new function. They are not a means of compensation but of bestowing honor to Achilles. Page both misattributes Phoenix’s words to Achilles (Il. 9.602–605) and fails to see that Phoenix anchors the gifts to the theme of major importance for Achilles, the restoration of his honor. He is also mistaken in saying that ‘he (Achilles) openly recognized (I 602–605) that whatever action he might take in the future would now have to go unrewarded, ἄτερ δώρων, as in the example of Meleager’.33 These are the words of Phoenix who in contrast to Meleager’s story urges Achilles to accept the gifts (‘with gifts promised go forth’)34 since ‘if without gifts you go into the fight

 32 By the expression ‘supplicating proxy’ I indicate that Patroclus is acting as the mouthpiece of the troops, who are supplicating Achilles qua his friend. The real suppliant is the army. 33 Page 1959, 309. 34 Il. 9.602–603: ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ δώρων | ἔρχεο.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 where men perish, | your honor will no longer be as great, though you drive back the battle’.35 Reading Patroclus’ request as supplication asks for some justification. Such an approach is on the right track for the following reasons: (i) the simile in 16.7– 11; (ii) the promotion of the army to the main reason for a change of plan or at least a concession by Achilles (16.17–18); (iii) the way the narrator-text caps Patroclus’ speech (λισσόμενος: 16.46, λιτέσθαι: 16.47), which is in agreement with 11.609–610 (νῦν ὀΐω περὶ γούνατ᾽ ἐμὰ στήσεσθαι Ἀχαιούς | λισσομένους). The simile of the girl in tears asking her mother to take her into her arms has been discussed repeatedly. It follows another simile, that of a spring of black water, which also features in Il. 9.13–16, where it is applied to Agamemnon. The context is in both cases that of suffering for the grim situation of the Achaean army. Within this context, the simile of the girl in tears goes one step further, since it visually enacts a supplication. This is how Achilles interprets Patroclus’ behavior: 36 a human being in great need of something (girl who wants to be placed in her mother’s lap) is portrayed as going after the person from whom he/she asks a favor (the standard verb ἱκάνω/ἵκω is here replaced by θέουσ᾽ and the verb λίσσομαι by ἀνώγει), and as being on a lower level,37 like all suppliants who fall on their knees (the girl does not need to kneel for she is on a lower level because of her smaller size). As is the case with supplication scenes, so here the girl turns her eyes in entreaty towards the supplicandus who is on a higher level (16.10: δακρυόεσσα δέ μιν ποτιδέρκεται) and instead of touching the legs and/or chin she clings to her mother’s dress, holding it back when she tries to hurry (16.9: εἱανοῦ ἁπτομένη, καί τ᾽ ἐσσυμένην κατερύκει).38 According to a standard idiom in Homeric epic, a speaker who wants to find about something asks his/her interlocutor by presenting him/her with a list of

 35 Il. 9.604–605: εἰ δέ κ᾽ ἄτερ δώρων πόλεμον φθισήνορα δύῃς, | οὐκέθ᾽ ὁμῶς τιμῆς ἔσεαι πόλεμόν περ ἀλαλκών. 36 It should be noted that the νηπίη-reference represents the narrator’s focalization, not Achilles’. It is a case of παράληψις: only the narrator is aware that just as the girl in the simile, so Patroclus in reality is seeking his own destruction without realizing it (see 16.46–47); on παράληψις, see Genette 1980, 195–197; de Jong 1987, 108–109; on focalization (λύσις ἐκ τοῦ προσώπου) in ancient criticism, see Nünlist 2009, 116–134. Eustathius (on Il. 16.46 [III 804–805 van der Valk]) observes that with μέγα νήπιος the narrator transcends Achilles’ sarcasm with νηπίη (Il. 16.8), but fails to see that νηπίη represents the narrator’s focalization. 37 Notice that the behavior of the girl in the simile reproduces the behavior of the suppliant. In both cases complete self-abasement is the common denominator; see Gould 1973, 94. 38 These are all typical gestures occurring in supplication scenes: approaching the supplicandus, lowering the body, touching the body of the supplicandus; see Gould 1973, 76.

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

possible answers, the last of which is the correct one. This mechanism, which replicates in positive form the structure of the priamel, puts the stress on the last possibility. So here Achilles entertains the thought that Patroclus has come to him to beg for the army. He does not explicitly acknowledge it, but he implies it by means of the simile he has just used. The important point is that he interprets the army’s sufferings as resulting from arrogance (16.18: ὑπερβασίης ἕνεκα σφῆς).39 Achilles has now realized that the army for which he used to care so much,40 which was yet to comprehend how important he is for the war since he was expecting to be supplicated,41 has now fully understood that the only way to its salvation is Achilles. His declaration that one day ‘a desire for him will come to all the Achaeans’,42 when Agamemnon will not be in a position to help them, for the losses will be great by Hector and the Trojans, has come true. ὑπερβασίη (‘transgression’) is not only an emotionally loaded word but also a technical term that covertly indicates that Patroclus’ request amounts to a figurative supplication by the Achaean army. Ample confirmation of this association is offered by Il. 9.500–501: λοιβῇ τε κνίσῃ τε παρατρωπῶσ᾽ ἄνθρωποι | λισσόμενοι, ὅτε κέν τις ὑπερβήῃ καὶ ἁμάρτῃ.43 Transgressing the boundaries (ὑπερβαίνειν) can be remedied by re-establishing them through supplication that acknowledges Achilles’ standing above the army. This line of argument is corroborated by Eusthatius’ illuminating comments on this passage:44 … μέθοδος Ὁμήρῳ εἰς πλατυσμὸν γραφῆς καὶ αὕτη. ὅτ᾽ ἄν τι πρᾶγμα γένηται ἢ γίνηται, πλάττει τινὰς ἀγνοοῦντας καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐρωτῶντας αἴτια διάφορα, καθ᾽ ἃ γενέσθαι εἰκὸς ἐκεῖνο τὸ πρᾶγμα. ἐφ᾽ οἷς μὴ εὐστοχήσαντος τοῦ ἐρωτῶντος ἐπάγει λοιπὸν τὸ ἀληθὲς αἴτιον ὁ ἐρωτώμενος, λέγων ὡς οὔτε τόδε οὔτε τόδε ἀλλὰ τόδε ἐστίν. […] ἐνταῦθα δὲ τὸ ὁμοειδὲς τῶν τοιούτων ἐρωτήσεων ἐκκλίνων ὁ ποιητὴς ποιεῖ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα τά τε μὴ ὄντα αἴτια ἐρωτήσαντα καὶ τὸ ἀληθὲς αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνον ἐπισυνάψαντα. ἐρωτήσας γὰρ τὸν Πάτροκλον, εἴ τι διὰ τοὺς Μυρμιδόνας λέξει ἢ δι᾽ αὐτὸν ἢ διὰ τὸν Πηλέα ἢ διὰ τὸν Μενοίτιον, ‘τῶν’, ἤγουν ὧν, φησί, ‘μάλ᾽ ἀμφοτέρων ἀκαχοίμεθα τεθνειώτων’, ἐπάγει τὸ ἀληθὲς ‘ἠὲ σύ γ᾽ Ἀργείων ὀλοφύρεαι ὡς ὀλέκονται’. καὶ ἐπισυνάπτει εὐθὺς καὶ τὴν κατ᾽ αὐτῶν αἰτίασιν τὸ  39 Half-way to this outcome he has tried to place the army on a par with him (Il. 9.315–316: οὔτ᾽ ἔμεγ᾽ Ἀτρείδην Ἀγαμέμνονα πεισέμεν οἴω | οὔτ᾽ ἄλλους Δαναούς) declaring to the envoys that there is no support for Agamemnon’s continuation of the war. His care for the troops was already great in Il. 11.600–601 when he stands on his ship’s stern and watches the ‘sheer work of war and the sorrowful onrush’. 40 1.56: κήδετο γὰρ Δαναῶν, ὅτι ῥα θνῄσκοντας ὁρᾶτο. 41 11.609–610. 42 1.240–241: ἦ ποτ᾿ Ἀχιλλῆος ποθὴ ἵξεται υἷας Ἀχαιῶν | σύμπαντας. 43 This is the only figurative use of ὑπερβαίνειν in Homeric epic, where it is used 6x. ὑπερβασίη is employed 7x in Homer, always in metaphorical sense. 44 On Il. 16.12–17 (III 796–797 van der Valk).

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 ‘ὑπερβασίης ἕνεκα σφῆς’, ἤγουν ἰδίας, ἀμβλύνων τῷ Πατρόκλῳ τὸ εἰς ἱκεσίαν πρόθυμον διὰ τὸ τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς ἐφαμάρτους εἶναι κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ. … this is also a Homeric method aiming at the amplitude of a list. Every time something happens, (Homer) presents some people as ignorant and for this reason asking about the various reasons according to which that thing seems to have happened. Having missed the mark with these questions, the person asked brings then on the real cause, saying that neither this nor this but this is (the real cause). […] In this case the poet changes the similarity of such questions and makes Achilles attach himself at the end the real reason after asking about causes that do not apply. For after asking Patroclus, if he will say something about the Myrmidons or about himself or about Peleus or about Menoetius, […] he brings on the real reason ‘or are you mourning over the Argives and how they are dying’. And he immediately attaches the blame against them, i.e. the (expression) ‘by reason of their arrogance’ […] decreasing Patroclus’ eagerness for a supplication because the Achaeans have committed an offense against him (Achilles).

Eusthathius’ remarks are to the point. Achilles’ effort to decrease Patroclus’ eagerness to supplicate him originates from the fact that he understands that his friend intends to speak on behalf of the army, who in his eyes has offended him. Achilles’ words result only in changing the form of Patroclus’ supplication, not in rendering it null and void. Instead of a complete supplication, a figurative one will take place. The kneeling Achaeans whom Achilles is expecting since 11.609–610 give their place to Patroclus, the typical gestures of supplication are transferred to the simile of the little girl, the soft and diplomatic language of the suppliant is partly replaced by the abruptness of Patroclus’ tone who thus tries to balance his friend’s own abruptness. Like Achilles, the narrator sees Patroclus’ request as a figurative supplication. This can be gathered from the fact that the narrator-text caps Patroclus’ speech with standard supplication vocabulary (λισσόμενος: 16.46, λιτέσθαι: 16.47).45 To avoid any misunderstanding, let me state up front that I am not suggesting that the verb λίσσομαι in Homer necessitates a supplication. My argument is cumulative: the capping of Patroclus’ speech by λισσόμενος and λιτέσθαι forms part of a series of elements that make a case for a figurative supplication. It is, one may argue, very much in tune with Achilles’ words in 11.609–610 (νῦν ὀΐω περὶ γούνατ᾽ ἐμὰ στήσεσθαι Ἀχαιούς | λισσομένους ‘now I think that the Achaeans will come to my knees and stay there | in supplication’). There a supplication was expected, here a supplication is performed, albeit a metaphorical one.

 45 Eustathius (on Il. 16.38–47 [III 804 van der Valk]) also treats Patroclus’ appeal as a supplication.

Τhe Analytical Arsenal: Revisiting ‘anti-Embassy’ Passages  

(f) Il. 16.273–274: γνῷ δὲ καὶ Ἀτρείδης εὐρὺ κρείων Ἀγαμέμνων | ἣν ἄτην, ὅ τ᾽ ἄριστον Ἀχαιῶν οὐδὲν ἔτισεν (‘so Atreus’ son wide-ruling Agamemnon may recognize | his madness, that he did no honor to the best of the Achaeans’).46

Il. 9.115–120, where Agamemnon states that it was infatuation (ἄτη) that took control of his mind making him insult Achilles, seems to be against 16.273–274, in which Patroclus urges the Myrmidons to fight so that Agamemnon realizes ‘his ἄτη, that he did do no honor to the sons of the Achaeans’. The difference between these two passages lies in the way Agamemnon and Patroclus understand the ways of ἄτη. Agamemnon explicitly states that it was by means of sending ἄτη that Zeus ‘has honored’ Achilles (9.118: ἔτεισε) and ‘has beaten down’ (9.118: δάμασσε) the Achaeans. According to Agamemnon, Achilles has been honored and the army dishonored. Conversely, Patroclus states that Achilles, the ἄριστος of the Achaeans, has been dishonored. Only now, after the Myrmidons join the fighting and the Achaean army rises victorious will Agamemnon be able to comprehend that he had dishonored Achilles. In Il. 9.115– 120 Agamemnon says that the Zeus-sent ἄτη (after clouding Agamemnon’s mind and causing his quarrel with Achilles) has resulted in the suffering of the army and the honoring of Achilles, while according to Patroclus’ speech in 16.273–274 ἄτη has had the exactly opposite result, i.e. the dishonoring of Achilles. In fact, I would go one step further and maintain that this passage looks back at Il. 9.115–120 aiming to render it null and void. The unbridgeable gap between Agamemnon’s and Achilles’/Patroclus’ viewpoint is thus underscored. The storyteller is aware of the Embassy with which he engages in a creative and critical dialogue.

 46 These lines have been also used by Achilles in his encounter with Thetis in Il. 1.411–412. Schadewaldt (19663, 81) rightly observes that there is no contradiction between the behavior of Achilles in Il. 1.408–412, in which he desires to see the Achaeans defeated by the ships at the hands of the Trojans, and in Il. 9.650–655, where he determines the time he will intervene in the fighting, i.e. when his ships are in danger. In tune with these passages, the triumph of Achilles’ wrath seems to be reaching its apex, when he envisages a supplication by the desperate Achaeans in Il. 11.609–610. The same is the case in Il. 14.139–141, when Poseidon (having taken the shape of an old man) tells Agamemnon how pleased Achilles is with the death and flight of the Achaeans.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610

. From Request to Supplication Having tackled various analytical arguments with respect to the authenticity of Iliad 9 in association with Il. 11.609–610, I will now turn my attention to several passages of Book 9 to which passages from other Iliadic Books allude. Ι will restrict myself, with two exceptions,47 only to those passages which either link Iliad 9 with the first part of Iliad 16, when the crucial meeting between Patroclus and Achilles takes place, or directly support Il. 11.609–610. (a) In Il. 16.36–39,48 Patroclus repeats Nestor’s words from Il. 11.794–79749 pertaining to a possible explanation of Achilles’ inertia. It is about a prophecy concerning Achilles’ short life in case he participates in the war. This motif (transferred to the Iliad from the *Memnonis) has been used for the first time by Achilles himself in his meeting with his mother Thetis in Il. 1.352 and will be employed in Il. 1.416, 9.410–411, 17.408–409, 18.59–60, 18.95–96, 18.329–332 etc.50 As soon as Patroclus brings forward this scenario, Achilles rejects it (Il. 11.50–51). Why, then, does Nestor in Iliad 11 and Patroclus in Iliad 16 consider the possibility that Achilles is not fighting because of a prophecy (θεοπροπίη) given to Thetis by Zeus about her son’s fate? The answer can only be because Achilles has already made that argument in the context of his abstaining from war. This has not happened in Iliad 1, when Achilles was talking to his mother by the seashore but in Il. 9.410–411, when Achilles delivered his long answer to Odysseus (Patroclus being present in the scene): μήτηρ γάρ τέ μέ φησι θεὰ Θέτις ἀργυρόπεζα | διχθαδίας κῆρας φερέμεν θανάτοιο τέλος δέ (‘for my mother Thetis the goddess of the silver feet tells me | I carry two sorts of destiny toward the day of my death’). Whereas in Il. 1.352–356 Achilles’ short life is used as an argument for the honor Zeus should have granted to him, in Il. 9.410–420 it is employed as an argument for not fighting, for leaving Troy and returning to Greece.

 47 See (f) and (g) below. 48 εἰ δέ τινα φρεσὶ σῇσι θεοπροπίην ἀλεείνεις | καί τινά τοι πὰρ Ζηνὸς ἐπέφραδε πότνια μήτηρ, | ἀλλ᾽ ἐμέ περ πρόες ὦχ᾽, ἅμα δ᾽ ἄλλον λαὸν ὄπασσον | Μυρμιδόνων, ἤν πού τι φόως Δαναοῖσι γένωμαι (‘but if you are drawing back from some prophecy in your own heart | and by Zeus’ will your honored mother has told you of something, | then send me out at least, let the rest of the Myrmidon people | follow me, and I may be a light given to the Danaans’). 49 εἰ δέ τινα φρεσὶν ᾗσι θεοπροπίην ἀλεείνει | καί τινά οἱ πὰρ Ζηνὸς ἐπέφραδε πότνια μήτηρ, | ἀλλὰ σέ περ προέτω, ἅμα δ᾽ ἄλλος λαὸς ἑπέσθω | Μυρμιδόνων, αἴ κέν τι φόως Δαναοῖσι γένηαι (‘but if you are drawing back from some prophecy in your own heart | and by Zeus’ will your honored mother has told you of something, | let him send you out, at least, the rest of the Myrmidon people | follow you, and you may be a light given to the Danaans’). 50 For a full list of attestations, see Kullmann 1960, 308–314.

From Request to Supplication  

Seen from this vantage point, Il. 11.794–797 and 16.36–39 presuppose Il. 9.410– 411.51 (b) In 9.626–627 Ajax’s words (οὐ γάρ μοι δοκέει μύθοιο τελευτή | τῇδέ γ᾽ ὁδῷ κρανέεσθαι ‘I think that nothing will be accomplished by argument on this errand’) imply that Achilles may be persuaded in the future and that another appeal is to be expected. The errand mentioned by Ajax can be no other than the Embassy in which the three envoys take part. Ajax is clearly leaving open the possibility of another mission to Achilles, who is listening to his cousin’s words. (c) At the end of his long speech to Nestor before the envoys set out for Achilles’ headquarters, Agamemnon argues that Achilles must ‘give way’ (δμηθήτω) and yield place to him because he is ‘kinglier’ (βασιλεύτερoς) and ‘born the elder’ (γενεῇ προγενέστερος).52 Odysseus repeats almost verbatim Agamemnon’s words in his speech to Achilles but tellingly omits what Agamemnon has said in 9.158–161. This is a wise strategy, since Achilles must not be aware that even at this moment Agamemnon uses his status and age as arguments necessitating his (sc. Achilles’) subordination. In the eyes of Achilles this would mean that nothing has changed in Agamemnon’s behavior since their quarrel in Iliad 1.53 In his reply to Odysseus, Achilles complains about the disparity between the position of Achilles and that of the other Achaean kings with respect to the spoils (οὐδέ τί μοι περίκειται in 321 prefigures τοῖσι μὲν ἔμπεδα κεῖται in 335) adding that ‘his heart has gone through its afflictions’ since he is forever setting his life at peril by fighting (9.321–322: ἐπεὶ πάθον ἄλγεα θυμῷ | αἰεὶ ἐμὴν ψυχὴν παραβαλλόμενος πολεμίζειν). The diction employed in 16.54–56 (καὶ γέρας ἂψ  51 This is the second part of Nestor’s advice to Patroclus, which is followed with utmost precision (Il. 11.794–803 ≅ 16.36–45). On the typical epic convention of verbatim repetition of orders, messages, requests etc., see Bowra 1952, 254–258; Kakridis 1971, 76–88; Létoublon 1987, 123–144; de Jong 1987, 241–245. Reichel (1994, 139–142) observes that this Fernbeziehung involves the greatest textual distance between two repeated passages in the Iliad (more than 2600 verses as opposed to the usual distance of around 100 verses), which the storyteller effectively bridges by means of the fact that Patroclus had been sent to ask for information by Achilles himself and that contrary to the pattern characterizing such repetitions, Patroclus (the messenger) does not state who is the source of the message he brings to Achilles. 52 Il. 9.158–161: Ἀΐδης τοι ἀμείλιχος ἠδ᾽ ἀδάμαστος, | τοὔνεκα καί τε βροτοῖσι θεῶν ἔχθιστος ἁπάντων· | καί μοι ὑποστήτω ὅσσον βασιλεύτερός εἰμι | ἠδ᾽ ὅσσον γενεῇ προγενέστερος εὔχομαι εἶναι. Notice that in Nestor’s reminder to Patroclus of Menoetius’ advice in Phthia (11.786: γενεῇ μὲν ὑπέρτερός ἐστιν) γενεή denotes descent (not age as in Il. 9.58 and 161) and refers to Achilles’ superiority because of his partly divine parentage. Patroclus’s older age is mentioned in the next verse (Il. 11.787: πρεσβύτερος). 53 See especially 1.185–187.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 ἀφελέσθαι, ὅ τε κράτεϊ προβεβήκῃ | αἰνὸν ἄχος τό μοί ἐστιν, ἐπεὶ πάθον ἄλγεα θυμῷ. | κούρην ἣν ἄρα μοι γέρας ἔξελον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν) is closely tied to the theme of Achilles’ dishonor by Agamemnon and the Achaeans with respect to the spoils of war and its grim consequences for all:54 Agamemnon’s status55 is again mentioned by Achilles as an argument legitimizing the taking of Briseis and the hero’s sufferings are underscored with exactly the same phraseology that occurs nowhere else in the Iliad.56 The relevant passages are remarkably in tune, the one in Iliad 16 being a compressed version, of features which were found in Agamemnon’s speech to Achilles and Achilles’ own speech to Odysseus in Iliad 9. (d) Il. 9.650–65557 and Il. 16.62–6358 both concern the time of Achilles’ intervention. As in the previous case, the passage in Iliad 16 is an abbreviated form of the expanded version of a motif or topic already mentioned in Iliad 9. That 16.62–63 is a reworking59 of Il. 9.650–655 can be seen from (a) the omission of ‘his [Achilles’] former stipulation (9.653) that the ships must be ablaze’ and (b) the ‘convoluted syntax’ with ἀλλ᾽ ὁπότ᾽ following οὐ πρίν instead of the expected second πρίν.60 Further evidence for his line of thought can be found in Il. 11.664–668, where Nestor speaks to Patroclus by relating to him what Achilles had told the envoys in Il. 9.650–655. Nestor’s ἀλλ᾽ ἔτι νῦν (Il. 11.790) presupposes an earlier attempt to persuade Achilles.61 (e) Ιn 9.698–700, Diomedes tells Agamemnon that his request to Achilles by means of many gifs has resulted in increasing his anger. The emphatic νῦν αὖ … πολὺ μᾶλλον, which means ‘now more than before’, implies that not only has the formal request utterly failed but Agamemnon has managed to drive Achilles

 54 See also the programmatic reference to this topic in Il. 1.2–4: μυρί’ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε’ ἔθηκε, | πολλὰς δ’ ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν | ἡρώων. 55 See also Il. 2.100, 186; 9.37. Focke (1954, 262) states that the envoys stress Agamemnon’s Machtstellung. 56 πάθον ἄλγεα θυμῷ occurs one more time (Il. 18.397) but in a totally different context (Hephaestus refers to what would have happened to him if he was not saved by Eurynome and Thetis) and without a preceding ἐπεί. 57 οὐ γὰρ πρὶν πολέμοιο μεδήσομαι αἱματόεντος | πρίν γ᾽ υἱὸν Πριάμοιο δαΐφρονος Ἕκτορα δῖον | Μυρμιδόνων ἐπί τε κλισίας καὶ νῆας ἱκέσθαι | κτείνοντ᾽ Ἀργείους, κατά τε σμῦξαι πυρὶ νῆας. | ἀμφὶ δέ τοι τῇ ἐμῇ κλισίῃ καὶ νηῒ μελαίνῃ | Ἕκτορα καὶ μεμαῶτα μάχης σχήσεσθαι ὀΐω. 58 οὐ πρὶν μηνιθμὸν καταπαυσέμεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὁπότ᾽ ἂν δὴ | νῆας ἐμὰς ἀφίκηται ἀϋτή τε πτόλεμός τε. 59 Erhardt 1894, 286–287. 60 Janko 1992, on Il. 16.61–63. Since ἔφην (16.61) means διενοήθην (‘I intended’, this being Aristarchus’ view; see Σ on Il. 16.61d) and not ‘said’, it cannot be argued on these grounds that 16.61 refers to 9.560–565. That said, Achilles’ words here are perfectly in tune with what he had said in the Embassy. 61 See Focke 1954, 275–276.

From Request to Supplication  

even deeper into his pride and that Achilles may require in the future something even greater in order to join the fighting, i.e. it works just like νῦν in Il. 11.609– 610.62 Like Ajax before him, Diomedes leaves open the possibility of another appeal to Achilles. This line of argument is further supported by the seemingly odd use of λίσσεσθαι, which is employed only here in the context of the Embassy.63 Diomedes speaks of the Embassy as a supplication just because Achilles does not, just because Achilles is expecting a supplication all the way from Il. 11.609–610 to his meeting with Patroclus in the beginning of Iliad 16. Achilles’ ironic comments about Diomedes (and Agamemnon) in Il. 16.74–77 presuppose knowledge of what Diomedes said in Il. 9.697–709. This is the interpretation of the scholia64 that call this phenomenon κατὰ τὸ σιωπώμενον (Achilles implicitly knows what he has not heard) but it may even better be treated as a case of παράληψις, since the narrator intrudes in Achilles’ speech and imposes on him his superior knowledge of past events. (f) The analogy between Odysseus’ and Nestor’s reminiscences in Il. 9.252– 260 and Il. 11.765–790 respectively is strong. These two embedded external analepses complement each other: each of the two envoys to Peleus’ palace before the war recalls what pertains to the addressee of his speech: Odysseus targets Achilles, Nestor targets Patroclus. The absent and silent figures of the Embassy in Iliad 9 (Nestor and Patroclus), who were present in the pre-war embassy to Achilles, are tellingly activated in Iliad 11.65 (g) Α straightforward and incontestable reference to the Embassy is given by Thetis’ report to Hephaestus in Il. 18.448–450: τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες | Ἀργείων, καὶ πολλὰ περικλυτὰ δῶρα ὀνόμαζον, ἔνθ᾽ αὐτὸς μὲν ἔπειτ᾽ ἠναίνετο  62 This passage rebuts the first of Bonitz’s three refutations (18815, 66–67) of Unitarian arguments with respect to Il. 11.609–610. Ameis and Hentze (1888, 75–76) complain that the force given to νῦν (11.609) by Unitarian critics (e.g. Nitzsch 1852, 239) who take it as ‘now above all’ is misconceived. According to Ameis and Hentze, in order to interpret νῦν in this way, the following words would need to indicate by comparison what the speaker had in mind. This critique is also invalidated by Il. 9.700. Equally stumbling is the use of the unique expression περὶ γούνατ᾽ ἐμὰ στήσεσθαι λισσομένους as an indication of linguistic oddity. Reinhardt (1961, 262), who takes this phrase to mean ‘Furchtbarer den je’, is on the right track. 63 I do not count its use in Phoenix’s speech, since there it pertains to his autobiography, the Λιταί, and the story of Meleager. 64 The Σ Il. 9.698a (II 543 Erbse) and 9.709a (II 545 Erbse) seem to have been repeated there from Il. 16.74a-b2 (IV 178 Erbse). 65 This is a completely different line of thought from the erring argument of Fäsi (non vidi; I owe this reference to Bonitz 18815, 54–55) that because Il. 11.765–90 frequently recalls Il. 9.252– 260, the latter must have served as its model. Bonitz’s third refutation (18815, 67), which is based on the lack of ‘factual reference’ between the two passages, is equally off the mark.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι (‘and the leaders of the Argives entreated | my son, and named the many glorious gifts they would give him. | But at that time he refused himself to fight the death from them’).66 The force of this reference is so undeniable that the supporters of the view that the Embassy is a late addition to the Iliad seem helpless. Page67 refers to this passage saying that lines 18.444–56 have been athetized by Aristarchus who took them as ‘an intruder upon the standard text’. Aristarchus’ approach did not prevail. These lines are well preserved in the manuscript tradition and are not bracketed by either the OCT or the BT editions of the Iliad. An exegetic scholium (ad Il. 18.444–456 bT) criticizing Aristarchus’ view makes clear that this is an ἀνακεφαλαίωσις (‘repeating summary’).68 Moreover, as the scholium notes, it would have been ‘strange’ (ἄτοπον) for Thetis to refer to her marriage to Peleus, i.e. to a past event known to all, but to remain silent about the reason that prompted her visit to Hephaestus. Last, if these lines are athetized, it would remain inexplicable to Hephaestus why Achilles needs a new armor, since it is in these lines that Patroclus’ death while wearing the armor of Achilles is mentioned.69

. Conclusion The Analysts have used 11.609–610 as a strong indication that Iliad 9 is a late addition to the epic, which in its earliest phase did not contain an Embassy to Achilles. Unitarians have counterargued that the Iliad composed in a short period by a single poet through the use of writing included an Embassy and that each and every analytical argument can be refuted. For Oralists this kind of problem does not really exist, since the epic tradition of the Iliad was shaped in the course of time by multiple singers who performed and reperformed it. NeoUnitarians, who accept the influence of the oral tradition in the shaping of the epic (with varying levels of impact with respect to the end-product) claim that either a single poet or a single bard who worked on or performed the poem throughout his life had either developed the idea of an Embassy to Achilles at a  66 See Focke 1954, 276. 67 Page 1959, 330 n. 10. 68 On the use of ἀνακεφαλαίωσις as an argument against ἀθέτησις, see Nünlist 2009, 45 n. 75. 69 West (2011a, 55 and on Il. 18.448–452) draws attention to Il. 9.574 claiming that the expression τὸν δὲ λίσσοντο γέροντες in Il. 18.448 has been taken from the Embassy. This would be in tune with West’s gradual composition of the Iliad by a single poet, since he believes that books 17–24 have been added to the text after the fortifications and the Embassy, which they presuppose.

Conclusion  

late stage in the composition of his epic and/or initially planned to place it during the night following the long day of fighting that begins with Iliad 11. Neoanalysts do not address this topic directly, though they think that lines 11.609–610 may reflect an Iliadic reflex to another Iliad without an Embassy. In the throes of rigorous and wide-ranging interpretive approaches with respect to the composition of the Embassy, I do not intend to offer here a new suggestion. My goal has been rather modest. Before forming an opinion with respect to such a thorny issue, we should scrutinize every passage that has been used as a hint, indication or even proof that the Iliad as we have it shows traces of an earlier phase in which it was either deprived of an Embassy to Achilles or was composed so as to have an Embassy placed later in the plot. Through a detailed examination of the relevant passages, I suggest that such an argument cannot be supported on the basis of the passages adduced by both Analysts and Neo-Unitarians. Verses 11.609–610 are well integrated in the poem as we have it, since they function as one of the steps leading from the formal request of the Embassy in Iliad 9 to the figurative supplication of Achilles in Iliad 16. In contrast to Analysts and Neo-Unitarians, I have also maintained that Il. 11.609–610 followed by Patroclus’ supplication would have been unthinkable without an Embassy in Iliad 9,70 where the leading figures of the Achaeans are played out as envoys, numerous gifts are offered by Agamemnon, and Achilles’ criticism on Agamemnon and the heroic code is spelled out. Patroclus’ appeal to Achilles makes sense in our Iliad only when it follows the failed Embassy of Iliad 9,71 when the key Achaean figures had been used up either as envoys and/or as warriors. Patroclus’ supplication of Achilles in Iliad 16 is unthinkable both without an Embassy in Iliad 9 and without Il. 11.609–610, since in that case Nestor’s suggestion in Iliad 11 (repeated to Achilles by Patroclus in Iliad 16), i.e. that Patroclus should ask Achilles to become his surrogate, put on his armor and fight in his place, would be inconceivable. Nestor’s suggestion makes sense only if he had been convinced that Achilles will not return to the war.72 This  70 I had arrived at this conclusion independently, but I was too glad to see that a similar suggestion had been made by Focke (1954, 275): ‘ihn (Achill) kniefällig anflehen würden, denn ein letzter Appell ist gemeint —, dann ist eine schlichtere aber vergebliche Form des Bittens offenbar schon erfolgt, ein ‘I’ also vorauszusetzen’; see also Reinhardt (1961, 262), who says that in Il. 11.609–610 Achilles remembers the first appeal of the Achaean envoys in Iliad 9. 71 Montanari (2017, 43–55) argues that the Embassy is an invention of the poet of the Iliad. His aim was precisely to make the Embassy fail, in order to make the plot reach an impasse. At that crucial juncture, a new plotline is created, which overrides the former one. 72 See Il. 11.796–803. Otherwise, why would Nestor suspect that Achilles will refuse to return to the fighting? See point (a) in the section ‘From Request to Supplication’.

  Revisiting an Old Crux: Iliad 11.609–610 conviction can only be explained if Achilles has already rejected a formal request from the Achaeans. The storyteller has conceived a plan, according to which all three elements pertaining to the Embassy must be changed: envoy, form, and content of the appeal. Nestor’s suggestion to Patroclus is about the first and the third elements (envoy and content of the appeal). No mention is needed about the second element (form of the appeal), because the narrator has made Achilles determine it himself in 11.609–610.

 Iliad 11.662: A Note οἱ γὰρ ἄριστοι ἐν νηυσὶν κέαται βεβλημένοι οὐτάμενοί τε. βέβληται μὲν ὁ Τυδεΐδης κρατερὸς Διομήδης, οὔτασται δ᾽ Ὀδυσεὺς δουρὶ κλυτὸς ἠδ᾽ Ἀγαμέμνων· βέβληται δὲ καὶ Εὐρύπυλος κατὰ μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ· τοῦτον δ᾽ ἄλλον ἐγὼ νέον ἤγαγον ἐκ πολέμοιο ἰῷ ἀπὸ νευρῆς βεβλημένον. For the bravest are lying up among the ships with arrow or spear wounds. The son of Tydeus, strong Diomedes, was hit by an arrow, and Odysseus has a pike wound, and Agamemnon the spear-famed, and Eurypylus has been wounded in the thigh with an arrow. And even now I have brought this other son, Machaon, out of the fighting hit by an arrow from the bowstring. (Iliad 11.658–664)

In his edition of the Iliad for the Bibliotheca Teubneriana West brackets Il. 11.662 contra Monro and Allen (OCT) that treat the verse as authentic. The line is attested by four papyri and six manuscripts,1 but is absent from the rest of the mediaeval tradition. The two main arguments against the authenticity of Il. 11.662 are (a) that ‘Nestor has no knowledge of Eurypylus’ wounding, as he left the field before it happened’, and (b) ‘it is (to all appearance) all news to Patroclus when he meets the invalid on his way back to Achilles at 806–811.’2 Before I examine the first argument, I will deal with what seems to have been its ancient version. In the critical apparatus of the edition of the scholia vetera, Erbse notes: 662 nullum signum ante versum in A; tamen Aristonicus in scholio deperdito docuisse vid. versum 662 (= Π 27), qui nunc in compluribus codicibus deest, sed in libro Π ab omnibus traditur, a grammaticis quibusdam omissum esse, fort. etiam ab ipso Aristarcho, cf. Valk II 516

 1 Papyri: 𝖕𝖕 60 (P.Morgan = Pack2 870; s. iv); 𝖕𝖕 96 (P.S.I. 10 = Pack2 833; s. iv); 𝖕𝖕 481 (P.Strasb. inv. Gr. 2675 = Pack2 789; papyrus codex, s. iv); 𝖕𝖕 495 (P.Strasb. inv. Gr. 1600a-b + 1624 + 1632b + 1654a-b + 1660b = Pack2 885; s. iv). Manuscripts: Dm (Laur. 32.15, saec. x sed in A-Δ saec. xiii); B2 (Marc. gr. 821 [olim 453], saec. xi); Cm (Laur. 32.3, saec. xi–xii); T (Lond. Bibl. Brit. Burney 86, ann. 1059); T (Oxon. Bodl. Auct. T.2.7, saec. xii); V (Vat. gr. saec. xiii). Explanation of superscripts: m = in margine, 2 = manus recentior. 2 West 2001, 214. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-008

  Iliad 11.662: A Note If indeed Aristonicus had mentioned in a lost scholium that Il. 11.662 had been omitted by some ancient scholars, among whom we may include Aristarchus, then it is possible to argue that the reason for this omission was the same as that put forward by West, i.e. that Nestor who had left the battlefield before Eurypylus was wounded, could not have possibly known about this injury. How, then, could he report it to Patroclus? To this logical objection van der Valk counterargued that ancient scholars were not aware of the mechanics of oral versemaking. To back up his case, he draws attention to Il. 20.447 (ἀλλ᾽ ὅτε δὴ τὸ τέταρτον ἐπέσσυτο δαίμονι ἶσος), which is printed by most modern editions,3 even though it is transmitted by a very limited number of MSS. The reason for treating Il. 20.447 as genuine is that the same verse occurs in Il. 5.438 and Il. 16.786 in exactly the same context, which pertains to the topic ‘hero attacks three times + the fourth something happens’, which is a subgroup of the general pattern ‘three times but the fourth time’.4 We are thus dealing with a pattern, to which Il. 20.447 conforms. Van der Valk explains the weak attestation of this line in the paradosis by recourse to the philological activity of Aristarchus, who may have decided to omit the verse, when it occurred in the same context for the third time.5 What van der Valk does not state is that Il. 11.662 equally belongs to a pattern of anaphora, which contains three or more items linked in the following manner: ‘A μὲν/δὲ + B δὲ + C δὲ (καὶ) + …’. Examples of this anaphorapattern are attested throughout the Homeric epics: Il. 2.382–384: Il. 5.385–395: Il. 7.237–241: Il. 11.494–495: Il. 20.201–203: Il. 20.236–240: Il. 20.432–444:6 Il. 23.30–32: Od. 1.3: Od. 3.109–111: Od. 3.430–435: Od. 4.184–186:

εὖ μέν τις …, εὖ δ᾽ …., εὖ δέ τις …, εὖ δέ τις. τλῆ μὲν Ἄρης … τλῆ δ᾽ Ἥρη … τλῆ δ᾽ Ἀΐδης εὖ οἶδα … οἶδ᾽ ἐπὶ δεξιά, οἶδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ … οἶδα δ᾽ … οἶδα δ᾽ πολλὰς δὲ … πολλὰς δέ τε … πολλὸν δέ τ᾽ οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς … ἴδμεν δ᾽ … ἴδμεν δὲ Ἶλος δ᾽ αὖ τέκεθ᾽ … Λαομέδων δ᾽ ἄρα … τέκετο … Ἀσσάρακος δὲ Κάπυν, ὃ δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ Ἀγχίσην … αὐτὰρ ἔμ᾽ Ἀγχίσης, Πρίαμος δ᾽ οἶδα καὶ αὐτὸς … οἶδα δ᾽, ἐγὼ δὲ πολλοὶ μὲν βόες … πολλοὶ δ᾽ … πολλοὶ δ᾽ ὃς μάλα πολλὰ … πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων … πολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γε ἔνθα μὲν Αἴας κεῖται … ἔνθα δ᾽ Ἀχιλλεύς, | ἔνθα δὲ Πάτροκλος, … ἔνθα δ᾽ ἐμὸς φίλος υἱός, ἦλθε μὲν … ἦλθον δὲ … ἦλθε δὲ χαλκεὺς … ἦλθε δ᾽ Ἀθήνη κλαῖε μὲν Ἀργείη Ἑλένη, … κλαῖε δὲ Τηλέμαχός τε καὶ Ἀτρεΐδης Μενέλαος, | οὐδ᾽ ἄρα Νέστορος υἱὸς ἀδακρύτω ἔχεν ὄσσε

 3 West (1998) omits it. For a discussion of his arguments, see below. 4 See also Il. 16.705 and Il. 22.208. 5 Van der Valk 1964, 517. 6 Although οἶδα is not stated in the third item, it is easily understood from the syntax.

Iliad 11.662: A Note  

Examples like the ones mentioned above do not exclude the existence of a twofold pattern, as is the case with Od. 9.45, 12.289–291, 22.47, 23.304–305, but in terms of statistics the threefold (or multiple-fold) pattern is by far the most common one.7 Modern Greek folk song (δημοτικό τραγούδι) offers a little explored storehouse of examples of three- and fourfold patterns of this type appearing either in the same or in two or more verses. Let us, then, look closely to some relevant cases that extend to more than a single verse:8 Ἔχεις μηλιὰ στὴ θύρα σου, κλῆμα μὲς στὴν αὐλή σου, ἔχεις καὶ χρυσοκάντηλο στὴ μέση τοῦ σπιτιοῦ σου You have an apple tree at your door, a vine in your yard, you also have a gold-candle in the midst of your house Νὰ στείλω μῆλο σέπεται, κυδώνι, μαραγκιάζει, νὰ στείλω μοσκοστάφυλο, κι ἐκεῖνο σταφαδιάζει If I send an apple it gets rotten, (if I a send) quince it wizens, If a send a muscatel, it also withers σέρνεις λιθάρια ριζωτά, πεῦκα ξεριζωμένα, σέρνεις καὶ μιὰ γλυκομηλιὰ στὰ μῆλα φορτωμένη You drag rooted stones, pines uprooted, you also drag a sweet apple-tree loaded with apples Διψοῦν οἱ κάμποι γιὰ νερὸ καὶ τὰ βουνὰ γιὰ χιόνια, διψάει κι ἡ δόλια ἡ Ἀρετὴ γιὰ μιὰ σταλιὰ νεράκι Thirsty are the plains for water and the mountains for snow, thirsty is also poor Arete for a drop of water ν᾽ ἀκούσω γερακιοῦ φωνὴ καὶ φάλκο νὰ λαλήσει, ν᾽ ἀκούσω καὶ τὴν πέρδικα να συχνοκακαρίσει If only I can listen to the hawk’s voice and to a harrier eagle to warble, if only I can also listen to the partridge clucking frequently

 7 For Indo-European examples, see West 2007, 108–109; for Near-Eastern literature, see West 1997, 254–255. 8 All cited material is taken from Sifakis 1988, 171–172, who offers a thorough analysis of various types of two-, three-, and fourfold patterns in modern Greek folk song.

  Iliad 11.662: A Note Τὸ λὲν οἱ κοῦκκοι στὰ βουνὰ κι οἱ πέρδικες στὰ πλάγια, τὸ λέει κι ὁ πετροκότζυφας στὰ κλέφτικα λημέρια The cuckoos say it in the mountains and the partridges in the slopes, the blackbird says it too in the haunts of the kleftes9

These threefold patterns are strikingly similar to Il. 11.660–662. The repetition pertains to the beginning of the third part of the pattern. In the modern Greek examples, the second part of the pattern takes the form of a synonymous or parallel expression to the first part (κλῆμα μὲς στὴν αὐλή σου / κυδώνι, μαραγκιάζει / πεῦκα ξεριζωμένα / τὰ βουνὰ γιὰ χιόνια / φάλκο νὰ λαλήσει / οἱ πέρδικες στὰ πλάγια), and it is only in the second verse that there is ample room for expanding the third and last member of the pattern. The same is the case mutatis mutandis in Il. 11.660–662. βέβληται (660) is repeated in the beginning of the third part (662), whereas the second is occupied by a virtually synonymous term (661: οὔτασται). Moreover, it is only in the third part that the nuclear idea ‘has been wounded’ is expanded by a reference to the part of the body where the injury has been inflicted (662: κατὰ μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ),10 i.e. in addition to the name of the person who has been injured (660: Διομήδης; 661: Ὀδυσεὺς and Ἀγαμέμνων; 662: Εὐρύπυλος). The expansion at the end of this brief ‘list’ is in tune with the general pattern of highlighting the last element of a series of items or themes.11 The modern Greek examples show beyond doubt how this threefold pattern employs the post-positive closural καί/κι, always placed after the third part of the pattern (ἔχεις καί, νὰ στείλω … κι, σέρνεις καί, διψάει κι, ν᾽ ἀκούσω καί, τὸ λέει κι), i.e. exactly as δὲ καὶ in Il. 11.662 is placed after βέβληται, the third part of the pattern. There is no doubt that in Il. 11.660–662 we are dealing with a threefold pattern, which means that 11.662 is surely its last part. Having clarified this matter, I will now turn my attention to the two arguments put forward by West with respect to the authenticity of Il. 11.662. The first argument is undermined by the fact that Nestor should be equally ignorant of the wounding of Diomedes and Odysseus. These major heroes had been wounded at the center of the battle (Il. 11.167 and 11.172),12 i.e. in the area

 9 The kleftes (κλέφτες) were men of paramilitary groups living in the mountains during the period of the Ottoman occupation of Greece. They took part in the Greek War of Independence. 10 Notice that this feature occurs in all passages pertaining to Eurypylus in Il. 11.583–584, 810, 844. 11 The Priamel is a well-known example of this cross-cultural feature. 12 Il. 11.167: μέσσον κὰπ πεδίον; Il. 11.172: κὰμ μέσσον πεδίον.

Iliad 11.662: A Note  

where the fighting takes place at Il. 11.166, whereas Nestor is clearly located at the left side (where Hector has moved after his withdrawal in Il. 11.360).13 It is explicitly said that Hector was not aware of what was happening in the area Ajax was fighting, i.e. at the center, ‘because he was at the left side’ (497–501), where Nestor and Idomeneus were located.14 This means that he had seen neither Diomedes’ wounding nor the intervention of Ajax and Menelaus who rushed to save Odysseus when he called for them, since these events occurred after his withdrawal from the center in Il. 11.360. The only wounding Hector had seen is that of Agamemnon (Il. 11.284),15 which had happened before his withdrawal from the center. It is Cebriones, Hector’s charioteer, who recognizes Ajax by means of his shield and tells Hector that they need to move back to the center (Il. 11.523–530).16 Standing on Hector’s chariot, Cebriones was able to locate Ajax because of his big shield and that is all. The storyteller carefully refrains from giving more details. The distance prevents a clearer view. Hector follows Cebriones’ suggestion and soon they are both positioned again at the center. Now, since Nestor was continuously on the left side, he could not have seen any wounding that happened at the center (just as Hector as long as he was on the left side). This means that he should have been unaware that Agamemnon, Diomedes, Odysseus, and Eurypylus were all wounded, the three first because the injuries happened at the center, the last both because the injury took place at the center and because Nestor had already returned to the ships when Eurypylus was wounded. Still, Nestor reports to Patroclus all four injuries. In this light, if West’s first argument is applied to the entire scene, then we should have to bracket Il. 11.660–661 too, which refer to the wounding of Diomedes, Agamemnon, and Odysseus about whom Nestor is equally ignorant. It should be stressed that when Idomeneus advises Nestor to take Machaon on his chariot and return to the ships, the reason is to treat Machaon’s wound, so that he will be able at a later stage to cure the wounds of others as a doctor. There is no reference whatsoever to the injuries of specific heroes. Being continuously on

 13 ἐξέλασ᾽ ἐς πληθύν. 14 … οὐδέ πω Ἕκτωρ | πεύθετ᾽, ἐπεί ῥα μάχης ἐπ᾽ ἀριστερὰ μάρνατο πάσης | ὄχθας πὰρ ποταμοῖο Σκαμάνδρου, τῇ ῥα μάλιστα | ἀνδρῶν πῖπτε κάρηνα, βοὴ δ᾽ ἄσβεστος ὀρώρει | Νέστορά τ᾽ ἀμφὶ μέγαν καὶ ἀρήϊον Ἰδομενῆα. 15 Ἕκτωρ δ᾽ ὡς ἐνόησ᾽ Ἀγαμέμνονα νόσφι κιόντα. 16 Ἕκτορ νῶϊ μὲν ἐνθάδ᾽ ὁμιλέομεν Δαναοῖσιν | ἐσχατιῇ πολέμοιο δυσηχέος· οἱ δὲ δὴ ἄλλοι | Τρῶες ὀρίνονται ἐπιμὶξ ἵπποι τε καὶ αὐτοί. | Αἴας δὲ κλονέει Τελαμώνιος· εὖ δέ μιν ἔγνων· | εὐρὺ γὰρ ἀμφ᾽ ὤμοισιν ἔχει σάκος· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμεῖς | κεῖσ᾽ ἵππους τε καὶ ἅρμ᾽ ἰθύνομεν, ἔνθα μάλιστα | ἱππῆες πεζοί τε κακὴν ἔριδα προβαλόντες | ἀλλήλους ὀλέκουσι, βοὴ δ᾽ ἄσβεστος ὄρωρεν.

  Iliad 11.662: A Note the left side of the battlefield, Idomeneus does not know who has been wounded at the center. The second argument against the authenticity of Il. 11.662 is that Patroclus has no clue that Eurypylus is wounded when he meets with him in 809–848.17 This claim is an assumption that is neither stated nor implied anywhere in the text. As soon as Eurypylus comes across Patroclus on the latter’s way to Achilles’ hut, he asks him if there is any chance that the Achaeans can hold back Hector, or he will reach their ships (Il. 11.820–821).18 Eurypylus’ question is fully in tune with the poet’s plan and the advice Nestor had given to Patroclus. Machaon’s wounding (observed by Achilles who was watching the fighting from his ship)19 was a pretext for having Achilles send Patroclus to Nestor. The real reason was the implementation of the poetic plan to have Patroclus return to the fighting and in extension to have Achilles join the war. This plan is akin to what Achilles himself had declared already in Il. 9.650–655. It is this line of thought that Nestor reiterates in 11.666–667 (ἦ μένει, εἰς ὅ κε δὴ νῆες θοαὶ ἄγχι θαλάσσης | Ἀργείων ἀέκητι πυρὸς δηΐοιο θέρωνται) and to which Eurypylus hints at Il. 11.823–824 (οὐκέτι διογενὲς Πατρόκλεες ἄλκαρ Ἀχαιῶν | ἔσσεται, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν νηυσὶ μελαίνῃσιν πεσέονται). The meeting with Eurypylus gives Patroclus more strength to convince Achilles that something must be done for the army to be saved. The wounded hero corroborates Nestor’s description of the desperate condition of the Achaeans. The exaggeration that ‘the aristoi’ (Il. 11.658) are wounded fulfills this goal. There is absolutely nothing in the encounter between Patroclus and Eurypylus indicating that the former is ignorant of the latter’s wounding. The storyteller describes the injury of Eurypylus (Il. 11.844–846) by emphasizing the actual wound, the blood flowing etc., i.e. the physical aspects of the wounding. Even a glimpse at Il. 11.583–58420 shows that when Eurypylus was wounded the storyteller offered his audience a very brief reference to the actual wounding on the thigh, sparing his listeners of all the details pertaining to the description of the actual injury. It is amply clear that he reserved the description of the physical aspects of the wound for the encounter between Eu-

 17 He should have known, if indeed Nestor had told him in Il. 11.662. 18 ἤ ῥ᾽ ἔτι που σχήσουσι πελώριον Ἕκτορ᾽ Ἀχαιοί, | ἦ ἤδη φθίσονται ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ δουρὶ δαμέντες; 19 Il. 11.599–600: τὸν δὲ ἰδὼν ἐνόησε ποδάρκης δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς· | ἑστήκει γὰρ ἐπὶ πρυμνῇ μεγακήτεϊ νηΐ. 20 καί μιν βάλε μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ | δεξιόν· ἐκλάσθη δὲ δόναξ, ἐβάρυνε δὲ μηρόν.

Iliad 11.662: A Note  

rypylus and Patroclus (Il. 11.809–813).21 The reason is straightforward: Patroclus will be the one to cure the wound (Il. 11.843–848).22 Seen from this vantage point, none of the two arguments advanced against the authenticity of 11.662 seems convincing. That the verse is attested in Il. 16.27 within a cluster of lines that also occur in Il. 11.659–662 does not indicate that it had been transferred to 11.661 from there, since such repetition of verse-groups is typical in oral poetry. On the contrary, what Eurypylus says to Patroclus in Il. 11.825–82723 is almost a verbatim repetition of what Nestor had told Patroclus in Il. 11.658–659, i.e. that the best Achaeans have been wounded and have withdrawn from the fighting. Eurypylus thus takes his place next to first-rank heroes (Diomedes, Agamemnon, and Odysseus) who have been wounded. He can do so because his wounding is important for the plot, not because his status has been suddenly elevated. That all this is about poetic planning can be also seen by the fact that nobody seems to bother (and rightly so) about how Eurypylus knows that Machaon has been wounded and is in need of a doctor. What is important for the storyteller is that Eurypylus’ wound must be cured by Patroclus and that Eurypylus must ask for help so that Patroclus delays to bring Nestor’s request to Achilles. To this end, it is fitting for Eurypylus to tell Patroclus that he (Patroclus) alone can help him, since Machaon is wounded and unable to assist.24 Considering the abovementioned discussion, I suggest that 11.662 is treated as a genuine line. It is attested by a part of the paradosis and is consonant with the context and style of Homeric narrative. As to the question pertaining to the manner Nestor (and later Eurypylus with respect to Machaon) has found out about the injury of Eurypylus (as well as those of other key Achaean heroes), it suffices to mention the technique of metakenosis. The term is used to describe ‘the transfer of knowledge from the narrator to a character (see e.g. Σ on Il. 16.844–845: ὃ δὲ ᾔδει ὁ ποιητής, τοῦτο τῷ ἡρωικῷ προσώπῳ περιέθηκε).25 This

 21 ἔνθά οἱ Εὐρύπυλος βεβλημένος ἀντεβόλησε | διογενὴς Εὐαιμονίδης κατὰ μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ | σκάζων ἐκ πολέμου· κατὰ δὲ νότιος ῥέεν ἱδρὼς | ὤμων καὶ κεφαλῆς, ἀπὸ δ᾽ ἕλκεος ἀργαλέοιο | αἷμα μέλαν κελάρυζε· νόος γε μὲν ἔμπεδος ἦεν. 22 θεράπων δὲ ἰδὼν ὑπέχευε βοείας. | ἔνθά μιν ἐκτανύσας ἐκ μηροῦ τάμνε μαχαίρῃ | ὀξὺ βέλος περιπευκές, ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ δ᾽ αἷμα κελαινὸν | νίζ᾽ ὕδατι λιαρῷ, ἐπὶ δὲ ῥίζαν βάλε πικρὴν | χερσὶ διατρίψας ὀδυνήφατον, ἥ οἱ ἁπάσας | ἔσχ᾽ ὀδύνας· τὸ μὲν ἕλκος ἐτέρσετο, παύσατο δ᾽ αἷμα. 23 οἱ μὲν γὰρ δὴ πάντες, ὅσοι πάρος ἦσαν ἄριστοι, | ἐν νηυσὶν κέαται βεβλημένοι οὐτάμενοί τε | χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων· τῶν δὲ σθένος ὄρνυται αἰέν. 24 He tells him that his brother Podaleirius too is unable to help, since he is fighting (Il. 11.833–836). 25 Kakridis 1982, 5–12.

  Iliad 11.662: A Note is a standard practice of the Homeric storyteller, according to which ‘a character displays knowledge of something which, strictly speaking, he cannot know, but which the narratees do know’.26 It is a form of paralepsis: ‘a speaker provides more information than he should, when the narrator intrudes with his superior knowledge into the embedded focalization of a character, or could, when a speaking character has more knowledge than is possible’.27

 26 De Jong 2001, xviii. 27 De Jong 2001, xvi; see Bassett 1938, 130–140; Taplin 1992, 150 and n. 4; Nünlist 2009, 123– 124.

 Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle: Odysseus’ False Tale to Eumaeus (Od. 14.199–359) The aim of this study is (a) to offer a close reading of Odysseus’ false tale to Eumaeus and discuss how and to what extent it mirrors another epic of return; (b) to present a scenario for such an alternative Odyssey ; (c) to determine part of the process of transformation and transition to our Odyssey ; and (d) to consider the possibility that oral cyclic epic may have influenced not only Homeric epic but also an alternative version of one of the Homeric poems, i.e. a rival version of our Odyssey.

. Preliminary Considerations Before I embark on a detailed analysis of Odysseus’ false tale to Eumaeus, I would like to make some preliminary remarks pertaining to the methodological framework of my research, the more so since it will be crucial to my interpretation of this false tale. One of the theoretical premises of this study is that the false tales (narrated by Odysseus himself in direct speech in the second half of the Odyssey) constitute an extensive epic Zitat1 pointing to a group of epic versions of Odysseus’ return, which we may designate by the term alternative Odyssey. There is an almost impossible interpretive conundrum concerning the contents of the false tales: how can we determine among their features those created by the tradition of our Odyssey and those stemming from other epic traditions? This is, of course, extremely slippery ground, the more so since Odysseus the storyteller uses conflicting versions mainly with respect to the Cretan2 element permeating his tales. This is hardly the place to treat this matter fully, but a general rule that can be applied concerns a distinction between (i) the typical, context-free features on the one hand, and (ii) the surface (ii.a) and deep structure (ii.b) elements of the false tales on the other. In other words, there are features that are typical and as such are not significantly meaningful (i), whereas there are other elements of which some have been conditioned by the immediate Odyssean context (ii.a), some that have been shaped through their interaction with the material found in the other register of Odysseus’ ad-

 1 See Danek 1998. 2 On the richness of Crete with respect to oral traditions, see Camerotto 2010, 33; Levaniouk 2012. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-009

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle ventures, i.e. the Apologos (ii.b1), and others that may have been connected to specific poetic manifestations, that is to say may have acquired contextual identity through their characteristic use in oral epic traditions (ii.b2).3 The narrative grammar of the false tales is thus a variegated tapestry, including all these interwoven threads. In tandem with these observations, my aim is to demarcate the different categories to which these features pertain and shed light on the way Odysseus as a gifted storyteller repeats, expands, compresses, and alters certain motifs4 that point to alternative traditions of his return.5 On a larger scale, essential for my argument is the use of interaction,6 which I employ with respect to the relationship between the Odyssey and alternative epic versions narrating Odysseus’ return to Ithaca. I will be employing the terms proto-Odyssey and alternative Odyssey designating different song-traditions that can be distinguished, the former on the basis of its interaction, during its first phase, with various non-cyclic epic traditions, the latter solely with cyclic myth and its epic version, i.e. cyclic epic.7 As the work of Danek has shown, there are numerous passages in our Odyssey that testify to alternative versions of Odysseus’ return. The deep structure features traced in these passages point to two distinct groups of versions, one that I call (for lack of a better term) protoOdyssey and one that scholars usually designate as alternative Odyssey. The former represents those versions that had been influenced by the epic of Gilgamesh,8 an oral epic *Argonautica,9 early oral epic traditions about Heracles,10 women-catalogue poetry,11 as well as widely diffused folk material.12 This group of versions was, in all probability, marked by features and techniques we can trace in the abovementioned epic traditions: significant mythopoiesis marked by  3 See Burgess 2006, 148–189; Currie 2006, 1–45. 4 Scott 1989, 397. 5 I have organized this study on the basis of the various places to which Odysseus refers. 6 See Currie 2016, 35. 7 See Burgess 2006, 148 n. 2. 8 On the relation between the Odyssey and the epic of Gilgamesh, see West 1997, passim; Burgess 1999, 171–210; Bakker 2001a, 331–353. Differently Kullmann (1995, 148 n. 5 with further bibliography), who believes that the journey of Gilgamesh to Uta-napisti must be compared to Odysseus’ journey to the Cimmerians and not to the Phaeacian episode. 9 See Meuli 1921; Rutherford 1992, 2; Dräger 1993, 17–18; Danek 1998, 23, 252–253, 255–257; West 2005, 39–64. Hölscher (19903, 170–185) approaches this matter in a different way. 10 See Kullmann 1992, 131; Schischwani 1994, 197–201; Danek 1998, 23–24. 11 Hirschberger 2001, 123–151. 12 See Page 1955, 1–20; 1973; Glenn 1971, 133–181; Hölscher 1978, 51–67; Hansen 1990, 241– 272; 1997, 442–462; Burgess 2001, 94–114. On the similar narrative grammar shared by the Lot tale (Genesis 2.16–3.19) and the Odyssey, see Louden 1999, 69–103.

Preliminary Considerations  

a predilection for katabasis literature,13 genealogies, and a fondness for the supernatural. The latter group (alternative Odyssey) was characterized by a tendency to identify events of Odysseus’ homecoming with well-known geographical locations in the Mediterranean, episodic narrative linearity (telling one tale after the other according to the episodic style of cyclic epic), drawing the character of the main hero in terms of his desire for profit, as well as a strong influence of an oral cyclic tradition of *Nostoi. There were further phases in the development and shaping of our Odyssey, one of which may have been the gradual influence of a cyclic tradition of *Nostoi and of the Oresteia myth on the proto-Odyssey group, which began to acquire certain cyclic features on the level of theme. If this holds true, then the alternative Odyssey group, which may have been shaped only after the proto-Odyssey group was formed, may have been the vehicle for the gradual influence of the versions belonging to the older protoOdyssey group. The interaction between an older, markedly exotic epic of Odysseus’ return with strong Near-Eastern overtones on the one hand, and a later tradition containing a more ‘realistic’ set of adventures of Odysseus on the other, was so strong that at a certain point led to a fusion of the two groups into our Odyssey. The impetus for this revolutionary event may have been complex but, I think, we are not off the mark if we trace it in the wider cultural phenomenon that took the Greek world by storm and reshaped it once and for all: Panhellenism. To be more specific, the combination of two markedly different groups of versions concerning the post-war fate of Odysseus may have been related to the rise of Panhellenism during the Archaic Period: (a) The aim to reach a wider public may have led to a tendency of inclusion, according to which the supernatural element of the Argonautic tradition and katabasis literature (as reflected in the Apologos) could be combined with the ‘realistic’ but locally limited tracing of Odysseus’ adventures to given locations in the Eastern Mediterranean and mainland Greece (false tales). Given that these two groups of versions could not be combined in a single plotline, the Odyssey invented a sophisticated system of inclusion that evolved around its principal hero Odysseus and presented the former group as real and the latter as false. In my view, Odysseus as a master storyteller of true and false stories is a creation of the Odyssey: it was the need to combine these two distinct groups of versions that may have determined the solution we are familiar with from our Odyssey. The advantages of such a solution are, of course, multiple, and are

 13 See Kullmann 1995, 147–155; Tsagarakis 2000, 26–37.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle partly responsible for the great success of the Odyssey from as early as the Archaic Period. (b) The rise and diffusion of traditions concerning the fates of other Achaean leaders on their way home after the Trojan war is part of the larger Panhellenic phenomenon. In this light, the external expansion14 of the Odyssey described above was also coupled by an internal expansion15 of its hero with respect, this time, to his dramatic output. This process of psychological elaboration and of the refinement of the figure of Odysseus may have been triggered, at least to some extent, by the growing importance of traditions concerning the returns of other Achaean heroes. Otherwise, Odysseus would have been painted in a purely positive way, i.e. deprived of his greed for adventures, in the versions pertaining to the alternative Odyssey group, which – as we know – is not the case. The fact that the tradition of an oral *Nostoi or even an *Atreidon kathodos has conditioned the nature of the Odyssey’s dramatic output by opposing, and often acknowledging, in poetological terms the fate of Agamemnon and Clytaemestra (explicitly) and of Menelaus and Helen (implicitly) to that of Odysseus and Penelope, indicates that the internal expansion may have taken place only after the fusion of the two aforementioned groups of versions (the proto-Odyssey group and the alternative Odyssey group)16 had started to take place. This is additionally inferred from the fact that while some of the deep structure features of the alternative Odyssey group, like narrative linearity or a given time frame for the various adventures, are also shared by the tradition of an oral *Nostoi, others (like Odysseus’ greed for wealth) are not. (c) The influence of the tradition of the Iliad must also be seen within the larger Panhellenic framework. There are numerous instances that prove beyond doubt that the Iliadic tradition has had an impact on the Odyssean and vice versa.17 In this vein, it is argued that the phenomenon of Panhellenism is mainly, if not solely, responsible for the highly developed self-consciousness of the Odyssey: in particular, the poem’s self-awareness18 and referentiality19 may have  14 See Kullmann 1992, 125–129. 15 See Kullmann 1992, 120–122. 16 On alternative epic versions of Odysseus’ return, see pp. 167–182. 17 See Usener 1990; Maronitis 1983, 279–291 (= 2004, 133–146 = 20052, 246–266). On the influence of an Odyssean theme on the Iliad, see Tsagalis 2008, 135–149. 18 On the Odyssey’s self-awareness, see Bowie (1993, 18–19), who rightly emphasizes the contrast between the various tales told in the poem. By offering a wide range of modes of storytelling, the tradition of the Odyssey reveals both part of the process of its shaping and of its awareness of this process.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

grown out of (i) the process of combining the two major groups of alternative versions of Odysseus’ return, and (ii) its creative interaction with a number of oral traditions, such as that of the Iliad, the *Nostoi and the *Memnonis. So strong is the self-awareness permeating the Odyssey from beginning to end with respect to questions of storytelling and poetics, that it may be argued that, like its synthesis, it is directly derivative of the early manifestations of the rising Panhellenic ideology: like Archaic Greece, the Odyssey came to know itself by a process of eclectic interaction, creative synthesis, and above all dramatic internalization.

. Crete and an Alternative Odyssey Crete is directly linked to a different version of Odysseus’ return,20 since it is closely associated with elements that invite us to speculate about the interaction of our Odyssean version with the plot of an alternative epic of Odysseus’ nostos. Internal evidence supporting the hypothesis of a Cretan Odyssey can be summarized in the following observations:21

 19 See Rengakos 2002, 173–191. 20 Crete is the habitat of the storyteller in a number of false tales, the only exception being that addressed to Laertes (Book 24), where Crete is replaced by Sicily, though the motifs of the ‘Storm’ and the ‘Gifts’ play the role of linking mechanisms. According to Hölscher (19903, 212) and Grossardt (1998, 32) the cohesion of the false tales is the work of the poet of the Odyssey. Internal aberrations and differences are conditioned basically by the specific interests of the various addressees. On this topic, see Woodhouse 1930, 127–131; Trahman 1952, 39–41 and 43; Burrows 1965, 36; Blümlein 1971, 149; Walcot 1977, 1; Del Corno 1978, 836; Emlyn-Jones 1986, 3; Hölscher 19903, 212; Fuchs 1993, 37; Grossardt 1998, 33. 21 Several theories have been put forward with respect to the constant reference to Crete in the false tales. I hereby offer a brief summary: (a) by saying ‘I am a Cretan’ Odysseus would have evoked in the audience’s mind a tradition presenting the Cretans as liars (Eustathius 1741; Meuli, Blümlein, Krehmer, McLennan); (b) Crete was the place of origin of Odysseus that was later absorbed by the widely diffused tradition of the Odyssey that presented him as Ithacan (Faure); (c) Crete had featured as the most important station of Odysseus’ homeward journey in an alternative Odyssey (Woodhouse, S. West, Reece); (d) Odysseus has been associated with Crete in the false tales by means of certain common features he shares in both the Iliad and in hero cult with the Cretan Meriones (Haft); (e) Crete is quite suitable for the false tales, since its great distance from Ithaca brings the possibility of anyone contradicting Odysseus close to zero (Trahman, Walcot, Emlyn-Jones, Hoekstra); (f) Crete is a symbol of the Underworld and therefore stands for a figurative death of Odysseus (Schmoll); (g) Crete functions as an effective contrast to Ithaca with respect to size and wealth, the former being large and rich, the latter

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle (a) the proem’s assertion about Odysseus’ wanderings corresponds to his false tales rather than the Odyssey itself;22 (b) Odysseus as storyteller systematically emphasizes his Cretan identity;23 (c) there is a ‘remarkable contrast between our poet’s vague notion of the topography of the Peloponnese to his quite detailed knowledge of Crete’;24 (d) Eumaeus explicitly says in Od. 14.379–385 that an Aetolian25 has told him that he had seen Odysseus in Crete at Idomeneus’ palace, repairing the damage his ships had suffered in a gale and that he would return to Ithaca in the summer or by autumn together with a fortune and his friends.26 The labelling of this story as Aetolian may be a hint to the story’s incredibility, just as is the case with the Aetolian hero Thoas who is portrayed rather negatively in the Odyssey. This may well be a case in which ‘Aetolian’ is a mark for non-canonical versions of Odysseus’ return. By tagging the information about Crete as a story told by an Aetolian, the Odyssey ‘alludes to themes that were central to some versions of Odysseus’ return but were antithetical to the Odyssey itself’.27

 small and poor (Grossardt); (h) Crete stands for a ‘real’ space that bridges East and West and is easily contrasted to the ‘unreal’ space designated in the Apologos (Krummen); (i) potentially significant are also the references to Crete in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3.30, 393, 470) and (especially) Demeter (123): the island has become established as an ‘other’, in like manner to Cape Maleia (on the SE coast of Laconia) that has become a symbolic entry point into unknown spaces and/or difficult circumstances (Marks). Of all these theories, (a) (c), (e), (g), (h), and (i) are not incompatible between themselves and seem to function properly. If (c) is right, (a), (e), (g), (h), and (i) work perfectly well for an alternative Odyssey as well. 22 The proem’s assertion (Od. 1.3: πολλῶν δ’ άνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα) is developed in 15.492 (πολλὰ βροτῶν ἐπὶ ἄστε’ ἀλώμενος ἐνθάδ’ ἱκάνω), 19.170 (πολλὰ βροτῶν ἐπὶ ἄστε’ ἀλώμενος, ἄλγεα πάσχων), and 16.63–64 (φησὶ δὲ πολλὰ βροτῶν ἐπὶ ἄστεα δινηθῆναι | πλαζόμενος). 23 Od. 13.256–258, 260; 14.199–210, 252, 300–301; 17.523; 19.172–202, 338. On the centrality of Crete in early Greek epic, see S. West 1988, 156–159; Reece 1994, 166 n. 12. 24 Reece 1994, 165. 25 See Marks 2003, 209–226, who argues that the ‘Odyssey’s deployment of Aitolians … can be understood as a kind of ainos, and that one way the ainos may have been decoded is as a message that “Aitolian” stories can impress even an experienced audience like Eumaios, but that this audience, again like Eumaios, is to recognize these false stories as “false”. [A]lthough traditions about Thoas and Odysseus post Odysseam are incompatible with Odyssean thematics, the Odyssey responds, not by condemning to oblivion these “Aitolian” traditions, but instead by providing a lens through which they could be seen in Odyssean, and therefore Panhellenic, terms’. 26 The italics are my own. 27 Marks 2003, 220.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

External evidence reinforcing the scenario of a Cretan version amounts to two different sources:28 (a) two readings by Zenodotus,29 who suggested that in both Od. 1.93 Athena intended to send Telemachus to Crete and Idomeneus rather than to Sparta and Menelaus and in Od. 1.285 she advised the young Ithacan prince to travel from Pylos to Crete to king Idomeneus; (b) a version of Odysseus’ return with a strong Cretan component offered by Dictys Cretensis.30 Since the Zenodotean readings are crucial for the hypothesis of a Cretan Odyssey, I think that they should be treated more extensively. Let us first see what they are about: Od. 1.93: πέμψω δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα πέμψω δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα

MSS Zenodotus’ reading (schol. 3.313)

Od. 1.285 κεῖθεν δὲ Σπάρτηνδε παρὰ ξανθὸν Μενέλαον· κεῖθεν δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ’ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα· ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκχιτώνων

MSS Zenodotus’ reading (schol. 3.313)

With respect to these Zenodotean readings, Stephanie West has argued that since they confirm one another, could not have been the result of scribal error, and could not have been conjectures made by Zenodotus as they are so strongly against the plot of the epic, they must have been genuine readings either attested in a number of manuscripts or by one of great importance.31 In other words, the astounding oddity of these readings, together with the scholium on 2.359

 28 Reece (1994, 157–173) offers a well-balanced and convincing scenario. 29 Scholia on Od. 3.313. See S. West 1981, 173–174; Reece 1994, 166–168. 30 There is no reason to repeat here the convincing arguments of Allen (1924, 146–169) and Reece (1994, 168–169) with respect to the sources of the strongly ‘Cretan’ Odyssey narrated by Dictys Cretensis (see the Latin edition by Eisenhut 1958). Both scholars argued for a preHomeric version, which was also the source for the Epic Cycle. 31 S. West 1981, 173–174.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle (οὐδ’ ἐνταῦθα μνήμη τίς ἐστι τῆς Κρήτης), strongly indicate that Zenodotus introduced no conjecture nor did he alter the text.32 A different explanation was put forward by Aristarchus through a scholium by Aristonicus, who reflects the views of Aristarchus. Given the importance of this scholium, I am quoting it in full: Ariston. γ 313 a. καὶ σὺ φίλος; οὗτος ὁ τόπος ἀνέπεισε Ζηνόδοτον ἐν τοῖς περὶ τῆς ἀποδημίας Τηλεμάχου διόλου τὴν Κρήτην ἀντὶ τῆς Σπάρτης ποιεῖν. οἴεται γὰρ ἐκ τούτων τῶν λόγων κατὰ τὸ σιωπώμενον ἀκηκοέναι τὸν Νέστορα παρὰ τοῦ Τηλεμάχου ὅτι καὶ ἀλλαχόσε περὶ τοῦ πατρὸς πευσόμενος παρεσκεύαστο πλεῖν. διὸ καὶ ἐν τῇ α´ ῥαψῳδίᾳ ἔγραψε «πέμψω δ᾽ ἐς Κρήτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα» [α 93] καὶ ἡ Ἀθηνᾶ ἀλλαχοῦ «πρῶτα μὲν ἐς Πύλον ἐλθέ … | κεῖθεν δ᾽ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ᾽ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα | ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτώνων» [cf. α 284–5] HMa ‘You too, friend’: This passage convinced Zenodotus to make it ‘Crete’ throughout instead of ‘Sparta’, in the verses pertaining to Telemachus’ journey. For he thinks that because of these words Nestor has implicitly heard from Telemachus that he had prepared himself to sail to another place too, to find out about his father. For this reason in Book 1 (Zenodotus) wrote ‘I will send him to Crete and sandy Pylos’ (Od. 1.93) and elsewhere Athena (says) ‘first go to Pylos … and from there to Crete to king Idomeneus, who came back last of the bronze-armored Achaeans’ [Od. 1.284–285].

Aristarchus (Aristonicus) argued that Zenodotus replaced Sparta with Crete in Od. 1.93 and 1.185 because in 3.31333 he thought that Nestor implied (κατὰ τὸ σιωπώμενον) that Telemachus was planning to go elsewhere in search of his father. This is nothing more than a mere guess. This can only mean that Zenodotus ‘changed’ Sparta into Crete in all the relevant references before 3.313 (ἐν τοῖς περὶ τῆς ἀποδημίας Τηλεμάχου διόλου τὴν Κρήτην ἀντὶ τῆς Σπάρτης ποιεῖν), which is the verse on which the scholium comments and pertains to Nestor’s suggestion to Telemachus to go to Sparta.  32 By using information from Near-Eastern sources, Burkert (1999, 135) argues that Odysseus’ attack on Egypt as narrated in Book 14 may be reflecting historical events concerning a raid on Egypt between 738 and 664 B.C. He also argues that the replacement of Crete by Sparta was the outcome of the growing importance of Sparta that had become a center of commerce, culture and music as a result of her victory in the first Messenian war and the subsequent subjugation of the entire region of Messenia from the beginning of the 7th century. The disappearance of Messenians from the victor-lists in the Olympic games post 700 B.C., the offer of Messenian cities by Agamemnon to Achilles in Il. 9.150–152 = 9.252–294, the absence of Messenia from the Catalogue of Ships, as well as its designation as part of Lacedaemon (Od. 21.13–38), constitute, according to Burkert, cumulative indications concerning a possible dating of the Odyssey in the 7th century. 33 See Σ ad Od. 3.313a (Pontani).

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

The fact that the scholia mention Crete instead of Sparta only in 1.93 and 1.285 is explained by the poor condition of our scholia. After all, we do not have a scholium on 1.93 and another one on 1.285 informing us about the Zenodotean readings but one on 3.313 with an account of the Zenodotean readings on 1.93 and 1.285. This is factual information that is reported by Aristonicus. He could not have possibly said that Zenotodus’ text had ‘throughout’ before 3.313 ‘Crete’ instead of ‘Sparta’, if he or his source did not have access to Zenodotus’ text. This factual report should be trusted. On the contrary, the attempt to explain this factual information is his own guess. Surprised by the systematic (‘throughout’) substitution of ‘Sparta’ by ‘Crete’ in Zenodotus’ text, Aristonicus or his source sought for an explanation. His theory was that it was Zenodotus who implemented this change before 3.313, because it was this passage (in which Nestor tells Telemachus to go to Sparta) that made Zenodotus (according to Aristonicus or his source) imply that Telemachus was meant to go to Crete from Pylos. The implication of this theory is that the references to Crete in Zenodotus’ text are emendations made by Zenodotus and not genuine readings. Another scholar, of much later date commented on Od. 3.313 in the following manner: οὗτος μὲν ὁ τόπος διὰ τὸν μὲν σύνδεσμον ἀνέπεισε τὸν γραμματικὸν Ζηνόδοτον ἐν τῇ α´ ῥαψῳδίᾳ γράψαι […] «πέμψω δ᾽ ἐς Κρήτην τε καὶ ἐς Πύλον ἠμαθόεντα» καὶ «πρῶτα μὲν ἐς Πύλον ἐλθέ, κεῖθεν δ᾽ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ᾽ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα | ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν». οἴεται γὰρ ὁ Ζηνόδοτος κατὰ τὸ σιωπώμενον ἀκηκοέναι τὸν Νέστορα παρὰ τοῦ Τηλεμάχου ὅτι καὶ ἀλλαχόσε παρεσκεύασται πλεύσειν, οἷον καὶ ἐς Κρήτην, ὅθεν ἐκείνου μὲν τοῦ πλοῦ ἀποτρέπει, μάλιστα δὲ προτρέπει ἐλθεῖν εἰς τὸν Μενέλαον, ὃς νέον ἐλθὼν δεύτατος ἦλθεν ὡς προδεδήλωται. ἵνα λέγῃ ὁ Νέστωρ ὅτι ἐς μὲν Μενέλαον κέλομαι ἀπελθεῖν, εἰς Κρήτην δὲ οὔ. εἰ δὲ τοῦτο καλῶς ὑπενόησεν ὁ Ζηνόδοτος, εἴη ἂν ὁ Νέστωρ τῆς μυθικῆς Ἀθηνᾶς συνετώτερος. This passage, they say, convinced the grammarian Zenodotus to write in Book 1 […] ‘I will send him to Crete and sandy Pylos’ (Od. 1.93) and ‘first go to Pylos … and from there to Crete to king Idomeneus, who came back last’ (Od. 1.284–285). For he thinks that Nestor has implicitly heard from Telemachus that he has prepared himself to sail to another place too, i.e. to Crete. He (sc. Nestor) discourages him from making that sea journey, while he strongly encourages him to go to Menelaus, who having recently arrived home he came last, as mentioned before. So that Nestor means that ‘I urge you to go to Menelaus, not to Crete’. If Zenodotus has assumed this rightly, Nestor would be wiser than the legendary Athena.

Eustathius’ comment is based on Aristonicus’ scholium. This is his source, which he reproduces faithfully, trying to make more explicit and straightforward to his readers what Aristonicus meant. Two points deserve attention: first that Eustathius observes that Nestor discourages Telemachus from sailing to

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle Crete, and, second, that Nestor’s suggestion to Telemachus to go to Menelaus stems from the fact that Menelaus returned to Sparta recently, i.e. he is the last of the Achaeans to return home. These two points are important. Eustathius assumes that Nestor discourages Menelaus from sailing to Crete on the basis of Menelaus’ troubled sea voyage to Crete and Egypt, which he has just related in considerable detail to Telemachus (Od. 3.276–311). In this vein, the expression μὴ δηθὰ δόμων ἄπο τῆλ᾽ ἀλάλησο (‘do not wander for long far away from home’, Od. 3.313) is based on the negative experience of Menelaus who wandered for eight years before returning home. However, Crete is not the only place where he had gone. Egypt is equally, if not more, suitable for this kind of reasoning, since Menelaus spent there much more time that on Crete and, moreover, Egypt is further than Crete for someone located in mainland Greece, which would be in tune with Nestor’s advice μὴ δηθὰ δόμων ἄπο τῆλ᾽ ἀλάλησο. Eustathius’ explanation of the reason that made Zenodotus think of Crete (οὗτος ὁ τόπος ἀνέπεισε τὸν γραμματικὸν Ζηνόδοτoν), and not another place, is a mere guess, which is not supported by the context. Egypt could have been another alternative. As for the second point, Eustathius stressed the fact that Zenodotus suggested to Telemachus to go to Sparta because Menelaus had recently arrived there, i.e. he was the last of the Achaeans to return home. In this way, we may assume, Telemachus had more chances of finding out about his father’s whereabouts. In this case, we must distinguish between the way the Odyssey brings forward the idea of a journey to Sparta and what Zenodotus thought. Nestor suggests Sparta because Menelaus has just returned from the war and could well know of Odysseus, as well as because Sparta is not considered to be far away from Ithaca, at least since Telemachus is already in Pylos, which is close to it. However, this cannot have persuaded Zenodotus that Nestor thought that Telemachus intended to sail to Crete. In fact, if Zenodotus’ text initially (before Zenodotus’ intervention) read in Od. 1.285–286 κεῖθεν δ’ ἐς Σπάρτην παρὰ ξανθὸν Μενέλαον | ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκoχιτώνων (as Aristonicus and Eusthatius thought), why would Zenodotus change it to κεῖθεν δ’ ἐς Κρήτην τε παρ’ Ἰδομενῆα ἄνακτα· | ὃς γὰρ δεύτατος ἦλθεν Ἀχαιῶν χαλκoχιτώνων, thus making Idomeneus the last Achaean returning home? The fact that in Od. 19.191–192 Nestor had told Telemachus that Idomeneus brought home to Crete all his comrades, who fled from war, and that none of them died at sea (πάντας δ᾽ Ἰδομενεὺς Κρήτην εἰσήγαγ᾽ ἑταίρους, | οἳ φύγον ἐκ πολέμου, πόντος δέ οἱ οὔ τιν᾽ ἀπηύρα), shows that he (sc. Nestor) did not regard Crete as the symbol of a dangerous journey.34  34 Contra Beck 2020, 369.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

Other arguments, recently35 adduced in favor of the interpretation of Aristonicus and Eusthathius seem to me unconvincing. (a) The metrically equivalent form of the toponyms Κρήτη and Σπάρτη only show that in any given verse they are interchangeable, not that Zenodotus thought of changing them in only two places. Moreover, the very first time that Nestor tells Telemachus to go to Sparta he uses the form Λακεδαίμων,36 which speaks volumes about the limitations of the interchangeability argument. (b) Even more off the mark, seem to me the arguments that Zenodotus was misled by the Cretan (false) tales narrated by Odysseus and by the poet’s detailed knowledge of Crete. That Zenodotus decided to change Sparta by Crete in Od. 1.93 and 1.285 because Crete looms large in the false tales and because the poet knew well the topography of Crete is a leap of fate. West accepts the view that the Zenodotean readings are not ‘casual mistakes’ but must have been part of the text he used, Moreover, he treats as inconceivable the idea that there was a version of the Odyssey in which Telemachus went to Idomeneus in Crete instead of Menelaus and Helen in Sparta. West argues that the peculiar Zenodotean readings are the last tell-tale relics of a version that Q37 was planning while he composed α but never executed. By the time he reached γ he had changed his mind and substituted a journey to Sparta for the one to Crete. Most early copies were naturally corrected to bring the α reference into conformity with the subsequent narrative, but Zenodotus happened to own an uncorrected one.38

In other words, there are two ‘culprits’: the poet of the Odyssey and Zenodotus. The former had planned a journey by Telemachus to Idomeneus in Crete but changed his mind without changing the text in 1.93 and 1.285. The latter did not notice that these two references are contradicted by the plot of the epic, since Telemachus goes to Menelaus and Helen in Sparta and not to Idomeneus in Crete and did not change the text. I regard this view as untenable for the following reasons: (a) even if we accept West’s approach for a poet composing by writing, the idea that he worked exclusively in a linear manner, from beginning to end, and did not rework various sections of his epic is very unlikely. West

 35 Beck 2020, 370–371. 36 Od. 3.326: ἐς Λακεδαίμονα δῖαν, ὅθι ξανθὸς Μενέλαος. 37 Q is West’s way of referring to the poet of the Odyssey, who is different from the poet of the Iliad (West’s P). 38 West 2014, 108. Cf. S. West 1988, 43: ‘yet even if the poet himself had failed to notice the anomaly, we should expect it to have been eradicated in the course of transmission’.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle himself imagines him shaping his epic over his lifetime. This means that it is improbable that his original written text had not been corrected by himself, especially since the non sequitur of ἐς Κρήτην in 1.93 and 1.285 concerns a place name pertaining to an entire episode that he narrated in detail in Book 4. (b) If West was right in saying that ‘by the time he (sc. the poet) reached γ he had changed his mind and substituted a journey to Sparta for the one to Crete’, it is all the more surprising that he was careful to stick to his new plan in Od. 2.214 and 359, where Telemachus says that he will go to Sparta and Pylos,39 but was not diligent enough to do the same in Od. 1.93 and 1.185. (c) West assumes that the error was in the original written copy produced by the poet of the Odyssey and that in most copies it was corrected except in the one Zenodotus had at his disposal. This means, if West’s line of thought is adopted, that Zenodotus had a single copy in which the error was not corrected. That a learned scholar like Zenodotus had access only to one copy of the Odyssey in which the error had not been corrected and that he also failed to notice such an enormous blunder is very unlikely. (d) West assumes a series of mistakes that are improbable to have occurred cumulatively: the poet failed to change his text in 1.93 and 1.285, the copyist of an early copy failed to notice the mistake and correct it, Zenodotus had solely this single, uncorrected copy in his hands, Zenodotus failed to notice the mistake and correct it on his own.40 Danek41 has offered a plausible explanation of the function of the readings adopted by Zenodotus in Od. 1.93 and 1.285. Zenodotus deliberately did not change the readings he found in a few manuscripts or in one that he considered of great importance because the reference to a journey to Crete in Odyssey 1 is not contradicted by the plot, since the audience does not yet know by which route Odysseus will return from Ogygia to Ithaca. The Phaeacians come to the foreground in the second divine assembly in Odyssey 5, when Zeus reacts to Athena’s account of the events in Books 1–4 and determines that Odysseus will return from Ogygia to Ithaca via Scheria. The implication of this approach is that the gods decide that Odysseus will return to Ithaca via Scheria only after Telemachus goes to Sparta. Until this divine decision is taken, the audience could assume that Odysseus may go from Ogygia to Crete, where Telemachus  39 See also Od. 2.326–327 (ἤ τινας ἐκ Πύλου ἄξει ἀμύντορας ἠμαθόεντος | ἠ᾽ ὅ γε καὶ Σπάρτηθεν, ἐπεὶ νύ περ ἵεται αἰνῶς). 40 See S. West (1988, 43), who rightly notes that since Zenodotus did not substitute Sparta with Crete in Od. 2.214, 327, and 359, he was not ‘systematically altering the text in accordance with some private theory’; see also Aristonicus’ scholium on Od. 2.359 [Pontani]: οὐδ᾽ ἐνταῦθα μνήμη τίς ἐστι τῆς Κρήτης. 41 Danek 1998, 47–49.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

would meet him.42 According to this line of thought, the readings featuring Crete as the second place where Telemachus should go looking for Odysseus created the expectation to the audience that Telemachus would indeed go there after Pylos. This is what Athena told Zeus in 1.93 and what she told Telemachus 1.285. Zenodotus’ manuscript(s) must have also mentioned Crete instead of Sparta in 2.214 and 2.359, where Telemachus announces to the suitors and Eurycleia respectively where he is going. In this vein, Telemachus would have followed Athena’s advice and traveled to Crete after Pylos, if it was not for Nestor, who made him change his mind and suggested that he goes to Menelaus. The reason for this change of plan can be seen in 3.191, where Nestor informs Telemachus that Idomeneus and his comrades returned safely to Crete. Like Nestor himself, the Cretan king could not possibly be helpful to Telemachus, since in contrast to Odysseus he returned easily and safely home. Moreover, Crete is far away and there is no reason for Telemachus to wander far away from Ithaca.43 Nestor’s suggestion that Telemachus should go to Sparta stems from Nestor’s previous report, according to which Menelaus is the last of the Greek leaders who returned home after a long and troubling journey and is, therefore, likely to know something about Odysseus’ whereabouts. In addition, Menelaus is instrumental to our version of the Odyssey because he can channel into the narrative more information about the story of Orestes, which the Odyssey has been systematically employing as a foil for the story of Odysseus’ return. This is made amply clear even from Nestor’s list of the returns of Achaean heroes from Troy, since Aegisthus is tagged to Agamemnon’s ‘entry’, which is the last in the list and comes right after the ‘entry’ of Idomeneus. The ending of this catalogue triggers Telemachus’ interest and he soon asks Nestor about the death of Agamemnon by Aegisthus and the fate of Menelaus (3.247–252). Nestor’s account of Menelaus’ return is a further hint to the way the Odyssey exploits the νόστος of Menelaus for determining Telemachus’ journey to Sparta. Like both the real Odysseus, whose fleet is blown off course when it reached cape Malea on his return journey from Troy (9.80), and the fictive Odysseus whose fleet suffers the same fate on his way to Troy and is blown off course to Amnisos in Crete (19.185–188), Menelaus’ fleet is also blown off course at the same place with the result that some of his ships were driven to Crete and others to Egypt. That both Crete and

 42 Danek 1998, 48–49. In this way, as Danek (1998, 50) states, the audience that is familiar with the Cretan version expects that the first aim of Telemachus’ journey, i.e. to learn about his father, will be concretely expressed by a meeting between father and son. The plot of our Odyssey would have taken the audience by surprise. 43 Od. 3.313: καὶ σύ, φίλος, μὴ δηθὰ δόμων ἄπο τῆλ᾽ ἀλάλησο.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle Egypt44 feature in Odysseus’ false tales and that Menelaus wanders like Odysseus and gathers much substance and gold like the fictive stranger in the false tales shows the intricate link between the returns of Menelaus and Odysseus in the Odyssey. Danek’s explanation gains further support from the fact that the characters who are not involved in the change of the initial plan (i.e. that Telemachus goes to Sparta instead of Crete) speak exclusively of Pylos without mentioning Sparta at all (Od. 14.180; 16.24, 142; 17.42; 24.152).45 Danek’s argumentation offers crucial support to the assumption that Zenodotus’ textual variants were not emendations but genuine readings and that they must be associated with a Cretan Odyssey. As a result, an audience that was familiar with the Cretan version of the Odyssey would expect that the first goal of Telemachus’ journey, i.e. to learn about his father, will be concretely expressed by means of a meeting between father and son. However, the plot of our Odyssey takes the audience by surprise. Father and son will not meet during the latter’s travels but later in Eumaeus’ hut in Ithaca.46 To this line of thought, I would like to offer further support by highlighting the fact that our Odyssey contains signs of a ‘nod’ to a previous version or versions in which Telemachus had been instructed by Athena to go to Pylos and Crete: (a) The extended narrative of Nestor to Telemachus (Book 3) pertaining to the return of Menelaus is set apart from the preceding catalogue-like presentation of the nostoi of several Achaean heroes (3.181–198), including Diomedes, Nestor himself, Neoptolemus, Philoctetes, Idomeneus, Agamemnon. By having Nestor give Telemachus a detailed account of Menelaus’ troubled return (3.276– 312), our Odyssey justifies Nestor’s suggestion that Telemachus continues his journey to Sparta (and not to another place) after Pylos. (b) Although Telemachus knows too well that he is heading to Sparta after Pylos, he does not respond to Nestor’s suggestion by informing him that this was his own plan too. He only tells him ‘you have recounted this duly’ (3.331: ταῦτα κατὰ μοῖραν κατέλεξας) and urges him to procede with a libation to Poesidon and the other immortals. The expressions κατὰ μοῖραν and ὑπὲρ μοῖραν amount to a refined way developed by the system of epic song to indicate its avowal (κατὰ μοῖραν) and disavowal (ὑπὲρ μοῖραν) respectively to tradition.47 Telemachus’ response is an implicit acknowledgment of the compliance  44 Od. 14.246, 257–259, 275, 17.426–427, 448; on Egypt, see pp. 193–196. 45 Danek 1998, 48. 46 Danek 1998, 50. 47 Tsagalis 2011a, 226.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

of our Odyssey to this tradition featuring a second journey to Sparta instead of another tradition featuring a journey to another place situated further than Pylos. (c) In Od. 4.313, Menelaus asks Telemachus why he came to Lacedaemon ‘upon the broad back of the sea’ (ἐπ᾽ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης). This formula is always used in Homeric epic for a sea journey (Il. 8.511, 20.228; Od. 3.142, 4.362, 4.560, 5.17, 5.142, 17.146). Menelaus’ use of this expression to designate Lacedaemon would have conformed to epic idiom if Telemachus had traveled to Sparta by ship. However, this is not the case. Telemachus and Pisistratus have reached Sparta from Pylos by chariot. Menelaus’ idiosyncratic designation of Lacedaemon as a place ‘upon the broad back of the sea’ is odd on a geographical basis, since Sparta was situated inland, at some distance from the sea. I concur that this oddity is intentional. It pertains to an allusive strategy, strongly manifested in Books 3 and 4 of our Odyssey, to quote an alternative version, in which Telemachus traveled after Pylos to Crete. In fact, the formula ἐπ᾽ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης may be a verbatim citation from that alternative version, in which someone in Crete (Idomeneus?) could have asked this question to Telemachus after his arrival at his island by ship. (d) On their way to Sparta Telemachus and Pisistratus stayed at the house of Diocles (Od. 3.488–489, 15.186–187), whose father Ortilochus had once stayed in Messene where he had met Odysseus (Od. 21.15–16). We know from the Iliad (5.542, 546, 547, 549) that Ortilochus I was the son of the river Alpheus, and that Diocles was his son. Diocles’ twin sons, Crethon and Ortilochus II, took part in the Trojan War and were killed by Aeneas. Telemachus’ stay at the house of Diocles may have signified to an audience aware of the Iliad that his host was a man who had lost his twin sons in the war. This is, then a case, where our Odyssey ‘cites’ the Iliad and expects from its audience to ‘join the dots’. Given the heavy metapoetic load of Book 3 as a whole (citation of the *Nostoi) and the quotational function of the Diocles-Ortilochus reference from the Odyssey > Iliad, searching for citation of alternative versions of Odysseus’ return would not be out of place. (e) In Od. 3.323–325, Nestor puts forward to Telemachus two alternative ways of traveling to Sparta, i.e. by ship or land. More accurately, he first tells him to travel by his own ship. i.e. the one with which he came to Pylos from Ithaca, but then presents the possibility of a journey by land: ‘if you want to go on foot, a chariot and horses are before you, and before you are my sons, who’ll be your escorts’. However, Telemachus does not immediately reply to Nestor about how he will go to Sparta. On the contrary, it is the disguised Athena who tells the Pylian king that Telemachus will travel by land. This triangular discus-

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle sion about the manner of Telemachus’ journey to Sparta seems to be one more sign of the way our version aims at recording its reaction to an alternative version in which Telemachus could only travel by ship to his second destination, since this would be an island (Crete). By having Athena in 3.368–370 tell Nestor to send Telemachus to Sparta by land, our Odyssey makes her ‘correct’ what she had told Telemachus in an earlier version, in which she had advised Telemachus to go to Crete after Pylos (see the readings reported by Zenodotus in 1.93 and 1.285). This would of course mean that he would travel by ship. The use of the same character, Athena, in such a role strengthens the quotation, since it increases the thematic load linking the two versions. The discussion about the way Telemachus will reach Sparta amounts to a ‘response’ of our Odyssey to an alternative version in which Telemachus traveled to Crete by ship. Traveling by land after Pylos to his next destination stands for a differentiation from a version in which he traveled to his next destination by sea. In this context, traveling by land ‘means’ traveling to Sparta because in another version traveling by ship after Pylos meant traveling to Crete. (f) Eumaeus (14.189, 16.24 and 142), Penelope (17.42), and Amphimedon (24.152) all know only of Pylos as Telemachus’ itinerary in search of Odysseus. This means that the idea of Telemachus traveling to Sparta originated with Nestor in Book 3 and not in Book 1 with Athena. Moreover, the fact that Pylos alone is always mentioned as an itinerary of Telemachus shows that it was also included in alternative versions of Odysseus’ return. Pylos belongs to the ‘deep’ structure of Telemachus’ journey, Crete and Sparta to the ‘surface’ structure. The reason can only be one: Pylos is tagged to Nestor, who represents the swift and safe return from Troy. Conversely, Idomeneus and Menelaus were the last of the Achaeans (except Odysseus) who returned home, and as such epitomize the long journey of return. When the oral *Nostoi acquired status as offering an authoritative version of Menelaus’ return as the last of the heroes who featured in this poem’s plot, then a mirror version of Odysseus return journey was shaped, which was very different from the poem that existed at the time about Odysseus, the proto-Odyssey in which Odysseus returned home after facing most of the troubles we know from the Apologos. In this alternative version Odysseus was presented (like Menelaus) as wandering in the eastern Mediterranean and passing some time in Crete. To foster this version, the *alternative Odyssey exploited the tradition of Idomeneus’ late return and had Telemachus look for his father in Pylos and Crete, the former symbolizing the swift return, the latter the long one. (g) The name Orsilochus or Ortilochus (according to a varia lectio in Od. 3.489 and 15.187) is used for Idomeneus’ son in Odysseus’ false tale to Athe-

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

na (Od. 13.260). In that tale, Orsilochus/Ortilochus is a nomen loquens, since he ambushed the fictive Odysseus and tried to steal from the possessions he had acquired in Troy, a detail to which I will soon return. Attempting to save himself, the fictive Odysseus embarks on a Phoenician ship and asks the sailors to take him to Pylos and Elis, though they deceive him and bring him to Sidon. The entire tale situates the fictive Odysseus in the tradition of the returns of the Achaeans after the end of the Trojan War. In fact, he is about to make the reverse journey from the one Telemachus may have undertaken in an alternative version. He aims to return from Crete to Pylos. In such a context, Or(s)tilochus, the ambusher of Odysseus in the false tale, may well be a ‘nod’ of our Odyssey to a version in which there was an Ortilochus, son of Idomeneus, with whom Odysseus and Telemachus met in Crete. Our Odyssey seems to have used another epic as a backdrop against which it would promote itself as a ‘happier’ song: a good Ortilochus, son of Idomeneus, in an alternative Odyssey has been changed into an evil one in a false tale of our Odyssey. In this way, the older Cretan version is presented as inferior to the version of our Odyssey in which Telemachus encounters only friendly heroes in both Pylos and Sparta. A similar effect can be observed in the comparison between our Odyssey and the *Nostoi, the former naming itself a χαρίεσσα ἀοιδή (Οd. 24.197–198) while labelling the latter as στυγερὴ ἀοιδή (Οd. 24.200). When examined against this background, the Zenodotean readings concerning Telemachus’ journey to Crete show that in another version of the Odyssey Telemachus went there after Pylos in search of his father. It is possible that in this version it was in Crete where he met with Odysseus on his way home from Troy. In other words, the stories told by Eumaeus to Telemachus in Od. 14.379–38548 (about an Aetolian who had told him that he had seen Odysseus in Crete at Idomeneus’ palace, fixing the damage his ships had undergone in a tempest) and by Odysseus-the-beggar to Penelope in 19.172–18049 (that he had seen Odysseus in Crete, where he was blown off by the winds on his way to Troy) may have been accommodated from an alternative epic of return where  48 ἐξ οὗ δή μ’ Αἰτωλὸς ἀνὴρ ἐξήπαφε μύθῳ, | ὅς ῥ’ ἄνδρα κτείνας πολλὴν ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἀληθεὶς | ἤλυθ’ ἐμὸν πρὸς σταθμόν· ἐγὼ δέ μιν ἀμφαγάπαζον. | φῆ δέ μιν ἐν Κρήτεσσι παρ’ Ἰδομενῆϊ ἰδέσθαι | νῆας ἀκειόμενον, τάς οἱ ξυνέαξαν ἄελλαι· | καὶ φάτ’ ἐλεύσεσθαι ἢ ἐς θέρος ἢ ἐς ὀπώρην, | πολλὰ χρήματ’ ἄγοντα, σὺν ἀντιθέοισ’ ἑτάροισι (‘since the time an Aetolian man deceived me with this story, who killed a man, wandered over much of the earth, | and came to my house. I welcomed him warmly. | He said he’d seen Odysseus among the Cretans, beside Idomeneus, | repairing ships that windstorms shattered. | He said he’d be coming back, either by summer or by fall, | bringing much property, with his godlike comrades’). 49 Contra van Thiel 1988, 183.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle Odysseus was driven to Crete by unfavorable winds after the end of the Trojan War.50 There are also certain narrative inconsistencies51 concerning the matter at hand, which may well be due to their transference from a context where they were primary and organically linked to the whole, into a new context to which they have been adapted. Verses Od. 16.222–224 (‘by what ship did sailors bring you here in Ithaca? Who were they?’)52 constitute a crucial interpretive conundrum, since upon meeting his father after so many years Telemachus does not ask him what happened to him after the end of the Trojan War. Of course, Telemachus seems to be picking up from where Proteus left the story about Odysseus in Od. 4.555–560,53 where it was said that he cannot get away from Calypso’s island because of lack of ships and sailors. Still, since Telemachus has never found out about the rest of Odysseus’ adventures, the puzzle remains unsolved. This paradox is further reinforced by the oddity of having Odysseus tell his son only of his last adventure (Phaeacians) and, more evocatively, only of the fact that they brought him to Ithaca by ship. There may be an alternative scenario explaining both Telemachus’ question and Odysseus’ answer. This scenario is couched in the assumption that Telemachus’ question would have made more sense, if Telemachus had been told by Odysseus himself about the rest of his adventures during their meeting in Crete, which must have featured in an alternative tradition relating Odysseus’ return from Troy.54 If father and son had then decided to follow a specific plan, according to which Odysseus would go to Thesprotia to fetch poisonous arrows in order to be able to fight against a whole army of suitors, while Telemachus would have gone immediately to Ithaca and wait for his father in Eumaeus’ hut in an attempt to gather as many supporters as possible among shepherds and other folk leaving outside the city of Ithaca,55 then Telemachus’ lack of interest in his father’s sufferings and wanderings would make perfect sense. How more appropriate this would

 50 West 1981, 171. 51 Differently Hansen (1972, 59), who treats narrative inconsistency as the manifestation of ‘the influence of similar and therefore potentially confusing material’, but not as indicative of other epic versions. 52 ποίῃ γὰρ νῦν δεῦρο, πάτερ φίλε, νηΐ σε ναῦται | ἤγαγον εἰς Ἰθάκην; τίνες ἔμμεναι εὐχετόωντο; 53 This is not a form of metakenosis, for the narrator does not bestow on Telemachus information that he could not possibly have obtained on his own. On metakenosis, see Kakridis 1982. 54 See Reece 1994, 169. 55 Implied in Od. 16.238–239: ἤ κεν νῶϊ δυνησόμεθ’ ἀντιφέρεσθαι | μούνω ἄνευθ’ ἄλλων, ἦ καὶ διζησόμεθ’ ἄλλους.

Crete and an Alternative Odyssey  

have been, if Telemachus knew (because of their earlier meeting in Crete) that his father had been to Thesprotia and was only unaware of the men who brought him by ship to Ithaca, i.e. only of a single feature of his last journey. When our Odyssey was shaped and the meeting between father and son had to be transferred from Crete to Ithaca, some details pertaining to the previous encounter were not completely erased, hence the narrative dissonance discussed above. The typology of recognition was violated by recourse to its specific manifestation in a reconstructed oral version of the hero’s return. The correspondence is here derivative, as the re-use of a typical motif in a new context has led to adjustments that are not free of peculiarities.56 Let us briefly trace the various steps of one version of the Cretan Odyssey hypothesis: (a) Odysseus and Telemachus meet in Crete after the former’s second arrival on the island, when his Egyptian and Phoenician adventures are over;57 (b) after a recognition scene, Odysseus narrates to Telemachus all his previous adventures; (c) they decide to return to Ithaca and kill the suitors but depart separately; (d) Odysseus travels to Ephyra in Thesprotia in order to get poisonous arrows for the killing of the suitors;58 (e) he is then brought to Ithaca by a Thesprotian ship; (f) he meets with Telemachus in Eumaeus’ hut, because they had planned to gather a small army against the suitors.59 In this context, Telemachus’ ques 56 See Burgess 2006, 157–159. 57 According to Danek (1998, 49), the motif of a person who is away from home for a long time and comes across his son unrecognized in a foreign land lurks in the figure of Theoclymenus. Telemachus lets the seer Theoclymenus embark on his ship in Pylos, where Telemachus’ journey branches off from the Cretan version. Danek interprets this feature as a signal that Telemachus is re-introduced into the Cretan version in his homeward journey and that Theoclymenus, whose flight and wandering in the Peloponnese before arriving at Pylos reflects his unsuitability for the version of our Odyssey, takes the place Odysseus occupied in other versions of the story. In Ithaca, Theoclymenus undertakes tasks that Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, cannot fulfill. Odysseus may well have been disguised as a seer in other versions (see Od. 14.149–164; 19.300–307, 554–558). 58 See Od. 1.259–266; S. West (1981, 175) rightly suggests that there may have been ‘a causal connection between a visit to Crete and a visit to Ephyra’. The tradition of our Odyssey has inherited from an alternative journey of return with its strong Cretan component both Odysseus’ ability to use the bow and arrows (Cretans were famous archers), i.e. weapons less heroic than the spear, and the fascination with lies. Thus, it may have been in Crete that the idea of a visit to Thesprotia was conceived, for it would be from there that Odysseus would get poisonous arrows in order to inflict lethal wounds to the suitors. See S. West 1981, 174–175. For Ephyra and Dodona, see below. 59 There are several passages that suggest such an alternative scenario: in Od. 13.404–411, Athena advises Odysseus to stay with Eumaeus and ask him about everything he wants to find

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle tion is natural, for he does not need to ask his father for more information, since he has been already instructed by him in Crete.

. Openings Before beginning his longest false story, Odysseus sets the stage for a narrative of epic proportions: he employs a technique typical of an oral performance, namely the singer’s inability to recount events of the past. This epic mannerism is here deprived of its concomitant recourse to the divine help of the Muses so that it can be reduced to an impossible wish (Od. 14.192–198):60 τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι ταῦτα μάλ’ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω. εἴη μὲν νῦν νῶϊν ἐπὶ χρόνον ἠμὲν ἐδωδὴ ἠδὲ μέθυ γλυκερὸν κλισίης ἔντοσθεν ἐοῦσι, δαίνυσθαι ἀκέοντ’, ἄλλοι δ’ ἐπὶ ἔργον ἕποιεν· ῥηϊδίως κεν ἔπειτα καὶ εἰς ἐνιαυτὸν ἅπαντα οὔ τι διαπρήξαιμι λέγων ἐμὰ κήδεα θυμοῦ, ὅσσα γε δὴ ξύμπαντα θεῶν ἰότητι μόγησα.

 out, until she fetches back Telemachus from Sparta; in Od. 15.335–336, Eumaeus tells Odysseus to stay with him since nobody among his companions finds him a nuisance; in Od. 16.82–84, Telemachus tells Eumaeus that he will send clothes and food for the stranger, so that he is not a burden to Eumaeus and his men; in Od. 16.454–459, Athena turns Odysseus into an old man dressed in rags, lest Eumaeus recognize him and reveal the secret to Penelope; Eumaeus has a number of companions in his hut, who do not play any role in the plot of our Odyssey (see e.g. Od. 15.302, 307). Danek (1998, 327–328) convincingly argues that all these passages would remind the audience of other versions in which Odysseus’ stay at Eumaeus’ hut aimed at his gathering information and help before killing the suitors. See also Od. 16.239, where Odysseus leaves open this possibility. In other versions, Laertes may have also taken part in the mnesterophonia; see 22.184–185, 334–336 and Danek 1998, 433. 60 Drawing on the opposition between ‘cognitive human limitations’ (in the poet’s recusatio in Il. 2.484) and time constraints, Bakker (2009, 135) argues with respect to Od. 14.196–198 that the hero’s tale poses risks to the poet’s tale, although they both complement and need each other. Without disagreeing with this point, I consider all such recusationes as indicative of ‘versioning’, i.e. creating and storing a singer’s contribution to a given version. The same observation may be applicable to the famous epic hesitation before the performance of a catalogue (‘whom shall I mention first? Whom shall I mention last?’). In Od. 14.192–198, Odysseus’ words replay the conditions of a formal performance of epic song: when heard by an ancient audience, they would not doubt have stricken a familiar chord, since individual auditors would have thought of the actual performance they were listening to. On ‘versioning’, see Tsagalis 2010, 341–344.

Crete  

I will give you a true account of all you ask. If only you and I had an endless supply of food and wine, here in the hut, and so could eat in peace while the rest got on with the work! I would find it easy to talk to you for a whole year without coming to the end of my sorrows and all the hardships that the gods have made me endure.

A crucial aspect of this innovative preamble is that poetic inability is translated into chronological impossibility. Instead of emphasizing human impotence with respect to narrating his story, Odysseus-the-beggar highlights the lack of sufficient time for such a grand undertaking. In short, the important lesson to be learned from this introduction is that, by omitting the Muses, the Odyssey invites its audience to consider the possibility that, since Odysseus’ tale does not depend on divine authority, it is non-Odyssean and may well belong to another epic tradition of return. In fact, Odysseus’ insistence that he will give a true account of all Eumaeus asks (τοιγὰρ ἐγώ τοι ταῦτ’ μάλ’ ἀτρεκέως ἀγορεύσω) is ironical only in the sense that the listeners are expected to interpret the beggar’s narrative as non-Odyssean. This carefully designed and timely executed plan suggests that truth and falsehood have been transformed from moral into performative terms, that the story Odysseus is about to tell reflects an alternative epic of return, the vestigial remains of which can be reassembled by a careful consideration of the entire corpus of Odysseus’ false tales, among which the story told to Eumaeus is the most extended one. This ‘false proem’ is followed by a linear narrative containing six distinct phases or episodes: (a) Crete; (b) Troy; (c) Egypt; (d) Phoenicia; (e) Thesprotia; (f) Doulichion-Ithaca.

. Crete The Cretan phase (14.199–234) of Odysseus’ false story to Eumaeus can be divided into two parts, the first of which (14.199–210) is about his life in Crete, while the second (14.211–234) refers to his military skills that made him famous among the Cretans. The way the Cretan phase is narrated here by Odysseus is replete with typical motifs that cannot be assigned to any specific tradition: Odysseus as an internal storyteller deftly uses them in order to help him structure this first stage of his false tale. These typical motifs, which I shall now explore, contain some surface structural elements that are conditioned by the immediate context and make Odysseus’ narrative more effective. I will discuss each of these elements within the framework of the typical motif in which they are attested.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle Odysseus as a teller of false stories systematically assumes a Cretan identity:61 in 14.199–206 he begins his tale to Eumaeus by stressing his Cretan persona (14.199–210): ἐκ μὲν Κρητάων γένος εὔχομαι εὐρειάων, ἀνέρος ἀφνειοῖο πάϊς· πολλοὶ δὲ καὶ ἄλλοι υἷες ἐνὶ μεγάρῳ ἠμὲν τράφον ἠδ’ ἐγένοντο γνήσιοι ἐξ ἀλόχου· ἐμὲ δ’ ὠνητὴ τέκε μήτηρ παλλακίς, ἀλλά με ἶσον ἰθαιγενέεσσιν ἐτίμα Κάστωρ Ὑλακίδης, τοῦ ἐγὼ γένος εὔχομαι εἶναι· ὃς τότ’ ἐνὶ Κρήτεσσι θεὸς ὣς τίετο δήμῳ ὄλβῳ τε πλούτῳ τε καὶ υἱάσι κυδαλίμοισιν. ἀλλ’ ἦτοι τὸν κῆρες ἔβαν θανάτοιο φέρουσαι εἰς Ἀΐδαο δόμους· τοὶ δὲ ζωὴν ἐδάσαντο παῖδες ὑπέρθυμοι καὶ ἐπὶ κλήρους ἐβάλοντο, αὐτὰρ ἐμοὶ μάλα παῦρα δόσαν καὶ οἰκί’ ἔνειμαν. I am a native of the broad lands of Crete, and the son of a rich man. He had a number of other sons who were born and brought up in the house; but they were the lawful issue of his wife, whereas my mother was a concubine he had bought. In spite of this difference my father, Castor son of Hylax, put me on an equal footing with his legitimate sons. The Cretans of his day respected and honoured him like a god for his good fortune, his riches, and his splendid children, but his time came and Death bore him off to Hades’ Halls. His high-handed sons then split up the estate and cast lots for the shares, assigning to me a meagre pittance and a house to match.

There are certain elements in the Cretan part of Odysseus’ false story to Eumaeus that belong to the immediate Odyssean context and are clearly surface ele-

 61 In 13.256–257 Odysseus-the-beggar tells disguised-Athena that he fled from Crete after killing Orsilochus, the son of Idomeneus, and in 19.172–180 he presents himself to Penelope as the brother of Idomeneus, son of Deucalion, grandson of Minos, and adds that it was in Crete that he met Odysseus on his way to Troy. Odysseus’ association with Crete in the false tales may be echoing an oral epic tradition, which narrated his return home in the form of an antithesis to Menelaus’ journey to Crete before the war, during the very period of the abduction of Helen. Whereas Menelaus’ journey to Crete (see Cypria, 98–100 Severyns = § 10 Kullmann καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Μενέλαος εἰς Κρήτην ἐκπλεῖ, κελεύσας την Ἑλένην τοῖς ξένοις τὰ ἐπιτήδεια παρέχειν, ἕως ἀπαλλαγῶσιν) was enough for Helen to allow herself to be seduced by Paris, Odysseus’ stay in Crete on his way home to Ithaca did not make Penelope yield to the offers and pressure of the suitors for marrying one of them. This opposition would be very much in accordance with the studied contrast between the daughters of Tyndareus (Clytaemestra and Helen) and the daughter of Icarius (Penelope). Given that the Odyssey emphasizes time and again the contrast between Clytaemestra and Penelope, it is possible that another oral epic tradition about Odysseus could have accentuated the antithesis between Helen and Penelope.

Crete  

ments: the name Κάστωρ Ὑλακίδης (‘Castor, son of the Barking one’), for example, may have been coined on the basis of its acoustical similarity to κύνες ὑλακόμωροι,62 the ‘baying dogs’ attacking Odysseus outside the hut of Eumaeus in 14.29.63 The Cretan phase of this false tale is based on a combination of certain typical manifestations of the general motif ‘Reversal of Fortune’.64 In particular, we encounter the following sub-motifs:65 (a) ‘Abused son of a younger co-wife becomes hero’ (Thompson, L 10.2): the mother of Cretan Odysseus is a παλλακίς (and probably younger than Castor’s first wife); her son, the Cretan Odysseus, is deceived by his brothers from a different mother with respect to the division of their father’s property after his death; the abused son excels in warfare and acquires fame (14.216–234). (b) ‘Bastard hero’ (Thompson, L 111.5): 14.202–203 (see [a] above). (c) ‘Lowly hero marries princess’ (Thompson, L 161): Cretan Odysseus marries a wealthy woman, despite his low origin (14.211–212). (d) ‘Marriage of poor boy and rich girl’ (Thompson, 161.1): the Cretan Odysseus becomes poor, after being deceived by his legitimate brothers in the division of their father’s property (14.210). However, he marries a rich girl because he was neither a fool nor a coward (14.211–213).66

 62 Such surface elements that were triggered by the immediate context could easily be nested in made-up names of fictive characters. In the only false tale attested in the Iliad (24.396–401), Hermes (notice the accidental link to Odysseus through his grandfather Autolycus) pretends to be one of the Myrmidons, whose father is named Πολύκτωρ (‘of many possessions’, πολύ+ κτέρας), a very rich man indeed (24.398: ἀφνειὸς μὲν ὅ γ’ ἐστί). The point is subtle, for Hermes will lead Priam to the Achaean camp, in order to offer numerous gifts to Achilles as ransom for the body of Hector. The name Πολύκτωρ is also used in Od. 17.207, 18.299, 22.243. 63 See Hoekstra 1989, 207 on Od. 14.204, who leaves open the possibility that Odysseus is punning, since the class-noun κάστωρ (‘beaver’) ‘could originally denote a certain race of dogs (cf. καστόριαι [κύνες], X. Cyn. iii 1)’; see also Grossardt 1998, 94 n. 357; Alden 2017, 274 with n. 111. 64 See Thompson L 10.2, 111.5, 161, 161.1. 65 Grossardt (1998, 92–116) offers the most detailed and thorough presentation of this false tale by listing no less than 17 features and motifs. However, he does not make the important distinction between the various strata these features and motifs belong to. His interpretation thus operates only on a vertical axis. 66 It should be noted that all Odysseus’ false personas respond to the internal audience: as Eumaeus (the addressee of this false tale) is a compromised elite, by virtue of his having been born an elite and then enslaved, so is Odysseus’ Cretan persona, because of his mixed parentage.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle The victorious course that the hero’s life follows, though, is thematically materialized by recourse to the typical theme of ‘ambush’,67 whose narrative pattern is put here into use. As we shall see, this typical theme acquires a specific filtering. It is intricately entwined with certain aspects of Odysseus’ epic persona in Homeric and cyclic epic. In their study of the theme of ‘ambush’, Dué and Ebbott determine the typical sub-themes of this narrative pattern: (a) selection of best men; (b) preparation and arming for the ambush; (c) selection of a location where the ambush will take place; (d) concealment of the ambushers and enduring of discomfort; (e) surprise attack; and (f) return home.68 Sub-themes (a), (b) and (e) are indeed attested in Odysseus’ false tale, since he explicitly says that ‘he planned the ambush and picked the best men’ ([a+b]: 217–218: ὁπότε κρίνοιμι λόχον δὲ | ἄνδρας ἀριστῆας) and that ‘he would leap out before all the rest’ ([e]: 220: ἀλλὰ πολὺ πρώτιστος ἐπάλμενος).69 Analogous sub-themes occur in Odysseus’ spying mission and ambush par excellence, i.e. in Iliad 10, as well as in the Epic Cycle: in the Ilias parva Odysseus ambushes the priest Helenus,70 takes part (with Diomedes) in a secret mission to Troy to steal the Palladion,71 and plays a key role in the surprise attack that makes Troy fall (as a member of the group of heroes inside the Wooden Horse).72 In order to explicate the function of the theme of ‘ambush’ here, we first need to remind ourselves that it shares some common features with raids (especially cattle-raids) and spying missions:73 as far as the immediate context is concerned, Odysseus the storytell 67 Idomeneus and Odysseus (on whose relation see below) are associated by means of the theme of λόχος (‘ambush’); Camerotto (2010, 15) draws attention to a number of passages, in which the theme of ‘ambush’ is employed with respect either to Idomeneus (Il. 6.436; 13.275– 294) or Odysseus (Il. 10.228–232 [notice the reference to Idomeneus’ fellow Cretan, Meriones]; Od. 13.259–266; 14.217). The two heroes are also representative paradigms of the safe and easy (Idomeneus) and the delayed and troublesome (Odysseus) return after the sack of Troy; another polar antithesis between them concerns speed: Idomeneus is slow because of his age (Il. 13.512–515; conversely, his comrade Meriones is swift [Il. 13.249]), while Odysseus is swiftfooted (Il. 23.790–792); see Levaniouk 2011, 76–77. 68 Dué and Ebbott 2010, 70. 69 The military skills depicted in 14.216–218 are generic qualities of the epic hero filtered by the theme of ‘ambush’. Differently King (1999, 82–83), who finds resonances in Iliadic Achilles and Ajax, arguing that they ‘are not isolated instances of intertextual play but suggest that Odysseus’ fictional heroic persona is constructed so as to be in some sense, Odysseus’ antithesis’. 70 Arg. l. 211 Severyns. 71 Arg. ll. 228–229 Severyns and fr. 11 GEF; see also Odysseus’ second false tale to Eumaeus (Od. 14.462–506). See Dué and Ebbott 2010, 82. 72 Frs. 12–13 GEF. 73 See Dué and Ebbott 2010, 80–84.

Troy  

er specifically refers to the raiding of cities and the acquisition of wealth (14.130–233), while with respect to the larger context we should not forget that he is seated in disguise in Eumaeus’ hut trying to collect information in accordance with the advice of Athena (13.411). In light of these observations, it can be plausibly argued that we are dealing with the mutations of a typical theme74 that is often employed in connection with Odysseus, but its use in this context serves a specific poetic purpose: it is embedded within the larger framework of ambush that links Telemachus with the suitors and both of them with Odysseus. Father and son will finally make a surprise attack on the suitors, who tried unsuccessfully to ambush Telemachus earlier in the poem.75 Interestingly enough, Odysseus as the ambusher par excellence is armed with a bow in the climactic ambush of the mnesterophonia, but also, and tellingly so, in his spying mission and ambush in the Doloneia, though he does not employ it, given that all the killings are carried out by Diomedes.76

. Troy The section on Troy (14.235–242) begins with a mustering of the Cretan troops under the command of Idomeneus (14.237–238), continues with a brief reference to the sack of the city of Priam in the tenth year (14.239–240), and ends with a ‘new beginning’, the scattering of the Greek fleet on its return home (14.242). Its highly compressed form, which is explained by the audience’s assumed familiarity with the Iliad and the Trojan War at large, makes it a perfect ‘bridge’ for a swift transition to the wanderings of the Cretan Odysseus. In contrast to the previous section, this one is solely formed by three motifs that have been transferred here from cyclic epic, in particular from the oral precursors of the Cypria and the Nostoi. The first of these three motifs, with which I shall now begin my

 74 Usener 1990, who studied 15 episodes of interaction between the Iliad and the Odyssey, did not include in his research the episode at hand, although the theme of ‘ambush’ spills over to the entire second half of the Odyssey. 75 Line 14.224 (ἀλλά μοι αἰεὶ νῆες ἐπήρετμοι φίλαι ἧσαν) is an intratextual resonance of the standard topic (Od. 4.559, 5.16, 5.141, 17.145), i.e. of Odysseus’ inability to leave the island of Calypso because of lack of a ship. 76 It is the Cretan Meriones who gives Odysseus his bow (Iliad 10), since the king of Ithaca had left it at home when he went to Troy.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle analysis, lurks in the figure of Idomeneus, with whom Odysseus has, as we shall see, a special connection.77

.. Idomeneus According to the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, Odysseus (fr. 198.1–8 M-W) and Idomeneus (fr. 204.56–65 M-W) were the only suitors of Helen who deviated from the standard behavior of all the other competitors. Whereas all the suitors sent their gifts to Tyndareos by proxy, Odysseus was the only one who did not send  77 When Odysseus the storyteller refers to Crete, this is mainly done through his consistent references to Idomeneus. This may, of course, be because Idomeneus comes unavoidably to the singer’s mind since he was a well-known Cretan king who participated in the Trojan war, and to this extent he may be seen as a by-product of the strong Cretan element characterizing an alternative tradition concerning the return of Odysseus. This approach, however, just pushes back the problem without explaining it, since it fails to answer the question why Odysseus in the alternative song of return was so closely linked to Crete (and Idomeneus). This question may be rephrased: is Idomeneus evoked because of Crete or is Crete anchored to Idomeneus in the epic tradition? The question may seem, at first glance, unanswerable and, perhaps, trivial, but it lies at the heart of the process of motif transference and is crucial to this investigation. Certain scholars (Shewan 1911, 169; Lowenstam 1975, 140–141, Clay 1983, 84–88) have argued that Odysseus creates in his false tales a fictive self, bearing striking similarities to Meriones, the closest comrade of the Cretan king Idomeneus: both Meriones and Odysseus are excellent archers, have a special talent in organizing an ambush and are close to Idomeneus. The similarities with Meriones have thus been interpreted within the wider matrix of the Odyssey, which aims at promoting its own version against not only alternative Odysseys but also against the Iliad. As with the song of Demodocus (Clay 1983, 106), so in the false stories the Odyssey looks at other epic traditions and recasts them through its own themes and viewpoint. By inference, the same applies to the case of Odysseus, the main hero of the Odyssey. The fictive Odysseus whom he constructs is molded in such a way so as to remind the audience of the pre-eminence of the Odyssean tradition. Odysseus usurps the identity of Meriones, an Iliadic hero par excellence, and applies it to the persona he had in alternative poems of return as presented through the focus of the Odyssey. The ruse does justice to both the hero of the Odyssey and the Odyssean tradition that constantly rival other traditions (Clay 1983). In my view, the similarities with Meriones are undoubtedly there but cannot explain the strong Cretan element and link with Idomeneus that permeated other oral traditions narrating the return of Odysseus. The typical theme of ‘ambush’ and the related sub-theme of ‘archery’ may have been the bridge for such later developments. See Clay (1983, 88) on a tradition related by Plutarch (Life of Marcellus 20.3) that Odysseus and Meriones had consecrated spears and helmets in a temple built by Cretans at the Sicilian city of Engygium. This late data may well be reflecting a much older connection between Meriones and Odysseus, going back to the latter’s latent Cretan identity. On Meriones, Odysseus, ambush, and archery, see also Dué and Ebbott 2010, 45–46, 52–53, 57– 58.

Troy  

any gifts, and Idomeneus was the only one who did not send his gifts by proxy, since he travelled himself to Sparta to see beautiful Helen with his own eyes. If the Caalogue echoes an older pre-Homeric lay, we have here an indication of a deroutinization process within a typical structure. Two items of the Catalogue of Suitors, Odysseus and Idomeneus, break loose from its typology.78 What confirms this line of thought is that this deviation is also reflected in the mini-Catalogue of Heroes in the Iliadic Teichoskopia. Let us first compare the two lists: Tab. 3: Achaean Heroes in the Teichoscopia and Helen’s Suitors. Homer, Iliad 

Hesiod, Catalogue of Women

Agamemnon

Agamemnon

Odysseus

sons of Amphiaraus Odysseus Thoas Podarces and Protesilaus Menestheus

Ajax

Ajax Elephenor

Idomeneus

Idomeneus

unnamed heroes

others (missing in the papyrus)

What is clearly visible here is that the four Achaean leaders whom Helen describes to Priam are also present in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Helen’s suitors, and what is even more intriguing, in the very same order. The tradition of the Iliad is here using material from an older pre-Homeric Catalogue of Helen’s suitors that could very well have been part of cyclic epic (oral *Cypria) and is mirrored in the Hesiodic Catalogue. But there is more to it. In the Teichoskopia Idomeneus is the only Achaean leader whom Helen describes without responding to Priam’s question as if there was a reason for doing so. Helen mentions Idomeneus standing next to Ajax and adds that ‘[m]any a time warlike Menela-

 78 For a similar phenomenon in the case of Odysseus and Thoas, see Marks (2003, 209–226), who argues that epic geography offers a partial explanation for their association and that their rivalry in the Odyssey evokes tensions between different versions of Odysseus’ return.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle us would entertain him | in our own house when he came over from Crete’.79 What we see here at work is that Menelaus, Odysseus, and Idomeneus, sharing a special connection with respect to an episode standing at the very foundations of the Trojan War myth, were associated as suitors of Helen. In fact, Odysseus and Idomeneus gradually came to symbolize two directly opposite attitudes towards marrying Helen (one accepted his defeat by not sending gifts, the other tried to marry her even if he had to travel all the way from Crete). In the course of time, a tradition narrating the nostos of Odysseus used the link pertaining to the cyclic epic tradition of the Contest of Helen and was strengthened by a significant mythical analogy: as Odysseus and Idomeneus epitomized two symmetrically aberrant behaviors with respect to the Contest of Helen, so they symbolized two symmetrically opposite traditions of nostos, Odysseus being the trademark of the troublesome and long journey home,80 Idomeneus the paragon of the safe return.81

.. ‘Unwillingness to Participate in the Trojan War’ Another relic of cyclic epic82 lurking in Odysseus’ Cretan narrative is the motif of ‘unwillingness to participate in the Trojan War’, which is alluded in Odysseus’ false tale to Eumaeus in 14.238–239:

 79 Il. 3.232–233: πολλάκι μιν ξείνισσεν ἀρηΐφιλος Μενέλαος | οἴκῳ ἐν ἡμετέρῳ ὁπότε Κρήτηθεν ἵκοιτο. As the Iliad knows of Idomeneus constantly visiting Sparta and Menelaus, so our Odyssey knows of Telemachus visiting Sparta in search of Odysseus (Book 4), and Menelaus arriving because of a storm at Crete before going to Egypt (Od. 3.281–300). 80 This is also the case with Menelaus (see below). 81 Od. 3.191–192: πάντας δ’ Ἰδομενεὺς Κρήτην εἰσήγαγ’ ἑταίρους, | οἳ φύγον ἐκ πολέμου, πόντος δέ οἱ οὔ τιν’ ἀπηύρα (‘again, Idomeneus brought all his men to Crete, all, that is, who had survived the war. The sea got none from him’). By ‘safe return’ I am only referring to the return journey, not to the situation Idomeneus faced when he arrived home. In any case, Apollodorus’ version (Epit. 6.10), according to which Idomeneus was exiled by Leucus who had killed his wife Meda and his daughter Cleisithyra and had taken under his control ten Cretan cities, is not reflecting the stock in which the alternative Odyssey is couched, for Odysseus’ stay in Crete presupposes a peaceful environment. 82 See Griffin (1977, 45–46), who rightly points to the cases of Amphiaraus, whose wife was bribed so as to convince him to participate in the expedition against Thebes, and to the case of Achilles who was hiding in Scyros. The episode of Achilles hiding in Scyros did not feature in the Cypria, as reconstructed on the basis of the summary of Proclus; see chapter 14 (this volume).

Troy  

δὴ τότ’ ἔμ’ ἤνωγον καὶ ἀγακλυτὸν Ἰδομενῆα νήεσσ’ ἡγήσασθαι ἐς Ἴλιον· οὐδέ τι μῆχος ἦεν ἀνήνασθαι, χαλεπὴ δ’ ἔχε δήμου φῆμις. And they pressed me and the famous Idomeneus to lead our ships to Ilium. There was no way of avoiding it: public opinion was too much for us.

This piece of information is consonant with a cyclic motif, which is attested in the Cypria (ll. 119–121 Severyns), in Apollodorus (Epitome 3.7), in Philostratus (Heroicus 33.4), and is also implicitly alluded to in the Odyssey, i.e. a motif concerning Odysseus’ effort to avoid taking part in the expedition to Troy. Cypria (ll. 119–121 Severyns): καὶ μαίνεσθαι προσποιησάμενον Ὀδυσσέα ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ θέλειν συστρατεύεσθαι ἐφώρασαν, Παλαμήδους ὑποθεμένου τὸν υἱὸν Τηλέμαχον ἐπὶ κόλασιν ἐξαρπάσαντες. And they caught Odysseus pretending to be insane because he did not want to join up, after Palamedes advised them to seize his son Telemachus threateningly.83

Apollodorus, Epitome 3.7: ὁ δὲ (sc. Ὀδυσσεύς) οὐ βουλόμενος στρατεύεσθαι προσποιεῖται μανίαν. Παλαμήδης δὲ ὁ Ναυπλίου ἤλεγξε τὴν μανίαν ψευδῆ, καὶ προσποιησαμένῳ μεμηνέναι παρηκολούθει· ἁρπάσας δὲ Τηλέμαχον ἐκ τοῦ κόλπου τῆς Πηνελόπης ὡς κτενῶν ἐξιφούλκει. ὁ δὲ Ὀδυσσεὺς περὶ τοῦ παιδὸς εὐλαβηθεὶς ὡμολόγησε τὴν προσποίητον μανίαν καὶ στρατεύεται. Odysseus who did not wish to take part in the expedition (to Troy) pretends to be mad. Palamedes, son of Nauplius, showed that his madness was fictitious, and watched carefully Odysseus who pretended to rave; and after snatching Telemachus from Penelope’s lap he drew his sword as if he would kill him. And Odysseus, fearing that his son would be killed, acknowledged his pretended madness and took part in the expedition.

Philostratus, Heroicus 33.4: τὸν δὲ λόγον, ὃς πολλοῖς τῶν ποιητῶν εἴρηται, ὡς στρατεύοι μὲν ἐπὶ Τροίαν ἡ Ἑλλάς, Ὀδυσσεὺς ἐν Ἰθάκῃ μανίαν πλάττοιτο καὶ πρὸς ἀρότρῳ εἴη βοῦν ἵππῳ συμβαλών, Παλαμήδης τε αὐτὸν ἐλέγξειε τῷ Τηλεμάχῳ, οὔ φησιν ὑγιᾶ εἷναι. The story, which has been reported by many poets, that, when Greece was leading an expedition against Troy and Odysseus feigned madness in Ithaca and put an ox and a horse

 83 The translation is by Burgess 2001.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle under the yoke of a plough, Palamedes checked him by means of Telemachus, Protesilaus denies that this story is sound.

Od. 24.115–119: ἦ οὐ μέμνῃ, ὅτε κεῖσε κατήλυθον ὑμέτερον δῶ ὀτρυνέων Ὀδυσῆα σὺν ἀντιθέῳ Μενελάῳ Ἴλιον εἰς ἅμ᾽ ἕπεσθαι ἐϋσσέλμων ἐπὶ νηῶν; μηνὶ δ᾽ ἐν οὔλῳ πάντα περήσαμεν εὐρέα πόντον, σπουδῇ παρπεπιθόντες Ὀδυσσῆα πτολίπορθον. Don’t you remember the time when I came over to your house in Ithaca with godlike Menelaus to persuade Odysseus to join forces with me and sail against Ilium? It was a full month before we completed our voyage over the wide sea, so hard was it to win over Odysseus, sacker of cities.

Od. 11.447–451: ἦ μέν μιν νύμφην γε νέην κατελείπομεν ἡμεῖς ἐρχόμενοι πόλεμόνδε· πάϊς δέ οἱ ἦν ἐπὶ μαζῷ νήπιος, ὅς που νῦν γε μετ᾽ ἀνδρῶν ἵζει ἀριθμῷ, ὄλβιος· ἦ γὰρ τόν γε πατὴρ φίλος ὄψεται ἐλθών, καὶ κεῖνος πατέρα προσπτύξεται, ἣ θέμις ἐστίν. [The wise Penelope!] She was a young woman when we said goodbye to her on our way to the war. She had a baby son at her breast. And now, I suppose, he has begun to take his seat among the men. Fortunate young man! His loving father will come home and see him, and he will kiss his father. That is how things should be.

The presence of a cyclic motif that is shared by the Cypria, the Odyssey, and the false tale to Eumaeus is at odds with the emphasis placed on the military prowess of the anonymous Cretan. This strongly contrasting view can only be the result of a fusion, within the framework of the false tale to Eumaeus, of two divergent views of Odysseus: whereas cyclic epic (as mirrored in the tradition of the Cypria) and metacyclic epic (the Odyssey)84 accentuate Odysseus’ love for his family and lack of interest in the war (this last feature applies to the former epic), an alternative Odyssey may have highlighted his warlike abilities, as well

 84 On metacyclic epic, see Burgess (2006, 149), who draws the line between three levels of narrative (Level A: cyclic myth, Level B: cyclic epic, Level C: Homeric epic) and argues that Homeric epic is metacyclic in the sense that it employs Level A (mythological traditions) and Level B (cyclic epic) in order to implement its full meaning. On the meta-epic aspect of Homeric poetry, see also Finkelberg 1998, 154–155; 2002, 160 = 2020, 149; 2003, 79 = 2020, 320.

Troy  

as his greed for adventures and wealth. Odysseus’ narrative to Eumaeus is the most complete of all the narratives offered in the false tales, for it not only combines a pre-Trojan War phase, an Iliadic phase and a ‘nostos’ phase, i.e. it spans the entire tradition concerning Trojan War myth, but it also contains features pertaining to another version of his return, where Odysseus was presented in a different light.

.. ‘Besieging Troy for Nine Years and Sacking the City on the Tenth’ Given that the Iliad and the myth of the Trojan War are well known to the audience, Odysseus as storyteller does not feel the need to give details about his Trojan War exploits.85 His brief mention of the Trojan War takes the form of the motif of ‘besieging Troy for nine years and sacking the city on the tenth’, which lies at the heart of cyclic myth and is typical of the entire Trojan War tradition. The Odyssey, where the nostos of Odysseus happens on the tenth year after the end of the war, is clearly following the model of a widely circulating cyclic motif endorsed by the Iliad, where it is stated that Troy will fall on the tenth year after the arrival of the Achaeans: ὣς ἡμεῖς τοσσαῦτ’ ἔτεα πτολεμίξομεν αὖθι, τῷ δεκάτῳ δὲ πόλιν αἱρήσομεν εὐρυάγυιαν. So for years as many as this shall we fight in this place and in the tenth year we shall take the city of the wide ways. (Il. 2.328–329)

This motif is typical of oral narratives (‘X + 1’ years or times),86 but within the context of Trojan War epic traditions the ‘9+1 years’ and the ‘20 years’ numerical patterns had become associated specifically with the Iliad and the Odyssey respectively. The former designated the duration of the Trojan War, while the latter epitomized the length of Odysseus’ absence from Ithaca.

 85 See the expressions ἀπὸ Τροίηθεν (‘from Troy’) and Ἰλιόθεν (‘from Ilium’) used by Odysseus in the very beginning of the Apologos (Od. 9.38–39). These brief expressions suffice for keying his audience to a post-Trojan War note. 86 This is a variation of the ‘Law of Final Stress’ that is employed in oral narratives; see Olrik 1992, 52–54 (§ 75). See also Bannert (1988, 40–57), who examines the use of the expression ‘three times’ (τρὶς μέν-τρὶς δέ) and ‘three times–the fourth time’ (τρὶς μέν-τρὶς δέ-τὸ τέταρτον) as a scene marker.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle

. Egypt The Egyptian adventure of Odysseus displays a threefold stratification, since it is virtually a mixture of elements pertaining to the three distinct levels discussed above. It contains (a) independent typical elements, (b) typical features that interact with analogous features attested in the Apologos, and (c) features representing cyclic motifs. With respect to independent typical elements (a), the Egyptian adventure shows clear traces of the use of the motif of ‘Adaptability to Overpowering Force’.87 When the fictive Odysseus realizes that he cannot possibly defeat the Egyptians, he takes off his helmet and shield, throws away his spear and supplicates the Egyptian king by kissing his knees. His cleverness in dealing with an overpowering force saves his life, since the king spares him despite the insistence of other Egyptians that the stranger be put to death (14.282–283). By supplicating the king, the fictive Odysseus comes under the protection of Zeus Xenios, whom even the king of Egypt respects (14.279, 283–284).88 On a deeper level we can trace typical elements that acquire their specific role in the false tale by interacting with analogous typical features attested in the Apologos. These features are indeed typical but have been so strongly contextualized after their use in the Apologos that they are unavoidably keyed on a particular Odyssean tone. They include: (a) the ‘6+ 1 days’ pattern, (b) the motif ‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’, and (c) the motif ‘Enemy Arrives with Huge Force’. Although the ‘6 + 1 days’ pattern is a manifestation of the Law of ‘Final Stress’ (sub-type: ‘X + 1’ years or days),89 its specific use in this false tale includes a meaningful resonance from the Thrinacia episode of the Apologos. The same is the case with the two other typical motifs, i.e. that of ‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’ and ‘Enemy Arrives with Huge Force’, which are both employed in the Cicones90 episode of the Apologos. Alt-

 87 See Thompson, J 830. 88 On the fictionality of the presentation of Egypt in the Odyssey, see von Lieven 2006, 61–75. 89 The ‘6 + 1 days’ pattern is employed 4x in the Odyssey: 10.80–81 (Laestrygonians), 12.397– 399 (Thrinacia), 14.249–252 (false tale to Eumaeus), 15.476 (Eumaeus’ tale to Odysseus). Odysseus is always the speaker except in the last case. 90 See Od. 9.44–46. Blümlein (1971, 29–30) draws an analogy between the Cicones episode in the Apologos and the Egyptian adventure of Odysseus in his first false tale to Eumaeus but does not consider arguments like the ones I have discussed above. Fuchs (1993, 29–31) refers to possible links with the Thrinacia episode, like the motif of the warning to the comrades (12.320–323) and the ‘7+1 years’ pattern, but fails to see the larger picture. Having said this, I

Egypt  

hough interaction concerns all three episodes, I will opt for a closer association between the Thrinacia and Egyptian adventures, since (i) the motif ‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’ is employed in the Cicones episode only after Odysseus has sacked the city of Ismaros and has divided the spoils with his comrades (Od. 9.40–42), i.e. after having committed his wrongdoing, while in the Thrinacia and Egyptian episodes the same motif is used right at the beginning, i.e. before the comrades and Odysseus respectively commit any wrongdoings, and (ii) in the Cicones episode Odysseus loses six comrades from each ship and escapes with the rest of his fleet (Od. 9.60–61), whereas in the Thrinacia and Egyptian adventures he is the only one who is saved (Od. 12.420–453 and 14.273–284 respectively). This last point is by far the most important within the process of interaction that I have described above, for the key-element is that the extermination of all the comrades and the salvation of Odysseus must be used only in the last adventure (Thrinacia-Egypt) before the arrival at the safe haven of the Phaeacians and Thesprotians respectively.91 Let us compare the three episodes by presenting the interaction between some of their constituent elements: Tab. 4: Shared Features in the Episodes of the Cicones, Thrinacia, and Egypt. Cicones (Book )

Thrinacia (Book )

Preparation: many sufferings ()

Egypt (Book ) Preparation: many sufferings ()

‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’ (–)

Advice of Leader is not Fol‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’ (– lowed by Comrades’ (–) , –, –) ‘+ days pattern’ (–) ‘+ days pattern’ (–)

Sea Journey-Fair Wind ()

Sea Journey-Fair Wind (–)

Sack of the city of the Cicones, take captive women and possessions, and divide them (–) Drink and slaughter sheep at

Sea Journey ends, arrival at Egypt (–) Plunder fields, take women and children, kill the men (– )

Slaughter cattle at the sea-

 am discussing the interaction of all three episodes, though I consider the link between Thrinacia and Egypt the stronger one. 91 There are other episodes (the Lotus-Eaters and Aeolus), in which the comrades are the source of trouble, but Odysseus advises his comrades in neither of them.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle

Cicones (Book )

Thrinacia (Book )

the sea-shore (–)

shore (–)

Cicones ask for help ()

Lampetie asks for help (– )

Egypt (Book ) Noise of murder is heard (– )

Enemy comes with huge force Zeus strikes with force in the early in the morning (–) seventh day (–)

Zeus, who rejoices in thunder, strikes panic into Odysseus’ comrades (–)

Achaeans are defeated and six The rest of the comrades die comrades die from each ship, but Odysseus is the only one while the rest escape (–) who is saved (–)

Many die, others are enslaved, but Odysseus is the only one saved (–)

The range of resonances is so extended that it becomes clear that Odysseus as storyteller is aiming at drawing an analogy between the Thrinacia and Egyptian episodes, while he is also using features of the Cicones episode. In contrast to Eumaeus, who as the internal addressee of the false tale cannot possibly associate the three episodes because the first two are completely unknown to him, the external audience is invited to trace the link and to admire the hero’s ability in mixing ‘fact and fiction’.92 By giving this ability to Odysseus, who is the very trademark of the authority of the Odyssey, the epic allows us to glance at the process of its own formation. The analogy between the Thrinacia and Egyptian episodes is so intense that it shows how events stemming from two different mythical cycles (an Argonautic and a cyclic),93 and associated with Odysseus’ return, were creatively combined by our Odyssey, which invented their split into the two separate registers of the Apologos and the false tales that are both narrated by its emblematic hero-storyteller, Odysseus. With respect to cyclic material (c), the Egyptian adventure contains three motifs: ‘7 + 1 years’, ‘second departure’, and ‘being defeated in a foreign land’. As in the previous case, the core of these motifs is typical, but their specific epic manifestation is shaped by cyclic myth and here used in Homeric epic.

 92 See Walcot 1977, 12–14. 93 See Od. 4.83–85. The list of places Menelaus visited on his way home from Troy evokes the list of places mentioned in Odysseus’ maritime itinerary in his longest false tale to Eumaeus (Egypt, Phoenicia, Libya).

Egypt  

.. The ‘7+1 years’ motif Both cyclic (Nostoi) and metacyclic epic (Odyssey) know of Menelaus’ long stay in Egypt, which had been fixed to a period of 8 years.94 Schischwani95 has argued that brevity and vagueness of the Egyptian reference in the summary of Proclus may well be indicative of an oral tradition closely linked to the Nostoi. If so and in light of the fact that Menelaus’ Egyptian adventure formed part of the Nostoi (arg. ll. 285–287 Severyns), it is likely that the placement of Proclus’ reference to the completion of Menelaus’ return from Egypt to Sparta at the very end of his summary (arg. l. 303 Severyns = § 113 Kullmann), i.e. at the end of the Nostoi and long after the description of the returns of all the other Achaeans, strongly suggests a long stay in Egypt: μεθ’ οὓς [sc. Diomedes and Nestor] ἐκπλεύσας ὁ Μενέλαος μετὰ πέντε νεῶν εἰς Αἴγυπτον παραγίνεται, τῶν λοιπῶν διαφθαρεισῶν νεῶν ἐν τῷ πελάγει. (285–287 Severyns) Menelaus sails off after these [sc. Diomedes and Nestor] and arrives at Egypt with five ships, the rest destroyed at sea. καὶ Μενελάου εἰς τὴν οἰκείαν ἀνακομιδή. (303 Severyns) and the arrival home of Menelaus.

In the false tale to Eumaeus, Odysseus explicitly says to the swineherd that he stayed in Egypt for 7 years (14.285), and that, on the completion of the eighth year, after being deceived by a Phoenician who promised to take him to Phoenicia, he was sold to a group of men who were sailing towards Libya (14.287–297). This time-period matches the 8 years of Menelaus’ journey of return but is also strikingly similar to the period Odysseus stayed with Calypso and Circe (7+1 years). In fact, Odysseus’ words to Eumaeus96 (14.290–292)97 indicate that Odys-

 94 See Od. 4.82 (ὀγδοάτῳ ἔτει ἦλθον); Apoll. Epit. 6.30: ὀκτὼ δὲ πλανηθεὶς ἔτη [sc. Μενέλαος] κατέπλευσεν εἰς Μυκήνας, κἀκεῖ κατέλαβεν Ὀρέστην μετεληλυθότα τὸν τοῦ πατρὸς φόνον. ἐλθὼν δὲ εἰς Σπάρτην τὴν ἰδίαν κτήσατο βασιλείαν. 95 1994, 127. For the view that the adventures of Menelaus have been modelled upon those of Odysseus, see Hölscher 19903, 94–102; Danek 1998, 93–94. 96 The Phoenician story contains typical features that would be especially meaningful to Eumaeus, who would recognize elements familiar to him from his own life story (cf. 15.403– 484). See Trahman 1952, 37; Walcot 1977, 12–14). 97 ἔνθα παρ’ αὐτῷ μεῖνα τελεσφόρον εἰς ἐνιαυτόν. | ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μῆνές τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐξετελεῦντο | ἂψ περιτελλομένου ἔτεος καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι (‘and there I stayed with him for a whole

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle seus is clearly building his tale on a fixed pattern, which I would like to reconstruct as follows: Odysseus’ stay at Calypso’s island for 7 years and his departure on the 8th year have been modelled both on the tradition of an alternative Odyssey in which Odysseus stayed in Egypt as captive of the Pharaoh for the same time period and on Menelaus’ stay in Egypt for 7 years and his departure on the 8th. The opposite alternative simply does not work, for the Calypso episode cannot be primary, since the motif of the hero being held captive by a lovestricken goddess is based on the epic of Gilgamesh and the function of the goddesses Siduri and Ishtar, and, as the Circe episode shows, it is not exclusively connected to Calypso.98

.. The Motif of ‘Second Departure’ Another cyclic motif detectable in the false story to Eumaeus is that of the second departure. The fictive Cretan stays only for one month in Crete after his safe return from Troy (Od. 14.244–245)99 and departs again, this time for Egypt (Od. 14.246–247).100 The motif of a second departure, which is known from both the Odyssey and the Telegony,101 is cyclic,102 but its aim must have been profoundly different: whereas in cyclic myth it was linked to the hero’s inner journey until he reached a state of final happiness, in an alternative epic of return it was triggered by lust for adventures and wealth. This marked difference is accompanied by another one, albeit less important: in cyclic myth, the hero’s second depar-

 year. But when the days and months had mounted up, and a second year began its round of seasons’). 98 On the various analogies between the doublets Calypso-Circe and the divine alewife Siduri in the epic of Gilgamesh, see West 1997, 404–412. See also Crane 1988 passim; Nagler 1996, 141– 161. 99 μῆνα γὰρ οἶον ἔμεινα τεταρπόμενος τεκέεσσι | κουριδίῃ τ’ ἀλόχῳ καὶ κτήμασιν (‘I had spent only a month in the delights of home life with my children, my wife and my possessions’). 100 Αἴγυπτόνδε με θυμὸς ἀνώγει ναυτίλλεσθαι, | νῆας ἐῢ στείλαντα, σὺν ἀντιθέοισ’ ἑτάροισιν. (‘the spirit moved me to fit out some ships and sail to Egypt with heroic companions’). 101 The double departure for Troy (in their first sail to Troy the Achaeans arrive by mistake to Teuthrania) in the Cypria is of a different kind, for it is not particularly associated with a single hero, whereas that of the Odyssey (11.121–122 and 23.267–270) and the Telegony (arg. ll. 309 and 315 Severyns) are specifically linked to Odysseus. 102 The fact that Odysseus and his comrades depart twice from the island of Aeolus does not undermine this claim, for the second departure is triggered by the motif ‘Advice of Leader is not Followed by Comrades’.

Phoenicia and Thesprotia  

ture was a lonely adventure, while in the false tale and, may be in an alternative Odyssey, it amounts to an entire expedition (Od. 14.248).103

.. The Motif of ‘Being Defeated in a Foreign Land’ This cyclic motif known is from the story of the Cicones in Od. 9.39–61, and secondarily and only partly by the expedition to Teuthrania and the fighting against the Mysoi and Telephus in the Cypria,104 as well as the unsuccessful participation of Odysseus at the side of the Thesprotians against the Brygoi in the Telegony.105 It also contains two sub-motifs: (a) ‘The Return of the Enemy with Enormous Forces’ (Od. 9.51–52 ~ Od. 14.266–268)106 and (b) ‘Fighting with the Locals by the Ships’ (Od. 9.54 ~ Arch. fr. 17a Swift 10–11 ~ Pind. Ol. 9.72–73).107

. Phoenicia and Thesprotia The Phoenician and Thesprotian episodes are marked by a complex stratification that is analogous to that of the Egyptian adventure. We can draw the line between four different strata: (a) typical features dispersed in both adventures that, when put together, comprise a typology; (b) elements interacting with material found in the Odyssey with a special reference to the Apologos;108 (c)  103 ἐννέα νῆας στεῖλα, θοῶς δ’ ἐσαγείρατο λαός (‘I got nine vessels ready and the crews were soon mustered’). 104 Arg. ll. 125–128 Severyns: ἔπειτα ἀναχθέντες Τευθρανίᾳ προσίσχουσι καὶ ταύτην ὡς Ἴλιον ἐπόρθουν (‘then setting out they reach Teuthrania and plunder it as if Ilium’). 105 Arg. ll. 318–319 Severyns: ἐνταῦθα Ἄρης τοὺς μὲν περὶ Ὀδυσσέα τρέπεται (‘then Ares routes the followers of Odysseus’). 106 Od. 9.51–52: ἦλθον ἔπειθ’, ὅσα φύλλα καὶ ἄνθεα γίνεται ὥρῃ, | ἠέριοι (‘at dawn they were on us, thick as the leaves and flowers in spring’); Od. 14.266–268: οἱ δὲ βοῆς ἀΐοντες ἅμ’ ἠόϊ φαινομένηφιν | ἦλθον· πλῆτο δὲ πᾶν πεδίον πεζῶν τε καὶ ἵππων | χαλκοῦ τε στεροπῆς (‘the townsfolk, roused by the alarm, poured out at dawn. The whole place was filled with infantry and chariots and the glint of arms’). 107 Od. 9.54: στησάμενοι δ’ ἐμάχοντο μάχην παρὰ νηυσὶ θοῇσι (‘they fought a pitched battle by the swift ships’); Arch. fr. 17a.10–11 Swift: … οἱ̣ δ᾽ ἐπὶ θῖ̣ ν̣α̣ πολυφλοίσβοι[ο θαλάσσης | χέρσ’] ὕ̣ π᾽ ᾽ἀμειλίκτου φωτὸς ἐναιρό[μενοι (‘[the Achaeans] slain at the (hands) of a pitiless man, turned away headlong towards the shore of the much-resounding [sea]’, transl. by Swift 2019, 77); Pind. Ol. 9.72–73: ὅτ᾽ ἀλκᾶντας Δαναοὺς τρέψαις ἁλίαισιν | πρύμναις Τήλεφος ἔμβαλεν (‘when Telephus put in flight the mighty Danaans and attacked the sterns of their ships’). 108 The names Φείδων and Ἄκαστος seem to have been conditioned by the immediate context, as is the case with Κάστωρ Ὑλακίδης at the beginning of this false tale. See Blümlein

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle cyclic features; (d) an epichoric lay over which the cyclic features have been superimposed. (a) According to the analysis of Scott,109 the Phoenician phase (14.287–313) of Odysseus’ false tale to Eumaeus and some parts of the Thesprotian phase (14.314–359) are structured on an almost independent narrative vignette, which could be epitomized as ‘Double Salvation at Sea and on Shore of a Man Returning Home’ and is typical of oral narratives. This vignette contains the following segments: 1. A man is taken on board a ship to be sold into slavery; 2. there is a storm and the ship is destroyed; 3. the protagonist is saved through divine help; 4. after being washed ashore, he is given a friendly welcome by the locals; 5. the king offers hospitality to the castaway, gives him gifts and sends him on a ship home; 6. the crew takes him as prisoner; 7. he is saved when they go ashore. Considerable variation and rearrangement of features belonging to a traditional narrative pattern110 is a standard form of mutation of a typical structure, but their splitting within two phases of the same false tale is indicative of the fact that, although typical features operate on the horizontal axis and permeate the entire structure, they cannot be responsible for phenomena taking place on the vertical axis, where a generative process is at work. By dispersing and distributing the elements of this narrative typology into two subsequent phases of the same false tale, the tradition of our Odyssey shows that it has been conditioned not only by larger thematic patterns but also by specific choices pertaining to various other levels. (b) Apart from the narrative pattern discussed above, the Thesprotian episode contains the following features that have been conditioned by their interaction with elements found in the Odyssey with special reference to the Apologos:

 (1971, 25 nn. 1–2), who points to the role of ἀπριάτην (14.317) with respect to the former, but opts for the etymology alpha privativum + καίνυμαι with respect to the latter. 109 Scott 1989, 391. 110 These elements are also used in Odysseus’ false tale to Athena (Od. 13.272–286).

Phoenicia and Thesprotia  

1.

2.

3.

‘Clothing’ motif:111 Odysseus is clothed twice in this false tale, i.e. both by the Thesprotian king Pheidon who offers him a cloak and tunic (14.320) and by the Thesprotian thieves, who take his cloak and tunic and give him the rags he is wearing now that he is speaking to Eumaeus. It is clear that the ‘clothing’’ has been acclimatized both to the immediate context, since the disguised Odysseus asks Eumaeus for clothes as a reward in case he has real news about Odysseus (14.152–157, 395–396),112 as well as by the larger context of the Apologos, since it is a key feature of Odysseus’ meeting with Nausicaa: Odysseus asks for clothing (6.178–179), Nausicaa reassures him that he will not be in need of clothes as long as he is among the Phaeacians (6.192), and her servants give him a tunic and a cloak (6.214). The interplay between proper (tunic and cloak) and improper clothing (rags) with all its social connotations is thus reflected in the two clothing scenes of the long false tale to Eumaeus. The motif ‘Son/Daughter Takes the Stranger/Castaway to the Palace and Presents him to his/her Father’: in the Thesprotian episode, the motif is clearly secondary and plays no significant role, while in the Nausicaa episode it is primary, since it is crucial for the character-drawing of Odysseus and the continuation of the narrative (marriage of Nausicaa, athletic contests etc.). This motif may well have been inserted in the false tale as a reflection of a partly analogous scene in the Apologos, with certain necessary changes (Nausicaa as a parthenos cannot escort Odysseus to the palace but she can provide the means for him going there as a noble man). ‘Gift/Riches and Stealing’ motif: having acquired wealth on his own while being in Egypt, Odysseus is robbed on board in the Phoenician episode; the same is the case in the Thesprotian episode, when Thesprotian sailors try to reduce him to slavery. Both these complementary events stand in stark contrast to the gifts offered to Odysseus by king Alcinous and the good Phaeacians who take him to Ithaca and place his gifts on shore. The motif is typical but its use in the false tale clearly interacts with the Phaeacian episode in the Apologos.

 111 The ‘clothing’ motif is associated through the Apologos, the false tales, and the second part of the Odyssey at large with both Odysseus’ return and his constant use of lies in his encounters with various characters of the plot (Telemachus, Penelope, Eurymachus), who promise, for different reasons, to give Odysseus clothes. The systematic use of the ‘clothing’ motif with respect to Odysseus shows that it is particular to him. See Grossardt 1998, 74–82. 112 See de Jong 2001, 350.

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle 4. ‘Hiding’ motif: after being robbed by the Thesprotian pirates, Odysseus the storyteller unties himself while they take their supper ashore and hides behind a thicket of flowering shrubs (14.353–354). In the Nausicaa episode, Odysseus hides behind some bushes and covers his naked manhood with a leafy bough from a thicket. This is another case of interaction and variation of the same motif: questions of priority in this case are hard to pinpoint, even if in the Nausicaa episode hiding soon turns into concealment.113 (c) + (d) With respect to the Phoenician episode, I will only repeat what I have said before, namely that it is based on the ‘7+1 year’ cyclic motif, since Odysseus the storyteller says that he stayed in Phoenicia for one year before leaving for new adventures (Od. 14.292–294).114 As far as the Thesprotian episode is concerned, the search for cyclic motifs should be paired with the search for local lays on which they have been superimposed, for the Thesprotian adventure of Odysseus constitutes one of the most deeply rooted elements that have been embedded in our Odyssey. The prophecy of Tiresias, the last phase of Odysseus’ first false tale to Eumaeus, the cyclic Telegony, and even a mention of a lost Thesprotis by Pausanias,115 are some of the most important traces of a trans-epic view of Odysseus’ nostos. In Od. 14.327, Odysseus the storyteller tells Eumaeus that, when he was in the palace of king Pheidon in Thesprotia, he was told that Odysseus had gone to the oracle of Dodona ‘to learn the will of Zeus from the great oak-tree’ (ἐκ δρυὸς ὑψικόμοιο Διὸς βουλὴν ἐπακούσῃ). The Διὸς βουλή (Od. 14.327 = 19.297) is particularly associated to a specific choice Odysseus needs to make concerning how he should return to Ithaca, i.e. openly or in secret (ἢ ἀμφαδὸν ἦε  113 See also Homeric Hymn 2.125–144. 114 ἔνθα παρ’ αὐτῷ μεῖνα τελεσφόρον εἰς ἐνιαυτόν. | ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ μῆνές τε καὶ ἡμέραι ἐξετελεῦντο | ἂψ περιτελλομένου ἔτεος καὶ ἐπήλυθον ὧραι (‘and there I stayed with him for a whole year. But when the days and months had mounted up, and a second year began its round of the seasons’). 115 Paus. 8.12.5. I side with Marks (2008, 104 n. 44), who postulates the existence of a ‘relatively more epichoric Thesprotis’ and of a ‘relatively more Panhellenic Telegony’, though it is not clear if he is referring to the epic written by Eugammon of Cyrene. According to my view, a ‘relatively more epichoric Thesprotis’ belonged to a group of oral epic traditions about Odysseus that were prominent in Western Greece. Another tradition, which we may call Thesprotian-Telegonian and was rather more extended in scope and included basically Odysseus’ postIthacan adventures in Western Greece, lies behind Eugammon’s post-Homeric Telegony. The Panhellenic Odyssey shows traces of both the more limited in scope Thesprotis and of a wider Thesprotian-Telegonian oral epic tradition. See Tsagalis 2008, 63–90. Differently, Malkin 1998, 126–127.

Phoenicia and Thesprotia  

κρυφηδόν).116 Since the Διὸς βουλή motif in the Odyssey, as expressed in the divine councils in Books 1 and 5, concerns the completion of Odysseus’ return, we are able to see that it becomes progressively attenuated. Such a process is the reverse of what happens in the notorious Cypria-Iliad junction, where the general ‘Relief-of-Earth’ motif with its strong Near-Eastern overtones117 is compressed into the theme of giving satisfaction to Achilles by making the Trojans victorious. The motif of Διὸς βουλή, which has a long pre-Homeric history,118 is here employed in its cyclic aspect, i.e. in its proto-Panhellenic and still relatively epichoric coloring that marked an alternative tradition of Odysseus’ return.119 This is also the case with the mysterious references to Odysseus’ visit to Ephyra to get poisonous arrows.120 What we see here at work is the reflection of two

 116 This hint to his own condition remains completely unnoticed by Eumaeus. See Fuchs 1993, 31. 117 See Kullmann 1955, 185–186; Jouan 1966, 45; Burkert 1992, 100–106; Mayer 1996, 1–15; West 1997, 480–482; Marks 2002, 19. 118 See Kullmann 1955, 185–186. Differently Allan 2008, 204–216. 119 A predilection for oracles and prophecies is typical of cyclic epic. See Kullmann (1960, 221), who lists 17 such cases attested in the scant remains of the Epic Cycle; see also Griffin 1977, 48. 120 Od. 1.257–264. Ephyra is also mentioned by some anonymous suitor (2.325–330) together with Pylos and Sparta as a possible destination of Telemachus’ itinerary. This passage is important, for it may be reflecting not only alternative versions concerning Telemachus’ journey, but also alternative ways of killing the suitors (2.235–237). A careful look at the passage shows that Pylos and Sparta are associated with gathering allies to launch an attack on the numerous suitors in Ithaca, while Ephyra is linked with the δόλος of poisoning the suitors after getting a deadly poison and dropping it in the wine-bowl from where the suitors are drinking (2.238– 240). The question why the suitors thought of Ephyra, if it is in Thesprotia, has led Levaniouk (oral presentation) to argue that this is Elean Ephyra, a much more ‘reasonable’ Peloponnesian itinerary for Telemachus. This credible impossibility, which is only aimed at the audience, is not about geography but about alternative versions of the conflict between Telemachus (with Odysseus) and the suitors. To begin with, the suitors ‘see’ Odysseus behind Telemachus and express their fears in disguise. Both the ‘gathering of an army’ and the ‘poisoned wine’ motifs must have formed part of alternative, less heroic versions, which our Odyssey knows and systematically downgrades. In contrast to the widely held view that Ephyra in the Odyssey is always the Thesprotian one (S. West 1988; Malkin 1998; Nicolai 2002), Levaniouk thinks Elean Ephyra is here referred to, mainly because of a tradition connecting this location with poison, and that what is said here for Telemachus was true for both Odysseus and Telemachus in other versions. In my view, Od. 1.257–264 and 2.325–330 are referring to two different Ephyrai, the former in Thesprotia, the latter in Elis. What is important is that both Ephyrai are situated in a Western Greek axis and seem to belong to some sort of Western Greek koine that represented Western Greek epichoric traditions with a distinct regional character with respect to stories concerning Odysseus (Marks 2008, 108–109; Odysseus’ journeys to Elis and Thesprotia in the

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle different versions of Odysseus’ return with respect to the Thesprotian adventure, the one featuring Ephyra and the incident of the poisonous arrows, the other Dodona and the consultation of the oracle of Zeus. We may even speculate that the latter developed at a point when the oracle of Zeus started acquiring Panhellenic authority and thus ‘replaced’ the super-natural or magical element inherent in the theme of the poisonous arrows theme. This must have happened at an early stage of the Panhellenic phenomenon, when local traditions, especially in Western Greece, were still prominent. The confusion between Thesprotian and Elean Ephyra mirrors exactly this persistence of epichoric traditions about Odysseus during a ‘proto-Panhellenic’ stage.121 In tandem with these observations, the three separate registers comprising (a) a local lay characterized by strong links between Ithaca and the mainland, (b) typical oral features such as the hospitality of king Pheidon and his son, and (c) the cyclic motif of the Διὸς βουλή were fused into a Thesprotian adventure featuring in an alternative Odyssey. According to this version, the Cretan Odysseus is well received by the local king and his son, who, Nausicaa-like, leads him to the palace and gives him clothing before he travels to Dodona to find out from Zeus whether he should return to Ithaca openly or secretly.  post-Homeric Telegony by Eugammon of Cyrene may be going back to pre-Homeric Western Greek epichoric traditions). In this light, we may be dealing with two different versions of the alternative/Cretan Odyssey sub-group I have discussed in the beginning of this chapter: according to that mirrored in Book 1, Odysseus went to Thesprotian Ephyra and got poisonous arrows with which he killed the suitors, while according to another that lurks behind the anonymous suitor’s words in Book 2, he went together with Telemachus to Elean Ephyra and received θυμοφθόρα φάρμακα. The common denominator in all these versions is the way the suitors will be killed. Places thematize manners of killing and –by extension– heroic valour or lack of it. By opting for a version featuring few comrades (Eumaeus and Philoetius) and only his son as allies and avoiding super-weapons (poisonous arrows from Thesprotian Ephyra) or treacherous poisoning (from Elean Ephyra) or a small army of supporters (either from the Peloponnese or from Ithaca itself), the tradition of our Odyssey has elevated Odysseus’ exploit into an ἀριστεία shaping the heroism of its hero once and for all. 121 See Marks (2003, 224 n. 35), who argues that ‘the Elean tradition, associated as it was with the Panhellenic Olympic festival, may have included an alternative, ‘proto-Panhellenic’ account of Odysseus’ return with which the Odyssey competed for Panhellenic authority over Odysseus’ story’. See also by the same author (2008, 100–104, 109–111, and esp. 104): ‘rites and aitia relating to the oracles of Zeus, the dead, and Odysseus in Thesprotia, then offer plausible contexts for the development of epichoric and proto-Panhellenic narrative traditions. This is not to say that Thesprotia was an unrecognized cultural dynamo of the Archaic period, but rather that certain Thesprotian religious centers may have sponsored a vigorous Odysseustradition. […] Pausanias speaks of a Thesprotis that could represent one of the better-known of the west Greek traditions with which the Odyssey engages’.

The False Tales, ‘Proto-Panhellenism’, and the Rise of the Odyssey  

During the shaping and emergence of the Panhellenic tradition of our Odyssey a further development took place: just as the Egyptian and Phoenician episodes were ‘mapped on to’ the Calypso-Circe doublet122 by means of the cyclic ‘7+1 years’ motif, so the visit to Dodona (or even the confusion between an Elean Ephyra and a Thesprotian Ephyra close to the nekyomanteion) and the ‘hospitality of Pheidon and his son’ were split into the Nekyia-Phaeacian episodes respectively.123 This change was effected because the cyclic motif of the Διὸς βουλή (superimposed on the proto-Panhellenic tradition of divine consultation in Dodona) was replaced by a consultation of Tiresias in the Underworld, while the hospitable king Pheidon and his son were replaced by king Alcinous and Nausicaa. ‘7 +1 years’ motif (father/son)

Divine consultation + hospitality

Egypt + Phoenicia

Thesprotia

↓ 


Typical elements

↙

Calypso

↘

Circe

↙ Nekyia

↓

↘ Alcinous/Nausicaa

. The False Tales, ‘Proto-Panhellenism’, and the Rise of the Odyssey Odysseus’ longest false tale to Eumaeus displays a complex stratification including (a) typical, context-free elements, (b) typical features that interact with the narrative of the Apologos, (c) elements conditioned by the immediate context, and (d) traditional motifs that acquire their specific identity by means of being intricately entwined with Odysseus’ persona in Homeric and cyclic epic. It is against this backdrop that I will draw the larger picture with respect to the false tales as a whole. The false tales constitute one of the most extensive epic quotations (Zitat)124 embedded in the Odyssey, an intertextual window to alternative oral traditions of Odysseus’ return. By following a process of de-geographization, delinearization, and de-authorization of what in the false tales is and in an

 122 See Reinhardt 1960, 77–87; Crane 1988, 15–29; Steinthal 1991, 502–504; West 1997, 404; de Jong 2001, 130. 123 See Danek 1998, 286; Malkin 1998, 129; Marks 2008, 102–103. 124 See Danek 1998. The same observation applies to the ‘true’ tales (e.g. Nestor’s in Od. 3).

  Deauthorizing the Epic Cycle *alternative Odyssey was real geography,125 narrative linearity, and local versions concerning Odysseus’ return, the Odyssey was able to create two separate registers through which its relationship with the oral antecedents of the Epic Cycle could be communicated to the audience: while Odysseus’ adventures represent a fusion of motifs pertaining both to a pre-Homeric *Argonautica and mainly (but not solely) to the Utnapishtim episode in the epic of Gilgamesh, the false tales constitute a carefully designed allusion, mainly to cyclic myth featuring linear, episodic, local, and geographically traceable trajectories from Troy to Ithaca. The turning point may have been the decision made by the poet or tradition of our Odyssey to use motifs from the epic of Gilgamesh and of the *alternative Odyssey that the pre-Homeric oral *Argonautica did not supply.126 Part of the motivation behind this choice was perhaps to create a Panhellenic master myth for Odysseus’ return that would span these three traditions. As the Panhellenic viewpoint of this new song aimed at reaching a Panhellenic audience, it consistently, but also gradually, as far as the false tales are concerned, deauthorized other versions referring to Odysseus’ return.127 Seen from this vantage point, an intermediate ‘Proto-Panhellenic’ phase may be postulated, during which certain epichoric elements, especially those pertaining to Western Greek local traditions about Odysseus, were so strongly embedded in some versions narrating Odysseus’ return that they still survived in the *alternative Odyssey. When the Panhellenic phenomenon had finally erased or downplayed local epic traditions about Odysseus, the fusion of the exotic and fantastic world of the ‘Argonautic’ Apologos and the real and locally colored realm of the false tales reflecting a ‘Proto-Panhellenic’ *alternative Odyssey was complete. The Apologos with its pre-eminently unreal topography and characters transgressed borders and time constraints and allowed the Panhellenic tradition of the Odyssey to rise and replace the real world with an imaginary one, and — what is even more striking — to label the former as false and the latter as real. By appropriating the dichotomy between false and true myths and translating it into terms of epic rivalry, the Odyssean tradition was thus able to play masterfully with pseudea and alethea, i.e. with intratextual lies and intertextual truth.

 125 The false tales transfer the narrative of wanderings (in contrast to the Apologos) to the realm of what is real and familiar. See Hölcher 19903, 213; Rutherford 1992, 71; Grossardt 1998, 31. 126 See West 2005, 39–64. 127 Contra Hölscher 19903, 169: ‘der Prozeß der Episierung und Panhellenisierung der Sage ist ein und derselbe’.



Part II: Hesiod

 Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus Standing in the enormous shadow cast by Homer, Hesiod has been considered a poet of inferior status from an insignificant Boeotian town, which he himself describes in negative terms (Op. 640: Ἄσκρῃ, χεῖμα κακῇ, θέρει ἀργαλέῃ, οὐδέ ποτ’ ἐσθλῇ). Yet the uncertainty surrounding Hesiod is entirely different in type from that surrounding Homer. In contrast to the external narrator of Homeric epic, who never reveals his identity, Hesiod lavishes his audience with information concerning his own self: his father came from Cyme in Asia Minor (which had been founded by Aeolian colonists), but migrated to Ascra. We also learn of a brother named Perses, who is the constant recipient of advice in the Works and Days. I consider that later biographical accounts of Hesiod’s life resulting from the overabundance of information in Hesiodic poetry itself aim to promote a historically defined creator on a par with Homer.1 In this light, Hesiod is used in this chapter to refer to the poetic tradition epitomized in his name, irrespective of the question pertaining to a historical poet of the Theogony and the Works and Days. As regards the Catalogue of Women, I treat this poem as being chronologically incompatible with the Theogony and the Works and Days but as belonging to the same tradition of Hesiodic poetry. It is this poetry and poetics of this Hesiodic tradition that I will be examining regardless of whether Hesiod is a poet with flesh and bones2 or he should be ‘considered an idealized creation of the poetry in which he has an integral function’.3

. Theogony Despite being generally treated as simplistic in comparison with Homeric epic, the Theogony engages its listeners in a profound game with questions of genre, identity, and singer-audience relations. Given the wide scope of this topic, I intend to focus my attention on three aspects of Hesiodic concern with poetics, namely the acquisition of a distinct generic identity as expressed in the proem, by far the most dense poetological passage of the Theogony, the poetic aspirations and Panhellenic scope of this epic as shown in the interpretively arcane Hymn to Hecate, and last — but certainly not least — the interaction between  1 Lamberton 1988, 1–11. 2 See e.g. West’s commentaries on the Theogony 1966 and the Works and Days 1978a. 3 Nagy 1990a, 52. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-010

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus narrator and audience that will be studied under the narratological rubric of ‘commentary’.

.. The Proem of the Theogony The presence of the Muses in the proems of all three main Hesiodic poems indicates that they function as a catalyst in Hesiodic poetry, the more so since the invocation of the Muse(s) is an established theme in archaic Greek epic.4 References to the Muse in the proems of the Iliad (1.1), the Odyssey (1.1; 1.10) and the Homeric Hymns to Hermes (4.1) and Aphrodite (5.1) take the form of typical epic invocations. Yet the proem of the Theogony (1–115) makes these references more specific and by recording them on the level of divine revelation attempts to link the Hesiodic composition to its divine ‘hypostasis’, the Muses that inhabit Mt. Helicon.5 The regular use of ἄρχομαι (Hes. Th. 1, Homeric Hymns to Demeter 2.1, to Athena 11.1, to Demeter 13.1, to Asclepius 16.1, to Poseidon 22.1, to the Muses and Apollo 25.1, to Dionysus 26.1, to Athena 28.1) follows an established pattern.6 Yet in essence, in the proem of the Theogony it functions in a more elaborate manner. The substitution of the hymnic singular (ἄρχομαι) by the plural (ἀρχώμεθα) is not a grammatical detail.7 It suggests that the poet and Muses are to be treated as collaborators, even though the initial relationship between them was probably that of teacher and pupil. The Hesiodic song cannot but begin with the Muses, given that it had its beginnings in the Muses, who taught the insignificant shepherd the art of song. Manner and causative affinity are treated as identical here, paving the way for the recounting of a metaphorical encounter, which sets out the spatial and temporal boundaries of the Hesiodic poetic journey. From this point of view, ἀρχώμεθα acquires a secondary, figurative meaning in a poem like the Theogony, which shows such a keen interest in first beginnings. Thus, an epic on the origins of the gods and the world opens with the staging of poetic genesis, which is, after all, a precondition for its own creation. The advent of the Muses and ensuing poetic ‘birth’ of Hesiod, squeezed between the two songs of the Muses, act both backwards and forwards within the

 4 For a structural division of the proem of the Theogony, see Kambylis 1965, 34–35. 5 On the proem of the Theogony, see Kambylis 1965, 31–68; Lenz 1980, 123–181. 6 Hymn 25.2–5 (to the Muses and Apollo) reproduces verses 94–97 of the Hesiodic Theogony. 7 See the present participle ὑμνεῦσαι, which constitutes an internal indication of the genre of the Muses’ song and the nature of the proem.

Theogony  

framework of a tripartite structure. The Muses’ words are presented as embedded secondary focalization. This choice increases their importance, since the process of Hesiod’s poetic initiation (Dichterweihe) can be presented not only from the Muses’ point of view (26–28), but also from his own (30–34), as is the case with the second part, which is related in indirect speech through the voice of the primary narrator. The Muses’ words are framed by repeated reference to their divine, in this case Olympian, identity (25), and their descent from Zeus (29). The triple reference to the shepherds (26: ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ’ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον) shows that Hesiodic epic highlights the distinction between gods and men as the main thematic motif in the process of poetic initiation.8 This is indicated by the reproachful tone in the Muses’ words, attributing animal traits to the shepherds. The same intent is clear in the distinction between ἔτυμα (27) and ἀληθέα (28),9 which refer to human and divine truth respectively.10 In this case, a distinction is not drawn between truth and falsehood, as is the case in the Odyssey,11 but rather between two kinds of truth—the ἀληθέα, eternal truths which lie beyond the restrictive limitations of any sense of time, and ἔτυμα, truths relating to the real world. The second kind of truth (ἔτυμα) appears to be a kind of falsehood since it is prone to constant change. The contrast between truth and falsehood is not absent from the Muses’ speech. It is undoubtedly present, yet not dominant, since it is clearly subject to the distinction between human and divine truth that is fundamental to Hesiodic poetry. The arcane tone of the Muses’ speech is the

 8 Stoddard 2004, 74–85. The reference to the bellies denotes deception and lies. See Svenbro 1976, 50–59; Arthur 1983, 102; Pucci 1987, 191–208; Marsilio 2000, 10–13; Murnaghan 2006, 99. 9 On the semantic nuances of the terms ἔτυμα and ἀληθέα in archaic epic, see Krischer 1965, 161–174; Leclerc 1993, 212–221; Levet (1976, 161–162) attributes the sense of conjectured reality to ἔτυμος, and those of seemingly logical and confirmed reality to ἐτεός and ἐτήτυμος respectively. 10 With respect to the Muses’ speech, there are three more poetological theories: (a) the Hesiodic tradition uses the terms ἔτυμα and ἀληθέα to invite a striking comparison to Homeric poetry (Od. 19.203; see Verdenius 1972, 234–235; Murray 1981, 91; Puelma 1989, 75; Pöhlmann 1989; Arrighetti 1996); (b) Hesiod’s aim was to promote the authenticity of his own theogonic tradition on the basis of verisimilitude (see Stein 1990, 11; Rudhardt 1996, 30); (c) ψεύδεα refer to local versions of the Theogony indigenous to particular areas, whereas ἀληθέα point to theogonies known throughout the Greek world (see Nagy 1990a, 44–47). A different view has been put forward by Heiden (2007, 153–175), who has argued that the word ὁμοῖα does not designate resemblance but equivalence and that (171) ‘the Muses do not blame the poets for telling lies [but] blame the shepherds for not understanding what the Muses’ lies are’. 11 See Odysseus’ false tales, which are characterized as ‘lies similar to true things’ (ψεύδεα ... ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, Od. 19.203).

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus hallmark of their divine advent. In combination with another quintessentially enigmatic phrase (35: ἀλλὰ τίη μοι ταῦτα περὶ δρῦν ἢ περὶ πέτρην;), which follows on,12 it creates an intentionally opaque framework that serves as interpretive guide: the enigmatic speech of the Muses is consonant with the riddling nature of the beginning of the Theogony.13 The cryptic pitch of line 35 does not aim to level the internal semantic distinction between truth and falsehood;14 on the contrary, it is an attempt to tell the audience to tune in to an interpretive wavelength, which is difficult to trace, yet essential if the Hesiodic Theogony is to be fully understood. This distinction is reinforced by the use of different verb forms for ἔτυμα and ἀληθέα. The verb λέγειν, which is employed in the former instance, merely denotes speech production and not its evaluation, as is the case with the infinitive γηρύσασθαι. By recalling religious language, the latter is imbued with the prestige associated with any theological revelation. ἔτυμα are equal to ψεύδεα, in the sense that they are incapable of expressing the eternal truth because they are subject to the limitations imposed by the evanescent world of mortals. In this conception, despite the fact that line 27 (ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα) recalls Odysseus’ false stories (Od. 19.203: ἴσκε ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγων ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα), the Hesiodic line is clearly heading to a distinct semantic direction.15 The aorists encountered in the passage on poetic initiation should also be placed within this interpretive framework. The Hesiodic tradition uses a false past tense (such as the aorist) to refer to the performance of the Theogony itself. In following Bakker16 and Stoddard,17 I believe that the aorists should be interpreted as a mechanism for the creation of vividness (ἐνάργεια). By employing them, epic poetry presents events belonging to a distant past as if happening right in front of the audience’s eyes, at the moment the bard sings them.18 The

 12 On the meaning of this enigmatic phrase, see West 1966, 167–9; Hofmann 1971, 90–97; Nagy 1990a, 181–199; Schmoll 1994, 46–52; O’Bryhim 1996, 131–138; Stoddard 2004, 87 n. 57. 13 Stoddard 2004, 84–85. 14 Pratt 1993, 110. 15 Finkelberg 1998, 160 offers a different interpretation of the reference to the Muses’ ability to tell ‘truths similar to lies’. According to this view, Hesiod’s insistence on the unorthodox presentation of the Muses as divinities who can also tell lies arises from his poetic conservatism, since he wished to preserve the typologically established conviction that poets were divinely inspired. 16 Bakker 2002, 63–81 (= 2005, 135–153). 17 Stoddard 2004, 134–135. 18 Bakker 1999, 50–65; 2001c, 1–23 (= 2005, 114–135).

Theogony  

aorists do not simply underscore the fact that the Muses are subject to the framework of human time, but also self-referentially project the Hesiodic Theogony as the reconstruction of divine advent par excellence. The expression νύ ποθ’ (Th. 22), accompanied by the ensuing (augmented) aorist ἐδίδαξαν, also functions within the same framework for ‘remembering’ or ‘evoking’ a past event, which comes to life at the moment the Theogony is performed.19 Indeed, the internal analepsis, which the expression νύ ποθ’ appears to inaugurate in archaic poetry, is virtually nullified in temporal terms and acquires the character of a conjunction, since ποθ’ is linked to the narrative present (1: ἀρχώμεθ’). At the moment of its performance, epic poetry acquires an almost religious or cultic function, since the Hesiodic Theogony recreates the divine advent of the Muses, retrieved from poetic memory and repeated in epic time and space, in the hic et nunc of the performance, in front of a real audience. More specifically, the handling of time is the poetic metalanguage used by the Hesiodic Theogony to translate divine atemporality or perhaps extemporality into a linear sequence with genealogically organised features relating to descent, thus rendering them both more accessible to human experience and more recognisable to an audience familiar with catalogue poetry in general. The Hesiodic focus pertains to a mortal looking through his narrative lens at the world of the immortals, enabling the human gaze to glance at the atemporal divine horizon.

.. The Hymn to Hecate The hymn to Hecate has been the object of extensive research, for scholars have always been intensely preoccupied with a number of primary issues relating to: (a) its length; (b) its position, by way of an insertion between genealogical catalogues; (c) the fact that it is clearly laudatory in nature, albeit for a secondary divinity. According to a now virtually abandoned theory that we may call analytical, the hymn to Hecate is a later addition to the main corpus of an Ur-Theogonie, which, along the lines of the Ur-Ilias, would have borne the indelible imprint of its one and only creator, the historically verified Boeotian poet Hesiod.20 Supporters of the biographical theory believe that the hymn to Hecate reflects features relating to the worship of the goddess and Hesiod’s special relation to it.21 The religion-

 19 Stoddard 2004, 136. 20 Fick 1887, 17; von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1931, 169–170. 21 Mazon 1928, 5; Pfister 1928, 8; Aly 1966, 65 n. 23; West 1966, 276–280.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus based theory proposed by Judet de la Combe22 and Wismann23 sees Hecate as a representative of chthonic powers descended from Gaia, while Boedecker24 stresses the triple functionality of Hecate (power, strength and productivity), which in some way replicates the three basic functions typical of both the protoIndo-European religious world and the heroic pantheon. Allied to Boedecker’s latter proposal is Zeitlin’s25 gender-oriented theory, according to which the main feature of the hymn to Hecate is the way in which it acts as a counterpoint to the myth of Pandora appearing soon afterwards in the narrative course of the Theogony. According to another view, the religious dimension of Hecate is textually oriented.26 Clay,27 who also adopts a textual approach, highlights Hecate’s willingness that is seen as an attempt at intercession between mortals and immortals, so that the former can gain what they seek from the latter via the process of ritual sacrifice. The poetological approach taken by Griffith,28 and still more that by Nagy,29 marks a turning point in the interpretation of the hymn to Hecate. Griffith argues that Hecate symbolizes the transition from an older to a newer order, with reference to the overall conceptualization of the world as emerging in the Hesiodic Theogony. Nevertheless, her role is more a question of poetic taxonomy than of biographical textualization. Nagy views Hecate as a composite divinity of Panhellenic orientation. Her presence in the Theogony is consistent with a conscious attempt by the Hesiodic tradition to broaden the range of listeners interested in a song of such scope.30 This view is also espoused by Stoddard, who is poised between a purely poetological interpretation and a text-centred one. The present contribution makes use of several of the findings of the aforementioned theories, with the exception of the analytical and biographical ones. Indeed, it may be argued that far from undermining the clear poetological dimension to the hymn to Hecate, Clay’s textual interpretation and Zeitlin’s gender-oriented approach further reinforce it. The textual interpretation accounts for the position of the hymn, and the gender-oriented and religion-based ones highlight Hecate’s relation to Zeus, yet none offers a convincing explanation for the length or structure of the hymn. Though clearly visible, the poem’s Panhel 22 Judet de la Combe 1996, 263–299. 23 Wisman 1996, 23. 24 Boedecker 1983, 85. 25 Zeitlin 1996, 53–86. 26 Rudhardt 1993, 204–213. 27 Clay 1984, 34–37. 28 Griffith 1983, 51–55. 29 Nagy 1982, 64. 30 See Nagy 1982, 43–73.

Theogony  

lenic orientation must also be linked to an attempt by the Hesiodic tradition to acquire Panhellenic authority. The hymn is an early form of hallmarking, an internally declared indicator that this particular Theogony is Hesiodic par excellence.31 This theory rests on the following evidence: (a) the rhetorical features of ring composition, anaphora, and assonance tune the hymn to a recognizably Hesiodic tone, as is the case with the appearance of similar features in another passage of indisputable poetological hue, the proem of the Works and Days. (b) The length of the hymn as well as the fact that it is grafted onto purely genealogical material set out in catalogue form, indicates that the Hesiodic tradition aims at making its own distinct voice heard. In this sense, the traditional genealogical material must be interspersed with something eminently personal and exceptionally Hesiodic. (c) The use of the name Perses in the Theogony for Hecate’s father cannot be unrelated to Hesiod’s brother Perses, the internal addressee in the Works and Days. These features indicate that like Hesiod, so Perses too should perhaps be seen as a textual-poetic mirror inextricably bound up with Hesiodic epic tradition. (d) The reference to ἄεθλα (Th. 435–438) indicates a competitive framework, recalling the poetological framework in the Nautilia of the Works and Days, where there is a specific reference to the poetic triumph won by Hesiod at the funeral games in honor of Amphidamas at Chalcis. Hecate stands by and assists those competing, just as the Muses assisted Hesiod through the gift of song, thus rendering his victory at the poetic contest at Chalcis possible. (e) The use of vocabulary encountered in poetologically colored passages of the Works and Days (such as the proem and the Nautilia) highlights its distinctly Hesiodic tone: δυσπέμφελος Th. 440—Op. 618, ῥεῖα Th. 419, 438, 443, ῥηιδίως Th. 442—ῥέα Op. 5, ῥεῖα Op. 6, ἀτρυγέτοιο θαλάσσης Th. 413—πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης Op. 648, ἐξ ὀλίγων βριάει καὶ ἐκ πολλῶν μείονα θῆκεν Th. 447—ῥέα μὲν γὰρ βριάει, ῥέα δὲ βριάοντα χαλέπτει | ῥεῖα δ’ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει Op. 5–6. (f) Lines 445–447 echo the Agriculture section in the Works and Days, which also contains poetological metaphors.32 (g) The honor33 which Zeus has lavished on Hecate, and her willingness34 as regards the  31 The Iliad and the Theogony allude to a rich theogonic epic tradition. The latter uses allusion to earlier theogonic poetry to carve its position within theogonic song and, in extension, to acquire and promote its identity. All three main Hesiodic poems (Theogony, Works and Days, Catalogue of Women) are hybrid epic compositions that represent innovative and highly successful reactions to putative source poems of a theogonic, didactic, and catalogic nature respectively. 32 Marsilio 2000, 51–52. 33 Th. 412, 414–415, 418, 422, 426, 428, 449, 452. 34 Th. 429–430, 432, 439, 443, 446.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus benefaction of mortals, may be an indirect encomium of the poetic tradition which reserves a special place for this outstanding goddess. An important poem on the origins of the gods requires important deities, recognisable to the gamut of any potential Greek-speaking audience, since the aim is not a composition of local scope, limited to the confines of Boeotia, but rather an ambitious, Panhellenic composition. The Hymn to Hecate is effectively grafted into the poetics of the Hesiodic Theogony for one more reason: it embeds in the poem features from the hymnic genre. By engulfing hymnic poetry and bestowing to it a Hesiodic identity of a fine-grained manner, the Hesiodic Theogony stands out from all other thematically related theogonic and hymnic traditions.

.. Commentary Narratology has used the term ‘commentary’ to designate comments made to the audience or readers via the narrative voice of the external narrator, who is the author’s textual representative within the text. Stoddard has argued that the narrator of the Hesiodic Theogony uses commentary, i.e. ‘speech acts that go beyond narrating, describing, or identifying’35 so as to allude to his own persona.36 According to Richardson,37 this commentary may concern both the story and the discourse. One early form of commentary has been termed ‘explanatory’, since it provides the audience with information that the Hesiodic narrator knows by means of divine inspiration. One of the ways an ancient audience would have interpreted the use of name etymology is as a sign of poetic authority,38 since etymologizing implicitly evaluates catalogue citation. The use of names in an oral epic composition before a real audience does not have the same function as name citation in a written text. In summoning various gods and goddesses into the present of the performance, it renders them accessible to the audience. The singer shows his listeners that his version of a theogonic song is the most valid one, since it creates a link between language and ‘reality’. Thus, when we hear that Κύκλωπες δ’ ὄνομ’ ἦσαν ἐπώνυμον, οὕνεκ’ ἄρά σφεων | κυκλοτερὴς ὀφθαλμὸς ἕεις ἐνέκειτο μετώπῳ (Th. 144–145), we can see that the singer displays his knowledge of the link between signifier and signified, since he explains to his audience that

 35 Chatman 1978, 228. 36 Stoddard 2004, 162. 37 Richardson 1990, 140. 38 Stoddard 2004, 170–172.

Theogony  

the name Κύκλωπες reflects an anatomical feature of the Cyclopes: the round eye these creatures have on their forehead. Another form of commentary is the so-called ‘critical’ commentary. In this case Hesiod does not address his audience directly, but instead expresses a judgement — hence the term critical commentary — on some character of the plot. This is usually accomplished by means of adjectives.39 In this way, the narrator makes a move towards his listeners: by expressing his personal view, he preempts and influences their judgement. Yet at the same time this method attests to the poetological establishment of Hesiodic poetry. Its identity is by now recognisable, the appropriation of epic conventions clear and its personal style well marked. From the undifferentiated citation of elements organized in catalogue form, it moves on to articulate its own distinct voice, which spills over into the main narrative, as in the following instructive example (Th. 950–955): Ἥβην δ᾽ Ἀλκμήνης καλλισφύρου ἄλκιμος υἱός, ἲς Ἡρακλῆος, τελέσας στονόεντας ἀέθλους, παῖδα Διὸς μεγάλοιο καὶ Ἥρης χρυσοπεδίλου, αἰδοίην θέτ᾽ ἄκοιτιν ἐν Οὐλύμπῳ νιφόεντι, ὄλβιος, ὃς μέγα ἔργον ἐν ἀθανάτοισιν ἀνύσσας ναίει ἀπήμαντος καὶ ἀγήραος ἤματα πάντα. The strong son of beautiful-ankled Alcmene, Heracles’ strength, made Hebe, the daughter of great Zeus and of golden-sandaled Hera, his reverend wife on snowy Olympus, after he had completed his painful tasks — happy he, for after having accomplished his great work among the immortals he dwells unharmed and ageless for all his days.

The ‘entry’ Ἥβη in the catalogue of divinities in the Theogony is organized in the same way as other lemmata on the same theme, i.e. on the basis of her union with Heracles, son of Alcmene. The narrator takes advantage of the opportunity offered by the mention of a hero-cum-symbol of the human world in the Theogony, a hero who has already been used poetologically in the narrative digressions of the passages on the descendants of Ceto and Prometheus. By embedding in the entry Ἥβη a personal comment lying outside the plot, the Hesiodic tradition leaves its audience with the impression that it has full control of the version being cited; that in reality, what resembles an annotated mythological handbook bears the lasting imprint of a strict choice. In using the epithet ὄλβιος, the Hesiodic tradition looks upon the material being listed in perspec 39 This method is also common in the Homeric epics, the renowned νήπιοι in the proem to the Odyssey (1.8) being an early attestation of critical commentary.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus tive, from the future, as only the creator of the Theogony himself could do. In addition, since among the entries dedicated to deities in this section of the Theogony this is the only one in which the focus (as emerges from the reference to deification) does not concern a female figure, but exclusively a male one (Heracles), it becomes clear that his case is set apart. This differentiation is dictated by the critical commentary itself, since the relative clause ὃς μέγα ἔργον … ἤματα πάντα (Th. 954–955) extends the poetic comment. Furthermore, given that this divergence from the norm is correlated with the particular significance Heracles has in the Theogony as a link between the divine and mortal worlds, ὄλβιος acquires an implicit poetological tone. The third and final category of commentary may be called ‘interpretive’, since the narrator tries to impose on his audience his own particular interpretation of mythical material. The Typhonomachy or section on Typhoeus represents a kind of interpretive commentary.40 The narrator begins by drawing a distinction between the favorable winds (Notos, Boreas, Zephyrus) and the destructive ones on the basis of their genealogy, the former being the offsprings of the gods and the latter of Typhoeus. By explaining natural phenomena in terms of divine pedigree as presented in his own theogonic version, Hesiod introduces to his audience a world that he alone can know, due to his divine authorization by the Muses.41 Interpretive commentary may also be working as a ‘nod’ to earlier poetry which the Hesiodic Theogony knows. In 378–380, we are told that Eos conceived by Astraeus ‘Zephyrus, the scouring West Wind, Boreas, rushing and fleet-footed North Wind and Notus the South Wind’. These winds, which are ‘a magnificent blessing for mankind’ (θνητοῖς μέγ᾽ ὄνειαρ, Th. 871) are related to their stepbrother Memnon, son of Eos and Tithonus (Th. 984). These winds are presented in a positive light as they are differentiated from the winds associated with Typhoeus who bring destruction to men both at sea and on land (Th. 872– 880). By reading the positive-negative polarity of the two groups of winds in terms of their genealogy, Hesiod moves away from earlier theogonic or typhonomachic epic and places himself next to what would become the mainstream epic tradition.42 Apart from the story, commentary also concerns the discourse. Nünlist and Stoddard have argued that the narrator of the Theogony uses direct references to poetic composition itself and to the very performance of the poem. Lines 369– 370 of the Theogony are a typical case:  40 Stoddard 2004, 170–172. 41 Nünlist 2004, 29; Stoddard 2004, 172. 42 On allusions of the Hesiodic Typhonomachy to earlier epic poetry, see Currie (forthcoming).

Works and Days  

τῶν ὄνομ᾽ ἀργαλέον πάντων βροτὸν ἀνέρ᾽ ἐνισπεῖν, οἳ δὲ ἕκαστοι ἴσασιν, ὅσοι περιναιετάωσιν The names of them all it is difficult for a mortal man to tell, but each of those who dwell around them knows them.

The narrator openly declares his presence by stressing his inability to give the names of the rivers, which represents a typologically established epic technique.43 This is not merely aimed at indirect (in this case unacknowledged) recognition of the Muses’ poetic contribution, but rather at the ‘evaluation of the act of narration itself’.44 Indirect commentary either on the level of the story or on the level of the narrator’s art is aimed at the audience.45 Direct mention of the identity of the audience may be absent, but so is direct mention of the narrator’s identity. The approach recommended here is inextricably bound up with the fact that the very performance of heroic song renders direct reference to the audience’s identity impossible, precisely because the singer targets heterogeneous potential audiences by means of a composition of Panhellenic aspirations. The only way out available to him is to adopt internal conventions reflecting the act of performing theogonic poetry that rests on the narrator–audience-song triptych. With respect to the Theogony, these conventions have been internalized into a whole set of narrative rules, the shepherd-poet Hesiod, the advent of the Muses, insistence on relating the immortal world to that of mortals and, finally, apparent inability to recall and present details, which of course only acquires meaning before an audience.

. Works and Days The poetics of this undoubtedly multifarious and idiosyncratic work are of equal interest with the Theogony. Poetological signs point to two different but complementary directions: being symmetrically distributed between the two distinct parts this poem is roughly divided into, the mythological and the practical, they aim at placing the Works and Days both within the framework of Hesiodic poetry as delineated by the Theogony and at determining its special nature within the wider corpus of archaic Greek epic. In what follows, I will first deal with sections belonging to the mythological part, such as the proem and the myth of

 43 See Il. 2.488–492. 44 Nünlist 2004, 29. 45 Pace Nünlist 2004, 30.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus races, and then with sections pertaining to the ‘manual of practical advice’ such as the Agriculture and Nautilia, where the emphasis is both on the figure of the poet as a skilled artisan and on the nature of Hesiodic didactic poetry as represented by the Works and Days.

.. The Proem of the Works and Days While not as long as the proem of the Theogony, the poetological interest of its counterpart in the Works and Days is beyond doubt. Its striking originality lies in the fact that it has two distinct addressees, the Muses (1–2) and Zeus (9–10). The Muses, who are linked to Pieria (Op. 1: Πιερίηθεν), are the addressees of the opening invocation. The word δεῦτε (2) expresses in the most tangible manner the hic et nunc of the performance, which is devoted to the praise of Zeus. The reference to the greatest of gods (2: Δί’—σφέτερον πατέρ’) sets in motion the expansion of the main subject, in accordance with the practice typologically established in the Homeric proems.46 The internal structure of this reference is contrived with the utmost care. Verses 3–4 are organized around two causal references to Zeus, which open (ὅν τε διά) and round off (4: Διός μεγάλοιο ἕκητι) the two verses in the form of ring composition. Within this framework, the total dependence of human beings on the god’s power is emphatically stressed, as the preceding statement (3) is followed by a chiastic pattern (A-: A+/ B+ : B-) which rests on the repetition of the root of the antithetical terms: ἄφατοι: φατοί—ῥητοί: ἄρρητοι. Schematically, the entire distich can be represented as follows: ὅν τε διὰ βροτοὶ ἄνδρες ὁμῶς ἄΦΑΤΟΙ τε ΦΑΤΟΙ τε, ῬHTOI τ’ ἄPPHTOI τε Διὸς μεγάλοιο ἕκητι. Through whom mortal men are unfamed and famed alike, and named and unnamed, by the will of great Zeus.

The rhetorical sophistication that is a component of hymnic language culminates in the three ensuing lines:47

 46 I am referring to the modification of the main theme (expressed in the accusative as the subject of the main verb) by accumulation of relative clauses. 47 The various types of characters used here connote correspondences and repetitions, while numbers above lines indicate syntactic similarities further reinforced by syllabic equivalence and symmetrical positioning.

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ῥέα μὲν γὰρ BPIAEI, ῥέα δὲ BPIAONTA χαλέπτει, 4 3 3 3 ῥεῖα δ’ ἀρίζηλον μινύθει καὶ ἄδηλον ἀέξει 3 3 4 2 ῥεῖα δέ τ’ ἰθύνει σκολιὸν καὶ ἀγήνορα κάρφει

The sequence comprising a four-syllable adjective + a three-syllable verb (4:3/ ἀρίζηλον: μινύθει) and a three-syllable adjective + a three-syllable verb (3:3 / ἄδηλον: ἀέξει) is repeated in almost inverted form in the following line with a three-syllable adjective + a three-syllable verb (3:3/ ἰθύνει: σκολιόν) and a foursyllable adjective + a two-syllable verb (4:2 / ἀγήνορα: κάρφει). The ring between the beginning (ὅν τε διὰ) and the end (Διὸς μεγάλοιο ἕκητι) of lines 3–4 lays the groundwork for the cumulative enumeration of the multiple aspects of Zeus’ power. The particular emphasis placed on the ease with which divine punishment is meted out by Zeus (5: ῥέα ..., ῥέα ... / 6: ῥεῖα ... / 7: ῥεῖα ...) is completed in verse 8: Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης, ὃς ὑπέρτατα δώματα ναίει. Whereas the initial invocation to the Muses probably rested more on its typological foundation than on any organic relationship with the proem of the Works and Days, the second address highlights the role of Zeus-sent justice.48 Last, but certainly not least, the poetic voice is felt in the final verse by (a) an emphatically expressed first-person declaration (ἐγώ), (b) an addressee designated by name (Πέρσῃ), and (c) recognisable Hesiodic poetological terms (ἐτήτυμα, μυθησαίμην). The elaborate construction of this proem compensates for its marked brevi49 ty. Its dual addressees, its studied sophistication, the almost mannerist pursuit of emphatic repetition and architecturally structured contrast, together with the striking first-person declaration of both the poetic ego and the internal listenercum-addressee of the poem, all show that for Hesiodic tradition the proem of the Works and Days constitutes the established framework for the pronouncement of its goal.50

 48 This second address, which is accompanied by a paratactic citation of important aspects of Zeus’ activity (9: κλῦθι ἰδὼν αἰών τε), leads to a narratively defined invocation: δίκῃ δ’ ἴθυνε θέμιστας | τύνη (9–10). 49 The term brevity is employed in comparison to the expanded proem of the Theogony. 50 On the proem of the Works and Days (1–10), see Lenz (1980, 182–252), who argues that its aim is to associate the order, justice and decorum symbolized by Zeus with the personal context of Hesiod’s life (249).

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus .. The Myth of Races In examining the poetics of one of the most famous passages in the Works and Days, I shall first discuss the poetological introduction in lines 106–108. After a critical engagement with the theories advanced thus far on the interpretation of the myth of races, I shall explore the kind of intertextual relationship shared by the divine genealogy in the Theogony and the human genealogy in the famous myth of races. ... The Poetological Introduction The poetological reading of the myth of races rests on the three introductory verses, with which the narrator opens his mythological digression: εἰ δ᾽ ἐθέλεις, ἕτερόν τοι ἐγὼ λόγον ἐκκορυφώσω εὖ καὶ ἐπισταμένως, σὺ δ᾽ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ βάλλεο σῇσιν. ὡς ὁμόθεν γεγάασι θεοὶ θνητοί τ᾽ ἄνθρωποι. If you wish, I shall recapitulate another story, correctly and skillfully, and you lay it up in your spirit: how the gods and mortal human beings came about from the same origin.

From the very outset, the narrator declares his ability to recount a λόγος (106) or didactic narrative. The emphasis placed on the acquiescence of Perses, as recipient of the digression, in hearing Hesiod’s λόγος recalls the proem of the Theogony, in which the Muses stress their ability regarding the telling of the truth (28). The difference between the two passages lies in the shift of focus from the speaker in the Theogony to the listener in the Works and Days. In poetological terms, this shift in focus is interpreted as a deviation from the pattern established by the Muses as portrayed in the Theogony. Divine speech is by definition authoritative and audience acceptance is taken for granted. In the Works and Days, however, Perses as an internal recipient of Hesiodic teaching must be willing to receive the advice and admonitions of the main narrator. By the expression λόγον ἐκκορυφώσω (106) the narrator unreservedly expresses his intention not only to reveal the central theme of the ensuing λόγος but also to bring it to its conclusion.51 The expression εὖ καὶ ἐπισταμένως (107) indicates

 51 See West 1978a, on Hes. Op. 106–107, and the Σ ad loc. (106–108 Pertusi): τὸ ἐκκορυφῶσαι δηλοῖ τὸ ἀποκαλύψαι καὶ εἰς τὴν ἄκραν γνῶσιν ἡμᾶς ἀναπέμψαι τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως. Δηλοῖ τὸ ἐπαγόμενον.

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that, just like the singer of the Odyssey52 and the narrator in the Theogony,53 Hesiod in the Works and Days will recite a story worthy of the audience’s attention. The second, adjunct meaning of the intra-carminal54 future ἐκκορυφώσω underlines its poetological dimension, since the narrator’s attention focuses on the very moment of performance, by recreating it. Likewise in the ensuing introductory verses of the myth about the hawk and the nightingale, the intracarminal future ἐρέω (202) enunciates the act of narration. ... Interpretive Approaches to the Myth of Races The linear theory adopts a vertical reading of the five races, seeing the gold race at the top and the iron one at the lowest point of a literally and metaphorically descending scale.55 Smith’s psychological theory56 argues that each race corresponds to a distinct age in human life, seen in ascending order, from childhood to old age. Attempts to identify Hesiod’s sources (orientalizing theory) began several years ago.57 The fundamental problem lies both in the race of heroes, which is interposed between the four metals, and in the fact that in the Works and Days, the myth of races is used in a way that differs radically from Eastern traditions: in the latter, the scale of four metals is used to predict the future, whereas in Hesiodic tradition the same scale, augmented by the race of heroes, is used to organize the past.58 Structuralist models mark a turning point, since the myth of races is not interpreted in a linear fashion, but rather on the basis of converging and diverging elements revealed by the analysis of the structure of each race. The first decisive contribution was made by Vernant,59 who argued that we are here dealing with six races rather than five, since the last in the chain, the iron race, can be further separated into two races, one of which relates to the present and the other to the future. According to Most’s structuralist model,60 the initial Hesiodic five-race division has two distinct levels. The first encompasses a tripartite categorization of the races into (a) gold, (b) silver and

 52 See Od. 11.368: μῦθον δ’ ὡς ὅτ’ ἀοιδὸς ἐπισταμένως κατέλεξας. 53 See Th. 86–88: ... ὃ δ᾽ ἀσφαλέως ἀγορεύων | αἶψά κε καὶ μέγα νεῖκος ἐπισταμένως κατέπαυσεν. 54 On the term ‘intra-carminal’ future, see Pelliccia 1995, 317–334. 55 Meyer 1966, 471–522 (= 1924, 15–66). 56 Smith 1980, 145–163. 57 See West 1997, 312–319. 58 See Smith 1980, 149. 59 Vernant 1960, 21–54 (= 1985, 19–45 = 1990, 13–43). 60 Most 1997, 104–127.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus (c) bronze, heroic, iron, and the second a four-part classification into (a) gold, (b) silver, (c) bronze and (d) heroic, iron. The tripartite categorization rests on two observations: firstly, Hesiod accompanies the introductory transition to the silver race with the note that ‘like the golden one neither in body nor in mind’ (129: χρυσέῳ οὔτε φυὴν ἐναλίγκιον οὔτε νόημα), and the respective preliminary reference to the bronze race with the clear statement that ‘not similar to the silver one at all (144: ... οὐκ ἀργυρέῳ οὐδὲν ὁμοῖον). Secondly, since no such explicit or latent comment is made on the other three races, it is clear that the Hesiodic tradition wishes to distinguish them from the two previous ones. Criteria for setting them apart are their biological make-up, descent and fate after death. The four-part classification rests on the fact that the Hesiodic tradition deliberately blurs the boundaries between the heroic and bronze races, the more so since there is no clear explanation of how the latter was created.61 Like Vernant’s horizontal structuralism, Most’s evolutionary model focuses on the heroic race, but differs from it in the way it sees its function. Setting out from the acknowledgment of the heroic race’s enigmatic eccentricity, which arises from its inclusion in a myth of races of eastern provenance, Most even speaks of the ‘trapping’ of an initial thematic core in the rationale of this epic. The greatest contribution made by this model lies both in its functional exploitation of the structural break represented by the heroic race within the continuity of the myth of races, and in its intertextual perspective, according to which the myth of races is incorporated in the wider framework of Hesiodic poetry and is interpreted by comparison with the divine archaeology of the Hesiodic Theogony.62 ... Poetics The heroic race should not be interpreted solely as arising from the pressure exercised by the Greek heroic tradition. The mode of its presentation is of vital significance. The insistence on the Theban and Trojan generation of heroes amounts to a statement of poetic beliefs, since through them Hesiodic poetry hints at the respective poetic traditions they emblematize. The unfulfilled nature of Hesiod’s wish (174–175) amounts to an implicit expression of his admiration for the poetic traditions represented by the heroes in Theban and Trojan myth. Beyond the narrative-based interpretation offered by Clay,63 the expres 61 See Most 1997, 111–113. This interpretive approach allows Most to account for the insertion of lines 173a–e that refer to the destruction of the heroic race by Zeus and to the creation of the iron race by the same god. 62 Most 1997, 127. 63 Clay 2003, 82–83.

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sion ἔπειτα γενέσθαι (175) could indicate Hesiod’s desire not to live in a time when evil has dominated the world and no poetic creation has any meaning. In extending Clay’s interpretation, I argue that Hesiodic poetry offers a poetological filter for the reference introducing the iron race in lines 174–175. It is preferable for a poet either to belong to a great epic tradition such as the Theban or the Trojan one or to live in a time when poetry is entirely absent, rather than to compose poetry about a world in which justice yields to injustice. Rather than undermining or invalidating Clay’s text-centred approach, the self-referential dimension of a poetological interpretation actually broadens its scope, by offering an explanation for Hesiodic insistence on interposing the race of heroes in the typologically established catalogue of races. Such introspection brings about functional realignments in the roles played by the bronze and iron generations. In the case of the Theogony, the Hesiodic tradition interrupts genealogically established catalogues relating to the gods to lend a particular interpretive tone to its own version. By analogy, whether with its Indo-European counterpart or its Eastern prehistory, the myth of races is built on the catalogue substructure that is so familiar in epic poetry. The four-metal race mythological pattern is interrupted by a ‘Greek interpolation’, which differentiates the function of the entire construct. Moreover, the internal breach in the iron race, whether in terms of the temporal bisection proposed by Vernant or the evolutionary dimension offered by Clay, presupposes the crucial role of the heroic race. It is thus no exaggeration to claim that it owes its importance to the fact that it is embedded at precisely this point in the catalogue-shaped myth of races.

.. Agriculture One of the most noteworthy forms of metaphor in epic poetry concerns the presentation of the poet as a skilled artisan. Schmitt and Campanile have convincingly shown that such poetological metaphors reflect Indo-European practice. The poet is a τέκτων ἐπῶν and his activity is equal to that of a professional.64 In two of the core sections of the Works and Days, the Agriculture and the Nautilia, Hesiodic poetry consistently employs poetological metaphors. The Agriculture section (383–617) contains such an extensive network of similarities between the lives of farmer and poet, that certain scholars have suggested a

 64 Schmitt 1967, 295–306; Campanile 1977, 35–54.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus figurative reading.65 By presenting the specialized knowledge possessed by the farmer as analogous to that of the poet and by connecting the skills of both these craftsmen to Zeus, the guiding principle permeating the entire poem, the Hesiodic tradition is able to introduce itself in emphatic manner, likening the poet to a craftsman whose work is familiar to the audience. The ‘labor and beggary’ sub-section (383–404) begins by determining the right season for undertaking farming activities, such as ploughing and harvesting. The initial phrase Πλῃάδων Ἀτλαγενέων ἐπιτελλομενάων | ἄρχεσθ᾽ ἀμήτου, ἀρότοιο δὲ δυσομενάων (383–4) containing the verb ἄρχομαι recalls its programmatic use in the proem of the Theogony and the proems of the Homeric Hymns.66 The poetological function of ἄρχομαι is guaranteed by its traditional referentiality67 and metonymic use in epic poetry. Given that the Agriculture section begins in the same way as Hesiodic poetry (Th. 1), the farmer-poet scenario becomes more likely. Moreover, the disappearance of the Pleiades from the sky for a period of forty days and nights must be interpreted as indicating a negative condition the farmer has to endure until he is allowed to begin cultivating the land.68 The farmer is advised to plough the earth after the rising of the Pleiades in the sky, just as Hesiod begins his song only after the divine epiphany of the Muses on Helicon. The analogy between farming and poetry is also implied by the expressions οὗτός τοι πεδίων πέλεται νόμος (388) and ἀχρεῖος δ᾽ ἔσται ἐπέων νομός (403).69 Of these two verses the former determines how agriculture is practiced, whereas the latter refers to Perses’ ‘meadow of words’,70 which will be completely useless when he asks for his neighbours’ assistance.71 Hesiodic tradition presents land cultivation (denoted by the former expression) as the antithesis of beggary (delineated by the latter). The language of Perses, his ἔπεα, being that of beggary,

 65 On the Agriculture section in Hesiodic poetry, see Tandy and Neale 1996; Nelson 1997; Marsilio 1997, 2000; Tsagalis 2006a, 94–102. 66 See above. 67 On traditional referentiality in Homer, see Foley 1991, 6–7; Kelly 2007a, 5–14 and n. 20. 68 The language of this passage recalls the beginning of the Theogony. Note the dictional similarities: κεκαλυμμέναι ἠέρι πολλῷ (Th. 9)—κεκρύφαται (Op. 386), πρώτιστα (Th. 24)—τὰ πρῶτα (Op. 387). 69 See West (1978a, on Hes. Op. 403), who offers the following parallel passages: Il. 20.248– 249; Hom. Hymn to Apollo 20–21; Pind. Nem. 3.82. Agriculture is used as a metaphor for poetry not only in Greek but also in Vedic tradition. See Nünlist 1998, 135. 70 Note the semantical and aural interplay between νόμος and νομός. 71 See Marsilio 2000, 8–9. Murnaghan (2006, 103–104) argues that ‘by making farming the main subject of his poem, Hesiod enhances his authority as a poet’.

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will be rejected both by his brother Hesiod (396–397)72 and by his neighbours. Being ἀχρεῖος, the ‘meadow of words’ Perses is using will not bear fruit, whereas the undertaking of agricultural work at the right season (394: ὥρι’ ἀέξηται) will eventually lead to a decent life. Extending this figurative antithesis further, one may plausibly argue that the πεδίων νόμος in the Agriculture section is a trace of the poetological dialect of the Works and Days in epic and didactic disguise.73 Furthermore, the Agriculture section displays a special interest in creating an analogy between the literal storing of the harvest by the farmer and the metaphorical storing of Hesiod’s advice in Perses’ mind. This analogy is exemplified by the following terms: (a) the verb φράζεσθαι is employed both for the advice given to Perses (404: φράζεσθαι χρειῶν τε λύσιν λιμοῦ τ’ ἀλεωρήν) and for the advice offered to the farmer (448: φράζεσθαι δ’ εὖτ’ ἂν γεράνου φωνὴν ἐπακούσεις); (b) the apostrophe νήπιε/μέγα νήπιε is employed both for Perses (286: σοὶ δ’ ἐγὼ ἐσθλὰ νοέων ἐρέω, μέγα νήπιε Πέρση, 396–397: ... ἐγὼ δέ τοι οὐκ ἐπιδώσω | οὐδ’ ἐπιμετρήσω· ἐργάζεο, νήπιε Πέρση, 633: ὥς περ ἐμός τε πατὴρ καὶ σός, μέγα νήπιε Πέρσῃ) and for the farmer (456: νήπιος, οὐδὲ τὸ οἶδ’·...);74 (c) the verb τίθεμαι is employed not only with respect to Perses (27: ὦ Πέρση, σὺ δὲ ταῦτα τεῷ ἐνικάτθεο θυμῷ) but also in reference to storing at home what is needed for building a carriage (456–457: νήπιος, οὐδὲ τὸ οἶδ᾽· ἑκατὸν δέ τε δούρατ᾽ ἀμάξης. | τῶν πρόσθεν μελέτην ἐχέμεν οἰκήια θέσθαι); (d) the importance of reciprocity in farming activities (349–350: εὖ μὲν μετρεῖσθαι παρὰ γείτονος, εὖ δ᾽ ἀποδοῦναι, | αὐτῷ τῷ μέτρῳ, καὶ λῴον, αἴ κε δύνηαι) as well as in recognizing Hesiod’s debt to the Muses (656–659: ἄεθλ᾽ ἔθεσαν παῖδες μεγαλήτορος· ἔνθα μέ φημι | ὕμνῳ νικήσαντα φέρειν τρίποδ᾽ ὠτώεντα. | τὸν μὲν ἐγὼ Μούσῃς Ἑλικωνιάδεσσ᾽ ἀνέθηκα, | ἔνθα με τὸ πρῶτον λιγυρῆς ἐπέβησαν ἀοιδῆς) is emphasized. Finally, another aspect of the poetological connotations of the Agriculture is the cicada imagery (582–584), which employs poetical vocabulary to suggest a dou-

 72 ἐγὼ δέ τοι οὐκ ἐπιδώσω | οὐδ᾽ ἐπιμετρήσω·. See also Op. 648: δείξω δή τοι μέτρα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης and Op. 694: μέτρα φυλάσσεσθαι. 73 Apart from the ‘meadow of words’ (see e.g. Choer. fr. 2.2 PEG), archaic epic employs two other ‘agricultural’ metaphors for poetic speech: (a) καρπός and (b) ploughing, sowing or pasturing. For examples, see Nünlist 1998, 135–141. 74 On the address νήπιος, νήπιε, μέγα νήπιε in Hesiodic poetry, see Clay 1993, 23–33.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus ble-edged analogy, the positive side of which refers to the Hesiodic poet, the negative side to Perses. Both intratextual associations75 and intertextual analogies76 clearly point to the metaphorical connection between poet and cicada.77 Petropoulos has suggested that this analogy may even, through the notorious laziness and lack of prudence of the cicada, constitute a veiled criticism of Perses.78 The cicada passage leads to further considerations concerning the poetics of the Agriculture. Ornithological (γέρανος, κόκκυξ) or entomological (τέττιξ) imagery indicates seasonal change: the crane (448–452) is associated with winter, the cuckoo (486–490) with spring, and the cicada (582–596) with summertime. In addition to the mechanisms used to link these forms of imagery, the activity of these three birds replays on the level of poetics what happens with respect to farming as seasons change. Beginning with winter and the crane, moving on to the cuckoo and spring, the internal narrator is clearly heading towards the summer and the cicada, whose activity he is willing to assimilate to that of the singer. The selection of the summer is not a random choice. It functions as a proleptic advance mention of the analogy that will be suggested in the ensuing Nautilia section between the literal sea journey and the metaphorical sailing on the sea of poetry, activities which must also take place in summertime.

.. Nautilia The Nautilia (seafaring) section has gained renown on account of a selfreferential poetological mention by Hesiod and a covert acknowledgement of Hesiodic epic. The poet refers to a poetic contest in which he took part at nearby Chalcis, where he won a tripod that he dedicated to the Muses on Helicon. The brief reference to Aulis, whence the poet crossed to Chalcis, serves as the springboard for a daring poetological leap: the bay at Aulis is linked to the departure of the Achaeans for Troy to win back Helen, and, as has been argued, by

 75 See Op. 1: ἀοιδῇσιν κλείουσαι—583: ἀοιδήν, 583: λιγυρὴν καταχεύετ’ ἀοιδήν—659: ἔνθα με τὸ πρῶτον λιγυρῆς ἐπέβησαν ἀοιδῆς, 583: δενδρέῳ ἐφεζόμενος —593: ἐν σκιῇ ἑζόμενον. 76 See Op. 582: ἠχέτα τέττιξ—Archilochus 223 IEG: τέττιγος ἐδράξω πτεροῦ, Callimachus, fr. 1.29–30 Pfeiffer: τῷ πιθόμη]ν· ἐνὶ τοῖς γὰρ ἀείδομεν οἳ λιγὺν ἦχον | τέττιγος, θ]όρυβον δ’ οὐκ ἐφίλησαν ὄνων. 77 See Nagy 19992, 302 n. 11; Rosen 1990, 107–109; Marsilio 2000, 77 n. 113. 78 See Petropoulos 1994, 77 n. 29.

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extension to Homeric poetry itself.79 Rosen has shown that the passage on seafaring functions as a pictorial triptych (113), in which the first and third parts present mercantile marine activities literally, while the autobiographical sphragis elucidates them by means of its poetological function.80 Thus the expressions ναυτιλίης δυσπεμφέλου ἵμερος αἱρεῖ (618), μέτρα πολυφλοίσβοιο θαλάσσης (648), μέτρα φυλάσσεσθαι (694), ἔργων μεμνημένος εἶναι | ὡραίων πάντων (641–642), οὔτε τι ναυτιλίης σεσοφισμένος οὔτε τι νηῶν (649), τόσσόν τοι νηῶν γε πεπείρημαι πολυγόμφων (660), λιγυρὴν καταχεύετ’ ἀοιδήν (583), λιγυρῆς ἐπέβησαν ἀοιδῆς (659), the association of literal destitution with poetic poverty (see Op. 20–26) and the metaphor of the ship and wings (627–629) were cited by Rosen as evidence for an implicit statement on poetics permeating the entire section on seafaring. Both the first and third sections of the tripartite, ring-structure of the Nautilia, which contain advice given by the poet to his brother Perses, are didactic in tone and can be subdivided into three shorter parts, which are interrupted by the sphragis (646–662): ... Structure of the Nautilia (A) a. Bad weather: 618–629 b. Good weather: 630–640 c. A large cargo: 641–645 (B)

Sphragis: 646–662

(C)

b´. Good weather: 663–677 a´. Bad weather: 678–688 c´. A small cargo: 689–694

... Trade and Poetry The emphatic repetition of κέρδος (profit) and φόρτος (cargo) in the Nautilia is indicative of their importance. Profit is twice associated with the word ‘cargo’,81 making it clear that any attempt to offer a metaphorical interpretation of the former must rest on the similarly figurative meaning of the latter. In addition to

 79 Nagy 1982, 66; Hamilton 1989a, 69; Tsagalis 2006a, 105–113, pace Nicolai 1964, 126–127. West (1978a, 55) has argued that the sphragis had been initially composed as a proem of the Nautilia. 80 Rosen 1990, 99–113. See also Tsagalis 2006a, 105–113; 2006b, 232–252; 2007, 269–295. 81 Κέρδος—φόρτος: Op. 631–632, 644–645.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus the two cases already mentioned, the word φόρτος is encountered a further three times in the Nautilia, twice as a noun and once as a verb.82 With regard to lines 632 and 673, there is a striking insistence on the mention of οἶκος, where Perses must transport his profit or return quickly. In the third case (693), Hesiod is not referring to the sea, but to land transport on a wagon of a load so excessive that the axle breaks and the goods are destroyed. Nevertheless, the expression φορτία μαυρωθείη (693) used to describe the destruction of the cargo is colored by the verb (ἀ)μαυρόομαι, which is encountered twice more in the poem. In Op. 284 the adjective ἀμαυρός83 is used to describe the race of the perjurer, who is condemned to fall into obscurity and oblivion, in contrast to the faithfull man’s race, which is termed ἀμείνων (285). Furthermore, in Op. 325 (ῥεῖα δέ μιν μαυροῦσι θεοί, μινύθουσι δὲ οἶκον) it is clearly stated that the gods can easily bring about the destruction of one who steals or deceives. Indeed, if the phrase μινύθουσι δὲ οἶκον is interpreted as a more specific reference to the divine retribution awaiting the swindler, then the verb (ἀ)μαυρόομαι is being used by Hesiod in both its literal and metaphorical sense. It is worth remembering that the metaphorical use of the verb is known both from Solon84 and Simonides.85 The metaphorical use of the verb (ἀ)μαυρόομαι points to the metaphorical use of the noun φορτία, which, though referring to a load transported by land, corresponds to the danger of disaster at sea described earlier (687). Dougherty86 has argued that the Odyssey insists on appropriating the vocabulary of trade relating to the opposition of profit and deceit, so as to accord a positive evaluation to Odysseus’ song and a negative one to that of the swindler poets.87 Odyssean insistence on economic and trade imagery branches off in the presentation of a model of mutual generosity linked to the aristocratic ideal of gift exchange on the one hand, and the unilateral threat to stable economic activity posed by piracy on the other. Just as in the Odyssey and in Pindar,88 trade imagery is used in Hesiodic poetry to denote poetic competition. The metaphorical function of the word φορτίον, as intimated by the use of the verb (ἀ)μαυρόομαι, recontextualizes the meaning of profit and stresses the difference between a large vessel and a small one, and thus between a large and a small cargo.89 Within this  82 Op. 672 (φόρτος), Op. 693 (φορτία), Op. 690 (φορτίζεσθαι). 83 Op. 282–285. 84 4.34 IEG: τραχέα λειαίνει, παύει κόρον, ὕβριν ἀμαυροῖ. 85 531.5 PMG: ἐντάφιον δὲ τοιοῦτον οὔτ’ εὐρὼς | οὔθ’ ὁ πανδαμάτωρ ἀμαυρώσει χρόνος. 86 Dougherty 2001, 38–60. 87 See Od. 11.362–369. 88 Pind. Pyth. 2.62–68; Nem. 5.1–6. 89 Op. 643–645.

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framework, it is suggested that just as a large ship capable of bearing a large cargo is a necessary precondition for acquiring a large profit, so a grandiose epic composition is necessary for acquiring poetic fame. Hesiod appears to prefer a small ship,90 for all the profit to be gained by a large cargo.91 Later, in the third part, he advises his brother to load only a small portion of his goods on ship, leaving the greater part behind.92 With these instructions to poetic seafarers, Hesiod won the poetic contest at Chalcis with the less ambitious composition of the Theogony. Ring-composition reinforces and further specifies the cargo-metaphor: the small ship symbolizes a short epic composition that will offer a small but safer profit, while the larger ship denotes a large epic, i.e. Homer, which may bring great glory to the poet but is fraught with inherent risks. In this light, Hesiod leads us both into the world of poetry by means of the word φορτίον, and into the realm of poetic reward via the expression κέρδος ἄρηαι, which depends for its interpretation on the metaphorical φορτίον (‘cargo’). The findings of historical linguistics confirm that the association of profit with poets and poetry was initially taken for granted. According to Watkins93 and Campanile,94 in Celtic and more specifically Welsh tradition, the term equivalent to the Greek word κέρδος is rendered in the form cerdd, which means work and profession in general as well as poetic work, poetry, and music. In Greek poetic tradition, especially though not exclusively in Pindar’s epinicians, poetry is metaphorically presented as ‘redemption from a financial obligation or debt’.95 Returning to Hesiod, we see that the resemblance of κέρδος ἄρηαι (Op. 632) to its Homeric equivalent κλέος ἀρέσθαι and its formulaic allomorphs εὖχος, κῦδος ἀρέσθαι suggests that a distinct poetic voice begins to emerge in the disguise of an extended metaphor, proposing a new kind of poetic gain: no longer the Homeric κλέος, εὖχος or κῦδος but the κλέος of Hesiodic poetic composition, humbler but just as inspired as its Homeric counterpart. A comparison between the Hesiodic sphragis (Op. 646–662) with Odyssey 8.159–164 shows that Hesiodic poetry introduces a new, more complex interpretation of the word ἄεθλα/ἆθλα. Just as Odysseus is compared to a seafarer who attends both to the cargo he is transporting and to easy profit, so in the Works  90 Op. 643: νῆ’ ὀλίγην αἰνεῖν. 91 Op. 644: μείζων μὲν φόρτος, μεῖζον δ᾽ ἐπὶ κέρδει κέρδος. 92 Op. 689–690: μηδ᾽ ἐν νηυσὶν ἅπαντα βίον κοΐλῃσι τίθεσθαι· | ἀλλὰ πλέω λείπειν, τὰ δὲ μείονα φορτίζεσθαι. 93 Watkins 1995, 76. 94 Campanile 1977, 37. 95 See Nünlist 1998, 284–290.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus and Days, Perses must attend to seafaring (642–643) and also to the cargo he is transporting. Yet immediately thereafter, that same cargo becomes metaphorical, as Hesiod’s poetic output and the ἄεθλα/ἆθλα are not war or athletic competitions but rather poetic contests. Nevertheless, the latter are colored neither by the aristocratic ideal of reciprocity nor by the rapacious greed of deceit, but instead by the wisdom and knowledge of mercantile success, the reaching out of poetic creation to a wider public, no longer in miserable Ascra but in Chalcis, the metaphorical gate to poetic fame. Hesiod’s poetic contests and the prizes awarded for his victory call for the mind of a sea trader who, being aware of the μέτρα of seafaring, will successfully sail the sea of poetry. Comparison of the way in which the Odyssey and Hesiod’s Nautilia present maritime trade determines the frequency we must tune to if we are to apprehend the extent of Hesiodic emancipation from Homeric tradition. The Odyssey capitalizes on the contrast between two distinct variants of nautical activity, which are epitomized by two seafaring communities, the Phaeacians and the Phoenicians. According to Dougherty,96 these communities share certain traits, such as impressive wealth accumulation and remarkable proficiency in weaving, ships and maritime activity in general. Nevertheless, the two peoples can be radically differentiated as regards the way in which they conduct trade. The Odyssey even presents the Phaeacians and Phoenicians as occupying diametrically opposed positions, since the former do not engage in profit-making activities, despite the fact that they are excellent sailors, while the latter are famed merchants and gifted sailors. The Phaeacians inhabit an imaginary world, where the everlasting fertility of the earth and the bounty of agricultural produce enable them to practise almost altruistic gift exchange, while the Phoenicians have turned to merchant maritime activity by force of need. The Odyssey ‘attempts to carve out a position for the Greeks somewhere between the idealized model of gift exchange represented by the Phaeacians and the negative image of trade as a kind of piracy projected by the Phoenicians’.97 Comparison of maritime activity as presented by the Odyssey and Hesiod reveals that the Works and Days renegotiate the middle ground which the Odyssey reserves for Odysseus himself and, through him, for the Greeks. In the Works and Days, however, the middle ground is defined as a personal difference between two brothers, Hesiod and Perses. While the Odyssey mingles Phaeacian and Phoenician traits in the multifaceted personality of Odysseus, the Works and Days deliberately engage in the projection of a dynamic correspondence between productive work and well organized  96 Dougherty 2001, 102–121, and especially 112. 97 Dougherty 2001, 112.

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maritime trade on the one hand, and idleness and risky profiteering on the other. In addition, in the Works and Days Hesiodic poetry takes further advantage of this thematic backdrop, using it as both a starting point and a pretext for poetological reflection stemming from the creative appropriation and transcendence of the Odyssey tradition. The interpretation proposed here is lent further support by the reference to the award bestowed on Hesiod in lines 656– 659. As a symbol of athletic triumph victors dedicated wreaths to their cities, which would accord them protection of sorts, as an almost magical deterrent against danger. In the same way, Hesiod dedicated the tripod he won at the poetic contest in Chalcis to the Muses on Helicon who first taught him the art of song. Kurke98 has argued that κῦδος, as projected in Pindar and Bacchylides’ epinician odes, is a political adaptation of its Homeric predecessor, whereby the city takes the place of the Homeric king who received the victor’s glory. As for the Hesiodic sphragis relating to the bestowal of an award on the poet at Chalcis, athletic terminology (ἆθλα, νικήσαντα) and dedication of the tripod to the Muses are framed by seafaring and mercantile metaphors. To paraphrase the title of the aforementioned article by Kurke, the Nautilia is transformed into the symbolic economy of Hesiodic κλέος. Just as maritime trade competition yields profit, so poetic competition yields poetic profit. The twofold meaning of ἆθλα, which designate both poetic contests and the victor’s prize, makes the games in honor of Amphidamas at Chalcis the perfect occasion for Hesiodic poetry to promote its output and become known to a public different from that in insignificant Ascra. Clay99 has argued that Hesiod’s autobiographical references are metaphorical rather than literal, and that the reference to Cyme as the homeland of Hesiod’s father may reflect an attempt to downplay Hesiod and Homer’s common descent (according to Herodotus’ Vita Homeri), in order to promote their subsequent differentiation within the framework of epic poetry. In this conception, the entirely negative presentation of Ascra should be interpreted in terms of poetic metaphor rather than historical geography. In mapping out the dangers of his poetic isolation, Hesiod is attempting to make his poetry reach out to a wider public. Ascra and Chalcis, or poetic isolation and the publicization of his poetry, may constitute the two poles of Hesiodic poetic topography, which itself knows of ‘well-bolted’ (πολύγομφα) ships and the μέτρα of the wild sea, i.e. it knows— more hesiodeo—

 98 Kurke 1993, 137–138. 99 Clay 2003, 181.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus how to sail the sea of archaic epic. In this light, the following poetic strategy, as argued by Obbink,100 becomes very important: In the archaic and early classical period such extreme sphragidization, which we may define as the embedded assertion of the identity of the poet with his narrative persona, betrays anxieties over the ownership of poetry and its status as property. The introduction of addressee(s) is one way in which the relationship between the poet and his audience may be articulated or negotiated, in such a way that a poet nominally retains control over the poem as created artifact, but initiates its transfer to a general audience through the mediation of an elite exclusive addressee.

Τhe property dispute is no more real than Hesiod himself and Perses, who are mere masks behind which Hesiodic tradition, appropriating contemporary epic and lyric conventions, reveals its character, public and goal. The Hesiodic poetic tradition of didactic epic fabricated the property dispute with an ‘intimate’ addressee, Perses, to renegotiate its relationship with its audience. The fraternal relationship between Hesiod and Perses is a functional analogy serving the poetry’s admonitory nature. Other noteworthy examples of addressees are Cyrnus in the corpus Theognideum, Pausanias in Empedocles, Theodorus in Dionysius Chalkous, and Moschus in Archestratus of Gela.101 Typically, the preference is for an addressee of equal status to the person offering advice. In contrast to Eastern poetic traditions, in which the addressee is usually the son of the counsellor, the above examples show that the choice of equal status for the person acting the role of advisor or teacher is of crucial significance in didactic poetry. This interpretation is further strengthened by the fact that Hesiod’s apparently different poetic personae as an advisor or judge in the Works and Days and as eulogist of the divine world in the Theogony are interconnected by his selfpresentation as an immigrant. Martin102 has argued that Hesiod’s autobiographic references in the Works and Days (whether they concern the poet himself, his father or his brother Perses), certain distinguishing features of his dialect (such as a number of aeolisms), the tendency to use maxims and, finally, the preference shown for rare words over more common ones (ἀνόστεος, φερέοικος)103 should be evaluated in relation to the audience. Hesiod is presented as a foreigner offering advice precisely because he is thus more likely to persuade his audience. The didactic character of this poetry necessitates the creation of spe 100 Obbink 1993, 79 n. 61. 101 On the function of a poetic sphragis, see Kranz 1961, 3–46 and 97–124. 102 Martin 1992, 11–33. 103 On Hesiodic ‘Riddle-Words’ (Rätselwörter) in the form of Kennings, see Troxler 1964, 21– 28. On Kennings in general, see Waern 1951.

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cial textual conditions for the articulation of its respective message. By fabricating a brother, Perses, instead of a son to whom his didache would be addressed, Hesiod disposes of the typical opposition between teacher and student, father, and son or an older and younger man precisely because the position from which he wishes to speak is that of a wandering bard,104 and not that of an old sage. In adopting the wisdom of an immigrant, Hesiod and his tradition can tune the audience to their own particular note, and lay claim to the success of their admonitory teaching.105

. The Catalogue of Women One of the most fascinating aspects of the Catalogue of Women is closely connected to its nature as a catalogue, which becomes even more significant given the catalogue-form of a large part of the Theogony. Recent studies on the Catalogue of Women have rekindled interest in the reconstruction and function of this work within the Hesiodic corpus. In the case of the Catalogue of Women, more than in any other poem of the Archaic Period, reconstruction and interpretation represent complementary philological desiderata, since the way the Catalogue of Women is structured is directly linked to the way it has been structured, to the process through which it has come into being. By extension, the formation and shaping of the Catalogue of Women is relevant to its place within Hesiodic poetics.

.. The Hesiodic Nature of the Catalogue of Women The Catalogue of Women aims at presenting a Panhellenic overview of the Heroic Age, spanning a large part of the Greek world. If we adopt West’s fourfold organization of the genealogical material, reflected in Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, then we can see that the world of heroes is presented through a progression from the very beginnings of the world of mortals to the heroic age. In this respect, the Catalogue of Women shows itself to be strongly Hesiodic, in that it abides by the built-in linearity characteristic of the genealogical Hesiodic epic

 104 Wanderers are associated with both truth and lies. See Montiglio 2005, 91–100. Murnaghan (2006, 99) observes that ‘wanderers have access to information that is beyond the purview of their audiences because it is removed in space or even other-wordly’. 105 See Martin 1992, 11–33.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus par excellence, the Theogony.106 In fact, the Catalogue of Women presupposes knowledge not simply of theogonic material but of the Hesiodic Theogony itself. As early as the proem of the Catalogue of Women the audience is invited to enter the performance at the point the Theogony came to completion (Th. 1021– 1022 = Cat. 1–2). At the same time, much of what is said before the invocation to the Muses is recapitulated (Cat. fr. 1.9: τάων ἔσπετε Μ[οῦσαι) does not recall any particular passage of the Theogony but partly107 what is said about the race of gold in the Works and Days. The last part (vv. 10–22) of the proem108 is in bad shape but the order of divine names, which we can still discern, ‘seems to correspond to the gods enumerated in the list contained in vv. 930–961 of the Theogony’.109 The proem of the Catalogue of Women shows itself to be truly Hesiodic, in the sense that it forms integral part of an unattested Hesiodic Cycle of epic poetry, whose ‘each individual section both mirrors the theme of the whole and goes into making it’.110 The Prometheus and Pandora episodes form a bridge that links the three principal epics of the Hesiodic corpus, the Theogony, the Works and Days, and the Catalogue of Women. However, the function, size, and placement of these two episodes reveal a significant shift of emphasis and scope. Whereas in the Theogony, the reference to Pandora is basically subordinated to an entire mythical episode featuring Zeus and Prometheus as its protagonists, in the Works and Days the Prometheus episode functions as a prelude to the larger and more important Pandora episode that follows. In the Theogony, the Prometheus episode is narrated retrospectively, i.e. after the Hesiodic narrator has told his audience about the punishment of Prometheus and his salvation by Heracles. Conversely, the Works and Days follow a linear unravelling of the story, but they pick up the Prometheus episode only after Zeus has discovered that he has been deceived, at the point where he informs the arrogant descendant of Iapetus that he, together with mortal men, will be punished. Whereas in the Theogony it is

 106 See West 1985, 125–130. Osborne (2005, 8 n. 4) dissociates this issue from the problem of dating the three major Hesiodic poems. 107 The heroes sit next to the gods and feast with them, but some of them seem to age, unlike their counterparts in the golden race. See Clay 2005, 26–27. 108 The proem of the Catalogue of Women has a tripartite structure: (a) vv. 1–2: first invocation to the Muses; (b) an extended description of the subject matter of this epic, initiated by a relative clause and accumulating information that is organized in parataxis (very much in the manner of the proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey); (c) recapitulation of the initial invocation (see Od. 1.1 and 1.10) and determination of a starting point (Cat. 16: πρῶτα, see Il. 1.6). 109 Clay 2005, 27. The first who made this observation was Treu 1957, 173 n. 8. 110 Nelson 2005, 334.

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the Prometheus episode that looms large, in the Works and Days it is the story of Pandora. In addition, although both epics seem to use these episodes in order to highlight the fact that Zeus cannot be deceived (Th. 613, Op. 105), the Works and Days problematize the power of logos, since there is an incongruity between Zeus’ orders and their execution by various gods.111 In the Catalogue of Women, the Prometheus and Pandora references are not presented separately but as a foil for the generation of the first mortal couple, Deucalion and Pyrrha. Once the transition from the theogonic environment to the mortal world is effected, the Catalogue of Women moves on to Hellen whose three sons (Dorus, Xouthus, and Aeolus) represent the beginnings of the Greek heroic world. With respect to placement, and if we treat the three major Hesiodic works as parts of a whole, we may observe a regressive tendency, according to which Prometheus and Pandora (who always appear together in the Hesiodic corpus) are placed closer to the beginning of the epic as we move from the Theogony to the Works and Days and then to the Catalogue of Women. In particular, whereas in the Theogony the two episodes are placed in the second part of the poem, in the Works and Days they are located roughly at the beginning of the mythical first part, and in the Catalogue of Women right after the proem. By dint of these observations, it can be plausibly argued that the sequence of the Prometheus and Pandora references mark the Catalogue of Women as a Hesiodic composition par excellence. Likewise, Heracles is not just a mythical figure but also a device underlying the Hesiodic nature of the Catalogue of Women. The reversal of the chronological order of the events pertaining to his life (since his death precedes his birth) has been explained as ‘a move from the cosmogonic to the heroic: the life of Heracles provides a link between the two, with his death a part of the ordering of the cosmos and his labors belonging to the realm of the heroic’.112 By juxtaposing the birth of Heracles with the beginning of the Trojan War, the Catalogue of Women brings the theogonic cosmogony to an end and makes the transition to the heroic world. Heracles is, therefore, transformed into a figurative linchpin that stitches together the divine cosmos and the world of heroes.113 Given that  111 On this issue, see Robert 1914, 28; West 1978a, on Hes. Op. 73–75; Clay 2003, 122 n. 56; Tsagalis 2006b, 191–193; Wolkow 2007, 247. 112 Fletcher 2006, 3. 113 See Haubold 2005, 95–98. This is a development that should be examined against the backdrop of early Greek epic focusing on Heracles. If the shaping of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women is dated to the middle of the fifth century BC, then it is preceded by epics featuring on Heracles, such as the Oechalias Halosis by Creophylus of Samos and the Heraclea by Pisander of Camiros. The former epic is centred on a single episode, the bride contest for Iole and sack of Oechalia by Heracles, while the latter contained all of the hero’s labors and some other deeds

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus Hesiodic poetry at large stands in stark contrast to the narrative seamlessness of Homeric epic,114 the audience is thus reminded that the Catalogue of Women is not a series of human genealogies but a prismatic, sophisticated narrative with multiple temporalities, voices, and registers115 and a distinct and recognisable Hesiodic tone.

.. Genealogical Organization and Lemmatization The Catalogue of Women displays a complex structure, which consists of an external geographical organization with genealogical material that is fused with non-genealogical lemmata. This conflated form of genealogical material, which has been thematically organized in cycles but dictionally in lemmata introduced by the ehoie-formula, results in the disruption of narrative linearity and creates ‘ruptures in the chronological fabric of the story’.116 The ἠ’ οἵη-formula is an elliptical expression employed to introduce a story or a genealogy. It seems that it is a relic of an older epic phase, in which it functioned as an ‘oral lemma’ within a series or chain of women stories.117 The use of the ehoie-formula has been aptly called ‘resumptive-progressive’,118 so that the poet can ‘leap back from the end of the branch of the genealogy to a higher point in an earlier one’.119 In fact, the Catalogue of Women exhibits a tension between the ehoieformula and a larger genealogical superstructure. This tension consists of two opposing forces, a centripetal one that is expressed by the genealogical framework, and a centrifugal one indicated by the ehoie-formulas. These antithetical forces may stem from the fusion of two pre-existing genres, genealogical poetry and non-genealogical catalogues of women using the ehoie-formula. According to Rutherford’s analysis, the ehoie-formula is nothing more than a vestigial

 (see Tsagalis 2022, 76, 118 and 181). The rise of epic poetry in which Heracles was the linchpin holding the entire plot together, especially in the case of the episodic epic by Pisander, may have functioned as a model or at least as an example of how Heracles could be employed as a unifying device of the plot. On Creophylus’ Oechalias Halosis and Pisander’s Heraclea, see Tsagalis 2022. 114 Nelson 2005, 333–335. 115 Haubold 2005, 96–98. 116 Haubold 2005, 96. 117 See Hirschberger 2004, 30. 118 Rutherford 2000, 83. 119 Rutherford 2000, 83.

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element within the overall organization of the Catalogue of Women.120 Even though the intersection of the centripetal and centrifugal forces described above is a literary phenomenon, it may also have social and political resonances. The more we think about the kind of audience that would have been interested in such poetic hybrids as the Catalogue of Women, the more we realize that it must reflect a reaction to the social meddling brought about by the emerging Greek polis of the sixth century BC.121 The way various genealogies are presented in the Catalogue of Women is the result of conflation of material stemming from local genealogies (except the Pelasgid and Attic stemmata) with material created as a result of tendencies of expansion and interpolation, which exercised their influence on the older genealogical substratum either because there was a need to incorporate additional territories and/or because specific political interests had to be catered for.122 Given that the Catalogue of Women seems to follow a geographical progression from western to eastern Greece, the use of a ‘para-Hesiodic’ tradition such as the ehoie-formula may have originated in a place where the Deucalionid stemma, which abounds in ehoiai, is particularly prominent, i.e. North-West Greece/Western Peloponnese.123 It is in that region that its first phase can be located, though it seems a plausible hypothesis that it originated from East Locris, an area with strong genealogical background and a matrilinear system of inheritance. West postulates a final but formative stage in the encyclopaedic shaping of the Catalogue of Women as we have it, a stage particularly connected to Attica.124

.. Typology: Form, Content, Narrative The Catalogue of Women displays a number of typical features with respect to its form, the more so since it represents the culmination of a tradition of catalogue poems. Before determining and discussing in brief some of these formal charac 120 Rutherford 2000, 93. 121 See Irwin 2005, 35–84 (with criticism by Fletcher 2006 and Aloni 2017, 3–28); Ormand 2014. 122 See West 1985, 164–165. 123 West 1985, 166–168. 124 West 1985, 168–171. Cf. Fowler (1998, 1–19), who argues that the Catalogue of Women presupposes knowledge of the political situation of the Delphic Amphictyony in the early sixth century BC; Hirschberger (2004, 32–51) places the composition of the Catalogue of Women between 630 and 590 BC.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus teristics, a necessary caveat should be taken into account: given our limited knowledge of this genre, it is likely that some of these features do not pertain to its deep structure but are concomitant with catalogue-poetry in its broader sense. The Catalogue of Women systematically assigns names, often not distinctive, to female figures.125 It is not at all rare to find in it the names of women who feature in myths known from other sources but are not named there.126 The fact that these names are always specified indicates not only that they are not important per se but also, and perhaps pre-eminently, that the pressure of the genealogical background of this genre is so strong that it almost requires specification of names. Sometimes aesthetic purposes are at work, as is the case with the colorless Clidanope, whose artificial name ‘serves only to make a genealogical link’.127 With respect to names embedded in lists, usually one- or two-verse long, certain phonological factors pertaining to the surface features of epic song (rhythm, alliteration, assonance, formulaic nature of epic diction) exercise their own influence in selecting and assembling a group of names within a given chunk of verses.128 Associative and semantic prompts must be also taken into account, but they are significantly harder to determine. Given that they are relevant to place names, not just personal ones, and that the Catalogue has a strong geographical aspect, I will deal with them when I discuss the performance context and function of this epic. As far as phonological devices with respect to the selection and order of personal names are concerned, I have detected the following sound patterns: (a) word-initial assonance (fr. 33[a] 9 M-W): Εὐαγόρην τ]ε καὶ Ἀντιμένην καὶ Ἀλάστορα [δῖον129 (b) word-terminal assonance (fr. 25.19 M-W): Ὕλλον καὶ Γλῆνον καὶ Κτήσιππον καὶ Ὀνείτην (c) a + b combined (fr. 33[a] 11 M-W): Δηΐμαχόν τε] καὶ Εὐρύβιον κλειτόν τ’ Ἐπίλαον

 125 Lyons 1997, 54; Rutherford 2000, 83. 126 Lyons 1997, 54. 127 West 1985, 88. I owe this reference to Lyons 1997, 54. 128 On assonance and other sound-based associations in Hesiod, see the next chapter in this volume. 129 On stock names like Ἀλάστωρ (‘Avenger’) stemming from war epic traditions (Il. 4.295; 5.677; 8.333) and their pragmatic use in list-making, see Minchin 2001, 93.

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(d) verse-initial word-terminal + verse-internal word-terminal assonance (fr. 25.15–16) M-W: Φηρέα θ’ ἱππόδαμ[ον καὶ ἐυμ]μελίη̣[ν Ἀγέ]λαον Τοξέα τε Κλύμενό[ν τε ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ.[ον] Ἄρηϊ (e) verse-internal word-terminal + verse-terminal word-terminal assonance (fr. 33[a] 11–12 M-W): Δηΐμαχόν τε] καί Εὐρύβιον κλειτόν τ’ Ἐπίλαον Νέστορά τε Χ]ρομίον τε Περικλύμενόν τ’ ἀγέρωχον (f) three-step progressive syllable increase (fr. 23.a.5 M-W): Λήδη [τ’ Ἀλθαίη τε Ὑπερμήστρη τε βοῶπις

Similar sound-patterns have been discerned in lists and catalogues attested both in Homeric poetry, such as, inter alia, the Catalogue of Ships (Il. 2.494– 759), the Catalogue of Trojans and their Allies (2.819–877), the Catalogue of Nereids (18.39–48), and the catalogue of Phaeacians (Od. 8.111–114), and in the Hesiodic Theogony, in which one can find abundant examples of list-making. Paratactic structure is a general feature of Archaic epic and so its preeminent use in the Catalogue of Women should not be considered a typical characteristic of this genre. On the other hand, the built-in paratactic structure of catalogue-poetry stems from the fact that every item and entry is treated as of equal importance by the tradition and that information is assessed through a process of ‘replaying a single event or action’.130 In this conception, parataxis facilitates the processing of high-density data and counterbalances the lack of a sequence of events, as found in the case of regular narrative. Some ehoiai have a tripartite structure: (a) in the first part (‘presentation/ Vorstellung’) the main female character is introduced; (b) in the second (‘procreation myth/Zeugungsmythos’) the narrative concerning the love-story of a god with a mortal woman is unraveled;131 (c) and in the third and final part descendants (‘offspring/Nachkommenschaft’) are named.132 Since this structure, which is often reshaped and modified, represents a typical structural principle followed in Greek epic of the Archaic Period, we do not know whether it belongs

 130 Minchin 2001, 79. 131 Davies (1992, 7) suggests that an elaboration may increase to such an extent that ‘it overwhelms the catalogue format’, when a story ‘grows in length and involvement [and] the emphasis changes from each entry as a part of the whole catalogue to each entry as a selfcontained unit’. 132 I owe the German terms to Trüb 1952, 54.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus to the ‘deep structure’ of ehoie-poetry, even though it is also observed in Homeric, not only, Hesiodic ehoiai.133 Recurrent formulas attested in the ehoiai are: ὑποδμηθεῖσα (‘subdued [in marriage]’ and ὑποκυσαμένη γείνατο/τέκε (‘after conceiving she begot’), λέχος εἰσαναβᾶσα (‘[she] is going up into [somebody’s] bed’), and ἵπποισίν τε καὶ ἅρμασι κολλητοῖσι (‘[lead off to marriage with a dowry of] horses and closelyjoined chariots’), ὑπέσ]χετ[ο] μυρία ἕδνα (‘innumerable wedding gifts promised or offered’).134 Other recurrent dictional features include the following: a praising epithet referring either to female beauty or chastity or to the children a mortal woman begets to a god (e.g. Μήστρη ἐυπλόκαμος [fr. 43a.4 M-W], παρθένος ἀδμής [fr. 59.4 M-W],135 ἀγλαὰ τέ]κνα [fr. 31.2 M-W]), and the separation of divine from mortal children, who are introduced by the expression τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους ... [τέκ’] (fr. 25.14 M-W). These characteristics are all related, directly or indirectly, to the themes of marriage and lovemaking, which are frequently attested in the Catalogue of Women.136 The language of the Catalogue of Women, at least with respect to women, is traditional. Although most of the epithets used to modify a female figure are also attested in Homeric and Hesiodic epic as well as the Homeric Hymns,137 there is evidence showing that new combinations138 of traditional elements do occur and new phrases139 are created by analogy. Cohen, who has studied the ‘female language’ of the Catalogue of Women, has argued that in the case of women who are also known from early epic poetry the poet of the Catalogue of Women ‘appears to be more specific and rather more expansive’140 because he wants to emphasize the fact that ‘it was women such as these who attracted the amorous attention of the gods’.141  133 See Trüb 1952, 53–54. 134 Fr. 43a21 M-W. 135 See Hirschberger 2004, 336. 136 Trüb 1952, 53–54; see also Rutherford 2000, 83 and 264 n. 10 for a complete list of relevant attestations. 137 See Cohen 1989, 16–20. 138 Fr. 30.25 M-W: Τυρὼ ἐυπ]λόκαμος ἰκέλη χ[ρ]υσῇ Ἀφρο[δ]ίτ[ῃ. ἰκέλη χρυσῇ Ἀφροδίτῃ is used in Homer with respect to Briseis (Il. 19.282), Cassandra (Il. 24.699), and Penelope (Od. 17.37, with an internal expansion that includes Artemis). For more examples see Cohen 1989, 21. 139 Frs. 73.3 M-W (Atalante), 43a.4 M-W (Mestra), 196.6 M-W (Helen): Χαρί]των ἀμαρύγματ’ ἔχο[υσα seems to have been created by analogy to Χαρίτων ἄπο κάλλος ἔχουσα (fr. 215.1–2 M-W with respect to Cyrene) and Od. 6.18 (referring to Nausicaa’s maids). For more examples see Cohen 1989, 22. 140 Cohen 1989, 26. 141 Cohen 1989, 27.

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Given that the ἠ’ οἵη formula has been treated above, I will now discuss only certain aspects of its function that have not been previously dealt with. West contends that the ἠ’ οἵη formula with its disjunctive nature presupposes an initial paradigm, which would have been introduced by a simple οἵη and that this may have been the case with Pyrrha.142 This is an attractive hypothesis. In other epic catalogues or lists containing internal catalogue-features, a word is usually repeated with the addition of a particle indicating the addition of further items. An interesting example is the description of the Shield of Achilles in Iliad 18.478–608. The scenes depicted on each band of the shield are introduced by the ecphrastic-descriptive formula ἐν δὲ, which recapitulates a single ἐν μὲν employed only for the central boss of the shield, which is described first. The same is the case with the τὴν δὲ μετ’ ... ἴδον formula, which is used in the first Nekyia (Od. 11.225–332). This stereotypical lemmatization mechanism is based on the expression ‘πρώτην + acc. of feminine noun + ἴδον’, which introduces the first entry in the Catalogue of Heroines, Tyro.143 Given that this technique is similar to the use of the ἠ’ οἵη formula in the Catalogue of Women, West’s suggestion is further strengthened. It seems that this mechanism of creating an internal taxonomical principle of organization, which would be based on an initial itemizing device, is corollary to the technique of increment recall employed in list-learning.144 According to this method of memorization, a person first learns a part of a list and rehearses it several times, until the list has been firmly memorized. He then proceeds by learning another part, which he rehearses separately and then, when memorized, adds to the first part. The learner can go on in this way, building only upon solid memory-acquired foundations. In this light, the use of an itemizing device based on an initial taxonomical mechanism (such as the ἠ’ οἵη formula or the ἐν μὲν formula) facilitates seriation,145 the practice of sequential data-processing, since the repetition of such an oral lemma would key the singer or the performer of a list on the required note and trigger in his memory the subsequent chunk of relevant material. With respect to content, the Catalogue of Women focuses on women, although one can discern a tendency to use female stories as the frame within

 142 West 1985, 56; Rutherford 2000, 83. 143 See Rutherford 2000, 93–94. 144 See Baddeley 1990, 40–42, 156–158. See also Minchin (2001, 89 n. 41), to whom I owe the previous reference. 145 On ‘seriation’, see Mandler & Dean 1969, 207–215. I owe this reference to Minchin 2001, 89 n. 41.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus which male stories will be narrated.146 A typical example of this tendency is the ehoie of Alcmene, where the myth of Alcmene is, in fact, an introduction to the story of Heracles.147 The Catalogue of Women treats women stories by adopting an encomiastic stance. Female aretalogies are not spelled out in the most emphatic manner but praise is clearly a high priority. This observation is corroborated by the fact that in the Catalogue of Heroines in Odyssey 11, Alcinoos intervenes by shelving the Catalogue of Women poetry and asks Odysseus to talk about male heroic epic.148 His request reflects the tendency to obliterate female poetry and highlight the importance of male-centred epic traditions. Rutherford’s claim that the Catalogue of Heroines in the Odyssey preserves an older phase in the evolution of ehoie-poetry is thus reinforced, since it indicates that the tradition of the Odyssey promotes encomium only for its own protagonists, Odysseus and Penelope, by highlighting the former’s supremacy concerning his Iliadic and other Cyclic rivals (Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax), and by downplaying potential female epic rivals for the latter, such as ehoie-poetry heroines (Tyro, Alcmene)149 or Cyclicepic antagonists (like Clytaemestra in the Nostoi).150 Alcinoos, who is interested in the Iliadic stories of Odysseus, requests that Odysseus change genre and move from female catalogues to male heroic poetry. In fact, he phrases this request by leaving the ehoie-part of Odysseus’ account completely unmentioned and by using the word οἷα (11.364), which in this context might allude to ehoiepoetry.151 Rutherford has underscored the light tone of a fair number of women stories of the Catalogue of Women.152 In spite of some exceptions,153 his observation is correct but begs, I think, for an explanation. Fantastic, almost superhuman,  146 On this tendency as an argument concerning the shaping of the Catalogue of Women and its relation to the Odyssey, see below on Genre. 147 Rutherford 2000, 86. 148 Most (1992) argues that in the first Nekyia of the Odyssey there are allusions to the epics of Return (Odyssey, Telegony), ehoie-poetry, Iliadic and Cyclic epic pertaining to the Trojan War (Iliad, Aethiopis, Ilias parva), and to the Hesiodic Theogony. 149 See Od. 2.118–122. The genealogical information embedded in the Catalogue of Heroines allows for connections between the various entries, in the manner of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. Sammons (2007, 164–165) argues that even ‘in transforming genealogy into catalogue proper, the result is a disarticulated and fragmentary vision of history’. 150 See Od. 24.192–202. 151 Skempis and Ziogas 2009. 152 Rutherford 2000, 86. 153 Fragments 131–132 M-W (Proitides) and 176 M-W (about the daughters of Leda) are far from being light in tone.

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deeds (like Iphiclus who ‘upon the fruiting tops of asphodel he ran and did not break them’), pastoral scenes (fr. 70 M-W), and even comic stories (the ehoie of Mestra)154 that are equally attested in the Catalogue of Women may well be related to the light tone of female episodes mentioned above. More light tone scenes and a fondness for the grotesque are typical of the poems of the Epic Cycle and, as has been repeatedly shown, the key feature distinguishing the highly selective Iliadic and (to a lesser extent) Odyssean traditions from their Cyclic rivals.155 Viewed from this vantage point, the light tone of certain women stories featured in the Catalogue of Women seems to be a built-in characteristic of this genre. Other motifs attested in the Catalogue of Women are divine punishment (e.g. Zeus vs Salmoneus,156 Zeus and Hera vs Alcyone and Ceyx),157 divine care and gifts offered to mortals (e.g. Harmonia receives for her marriage to Cadmus a peplos from Athena),158 metamorphosis (e.g. the daughters of Porthaon are turned into Sirens)159 and immortality (e.g. Heracles)160 in the form of apotheosis,161 emphasis on marriage, birth and envy. In particular the last motif seems to be the most developed in the Catalogue of Women and is further divided into the following sub-motifs: (a) a woman has children by a god but is married to a mortal after whom the children are named (Molione gives birth to twin sons, who take their name not from their father Poseidon but from Actor, the mortal husband of Molione; 162 likewise Iphimedea’s sons are named after her mortal husband Aloeus, not from Poseidon who is their real father);163 (b) women fall in love with gods (Demodice);164 (c) a girl is abducted by a god, who brings her to a place where they have sex and where the children are born; sometimes the maiden is named after this place and their offspring become kings there (Europa is brought to Crete by Zeus, where they mate and have three sons, Sarpedon, Minos, and Rhadamanthys);165 (d) Nymphs mingle with gods (Melaneus is the

 154 Robertson 1984. 155 Forsdyke 1956, 110–111; Griffin 1977, 39–40; Davies 1989, 9. 156 Fr. 30.1–24 M-W. 157 Fr. 10a.84–98 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 79–81. 158 Fr. 217.7–8 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 80–81. 159 Fr. 27 M-W. 160 Frs. 25, 229 M-W. 161 Rutherford 2000, 87–8; Hirschberger 2004, 79. 162 Fr. 17b M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 74. 163 Fr. 19 M-W. 164 Fr. 22 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 75. 165 Fr. 141 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 75.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus son of Apollo who mingled with a Nymph);166 goddesses or nymphs have sex with mortal men (Selene and Endymion);167 (e) divine envy that often has a fatal outcome is sometimes presented within an erotic-marriage context (Coronis is killed by Apollo who envied her because she married Ischys);168 (f) other stories which often end in marriage between humans are a mythological reflex of girls’ initiation rites (Eurythemiste, Stratonice, Sterope, who are the daughters of Porthaon, accompany the Nymphs and the Muses on Mount Parnassos);169 (g) in certain cases, an unmarried maiden gets pregnant (Periboia gets pregnant by Hippostratus and her father Hipponous sents her to Oeneus who is asked to kill her; instead, Oeneus has a son by her, Tydeus);170 (h) the motif of ‘Potiphar’s wife’, according to which a married woman falls in love with a younger man who visits her house; when he rejects her, she makes a slanderous attack on him telling her husband that he made her have sex with him; as a result her husband tries to kill him (Peleus and the wife of Acastus).171 In general, there is little about death, especially of women, in the Catalogue of Women.172 Biographies ‘are stripped to their essentials’.173 Seduction, abduction, concealment do exist but only in embryonic form. Heroines are in the Catalogue of Women ‘best’ (ἄρισται), exactly like heroes in male-centred epic, but their appearance in a ‘collective epic’174 stems from the fact that they are the wives and daughters of pre-eminent men, and that they form an integral part of the dynastic context of the age of heroes.175 These motifs show that the Catalogue of Women shares certain similarities with the poems of the Epic Cycle, which also favor themes like divine punishment, metamorphosis and immortality.176 Therefore, with respect to content the Catalogue of Women marks itself out from the Iliad and the Odyssey not only by giving primary position to female figures but also by highlighting themes which are not emphasized in Homeric epic.

 166 Fr. 26.25 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 76. 167 Fr. 10a.60–62 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 76. 168 Frs. 59–60 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 76. 169 Fr. 26.5–21 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 77–78. 170 Fr. 12 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 78. 171 Frs. 208–209 M-W. See Hirschberger 2004, 78–79. 172 Lyons 1997, 20. 173 Lyons 1997, 20. 174 Sistakou 2005, 354. On catalogue-poetry in general, see Trüb 1952, 44–83. 175 Lyons 1997, 10–13, 20. 176 See chapter 12 (this volume).

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With respect to narrative, the Catalogue of Women with remarkable speed177 semper ad feminam festinat.178 Digressions are practically absent. The narrative moves smoothly through the intermediate phases of a story until it reaches the target-point. Rapidity is, of course, an almost innate characteristic of catalogues but this should not exclude the possibility that it has not been used effectively.179 The individual narrative parts of the Catalogue of Women are not loosely connected just because there is no plot. Unity in this generic context does not spring from the various narrative units giving cohesion to the whole but from the whole that unifies all narrative sections. The geographical range of this genealogical panorama presented in catalogue-form, which spans the Greek world, represents a cohesive preamble to the Trojan War that brought the age of heroes to its end. Catalogue-organization permeates the entire poem, since it also occurs in narrative sections. In the Wooing of Helen, the formula ‘(ἐ)μνᾶτο + nominative of suitor’ (sometimes with patronymic), which constitutes an itemizing-entry mechanism facilitating mnemonic recall of information, links the various items of the list of Helen’s suitors, replacing other linking devices which would be regularly employed in a genealogical catalogue. In other words, even when the genealogical framework is not followed, catalogue-poetry features are still put into use.180 In the same section, the place of a suitor’s origin is regularly stated,181 and suitors often send a representative instead of going to the bride’s home themselves. These features indicate that a special kind of ehoie, the wedding-ehoie,182 might have become a sub-category of ehoie-poetry and that, by extension, other forms of ehoiai might have existed with their own typology. Direct speech is extremely limited and what is noteworthy is that women never deliver any direct speech. Catalogue-poetry is understandably lacking in direct speech, but the situation in the Odyssean Nekyia seems rather different,

 177 See frs. 10a, 43a M-W. 178 This phrase is based on the famous Horatian expression semper ad eventum festinat (Ars poetica 148). 179 Rutherford 2000, 85 with note 15. 180 Rutherford 2000, 85. 181 See Od. 16.245–251, where place names are given together with the overall number of Penelope’s suitors. 182 See Cingano (2005, 131), who shows that each hero is introduced in the Catalogue of Suitors in a rather typical way. Thematically, his genealogy, origin, and procedure of wooing are described, and dictionally ‘each entry is introduced by the expression ἐκ (ἀπό) + place of provenance at the beginning of the line (cf. frs. 197.7, 198.2, 199.4, 200.3, 204.44, 52, 56) + the verb ἐμνᾶτο’.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus since some of the heroines in the Underworld report their own stories to Odysseus, who in his turn reports them in indirect speech to his Phaeacian audience. This observation may strengthen Rutherford’s suggestion that the Odyssean Nekyia represents an earlier stage of non-genealogical ehoie-poetry.183 In this conception, it may be argued that this pre- and non-genealogical ehoie-poetry would have included direct speech. The proximity of the Catalogue of Women to the Epic Cycle, with respect to the light tone observed in several women-tales, can be applied mutatis mutandis to its episodic nature, which (like the Cyclic epics, as Aristotle has rightly argued)184 can supply multiple plots. This time, though, the Catalogue of Women represents a third narrative option, which can be better described in terms of a three-fold development: the Catalogue of Women has an almost zero-degree plot line,185 the Epic Cycle is based on an episodic and linear unraveling of the plot,186 whereas the Iliad and the Odyssey display sophisticated narrative strategies, which are partly responsible for their acclaimed status. As to the relation between the Catalogue of Women and other early Greek epic, I would like to draw attention to archaic and classical epic on Heracles, like the Heraclea by Pisander of Camiros and the Heraclea by Panyassis of Halicarnassos. Since both epics included at least the Dodekathlos, they must have been highly episodic. After all, this was the main complaint made by Aristotle, who condemned the poems on Heracles and the poems on Theseus that erroneously conceived the unity of plot on the basis of the existence of single protagonist, Heracles and Theseus respectively. However, the stark contrast between the compressed nature of Pisander’s epic that included only two books and the extended form of Panyassis’ epic that included 14 books is instructive, especially when put against the backdrop of its episodic structure. These two epics bare  183 Rutherford 2000, 94. 184 Poetics 1459b. 185 The lack of both a clear-cut plot line and of temporal sequence is also observed in another catalogic device that is regularly employed in epic poetry, the priamel, which Faraone 2005, 253) treats as ‘a variant of the catalogue form’. Sammons (2007, 96) observes that ‘the main difference between a priamel and an ordinary catalogue is that the last “item” is given a privileged status in comparison to the other items, such that the latter can be viewed collectively as a “foil” to the final, preeminent item’. Race (1982, 24–27) associates the priamel with the tendency observed in ordinary catalogues to expand the last entry, which becomes the most important, albeit not superior to the others. See also Davies 1992, 9. These remarks are especially relevant to the Catalogue of Women, where the last big entry, the section on the ‘Wooing of Helen’, is elaborated more fully than the previous entries. It is clear that with this section, the Catalogue of Women reaches its telos, i.e. both its end and its purpose. 186 Ar. Po. 1459b1–7.

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an interesting analogy to the Catalogue of Women and the Megalai Ehoiai. The two Heracleiai seem to be cyclic with respect to their concatenated structure but they are also ‘Hesiodic’ with respect to their ability to expand a given topic, the story of Heracles. Catalogue- and episode-based epics display a remarkable flexibility, which allows them to appear in compressed or expanded form, the Catalogue of Women and the Heraclea of Pisander manifesting the former type, the Megalai Ehoiai and the Heraclea of Panyassis the latter.

.. Performance: Organization and Context With respect to the organization of the mythological material and the preparation of the performance, we can postulate four different levels: (a) the first level of assembling the material by creating a schema, a ‘chronotopic map’, preserving information about places (geographical distribution of the various stemmata and chronological depth of various pedigrees); (b) the second level, in which the ehoie-formula, an elliptical oral lemma, minimizes the itemizing tone of catalogue-poetry by facilitating internal flexibility, moving to-and-fro between genealogies; (c) the third level consists of the nesting of further information in certain entries through the cognitive (re)activation of lower-level, secondary data (non-visual elements, other heroes and their stories). This is the case with place names that trigger other references with which they have been closely tied within the taxonomy of epic memory; (d) the fourth level includes visual cues originating not from epic memory but from spatial memory.187 In this last case, the recall of material is facilitated by the combination of visual imagery, which stores data and verbal codes creating mental sequences. Information is thus processed through two paths, as Paivio’s ‘dual coding’ hypothesis suggests.188 The performance context of the Catalogue of Women poses insurmountable difficulties. Some of the female figures featuring in the poem had their own heroine cults,189 but the fact that there is so little about death in this epic makes the scenario of performance of the Catalogue of Women in the context of the cult of heroines rather unlikely. If the audience of this epic included girls and young women, then it would have been possible to draw an analogy with the perfor-

 187 See Minchin 2001, 84–87. 188 See Paivio 1986. I owe this information to Minchin 2001, 27–28. 189 Chloris in Argos; Alcmene in various places. See Rutherford 2000, 88.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus mance occasion of other genres.190 Another approach to the performance context, which can be better mapped, concerns neither the occasion nor the gender of the audience but their possible reaction to the performance of the Catalogue of Women. This audience would have been impressed by the Panhellenic span of this poem, the attractive proem, which, through the invocation to the Muses, would have indicated to the listeners that an impressive feat of memory was to be performed, and most of all the speed of the actual performance. The bard who would sing this extended catalogue with the flawless and continuous introduction of personal names, place names, and various family trees, crossed local geographical boundaries and allowed members of the audience to identify their own or their ancestors’ connection to a given pedigree stretching back in time. The present of the performance would thus be linked to the distant past of the heroic predecessors, and this would, no doubt, generate enormous excitement among individual listeners. In such a performance context all elements, entries, and family trees count equally.191 The astounding sequences of names, which would have been highlighted by the repetition of syntactical devices and recurrent grammatical forms, would have made the whole process very demanding for the singer, who did not want his audience to get bored. The extremely thin and narrow, almost non-existent, plot line was a serious drawback when performing a list-song. On the other hand, the genealogical framework, the catalogue-form, and last, but certainly not least, the ehoie-structure, created, for all the restrictions inherent in the genre of catalogue-poetry, a multiwrought mythical tapestry. In fact, its three components would have captivated the attention of various audiences, just as the different colors of a tapestry would have attracted the visual interest of viewers. Seen from this angle, the success of the Catalogue of Women would have depended, perhaps more than any non-catalogue-poem, on its delivery. Asking for the help of the Muses before delivering a list-song was not mere commonplace: it amounted to a covert acknowledgment of the inherent difficulty of such a task. In this light, Cingano is probably right in suggesting that there was a second invocation of the Muses before the long catalogue of Helen’s suitors at the beginning of Book 5.192 The divine invocation was not only an appeal for information, but also an indirect  190 See Rutherford (2000, 88), who argues that the Leucippides formed ‘the subject of the myth-section of Alcman’s best preserved Partheneion (PMG 1)’. Irwin’s attempt (2005, 35–84) to place the Catalogue of Women within a sympotic context has been criticized by Fletcher 2006, 2. 191 This reconstruction of a possible performance context is heavily dependent on Minchin 2001, 90–92. 192 Cingano 2005, 122. For the function of the invocation in Homeric and Hesiodic catalogues, see Minton 1962, 118–212.

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statement of the difficulty of the task to be undertaken by the singer. This observation fits very well with a performance scenario according to which the invocation to the Muses was movable and could be transferred in some abbreviated or alternative form inside the poem, every time the bard had to answer to a request from a member of an audience193 to sing a catalogue-poem concerning the women of the past.194 This was, after all, a way of reminding his listeners that he was going to undertake a difficult job and that they should appreciate his effort till it is brought to an end.

.. Genre A significant question concerns the fact that the aretalogical element,195 which seems to have been a built-in feature of the genre culminating in the Catalogue of Women, did not develop into expanded epic narrative dealing with κλέα γυναικῶν. This generic confinement may have been caused and/or intensified by the following factors: (a) Female-centred encomiastic narratives were subordinated to male expanded narratives and divine aretalogies, i.e. in traditional epic and hymnic poetry. The widespread diffusion of Homeric poetry, which soon acquired Panhellenic status and undisputed authority on the one hand, and the impressive rise of hymnic poetry on the other, may have exercised considerable pressure on traditional mythical material linked to women, with the result that it was confined to a single, catalogue-oriented genre. (b) The Wooing of Helen in the last part of the Catalogue of Women (fr. 196– 204 M-W) and the emphasis given to an aretalogy for Penelope, with intertextu-

 193 See Od. 11.370–372, where Alcinous as a member of Odysseus’ Phaeacian audience requests a change of subject, from ehoie to male-centered epic. As Sammons (2007, 131) observes, ‘the subject of women is dropped by audience request, and the next section of the Nekyia begins’. 194 Individual entries could have been performed independently and expanded versions of individual ehoiai may have existed, even if the Megalai Ehoiai are not an expanded version of the Catalogue of Women but a separate poem belonging to the same tradition (D’Alessio 2005, 176). An ehoie could sometimes function as the introduction to another poem, as is the case with the Hesiodic Shield. See Rutherford 2000, 88. On the Megalai Ehoiai, see D’Alessio 2005, 176–216. 195 On aretalogical poetry, see Lipka 2018, 208–231.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus al prompts to both ehoie-poetry (Od. 2.124–125)196 and the oral tradition of the Returns later reflected in the Cyclic Epic Nostoi (Od. 24.192–202), covertly indicate that only certain female figures who were linked to Trojan and post-Trojan epic were endowed with their own narrative. Certain key-episodes of their mythical lore that could be accommodated into male epic concerning the Trojan War received a privileged treatment, sometimes allowing us to assume that they are based on lost female narratives, perhaps in the form of ehoiai.197 (c) Since most of these heroines could not be incorporated into the Trojan War saga, given that their marriage stories were of local interest, they were completely overshadowed by the Panhellenic pre-eminence of Homeric poetry. Rutherford, who speaks of a generic ‘crossing’,198 argues that when catalogue-like, non-genealogical ehoie-poetry was faced with the general tendency observed in the Archaic Period to organize the Greek past by means of genealogies, it was first subordinated to a Panhellenic genealogical framework (such as that seen in the Catalogue of Women), and then through the process of ‘automatization’ it became a secondary concomitant, a formal rather than a principal feature.199 According to Rutherford, the Catalogue of Heroines in Odyssey 11 ‘preserves for us an earlier stage in the development of ehoie-poetry, that in a sort of intimation of Bakhtinian polyphony, it deploys the generic voice of the catalogue genre.’200 This is certainly true, but one should always bear in mind that the Odyssean Catalogue of Heroines is a special case and that, as suggested above in (b), under the pressure of male-centred epic as well as various changes solidifying Panhellenic trends during the Archaic Period, ehoie-poetry may have been appropriated and subordinated by Homeric epic.201 In this light, I would like to propose a slight modification to Rutherford’s otherwise convincing sketch of development of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women. This change is based on the problem concerning the dating of the ‘generic

 196 See Sammons (2007, 101), who suggests that Antinous’ list of women may be evoking ‘a catalogue poem in which women serve merely to articulate a larger genealogical structure. In this view, there would be the implication that Penelope’s unprecedented cleverness is that of a character capable of sustaining the plot of an epic devoted, in Homer’s manner, to a single tale’. 197 Rutherford 2000, 93. 198 Rutherford 2000, 92. 199 Rutherford 2000, 92. 200 Rutherford 2000, 94. 201 The Teichoskopia list in Iliad 3 echoes the first contest for Helen, the story of Penelope’s suitors in the Odyssey mirrors the first contest for her that was also won by Odysseus, the list of Zeus’ erotic consorts in Iliad 14 recalls hymnic material referring to the god’s concubines.

Conclusion  

crossing’, which Rutherford places before the composition and/or crystallization of the Odyssey. If this scenario is adopted, then the non-development of ehoie-poetry into κλέα γυναικῶν cannot be explained. Although this is a complicated issue, I would like to suggest that the immediate antecedents of the Catalogue of Women, which included a non-genealogical structure and the ehoie-formula, must be dated to a period when Homeric epic had acquired a rather standard form. This scenario better explains the fact that although in Homeric epic we find non-genealogical catalogues of women using itemizing devices resembling the ehoie-formula (as is the case with the Catalogue of Heroines in Odyssey 11), we do not possess any epic poem dealing with female κλέα. In fact, it can be plausibly argued that the ‘generic crossing’, so aptly described by Rutherford,202 must have taken place too late for a further expansion into encomiastic epic narrative such as that referring to the κλέα ἀνδρῶν. An argumentum e silentio for this claim is the tendency of the Catalogue of Women ‘to subordinate male stories to female stories, telling the former within the frame of the later’.203

. Conclusion Hesiodic poetry, which has been regarded, through comparison with its Homeric counterpart, as ‘secondary-level’ poetry, is replete with poetological signs concerning aspects of generic identity, scope and aim of composition, internal differentiation between martial (Theogony) and non-martial (Works and Days) epic, as well as the creation of a prismatic, sophisticated narrative with multiple temporalities, voices and registers and a distinct and recognisable Hesiodic tone (Catalogue of Women). Hesiodic song lays great emphasis on its own special intra-generic identity. By describing in detail in the proem of the Theogony the process of acquiring the authority to sing, Hesiod turns the course of poetic initiation into a statement of his own poetic credo. Having defined its special nature, the poetry of the Theogony aspires to broaden the scope of its subject matter and reach beyond local audiences. The embedding of a hymn to a Panhellenic goddess such as Hecate within the narrative scaffolding of genealogies and catalogues reflects the epic’s desire to surpass the limits of Boeotia and become the theogonic song of the Greek world par excellence. Such broadening of its scope is concomitant to

 202 Rutherford 2000, 91–93. 203 Rutherford 2000, 86.

  Poetry and Poetics in the Hesiodic Corpus aspirations of distinctiveness, uniqueness and, finally, pre-eminence among other rival theogonies that may have been less innovative. To this end, the Hesiodic tradition of the Theogony attempts to break loose from the dull monotony and suffocating embrace of traditional catalogues, lists and genealogies by incorporating comments offered by the narrator alluding to his own persona. The Works and Days are stamped by the bold step of creating an internal narrator (Hesiod) who constantly addresses an internal narratee (Perses). Hesiodic insistence on interposing the race of heroes within the typologically established catalogue of races with its considerable Eastern or Indo-European prehistory has the result of emphasizing its Panhellenic outlook to the archaic world. Bearing the dictional armature of didactic epic but not necessarily its limited scope, the Works and Days enrich and even redetermine its cross-textual relations with other rival traditions, such as Homeric poetry, or with other poems, now lost to us, but belonging to the same tradition of didactic or wisdom poetry (Melampodia, Idaean Dactyls, Cheironos Hypothekai, Astronomy, Kaminos or Kerameis). By restricting the mythological features to the non-rivalry-oriented part of the poem, i.e. in the non-didactic core, the Works and Days focus on matters of poetics. The epic becomes not the diegesis of a professional rivalry but the display of the rivalry in the hic et nunc of the performance. It is not about what Mopsus and Chalchas did, or about how Homer, a figure of the past, won a prize, or about how a Centaur advised Achilles (Cheironos Hypothekai), but about how real people (in the sense that they are presented as real), Hesiod and his brother Perses, deal with matters pertaining to daily life. Hesiod’s poetic victory in Chalcis is not a mythical event but a tangible reality, achieved in the present by a real (or presented as real) person. The localization of the mythical element at the beginning of the epic may have been a practical solution to the problem of fusing mythological material into a non-mythological poem, given that complete deletion of mythological material was unthinkable. The mythical features that the Works and Days include in their subject matter are neither hero- nor region- nor tradition-dependent but belong to a specialized mythology that this poem wants to label ‘practical’. Myth is used in the Works and Days as an extended preamble, explaining the present state of affairs and making the need for such an epic indispensable. Instead of suggesting an alternative, laborbased pattern for an overall evaluation of its subject matter, this epic exploits traditional work-oriented terminology and imagery (Agriculture) and a wellknown reference to the sailing of the Greek fleet from Aulis to Troy as the Homerically colored, mythical catch-episode (Nautilia) to rechristen its main theme by imbuing it with metapoetic connotations. In this way, the Hesiodic tradition makes its voice widely heard and by almost encroaching on the kleos

Conclusion  

of its great Homeric rival, ambitiously accentuates its presence and claims its own space in archaic Greek epic. The Catalogue of Women represents the rather idiosyncratic combination of an external geographical organization with genealogical material that is fused with non-genealogical lemmata. This conflated form of genealogical material, which is thematically organized in cycles but dictionally in lemmata introduced by the ehoie-formula, results in the disruption of narrative linearity and in creating ruptures in the chronological fabric of the story. The main features of this eccentric cross-generic poem are the following: parataxis, tripartite structure for some ehoiai, language that is partly formulaic and partly more specific and expansive, and female stories — basically imbued with an encomiastic tone — that are often used as a frame for male stories. The main motifs include divine punishment, divine care and gifts offered to mortals, metamorphosis, immortality in the form of apotheosis, stress on marriage, birth and envy, and limited reference to death. The narrative is characterized by speed, catalogue-type organization permeates even the narrative sections, direct speech is extremely limited, and brief plots of a purely episodic nature comprise the overall composition. The Catalogue of Women has come into being through ‘generic crossing’: catalogue-like, non-genealogical ehoie-poetry is first subordinated to a Panhellenic genealogical framework and then through the process of automatization it becomes a secondary concomitant, a formal rather than a principal feature. This ‘generic crossing’ occurred too late for a further expansion into encomiastic epic narrative such as that referring to the κλέα ἀνδρῶν. It must have happened only when the Homeric epics had been consolidated and diffused, at a stage when it was not possible for women to acquire epic fame independently.

 Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Although much work has been done with respect to the formulaic diction of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women,1 scholars have not shown similar interest in studying its style.2 Part of the explanation is that catalogic poetry seems unattractive for stylistic studies because of the lack of continuous narrative and the high proportion of proper names. Add to the above the fragmentary condition of the Catalogue and the scholarly neglect of the stylistic features of this epic is explained. Scholars have basically focused their attention on Hesiodic diction.3 As in antiquity so in modern times, they have been principally concerned with its relation to Homeric phraseology.4 This line of investigation is understandable, since the shadow cast by the monumental Homeric compositions has resulted in ‘anchoring’ Hesiod to Homer. It is also pertinent to questions of relative chronology and the overall evolution and shaping of epic diction in the Archaic Period. On the other end, it is fair to say that a work like the Catalogue, the Hesiodic authorship of which has been forged by the tendency to attribute much of non-Homeric archaic epic to the poet from Ascra, is a very different case. First and foremost, it is a hybrid catalogue, created by the cross-generic combination of catalogue with ehoie-based poetry under the umbrella of a genealogical superstructure. As such, it is marked by stylistic devices that are part and parcel of its being a catalogue-ehoie blend. Seriation (catalogue) and lemmatization (ehoie) require a delicate balance between the smooth flow of information and the selective highlighting of specific entries. Style in all its aspects (sound, figures of speech, word-patterns in proper names) is crucial for an epic marked by generic crossing.5 In this novel mixture, style has a new role to play.

 1 See e.g. Krafft 1963; Neitzel 1975; Meier 1976; Mureddu 1983; 2008, 97–112; Cohen 1986, 127– 142; 1989, 12–27; Davies 1992. 2 A notable exception is Hunter (2009, 253–269; 2014, 282–315), but his approach mainly concerns the way the ancients treated Hesiod’s style. Hunter’s focus is on the Theogony and the Works and Days. 3 On this point, see Richardson 1980, 284: ‘the modern tendency to pay special attention to the traditional or formulaic character of the verse does not encourage sensitivity to the way in which the poet fits sound to sense in particular contexts, whereas the ancient emphasis on mimesis naturally led to appreciation of this’. 4 See the bibliography cited in n. 1 (this chapter). 5 On this generic crossing, see Rutherford 2000, 93–94; Tsagalis 2009, 171–172. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-011

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

. Soundplay One of the most notable aspects of style is soundplay, especially in a poetic tradition with a clear oral background. Aural effects are not, of course, restricted to oral poetry, but they are systematically exploited in oral media, since they constitute an essential aspect of performance. These observations are extremely relevant to Ancient Greek, ‘a euphonious language, with a high proportion of vowels, less collocation of consonants than many languages, and no heavy stress accent’.6 In this chapter I intend to explore the full range of wordplay in the ‘Hesiodic’ Catalogue. Classification of the relevant phenomena will be undertaken, but with an aim both to enhance interpretation and to make general judgments with respect to the sophistication and poetic qualities of this generic hybrid.

. Assonance (παρήχησις) The Greeks were alert to the significance of assonance, especially with respect to whether a given sound was appropriate for the meaning of a specific passage. Sound effects had been discussed by ancient critics, e.g. Aristotle (Rhetoric), [Demetrius] (On Style), Dionysius of Halicarnassos (De Compositione Verborum), and Philodemus (Rhetoric, On Poems), and in the post-classical period theories of sound were developed, the best known being that of the so-called ‘euphonists’ who claimed that sound was more important than content.7 Since in antiquity there was no overall consensus with respect to terminology, I have decided to use modern classifications, although ancient Greek terms will creep in from time to time. The most straightforward approach is that of Silk in the entry ‘assonance’ of the OCD. It is his categorization that I will hereby follow. My only addition is the Greek term παρήχησις (‘resemblance in sound’, ‘assonance’), which is used by Hermogenes (Inv. 4.7), and under which I group (1) alliteration, (2) vocalic repetition, (3) syllabic repetition or near-repetition of stem syllables, (4) syllabic repetition or near-repetition of final syllables, and (5) more complex cases marked by a combination of some of the above.8

 6 Edwards 1987, 117. 7 See Janko 2000, 120–200; Nünlist 2009, 217. 8 For this categorization, see Silk OCD, s.v. ‘assonance’, p. 186.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women .. Alliteration (Word-Initial Rhyme) Under the term ‘alliteration’ I group cases of consonantal repetition (wordinitial or stem-initial). In the Catalogue alliteration is the least employed of the five forms of assonance described above. Alliteration often draws attention to the link between the various constituent items. In the ehoie of Mestra the alliteration of –d– first highlights the inability of mortals to decide about whether Erysichthon/Aithon or Sisyphos is right (43a.38 M-W: ο]ὐδ̣’ ἄρα τις δικάσαι [δύ]νατο βροτός· ἀλλ’ αραπ̣ [), and then showcases the ability of a goddess or woman to make this decision (43a.40 M-W: ἀ]τρεκέως διέθηκ[ε] δίκην δ.[).9 The effect of this soundplay is further enhanced by the syllabic repetition of the stem syllable –ep– in the ensuing verse (43a.39 M-W: ἐπ]έτρεψαν καὶ ἐπῄνεσαν· ἣ δ’ ἄρα τοῖ̣ [σιν). Father and husband left it to Athena or Mestra to decide who is right and who is wrong. The syllabic repetition links the two verbs (ἐπ]έτρεψαν and ἐπῄνεσαν) and intensifies the joint decision of the two opposing sides. Sometimes alliteration acquires a ‘proleptic’ function.10 It draws the listener’s attention to two items whose initial sound will be soon repeated within the aural environment of a different alliteration. In cases like this, the former alliteration works as a bridge to the latter. The result is that what is linked here are not simply two items but two chains of items by means of two alliterative devices. In fr. 43a.62 M-W (ἔπραθεν ἱμερόεντα πόλιν, κε[ρ]άϊξε δὲ κώμας), the consonantal repetition of –k– highlights the plundering of Coan villages by Heracles. A few verses later (43a.66 M-W: Μήστρη δὲ προ]λιποῦσα Κόων ποτὶ πατρίδα γαῖαν), we are told that Mestra left Cos to return to her fatherland. The placement of the word Κόων within the three items of the alliterative unit (προ]λιποῦσα Κόων ποτὶ πατρίδα) interrupts its autonomy and invites the audience to connect the idea of Mestra’s return home with Heracles’ ravaging of Cos. The word-initial –k– sound in the word Κόων facilitates the ‘carrying over’ of the initial alliterative repetition of –k– to the triple consonantal repetition of –p– a few lines below. There are cases in which alliteration is not an isolated aural phenomenon but interacts with other forms of soundplay occurring in its immediate context. Thus, ἵκετο δ’ ἐς Φυλῆα φίλον μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν (fr. 176.4) is interwoven within  9 It is not clear who this woman is, Athena (West, crit. app. of editio maior; 1985, 169) or Mestra (Kakridis 1980, 150–151); on this problem, see Hirschberger 2004, 277 on Cat. fr. 37.38–39 (= fr. 43a.38–9 M-W). 10 On ‘aural preparation’, see Silk 1974, 187–191.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

a nexus of aural associations involving the preceding and two following verses that intensify and deepen the meaning of the relevant passage: Τιμάνδρη μὲν ἔπειτ’ Ἔχεμον προλιποῦσ’ ἐβεβήκει, ἵκετο δ’ ἐς Φυλῆα φίλον μακάρεσσι θεοῖσιν· ὣς δὲ Κλυταιμήστρη λιποῦσ’ Ἀγαμέμνονα δῖον Αἰγίσθῳ παρέλεκτο καὶ εἵλετο χείρον’ ἀκοίτην Timandra left behind Echemus and ran away, and came to Phyleus, who was dear to the blessed gods: so too, Clytaemestra, leaving behind godly Agamemnon, lay beside Aegisthus and preferred a worse husband; so too Helen shamed the marriage-bed of blond Menelaus

The vocalic repetition of –e– in ἔπειτ’ Ἔχεμον προλιποῦσ’ ἐβεβήκει is contrasted to the alliteration of Φυλῆα φίλον in the next verse. Timandre, Tyndareos’ first daughter, left Echemus and went to Phyleus, who was dear to the gods. Clytaemestra, Tyndareos’ second daughter, left Agamemnon and joined Aegisthus, who (contrary to Phyleus) was not dear to the gods — in fact he was a worse husband. This contrast is aurally stressed for the listeners by a new soundplay, the vocalic repetition of –a–, which provocatively correlates Ἀγαμέμνονα, Αἰγίσθῳ and ἀκοίτην. This time the relevant words are apart but complex patterning (παρέλεκτο καὶ εἵλετο) both within the sub-unit of the couplet pertaining to Tyndareos’ second daughter (Clytaemestra) and between the sub-units of Timandra and Clytaemestra (προλιποῦσ’ – λιποῦσ’) bring into focus the overall contrast: rejection of marriage for the sake of a new household. Alliteration can also be used to conjure an image or to give vividness to an existing image. In μαρνάσθην [ἔτι] μητρ̣ [ὸς ἐόντ’ ἐν γαστέρι κοίλῃ (fr. 58.13 M-W) the alliterative link created by the word-initial consonantal repetition of –m– illuminates the image of the twins Crisus and Panopeus fighting in their mother’s womb. Action (fighting) and place (mother’s womb) are aurally associated, as they are associated in the actual image described here. Alliteration is also employed to build a link between its constituent items. Here belongs σὺν τῷ πῦρ̣ [πνείουσαν ⏑–⏑⏑–⏑ Χίμαιραν (fr. 43a.87 M-W). No effect is discernible, only a stress on a given activity, i.e. that Chimaera breaths fire.11  11 I have not taken into account fr. 43a.77 M-W (ἔγνω· ὁ μ[ὲν δώροις διζ]ήμενος ἦλθε γυνα[ῖκα) because I regard the supplement ἕδνοις instead of δώροις as being much more plausible because of Od. 16.391 and 21.161 (μνάσθω ἐέδνοισιν διζήμενος; see Hirschberger 2004, 283 on fr. 37.77 (= 43a.77 M-W); ἕδνοις is also printed in Most’s Loeb edition.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Weak alliteration is likely to occur in conventional collocations and formulas.12 Here the aural link is downplayed by the fact that the listener’s ear hears the two words as a single semantic unit. So, in Φθίην ἐξίκετο μητέρα μήλων (frs. 211.1 and 212.8 M-W) the perceptibility of the aural association is low.

.. Vocalic Repetition Vocalic repetition can isolate a given term from its context. The reason for this isolation is not always obvious nor is there any general rule that is applied here. When dealing with proper names, vocalic repetition aims at stressing a specific list-entry. A case worth examining is offered by fr. 25.16 M-W (Τοξέα τε Κλύμενό[ν τε ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον] Ἄρηϊ). The syntagma ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον] Ἄρηϊ (fr. 25.16) is a Hesiodic hapax. In Homer only the formula ἀτάλαντον Ἄρηϊ (Il. 5.576; 15.302; 17.72) is used, which is likely to have a limited perceptibility as far as the word-initial vocalic repetition is concerned. The Hesiodic syntagma ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον] Ἄρηϊ seems to be an expansion of the Homeric formula and is clearly built on vocalic repetition. The series of five consecutive –a– sounds and (after the brief interruption of an –o– sound in ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον]) a sixth word-initial –a– sound (Ἄρηϊ) isolates the proper noun Clymenus which it modifies from the ‘naked’ reference to Toxeus in the same verse (Τοξέα τε Κλύμενό[ν τε ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον] Ἄρηϊ). As noted above, the reason for this isolation is not clear, but it may be the case that for some reason Clymenus, the last entry in the short list of Althaea’s sons (other than Meleager) needs to be highlighted. Isolation of a term stresses its importance for a given scene or episode. Fragment 165 begins with the tattered remains of a speech that ends by stressing that somebody (offering hospitality and raising Auge) would be very pleasing to the immortals (fr. 165.3 M-W: .......]μ̣ά̣λ̣α̣ δ̣’ ε̣ ὔ̣α̣δ̣εν ἀθα̣[νάτοισιν]). We do not know who is the speaker but we know that the addressee is Teuthras, who agreed to do as the gods commanded. The narrator’s text following the speech picks up the last word ἀθα̣[νάτοισιν and reiterates it in the second-to-next line (fr. 165.5 M-W):13 ἀθανά]των̣ ο̣ ἵ ̣ οἱ τότ’ ἐναργέες ἄντ’ ἐφάνησα̣ν̣ . Repetition is strengthened by the assonance of ο̣ ἵ̣ οἱ that functions as an isolation mechanism keeping ἀθανά]των apart. This time, aural isolation is ancillary to verbal repetition. Together they

 12 See Silk 1974, 174 and OCD s.v. ‘assonance’, p. 186. 13 On adjacency across lines, see Guggenheimer 1972, 114–116; Frédéric 1985, 48; Lausberg 19903, 314–315; Wills 1996, 394–397.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

corroborate the content of the passage: Teuthras abided by the will of the gods and they were pleased with him.14 Vocalic repetition is wont to be noticed by listeners, even within a formulaic environment, under the proviso that it is based on intensive recurrence. Unlike its Homeric counterpart ἐπήρατον ἐντὸς ἔεργεν |-ει (Il. 18.12; 22.121), the Hesiodic formula ἐπήρατον εἶδος ἔχουσα[ν (frs. 25.29; 136.2 M-W) is used to draw attention to the formula’s meaning, as sound repetition aims at underlining the formula’s expressive force: excessive beauty. The same is the case with ἣ εἶδος ἐρήριστ’ ἀθανάτῃ]σ̣ιν (frs. 35.12; 180.14 M-W), in which the triple word-initial vocalic recurrence of the sound –e– stresses the content of the expression (i.e. that a mortal woman rivals the immortal goddesses), as well as with Ἑλένη]ς ἕνεκ’ ἠ̣υ̣[κόμοιο (fr. 200.11 M-W), in which the word-initial –e– sound, enhanced by the liquid/nasal sequence in the first two words within a series of six –e– sounds in total, binds Helen and ‘fair-haired’ together, underscoring her beauty. Another relevant expression is ἀνδράσι τ’ ἀλφηστῇσιν ἀρῆς ἀλκτῆρα φυτεύσαι (fr. 195.36 M-W = Sc. 29). The juxtaposition of two formulas, each consisting in two words beginning with the –a– sound (followed by nasals or liquids) creates a firm joint that highlights the content of the verse: Heracles will be a protector of mortal men. To this end, the placement of θεοῖσιν (that syntactically plays the same role with ἀνδράσι) at the very end of the previous verse makes it fade. The main role of Heracles is to ward off evil from humans. The aural association of the two formulas is so strong that it does not seem excessive to argue that it also exploits ‘traditional’ sound-patterns that are particular to Heracles. In this light, the interplay effected by the –a– sound (followed by nasals or liquids) would have aurally ‘recalled’ the typical patronymic ᾿Aλκείδης, partly echoed in the expression πάις ᾿Aλκαίοιο that is used three lines before (fr. 195.33 M-W = Sc. 26). On the contrary, when low-level vocalic repetition is nested in a formula, it usually remains unnoticed by the audience. εἴαρο[ς ὥρῃ (fr. 70.13 M-W) is such a case, the more so since the syllable repeated at the beginning of the two ensuing words is not exactly the same. The expression is imbued with a certain melody (perceptible when the verse is heard), but its only artistic purpose seems to be euphony. Vocalic repetition can enforce an idea that has been already expressed by renewing its force or by following it to its next phase. In fr. 43.76–7 M-W, Sisyphus’ efforts to get Eurynome are unable to win the mind of Zeus (ἀλλ’ οὔ τι Διὸ]ς νόον αἰγιόχοιο | ἔγνω). This is a situation analogous to the one that already occurred when Sisyphus tried to get Mestra for his son Glaucus a few verses  14 On this fragment, see Merkelbach 1957, 40–41; Hirschberger 2004, 338–341.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women earlier (fr. 43a.51–2 M-W: ἀ]νδρῶν δὲ προὔχεσκε νοήματά τε πραπ[ίδας τε | ἀ]λλ’ οὔ πως ᾔδει Ζηνὸς νόον αἰγιόχοιο). In the case of Mestra, the semantic antithesis between Sisyphus’ excessive mental skills and his inability to rival Zeus’ mind is highlighted by the aural interplay between νοήματα and Ζηνὸς νόον.15 In the analogous case of Eurynome, Sisyphos’ second failure to ‘read’ Zeus’ mind is initially expressed by the formula ‘verb οἶδα + Διὸς/Ζηνὸς νόον’. Τhis time, though, the essential idea is carried through to its next step: Zeus expresses his denial to Sisyphus’ offer by throwing back his immortal head (fr. 43a.79 M-W: ἀθανάτῳ ἀ[νένευσε] κ̣αρήατι). Aural association may explain the poet’s choice of a dialectic form instead of the standard epic one. In fr. 70.21 M-W, the epichoric form Ἐρχομενοῦ (IG VII 3171) is employed instead of the form Ὀρχομενοῦ,16 which may have been used two more times in the same fragment (see fr. 70.30 and 70.35 M-W). The reason for this choice is probably the creation of an aural link in fr. 70.23 M-W (καί τε δι’ Ἐρχομενοῦ εἱλιγμένος εἶσι δράκω⌋ν ὥς).17 The aim is to attach aurally place names to nearby terms (such as εἶσι) and thus generate an onomatopoeic effect.18 Such a mechanism is not ‘reserved’ to fr. 70.23 M-W but is observed (through syllabic or near-syllabic repetition) in fr. 70.18 M-W (ὅς τε Λιλαίηθεν προΐει καλλίρ⌋ροο⌊ν⌋ ὕδωρ) and 70.21 M-W (ὅς παρὲκ Πανοπῆα διὰ γ⌋ληχῶνα τέρειναν).19 The effect is impressive: the listeners follow the course of the river Cephisos from Lilaea to Panopeus to Erchomenos by means of aural links that emphasize each of the three phases of this ‘journey’. Α similar case is that of Ἄτλαντός τ’ ὄρος] α̣ἰπὺ̣ κ̣[αὶ Αἴτν]η̣ν παιπαλόεσσαν (fr. 150.25 M-W). The vocalic repetition of word-initial –a– connects Atlas’ high and steep mountain to rugged Aetna and the link is further reinforced by the near-syllabic repetition between α̣ἰπὺ and παιπαλόεσσαν, which modify the two place names, Atlas’

 15 It should be noted that the emphasis on mental ability may have been also expressed in the highly fragmented lines 43a.44–50 (e. g. 43a.50: …]εν ελασσωνουν[). Merkelbach (ap. app. cr.) restores verses 49–50 as follows: ὃς δή] τοι μακάρων, [οἳ Ὀλύμπια δώματ᾽ ἔχουσιν, εἶχ]εν ἐλάσσω νοῦν. 16 On these forms, see Hirschberger 2004, 261. 17 Silk (1974, 184–187) presents various cases of alliteration as enforcement of interaction, especially in similes or simple comparisons. In fr. 70.23 M-W the expression εἱλιγμένος … δράκω⌋ν ὥς is appropriate to the course of the river Cephisos but there is no aural association at work whatsoever. Instead, it is only εἱλιγμένος that interacts with the place name Ἐρχομενοῦ and the verb εἶσι. 18 On etymological links in the Catalogue of Women, see below (this chapter) and Davies 2017, 86–92. 19 See section 1.3 (this chapter).

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

mountain and Aetna respectively. As in the previous example (fr. 70 M-W, see above), so here toponyms indicating the regions from which the Boreads pass in their pursuit of the Harpies are highlighted by means of soundplay: .... παρ’ Ἠριδανοῖ]ο βα[θυρ]ρ̣[ό]ου αἰπὰ ῥέεθρα (fr. 150.21 M-W)20 and … Ὀ]ρ̣τ̣ υγίην Λαιστ[ρ]υ̣[γον]ίην τε γενέθλην (fr. 150.26 M-W). Vocalic repetition can operate not just on the level of the verse but of a series of verses sharing a common idea. In the Atalanta-ehoie (frs. 73–76 M-W)21 repetition of a word-initial –a– lays emphasis to the main idea of the passage, i.e. Atalanta’s rejection of humans and especially of men. Before I go on with further details, a necessary caveat must be presented and briefly discussed. It is true that ‘recurrence over a longer space tends to be less perceptible’,22 but systematic repetition organized with respect to a theme lying at the kernel of a passage or section may counterbalance the disadvantage of textual dispersion. In fact, the soundplay orchestrated around the word-initial –a– is unfailingly tied to the thematic thread unraveled in the entire Atalanta-ehoie: Fr. 73.1– 5 M-W: ἀγακλε]ιτοιο ἄνακτος [ ]σ̣ι ποδώκης δῖ’ Ἀταλάν[τη [ Χαρί]των ἀμαρύγματ’ ἔχο[υσα [ πρὸς ἀνθρώπων ἀ]παναίνετο φῦλον ὁμιλ[εῖν ἀνδρῶν ἐλπομένη φεύγ]ε̣ ιν γάμον ἀλφηστάων̣ [. very gl]orious lord [ ] swift-footed godly Atalanta [ ] possessing Graces’ radiance she refused to associate with the tribe [of all human beings hoping to escape] marriage [with men] who live on bread

 20 Compounds like βαθύρρος were thought to convey grandeur and conciseness, since they could stand for an entire phrase; see [Demetrius] On Style 93: ὄνομα γὰρ τεθήσεται ἀντὶ ὅλου τοῦ λόγου (‘one word will stand for an entire phrase’, Innes 1995, 409). 21 On the Atalanta-ehoie, see Hirschberger 2004, 458–460. On the problem related to whether it belongs to the Catalogue of Women or the Megalai Ehoiai, see D’Alessio 2005, 213–216 with further bibliography. 22 Silk 1974, 174.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Fr. 75.24 M-W: ]α̣ ἀνιηρὸν ἄεθλον ] grievous contest

Fr. 76.4–6 M-W: ἦχ’ ὑποχωρήσασ’· οὐ̣ γ̣ὰ̣ρ̣ ἴ̣σ̣[ον ἀμφοτέροισιν ἆθλον ἔκειθ’· ἣ μέν̣ ῥ̣α π[οδώκης δῖ’ Ἀταλάντη ἵετ’ ἀναινομένη δ̣ῶρα̣ [χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης she, retreating a little; for unequal for the two of them was the contest: for she, [swift-footed Atalanta, sped refusing the gifts of [golden Aphrodite

The words beginning with an –a– aurally summarize the thematic nucleus of an essential part of the story: Atalanta of the flashing steps (Ἀταλάντη / ἀμαρύγματα), daughter of a famous king (ἀγακλειτοῖο ἄνακτος), refused the company of mortals and (trying to avoid marriage with) men (ἀνθρώπων ἀπαναίνετο / ἀνδρῶν ἀλφηστάων). […] A troublesome prize was set (ἀνιηρὸν ἄεθλον) for the one who would surpass her in speed, a prize not equal to her and the one who would compete with her (ἀμφοτέροισιν / ἆθλον), for she was running because she refused Aphrodite’s gifts (ἀναινομένη / Ἀφροδίτης), while he was running for his life. Vocalic repetition can at times cooperate with other linking mechanisms (μέν-δέ) to enhance parallelism or to bring a given term in the limelight. In fr. 129 M-W, where we hear about the sons of Abas, word-initial vocalic repetition is balanced by syllabic repetition a few verses later (‐to- / -ti- / -ti- / -to‐): Zeus gives to Acrisius, one of the sons of Abas, the city of Argos (fr. 129.10 M-W: Ἀκρίσιος μὲν ἄρ’ Ἄ]ρ̣γ̣ει ἐυκτί̣ [τ]ῳ ἐμβασί[λ]ευεν) and to the other son Proetus the well-built citadel of Tiryns (fr. 129.16 M-W: Προῖτος δ’ αὖ Τίρυ]ν̣ θ̣ α ἐυκ[τ]ίμε[νο]ν πτολίεθρον). In fr. 165.11 M-W (ἐν Ἀσ[ί]δι ἔτραφεν αἴῃ), the vocalic repetition of –a– in word-initial position in the first sedes of feet 4 and 6 of the verse is reinforced both by the hyperbaton and metonymy (Ἀσ[ί]δι … αἴῃ). The result is the stress on Asia, the place where both the Heracles-Laomedon episode took place and the birthplace of Telephus.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

.. Syllabic Repetition or Near-Repetition of Stem Syllables Syllabic repetition or near-repetition of stem syllables is observable both on the level of a single verse and in longer units consisting either of couplets or a few lines of text. From a methodological point of view, though, textual space does not determine the role of syllabic repetition. In this light, it is better to present the results of my analysis on the basis of the function of this form of aural association. The simplest form of syllabic or near-syllabic repetition occurs with respect to proper names, whether personal or place names. In οἳ δὲ καὶ εἰς Ἄργος Προῖ̣[το]ν̣ πά̣[ρα δῖον ἵκοντο (fr. 37.10 M-W), ὅς τε Λιλαίηθεν προΐει καλλίρ⌋ροο⌊ν⌋ ὕδωρ (fr. 70.18 M-W), and ὅς παρὲκ Πανοπῆα διὰ γ⌋ληχῶνα τέρειναν (fr. 70.21 M-W) the aural associative link functions as an emphatic mechanism that brings a proper name into the spotlight. A more intricate (and perhaps stylish) type of syllabic repetition or nearrepetition of stem syllables aims at accentuating the content of a given verse or passage. In Ἄγριον ἠδὲ Λατῖνον … | κούρη δ’ ἐν μεγάροισιν ἀγαυοῦ Δευκαλίωνος | Πανδώρη Διὶ πατρὶ θεῶν σημάντορι πάντων | μιχθεῖσ’ ἐν φιλότητι τέκε Γραικὸν μενεχάρμην (fr. 5.1–4 M-W), the syllabic triplet –pa– in Πανδώρη … πατρὶ … πάντων binds Pandora and Zeus together and aurally differentiates them from the previous verse in which Pandora had been designated as the daughter of Deucalion.23 The transition from koure to concubine is thus visually represented by the shift from verse 2 to verse 3 and aurally by the emphatic link between the proper name (Πανδώρη) and the periphrastic designation of Zeus (πατρὶ θεῶν … πάντων). A bolder interpretive take on this fragment would even entertain the thought that parallelism (κούρη – Πανδώρη and δ’ ἐν μεγάροισιν ἀγαυοῦ Δευκαλίωνος – Διὶ πατρὶ θεῶν σημάντορι πάντων) enhances this interplay and toys with the idea that Zeus’ extended designation as the ‘father of all gods’ replaces (as a lover!) Pandora’s human father Deucalion. In τὴν πέρι δ]ὶς πόλεσαν π̣ε̣ρί τ’ ἀμφί τε κυκλώσαντο (fr. 150.28 M-W), the aural flanking of πόλεσαν by περί (reversed the first time and in tmesis the second) stresses through anaphoric duplication24 the idea of the double (δ]ὶς) ‘going around and encircling’ of Ortygia. Emphasis on the content of a single verse is also observable in τάων ἃς θνηταὶ θνητοῑς τέκον εὐνηθεῖσαι (fr. 195.13 M-W = Sc. 6). Here, the word-initial  23 On Pandora, see Aloni 2017, 8–9; Davies 2017, 85, 87; Koning 2017, 105–108; Cardin and Pontani 2017, 274, 276, 281. 24 On multiple anaphora in the same verse with examples from both Greek and Latin poetry, see Wills 1996, 363–371.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women suprasyllabic repetition of –thnet–, which is further enhanced by polyptoton, creates through aural association a solid joint that resonates in the second-tonext participial form εὐνηθεῖσαι (–neth–) describing the sexual union between mortal women and men. Syntactical coordination between subject (θνηταὶ), dative of accompaniment (θνητοῖς), and verb (εὐνηθεῖσαι) is thus ‘imitated’ by acoustical coordination. Sound mirrors syntax. Syllabic repetition may acquire subtler forms. A relevant case is that with two examples of syllabic or near-syllabic chiastic gemination. In the first example, this phenomenon, observable in a single verse, follows a ‘preparatory’ manifestation of its constituent elements, whereas in the second it basically precedes its elaborate coagulation in the second verse of the relevant couplet. So, in Νέστορά τε Χ]ρομίον τε Περικλύμενόν τ’ ἀγέρω⌊χον, | ὄλβιον, ᾧ⌋ πόρε δῶρα Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων | παντο⌋ῖ’ (fr. 33a.12–14 M-W), the initial –peri– in the first part of the proper name Periclymenus is picked up by the chiastic poRE …RA po (πόρε δῶρα Ποσειδάων) in the very next verse. Sophisticated syllabic interplay of this kind is attuned to the narrative unraveling of Pylos’ siege by Heracles. Periclymenus, last in the list of Neleus’ sons mentioned in the previous lines, is endowed by his father Poseidon with gifts of every sort (παντο⌋ῖ’). Perhaps his most impressive ability, no doubt a gift from his father, is his ability to change shapes. In fact, the ensuing narrative dwells on this special skill of Periclymenus whom Heracles is able to kill with Athena’s help only after suffering severe casualties. Seen from this vantage point, the placement of the nearsyllabic chiastic gemination at the outset of the Periclymenus narrative draws the audience’s attention to the key element of the entire passage to follow. In ἔξοχον ἀνθ̣[ρώπων ἀρ]ε̣τῇ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα γ[αῖαν. | τῷ δὲ καὶ η[….. πα]τὴρ πόρε Πήγασο[ν ἵππον (fr. 43a.83–84 Μ-W) the chiastic aural association of re … EP … PE … ro (ἀρ]ε̣ τῇ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα) suggests through the aural link between terms that are juxtaposed but syntactically unconnected (ἀρ]ε̣ τῇ ἐπ’ ἀπείρονα) that Bellerophon’s virtue has no limit. This aural ‘suggestion’ is consonant with the meaning of the actual phrase, since we are told that his virtue spans the boundless earth. This elaborate aural association enhances a further interplay in the ensuing verse that is orchestrated initially by a further acoustic chiasmus repeating the two constituent items of the preceding line, and then by an intensification of one of them: πα]τὴρ πόρε Πήγασο[ν ἵππον. This double aural chiasmus, which is further strengthened by single syllabic near-repetition, is one of the most impressive soundplays of the whole Catalogue. The result of this refined interplay in two consecutive verses is arresting: the second verse of the

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

couplet discloses the recognition of Bellerophon’s virtue on the boundless earth by his father Poseidon by means of the gift of the horse Pegasos.25 Syllabic repetition can also enhance parallelism by calling attention to a ‘dormant’ semantic relation between its constituent items. In [ἐ]πεὶ τέκε παῖδα Ποσειδάωνι ἄνακτι | [ αἰν]όμορον πατέρα ὃν πορσαίνεσκεν (fr. 43a.68–9 M-W), the aural symmetry ABAB (pa-po / pa-po) alludes to Mestra’s balanced life as Poseidon’s concubine and as Erysichthon’s daughter: ‘she bore a son to lord Poseidon – she provided for her doomed father’.26 A special kind of syllabic or near-syllabic repetition involves sound recurrence both at the end of a given verse and the beginning of the next verse. The phenomenon has been aptly called ‘adjacency across lines’27 and, although it has been initially employed with respect to word repetition, it is equally applicable to aural association. Adjacency of an aural pattern across lines leads to the carrying over of a sound, often to suggest or expand or specify a meaning or relation that is not explicit. In τῆς μὲν Σίσυφο]ς Αἰολίδης πειρήσατο βουλέων̣ | βοῦς ἐλάσα[ς (fr. 43a.75–76 M-W), the near-repetition of –boule– / –bousel– at the end of one verse and the beginning of the following creates an aural link and specifies how Sisyphus ‘made trial of her (Eurynome’s) plans, i.e. by ‘driving away cattle’. The second constituent item in this soundplay is thus coordinated with the first, effecting a smooth transition to the next phase of Sisyphus’ plan. Although it is not clear whose cattle Sisyphus steals – nor are details of this story in general clear – it is noteworthy that this plan that is aurally underscored by –boule– / –bousel– resonates in the expression βουλῇ ᾿Aθ[ηναίης (fr. 43a.78 M-W), which Sisyphus follows in his attempt to get Eurynome for his son Glaucus. The implicit point of this aural association is the triggering of a semantic interaction between the adjacent aural link of lines 75–76 and the ‘will of Athena’ in line 78: the cattle Sisyphus raided, which must have been connected to Eurynome, amount to literal or metaphorical marriage gifts,28 per Athena’s will. Another relevant example of near-syllabic adjacency across lines is attested in ἐν δ’ ἄνδρες ναίουσι πολύρρηνες πολυβοῦται | πολλοὶ ἀπειρέσιοι φῦλα

 25 Along this interpretive line, I would not be surprised if verse 85 (ὠκύτατον [.]μ̣ ινεπτε[) contained some form of the root πτερ- (Pegasus is after all a winged horse), as it has been suggested by Schwartz (in the critical apparatus of the edition by M-W) who reads πτερ̣[όεντι. 26 Note the semantically antithetical but structurally parallel use of ἄνακτι – αἰνόμορον, the former modifying Poseidon, the latter Mestra’s father Erisychthon. 27 See Wills 1996, 394–397. 28 Hirschberger (2004, 283 on fr. 37.76 = 43a.76 M-W) considers various scenarios, of which none is certain, as she rightly acknowledges.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων (fr. 240.3–4 M-W).29 Prosodic variation in the first part of the adjacent compounds like πολύρρηνες πολυβοῦται is cut short (because the first polu scans as ⏑ – (short / long) due to the double ρρ in πολύρρηνες, whereas the second polu scans as ⏑ ⏑ (double short)), but the near-recurrence of the sound poll at the very beginning of the ensuing verse is very strong; so strong, that by carrying over the sense of ‘mass numbers’ to the next line it facilitates the asyndeton that spans this couplet. Syntax and sound are, therefore, effectively orchestrated to call attention to the fact that Ellopie is a region of many animals (‘rich in sheep and rolling-footed cattle’ (fr. 240.1–2 M-W: ἔστι τις Ἑλλοπίη πολύλήϊος ἠδ’ εὐλείμων | ἀφνειὴ μήλοισι καὶ εἰλιπόδεσσι βόεσσιν) and many inhabitants (fr. 240.4 M-W: πολλοὶ ἀπειρέσιοι φῦλα θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων). Near-syllabic repetition can also highlight an etymological bond between two items. If they are adjacent, their association is characterized by high levels of perceptibility. In θεσσάμενος γενεὴν Κλεοδαίου κυδαλίμοιο (fr. 231 M-W), the proper name Κλεοδαίου resonates in its bordering epithet κυδαλίμοιο. The repetition of –k– in word-initial position and the consonantal chiasmus l-d / d-l stresses the etymological link between these two words. One may not be wrong to argue that κυδαλίμοιο has been used here simply to make sound and sense co-operate in highlighting the glory (kleos) of Cleodaeus’ race.30 Lastly, I will visit a case in which double syllabic repetition in word-initial position is illusive, even though it is observed in two adjacent words, i.e. in what is the ‘default’ mode of aural association. In [ ]ι̣ πολύστάφυλον πο[λυγηθέα (fr. 70.6 M-W), the aural link between polu-polu is misleading, since the prosodic variation of the repetend (resulting from metrically different ‘neighbors’) undermines the acoustic connection which is only visual, i.e. created by the printed text. The first polu scans as ⏑ – (short / long) because the cluster στ in πολυστάφυλον makes the syllable λυ long (πολυσ.τάφυλον), whereas the second polu scans as ⏑ ⏑ (double short), since it is followed by the single consonant γ (πολυ.γήθεα).31

 29 On this couplet, see also ‘Complex Cases’ (below). 30 On etymology in Hesiodic fragments, see Davies 2017, 86–92. 31 Hopkinson (1982, 162–177) offers a large number of cases of juxtaposed prosodic variants in Greek and Latin poetry; on variation of repetends, mainly but not solely in Latin poetry, see Wills 1996, 461–471.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

.. Syllabic Repetition or Near-Repetition of Final Syllables Syllabic repetition or near-repetition of final syllables is a form of rhyme facilitating memorization and list-learning of proper names. In Ὕλλον καὶ Γλῆνον κα̣ὶ̣ [Κτή]σ̣ιππον καὶ Ὀνείτην (fr. 25.19 M-W), the first three proper names rhyme at word-terminal position. The effect is made clearer by the placement of καὶ after each name to make the preceding short syllable of second-declension nouns long by position. The last item in this verse tellingly begins with the same sound (Ὀνείτην) in which all previous three names end. Here, sound similarity draws attention to the last name but immediately differentiates it by means of prosodic variation (its initial syllable being short). The same euphonic and mnemonic effect is observed in Φηρέα θ’ ἱππόδαμ[ον καὶ ἐυμ]μελίη̣[ν ᾿Aγέ]λ̣ αον | Τοξέα τε Κλύμενό[ν τε ἄνακ]τ’ ἀτάλαντ̣ [ον] Ἄρηϊ (fr. 15.15–16 M-W) by means of parallel syllabic repetition of –ea– (reinforced by the same accentual pattern) and word-terminal –on that is lengthened by position or in Δηΐμαχόν τε] καὶ Εὐρύβιον κλειτόν τ’ Ἐπίλαον | Νέστορά τε Χ]ρομίον τε Περικλύμενόν τ’ ἀγέρω⌊χον (fr. 33a.11–12 M-W) through a simple word-terminal assonance of –on and –on t(e). In Εὐρ]υθεμίστην τε Στρατ̣ [ο]νίκην [τ]ε̣ Σ̣τ̣[ε]ρ̣ό̣π̣ην̣ τε (fr. 26.9 MW), morphological correspondence of first-declension feminine nouns and syntactical coordination are fully exploited so as to a create a triple soundplay of –en te.

.. Complex Cases Ἄκρως δὲ καὶ ἡ ἐπὶ ταὐτὸ σύνοδος τῶν σχημάτων εἴωθε κινεῖν, ὅταν δύο ἢ τρία οἷον κατὰ συμμορίαν ἀνακιρνάμενα ἀλλήλοις ἐρανίζῃ τὴν ἰσχὺν τὴν πειθὼ τὸ κάλλος (‘the combination of several figures often has an exceptionally powerful effect, when two or three combined cooperate, as it were, to contribute force, conviction, beauty’).32 What [Longinus] (On the Sublime 20) says with respect to figures of speech is also true for the combination of sound-patterns. Under the category of ‘complex cases’ I group verses or passages in which more than one of the above forms of soundplay are orchestrated to facilitate interaction and create or emphasize meaning.

 32 Halliwell 1995, 237.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women ... Progressively-Developed Aural Associations Aural association can operate not only in single verses or couplets but also in longer stretches of text by means of various forms of acoustic links. The effect is to ease the flow of the narrative by aurally drawing attention to some of its constituent elements. In [ ]εος γαιηό̣ χ̣ου ἐννοσιγαίου· | ἣ δ’ ἄρ’ ἐνὶ μεγ]άροις διδυ̣μάονε γείνατο τέκ[νω | Ἄκτορι κυσαμ]ένη καὶ ἐρικτ̣ ύ̣π̣ῳ ἐννοσιγαί̣ [ῳ, | ἀπλήτω, Κτέα]τ̣ ό̣ ν τε καὶ Εὔ̣ρυτον, οἷσι πόδες [μ]έ̣ ν̣ .[ | ἦν τέτορες, κ]εφα̣λ̣α̣ὶ̣ δ̣ὲ̣ δ̣ύ̣ω̣ ἰ̣ δ̣ὲ̣ χ̣εῖρες εεισ̣[..]ν̣ (fr. 17a.13–17 M-W), Poseidon’s fatherhood is stressed by the ‘preparatory’ syllabic recurrence of gai in the first and second part of two adjacent compound adjectives (γαιηό̣ χ̣ου ἐννοσιγαίου) pointing to ἐννοσιγαί̣ [ῳ in the next line. This is however, only the first phase of aural associations that are effected as the narrative unravels. Later, the new fathering by Actor will be presented next to that of Poseidon. Their being on par with one another is highlighted by both their syntactical coordination (καὶ) and aural chiasmus (Ἄκτορι … ἐρικτ̣ ύ̣π̣ω̣ῳ), which will resonate in the hypogrammatic echo of the names of the male offspring (Κτέα]τ̣ ό̣ ν … Εὔ̣ρυτον) in the next verse.33 Once this aural interplay is exhausted, the poet will reactivate an aural element that was pregnant in the near-syllabic repetition of διδυ̣μάονε that designated the twins to be born. The near-syllabic repetition of de-du-de in κ]εφα̣λ̣α̣ὶ̣ δ̣ὲ δ̣ύ̣ω̣ ἰ̣ δ̣ὲ̣ χ̣εῖρες echoes the twin nature (διδυ̣μάονε) of Cteatus and Eurytus and brings this progressive aural interaction to completion. In καὶ δὴ ἔχεν δύο μῆλα ποδώκης δῖ’ ᾿Aτ[αλάντη· | ἐγγὺς δ’ ἦν τέλεος· ὃ δὲ τὸ τρίτον ἧκε χ̣[αμᾶζε (fr. 76.20–21 M-W), the near-syllabic repetition of de-dudi underscores the link between Atalanta and the two apples that she catches, while the aural association between to-t-to acoustically reenacts the semantic differentiation between the first two apples and the third, which is paramount for the unraveling of this story. Various forms of assonance can be progressively combined to draw attention to place names that delineate the geographical framework within which a given episode will take place. In ἠ’ οἵη Διδύμους ἱεροὺς ναίουσα κολωνοὺς⌋ | Δωτίῳ ἐν πεδίῳ πολυβότρυος ἄντ’ Ἀ⌋μύροιο | νίψατο Βοιβιάδος λίμνης πόδα παρθέ⌋νος ἀδμής (fr. 59.2–4 M-W), the near-syllabic repetition of di-du (Διδύμους) is coupled in the same verse by the triple repetition of the wordterminal syllable –ous (Διδύμους ἱεροὺς … κολωνοὺς) which is also repeated one more time in word-internal position (ναίουσα). In the next verse, the high 33 See Watkings (1995, 189–190), who has traced various hypogrammatic echoes in Greek poets, among whom is Hesiod (Op. 1–2: Μοῦσαι Πιερίηθεν ἀοιδῇσι κλείουσαι, | δεῦτε Δί’ ἐννέπετε, σφέτερον πατέρ’ ὑμνείουσαι).

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

lighting of place names is achieved by the word-terminal syllabic repetition of íoi-íoi and is strengthened by a similar accentual pattern (Δωτίῳ ἐν πεδίῳ) and by syllabic repetition in word-initial position that is aurally facilitated by the ensuing nasals (ἄντ’ ᾿A⌋μύροιο). Lastly, in fr. 59.4 M-W emphasis on lake Boebias is carried out by the near-repetition of Boi-bias (Βοιβιάδος). ... Short-Range Aural Association Aural links of different kinds operate even on the level of a single verse, so as to call attention to semantic association or to make semantic suggestions that are not explicitly expressed. Since there are numerous examples of this phenomenon, I will restrict myself only to those I consider most noteworthy. In fr. 33a.28 M-W (νήπιος, οὐδ’ ἔδδεισε Διὸς ταλασίφρονα παῖδα) consonantal repetition of –d– in three adjacent syllables (οὐδ’ ἔδδεισε) is immediately followed by the near-syllabic repetition of se-os (ἔδδεισε Διὸς) interrupted by a further d–beginning syllable (ἔδδεισε Διὸς). This elaborate chiasmus stresses the irony of Periclymenus’ behavior. The point is that the man whom he did not fear was none other than Zeus’ son, i.e. someone superior to any descendant of Poseidon (Periclymenus was Poseidon’s grandson who had been endowed with the ability to shapeshift). In this way, the text, which had marked the last phase of their encounter by ring composition (fr. 33a.25 M-W: ἤ]τοι ὁ μὲν ζυγοῦ ἄντα βίης Ἡρακληείης – fr. 33a.30 M-W: ἀλλὰ] τ̣ό̣ τ’ ἀντίος ἦλθε βίης Ἡρακληείης), underscores the fated end of Periclymenus (called a ‘fool’ [νήπιος]) by Heracles. Another relevant case of consonantal alliteration combined with adjacent near-syllabic repetition is offered by frs. 198.10 M-W (δί]ου ᾿Aρητιάδαο· δί[ου] δ᾽ ἀπε[ρείσια ἕ]δ̣να), 204.61 M-W (Τ̣υ̣νδαρέου ποτὶ δῶμα δαΐφρονος, ὄφρ̣[α ἴδοιτο), and 204.136 M-W (δεινὸς ὄφις κατὰ νῶτα δα[φοιν). In fr. 198.10 M-W, the nexus of aural associations highlights the offering of marriage gifts to Helen by Thoas, who is first in the list of suitors mentioned after Odysseus. By aurally emphasizing the offering of wedding gifts by Thoas, the poet of the Catalogue wanted to indicate to his audience the difference between him and Odysseus, who ‘did not send any gifts for the long-ankled maiden’ (fr. 198.4 M-W: δῶρα μὲν οὔ ποτ’ ἔπεμπε τανισφύρου εἵνεκα κούρης). In fr. 204.61 M-W, the acoustic link between δῶμα δαΐφρονος and ὄφρ̣[α ἴδοιτο underscores the fact that Idomeneus did not send a proxy to Sparta but travelled on his own ‘so that he could see’ Helen ‘in the house of wise’ Tyndareos. The function of the nexus of assonantal devices is to draw attention to the semantic interaction of the two constituent items (δῶμα δαΐφρονος and ὄφρ̣[α ἴδοιτο), highlighting Idomeneus’ deviation from the proxy-sending tactics of the other suitors. In fr. 204.136

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women M-W, the epithet δα[φοινός is prefigured by the preceding phrase δεινὸς ὄφις in the same verse.34 Although the fragmentary condition of the text does not allow for further arguments, it may not be too bold to note that both the kenning ‘hairless’ (129: ἄτριχος)35 and the typical designation of the snake (137: ὄφις) trigger aural associations in the immediate context. Often highlighted by ancient scholiasts and grammarians, a repetition of consonantal clusters imitating by their harshness of sound Zeus’ mighty thundering is observed in fr. 54a.7 M-W (σκ]λ̣ηρ[ὸν] δ’ ἐβ[ρόντησε καὶ ὄβριμον, ἀμφὶ δὲ γαῖα).36 A closer look, though, shows that various ‘ancillary’ aural links are activated so as to make the most of the expressiveness of this harshness of sound: a consonantal cluster skl is placed at verse-initial position, and moreover the repeated consonantal clusters tied to near-supra-syllabic repetition of sound (ebr-obr) and other near-syllabic repetition (ond-ont) create an impressive chiasmus (ond–ebr–obr–ont). Although formulas are marked by a low perceptibility of aural effects, Ζεὺς δ’ ἄμ]μ’ ἐπιμάρτυρος ἔστω (fr. 75.17 M-W) seems to be an exception. For the homoeoteleuton37 with the previous verse (fr. 75.16 M-W: ]οι εἰρημένος ἔστω) and the assonance of –e– in word-initial position are carried over to the ensuing formula Ζεὺς δ’ ἄμ]μ’ ἐπιμάρτυρος ἔστω through parallel repetition (ἐπιμάρτυρος ἔστω). In this light, the amm-ma acoustic link is not hidden in the formulaic expression but flanked by the parallel assonance of –e– sounds. The result of this intricate interplay is the stress on Zeus’ being witness to Schoeneus’ words, as if repetition of sound imitated the force of the oath.

 34 See Watkins (1995, 189), who draws attention to an analogous phenomenon in Homeric Hymn 3.362 (φοινὸν ἀποπνείουσ’, ὁ δ’ ἐπηύξατο Φοῖβος ᾿Aπόλλων), in which word-initial segments of the sequence φοινὸν ἀποπνείουσ’ refigure the word-initial segments of the god’s name in the sequence Φοῖβος ᾿Aπόλλων. 35 On ἄτριχος, see under ‘middle-range aural association’ (below); on kennings, see Waern 1951. 36 See Goslin (2010, 364), who draws attention to the use of this formula, which is coupled in Th. 839–849 with another formula (σμερδαλέον κονάβησε) that ‘regularly occurs in epic poetry to register the effect of a powerful force, whether a voice or physical blow, on its environment’. In both the Typhonomachy passage from the Theogony and in Cat. fr. 54a Μ-W, harshness of sound pertaining to Zeus’ activity is followed by a reference to the earth (Th. 839–840: σκληρὸν δ’ ἐβρόντησε καὶ ὄβριμον, ἀμφὶ δὲ γαῖα | σμερδαλέον κονάβησε – Cat. fr. 54a.7–8 M-W: σκ]λ̣ηρ[ὸν] δ’ ἐβ[ρόντησε καὶ ὄβριμον | ἀμφὶ δὲ γαῖα | κ[ι]νήθ̣[η). 37 On an ancient definition of homoeoteleuton, see [Demetrius] On Style 25: ὁμοιοτέλευτα δέ ἐστι τὰ εἰς ὅμοια καταλήγοντα, ἤτοι εἰς ὀνόματα ταὐτά … ἢ ὅταν εἰς συλλαβὴν καταλήγῃ τὴν αὐτήν (‘Homoeoteleuton is when clauses end similarly, either with the same word … or with the same syllable’, translation by Innes 1995, 365).

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

Prosodic variation of supra-syllabic word-initial pendants can be combined with other aural associative devices such as near-syllabic repetition. In fr. 150.22 M-W, (]φέρβουσα̣ π̣[ολ]υσπερέας πολύφορβος) prosodic variation of the suprasyllabic word-initial πολυ-pendants38 (πολυσ.περέα—πολύ.φορβος) is flanked by stem repetition in word-initial and word-terminal position (φέρβ-φορβ). The modification of φέρβουσα by πολύφορβος is a hapax that has disturbed Rzach who thought it to be the result of the visual influence of the preceding φέρβουσα, arguing that the poet of the Catalogue had initially written πολυφύλους in asyndeton. I have decided to follow the transmitted text which is, correctly, in my view, printed in the standard modern edition by Merkelbach and West. The chiastic structure pherb-polu-polu-phorb is based on the fact that πολύφορβος echoes in reverse order the preceding φέρβουσα̣ π̣[ολ]υ(σπερέας), intensifying what has already been expressed. This well-known form of repetition in ancient Greek can take various forms: noun- or pronoun-shifts (e.g. Il. 4.62–63: ὑποείξομεν ἀλλήλοισι, | σοὶ μὲν ἐγώ, σὺ δ᾽ ἐμοί), verb-shifts (e.g. Sappho fr. 117 Voigt: †χαίροις ἀ νύμφα†, χαιρέτω δ᾽ ὁ γάμβρος), and even category-shifts (e.g. Il. 5.560–561: καππεσέτην … | τὼ δὲ πεσόντ᾽ ἐλέησεν).39 Fragment 150.22 M-W resonates with Od. 11.264–265 (… οἷά τε πολλοὺς | βόσκει γαῖα μέλαινα πολυσπερέας ἀνθρώπους), in which both similar vocabulary and a similar repetition pattern are used. The recurrence of the simple adjective πολλοὺς in the compound πολυσπερέας (Od. 11.364–365) is analogous to the repetition of the participle φέρβουσα in the compound πολύφορβος in fr. 150.22 M-W.40 In fact, the Catalogue also offers an example of the reverse phenomenon, which involves what is known as ‘compound-simplification’41 (the repetition of only one part of a compound): ἐν δ’ ἄνδρες ναίουσι πολύρρηνες πολυβοῦται | πολλοὶ ἀπειρέσιοι φῦλα θνητῶν ἀνθρώπων (fr. 240.3–4 M-W). ... Middle-Range Aural Association In fr. 43a.41–2 M-W (ε]ὖτέ τις ἀντ’ ὤνοιο̣ χατίζῃ χ[̣ρῆ]μ̣’ ἀνελ[έσθαι | ἀ]μφὶ μάλα χρῆν ὦν[̣ον .......]. τῖμον̣ [), syllabic repetition of chre capped by nasals (m-n) aurally associates χ[̣ρῆ]μ̣’ and χρῆν in two successive verses. The function of this aural link is the creation of an elaborate chiasmus with ὤνοιο̣ | ὦν̣ [ον. The  38 Repetition of the first part of a compound (like φιλο- and πολυ-, a preposition, and α privative) is common in many Greek authors; see Denniston 1952, 130. 39 For a detailed study of these forms of repetition in Latin poetry (with some examples from Greek authors too), see Wills 1996, 272–328. 40 For the ‘simplex-compound’ association, see Wills 1996, 443–445. 41 See Wills 1996, 319.

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women distribution of the constituent items of the chiasmus in the two successive verses (ὤνοιο̣ … χ[̣ρῆ]μ̣’ | χρῆν ὦν[̣ ον) aims at stressing the balance between the thing to be exchanged and its purchased price.42 In fr. 62.1–3 M-W (ἄκρον ἐπ’ ἀνθερίκων καρπὸν θέεν οὐδὲ κατέκλα, | ἀλλ’ ἐπὶ πυραμίνων ἀθέρων δρομάασκε πόδεσσιν | καὶ οὐ σινέσκετο καρπόν), nearsyllabic repetition at word-initial position (ἄκρον … καρπὸν … κατέκλα | καρπόν) reinforced by other aural forms of acoustic association like syllabic repetition (ἀνθερίκων … θέεν | ἀθέρων) and word-terminal syllabic recurrence in the arsis or first sedes of two bordering feet (ἀνθερίκων καρπὸν | πυραμίνων ἀθέρων) may be distributed in three successive verses, in order to draw attention to the content of the story: Iphiclus used to run (θέεν) on the ‘fruiting tops of asphodel’ (ἄκρον ἐπ’ ἀνθερίκων καρπὸν) without breaking them (κατέκλα); he would race upon the wheaten tassels (πυραμίνων ἀθέρων) on his feet and would not damage the fruit’43 (καρπόν). The soundplay orchestrated by tectals44 can be noteworthy. In fr. 133.3–5 MW, the alliteration of –k– and –kh– together with syllabic repetition at wordinitial position45 spans three verses describing the disease sent by Hera as a punishment to the daughters of Proitos (καὶ γάρ σφιν κεφαλῇσι κατὰ κν⌋ύος αἰνὸν ἔχευ⌊εν· | ἀλφὸς γὰρ χρόα πάντα κατέσχεν, αἱ δέ νυ χαῖται | ἔρρεον ἐκ κεφαλέων, ψίλωτο δὲ καλὰ κάρηνα). Sound repetition allows the listener to follow mentally the spread of the illness on the heads of the Proetids: itching (κν⌋ύος) is ‘poured on’ (κατὰ ἔχευ⌊εν) their heads, dull-white leprosy spreads over their skin (χρόα … κατέσχεν), their hair (χαῖται) begins to fall from their heads (ἐκ κεφαλέων), their beautiful heads (καλὰ κάρηνα) are made hairless. The same mechanisms of aural highlighting (alliteration of –d– together with syllabic or near-syllabic repetition of adjacent words) are employed in fr. 141.1–3 M-W and 6 (] Διὸς δμηθεῖσα δόλοισι./ τῇ δὲ μίγη φιλότητι] πατὴρ καὶ δῶρον ἔδωκεν | πα]τ̣ ρὶ φέρων· ὃ δὲ δέξατο δῶρο̣ [ν). In this episode of the love affair between Zeus and Europa, her subjugation to Zeus’ wiles is aurally asso-

 42 I am hereby following the text printed in Casanova (1977, 25–30) and reprinted in Most (2007, 138 and 140). For the various problems concerning the meaning of these lines, see Hirschberger 2004, 277–278 on Cat. fr. 37.41–3 (= fr. 43a.41–43 M-W). 43 Translation by Most 2007, 129. 44 ‘Tectals’ is the current scientific term for ‘gutturals’; for ancient Greek, see NE s.v. ‘gutturals’ [Steinbauer]. 45 A single-verse example of aural association by tectals (gutturals) is offered by Cat. fr. 26.12 Μ-W: ἄκρ̣α̣ κάρηνα; for Homeric examples, see Edwards 1991, 58.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

ciated with Zeus’ ensuing offer to her of a golden necklace, which Hephaestus made and gave to Zeus in the first place. The same phenomenon is observed in fr. 204.87–90 M-W: (πλεῖ̣ [στ]α πορών. Χε̣ ί̣ ρων δ’ ἐν Πηλίῳ ὑλήεντι | Πηλείδην ἐκ̣ό̣μιζε πόδας ταχύν, ἔξοχον ἀνδρῶν, | παῖδ’ ἔτ’ ἐόν[τ’·] οὐ γάρ μιν ἀρηΐφιλος Μενέλαος | νίκησ’) by means of alliteration of –p– and syllabic repetition of –pe–. The stress is on the antithesis between the victory of Menelaus in the suitors’ contest for the hand of Helen by means of multiple gifts (πλεῖ̣ [στ]α πορών) and the absence of Achilleus from the contest who was raised by Chiron at mount Pelion. The passage is nicely flanked by a ring composition (85–86: … ἀλ̣λ̣’ ἄ̣[ρα πάντας | ᾿Aτρε[ίδ]ης ν̣ [ίκησε]ν ἀρηΐφιλος Μενέλαος and 89–90: οὐ γάρ μιν ἀρηΐφιλος Μενέλαος | νίκησ’) that accentuates the nexus of aural links. Other forms of alliterative and/or syllabic or near-syllabic repetition are found in frs. 204.94–95 M-W (ἄελπτον. πάντες δὲ θεοὶ δίχα θυμὸν ἔθεντο | ἐξ ἔριδος· δὴ γὰρ τότε μήδετο θέσκελα ἔργα), 204.124–129 M-W (πο⌋λλὰ δ’ ἀπὸ γλωθρῶν δενδρέων ἀμύοντα χαμᾶζε | χ̣ε̣ύετο καλὰ πέτηλα, ῥέεσκε δὲ καρπὸς ἔραζε | π]ν̣είο̣ν̣τος Βορέαο περιζαμενὲς Διὸς αἴσῃ, | .]′̣λ̣εσκεν δὲ θάλασσα, τρόμ{ε}εσκε δὲ πάντ’ ἀπὸ τοῖο, | τ̣ρ̣ύ̣χ̣εσ̣κεν δὲ μένος βρότεον, μινύθεσκε δὲ καρπός), and 204.130 M-W (γ]α̣ί̣[η]ς̣ ἐν̣ κευθμῶνι τρίτῳ ἔτεϊ τρία τέκνα). In the first case, the usual alliteration of –th- in θεοί-τίθημι/-μαι is combined with syllabic repetition of -the- pointing to the ‘wondrous deeds’ (θέσκελα ἔργα) devised by Zeus for the race of men. In the second case, the homoeoteleuton χαμᾶζε /ἔραζε calls into attention the falling of trees and leaves on the earth and paves the way, through the harshness of sound created by the five-fold supra-syllabic repetition –eske– (ῥέεσκε | .]′̣λ̣ εσκεν … τρόμ{ε}εσκε | τ̣ ρ̣ύ̣χ̣εσ̣κεν … μινύθεσκε), to the destruction caused by Zeus. In the third case, the chiasmus of nearsyllabic repetition of tri-te-tri-te in four successive words (τρίτῳ ἔτεϊ τρία τέκνα) emphasizes the connection between the birth of three offspring by the snake in the third year. This middle-range aural association may have been created under the influence of the phrase ὅτε τ’ ἄτριχος οὔρεσι τίκτει (fr. 204.129 M-W) that is also marked by recurrence of –t– sounds in various combinations and is syntactically linked to τρίτῳ ἔτεϊ τρία τέκνα. After all, the kenning ‘hairless’ (ἄτριχος) functions as an attention-drawing device by means of its colloquial character. Fragment 204.131 M-W (ἦρο]ς ̣μὲν κατ’ ὄρος καὶ ἀνὰ δρυμ{ν}ὰ πυκνὰ καὶ ὕλην) offers a rare (for the Catalogue of Women) form of aural association: nearrepetition of two almost adjacent words. This sound repetition seems to function as a link to ὥ̣ρ̣ῃ ἐν εἰαρινῇ, ὅτε τ’ ἄτριχος οὔρεσι τίκτει (204.129). The near-repetition of ἦρο]ς̣ – ὄρος recapitulates the ὥ̣ρ̣ῃ ἐν εἰαρινῇ – οὔρεσι

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women interplay,46 as the focus is still on the snake giving birth in the spring and going along ‘down from the mountain and up among the dense corpses and forest’.47 ... Long-Range Aural Association Long-range aural association is based on the repetition of the same or similar sound in an extended textual segment. The ‘nuclear’ aural feature is first presented as an ‘advance mention’ only to be picked up later and then exhaustively employed. In σκληρὸν δ’] ἐ̣ βρόντ[ησεν ἀπ’] οὐρανοῦ ἀστερόεντος (fr. 30.13 MW), the word-initial cluster br seems to interact with other preceding and ensuing consonantal clusters such as skl-nd (σκληρὸν δ’) and nd (ἐ̣ βρόντ[ησεν), since harshness of sound created by series of consonants was thought to imitate noise, here the noise made by Zeus’ thundering.48 But the unraveling of the narrative shows that the poet aims at creating a much more sophisticated interplay, since Zeus’ thundering will be aurally connected to the insolent king Salmoneus and the punishment of his transgression: βῆ δὲ κατ’ Ο]ὐλύμποιο [χο]λούμενος, αἶψα δ’ ἵκανεν | λαοὺς Σαλμ]ωνῆος ἀτ[ασ]θάλου, οἳ τάχ᾽ ἔμελλο̣ ν πείσεσθ᾽ ἔρ]γ᾽ ἀΐδηλα δι᾽ ὑβ̣[ρ]ι̣ σ̣τὴν βασιλῆα· | τοὺς δ᾽ ἔβα]λ̣εν βροντῇ [τε κ]αὶ αἰθαλόεντι κεραυνῷ. | ὣς λαοὺς ἀπε]τίνεθ᾽ ὑπερβ[ασίην] βασιλῆος | τὸν δὲ λα]βὼν ἔρριψ’ ἐς Τ[ά]ρταρον ἠερόεντα | ὡς μή τις] βροτὸς ἄλλος [ἐ]ρ̣ί̣ ζ̣ο̣ι̣ Ζηνὶ ἄνακτι (fr. 30.15–23 M-W). This is a telling example of how a ‘nuclear’ aural feature (br) functions as the vehicle for a long-range acoustic interplay which will make use of the same or similar sound pattern: ἐβρόντησεν, ὑβριστὴν βασιλῆα, ἔβαλεν βροντῇ, ὑπερβασίην49 βασιλῆος, βροτός. In fact, this list of acoustically associated terms amounts to an ‘aural summary’ of the relevant episode. The preparatory mention of a low-perceptibility ‘nuclear’ aural element occurs again in the same fragment, this time in the context of the Tyro-Poseidon episode. Tyro was the only member of Salmoneus’ family who was dear to the immortal gods, since she constantly rebuked and contended with her arrogant

 46 See also the soundplay in fr. 70.13 M-W (εἴαρο[ς ὥρῃ) and my comments under ‘vocalic repetition’ (11.2.2). 47 Translation by Most 2007, 237. 48 On such effects with emphasis on the Homeric scholia, see Richardson 1980, 283–285. 49 The abstract noun ὑπερβασίη is attested one more time in the entire Hesiodic corpus; see Op. 828 and West 1978a, 364–365 on Op. 828, who defends the verse as genuine against the view (Σ Hes. Op. 828; see also Paus. 9.31.5) that it (or 826–828) was added to make a transition to the poem Ornithomanteia, also attributed to Hesiod. Writing before the edition of Hesiodic fragments by Merkelbach and West in 1967, Krafft (1963, 71) discussed ὑπερβασίη in Op. 828 as a hapax legomenon.

Assonance (παρήχησις)  

father and let no mortal challenge the gods. This episode begins right after the completion of the one pertaining to the destruction of Salmoneus’ house by Zeus. At the very first verse, the only person of Salmoneus’ family escaping destruction is introduced as πάις … φίλη and then by her name (Τυρώ). The ‘nuclear’ aural associative mechanism (alliteration of the sound –p– in pais-phile) can hardly be noticed per se by the audience but the emphasis on the justification of Tyro’s salvation would no doubt have attracted attention. The two lines devoted to it, which are both full of repetitive features underscoring her continuous rebuke of Salmoneus (νεικέεσκε, συνεχές, εἴασκε), are completed by the phrase βροτὸν ἰσοφαρίζειν, which echoes the ‘nuclear’ aural element of the previous episode. This elaborate interplay between sound and narrative unraveling can hardly be accidental. The continuation of the plot verifies this assumption. The alliterative ‘nuclear’ element –p– that introduced Tyro as πάις … φίλη soon becomes the acoustic pivot around which the rest of a longrange aural association revolves. Verses 31–35 (αὐτὰρ ἐπεί] ῥ’ ἥβης πολυηράτου ἐς τέλος ἦλθεν | ..... . τῆ]ς γ’ ἐράεσκε Ποσειδάων ἐνοσίχθων | ] φιλότητι θεὸς βροτῷ, οὕνεκ’ ἄρ’ εἶδος πασάων | προὔχεσκε γυναι]κῶν θηλυτεράων | ἣ δ’ ἐπ’ Ἐνιπῆος πωλέσκετο] καλὰ ῥέεθρα) exploit several alliterative or near-syllabic recurrences rotating around the love affair between Poseidon and Tyro. When the young girl arrived at the end of her much-desired puberty (ἥβης πολυηράτου), Poseidon fell in love with her, a god with a mortal (Ποσειδάων … φιλότητι θεὸς βροτῷ), since she surpassed all mortal women in beauty (πασάων προὔχεσκε), and she would travel to the river Enipeus (ἐπ’ Ἐνιπῆος πωλέσκετο), where Poseidon, taking the form of the river-god, would make love to her. Thus, the long-range aural interplay follows and highlights the narrative: the young girl at her puberty, the god in love, the girl’s excessive beauty, the river she frequents as the place of their intercourse, all crucial elements of this episode are accentuated by means of the associative (alliterative and nearsyllable based) repetition of the sound –p–. The soundplay is in this example so elaborately constructed that it not only interacts with the aural associations of the previous episode (see fr. 30.27 M-W: βροτὸν) but links them to their new environment, always in tune with the narrative content. I am referring to verse 33 (φιλότητι θεὸς βροτῷ) where the consonantal cluster –br– that aurally marked the previous episode is almost juxtaposed (tellingly interrupted by θεὸς) to the alliterative device –p– of this episode. Previously, one god (Zeus) destroyed a family of arrogant mortals, now another god (Poseidon) falls in love with the one mortal who honored the gods. Another noteworthy example of long-range aural association is found in fr. 33 M-W. As in the previous case, the ‘nuclear’ element surfaces early in the text,

  Soundplay in the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women at a significant distance from the passage where its linking potential will be fully operable. To cater to its enormous separation from the ‘target’ text, its advance mention takes the form of a complete syllabic and near-syllabic repetition that marks an entire verse: Νηλέα κα]ὶ̣ Πελίην πολέσιν λαοῖσι̣ [ν ἄνακτας (fr. 33a.2 M-W). By employing the le-pel-pol-la aural chiasmus, the poet aims to introduce his listeners to the aural and rhythmic ‘grammar’ of the ensuing episode. The high-perceptibility of this full-fledged acoustic device can stay in the audience’s mind, in order to be evoked later when Heracles attacks Pylos. Periclymenus, one of Neleus’ sons, ‘destroyed many other men fighting around the wall of glorious Neleus, his father, and he brought many to black death by killing them’ (33a.19–21 M-W: β⌊ο⌋υλ⌊ῇ⌋ ᾿Aθηναίης· πολέας δ’ ἀπόλεσσε καὶ ἄλλους | μαρνάμενος Νηλῆος ἀγακλειτοῦ περὶ τεῖχος | ο[ὗ] πατρός, πολέας δὲ μελαίνῃ κηρὶ πέλασσε).50 Definitive proof that this mechanism of aural association is at work in this episode is offered by fr. 35 M-W, which is concerned with the same theme, i.e. the struggle between Periclymenus and Heracles. In verses 2–5 (ὄφρα μὲν οὖν ἔζ]ωε Περικλύ[μ]ενος θε[ο]ειδής, | οὐκ ἐδύναντο Πύ]λον πραθέειν μάλα περ μεμαῶτες· | ἀλλ’ ὅτε δὴ θανάτο]ι̣ο Π[ε]ρικλύμενον λάβε μοῖρα, | ἐξαλάπαξε Πύλοιο πόλιν Δι]ὸς ἄ[λ]κιμο[ς] υἱός), near-syllabic repetition is evenly distributed in four consecutive verses and further reinforced by parallelism (per-pyl-per-pyl) and other aural devices underscoring the sack of Pylos (pyl-pr, pyl-pol). ... Formula-Bounded Aural Elements Interacting with Other Features Syllabic or supra-syllabic repetition or near-repetition can happen between aural elements contained in a formula and aural features beyond its borders. By creating an aural expansion of part of a formula, the poet reads the formula anew, suggesting to his audience a novel function that is determined by the semantic content of the narrated story. This is the case with τῆμος ἄρ’ ἄγγελος ἦλθε κόραξ ἱερῆς ἀπὸ δαιτὸς | Πυθὼ ἐς ἠγαθέην καί ῥ’ ἔφρασεν ἔργ’ ἀΐδηλα | Φοίβῳ ἀκερσεκόμῃ, ὅτι Ἴσχυς γῆμε Κόρωνιν | Εἰλατίδης, Φλεγύαο διογνήτοιο θύγατρα (fr. 60.1–4 M-W). The ake-eko supra-syllabic near-repetition in the formula Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης is flanked by the interplay between the two kor (κόραξ–Κόρωνιν). The selection of this formula may, in fact, have been conditioned by the poet’s will to ‘refresh’ the aural association between κόραξ and Κόρωνιν, which (because of their separation in the text) would be characterized by low perceptibility. The result is that the crow, Apollo, and Coronis are aurally

 50 Translation by Most 2007, 93.

Conclusions  

linked just as they are semantically associated in this story. Likewise in Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης ἀέκων κτάνε νηλέ]ϊ δίσκῳ (fr. 171.8 M-W), the ake-eko suprasyllabic near-repetition of the formula Φοῖβος ἀκερσεκόμης is exploited by the poet who uses it to create an aural interaction with the ensuing ἀέκων, beginning with the sound aek. The placement of ktane immediately afterwards reveals the studied soundplay: Apollo killed Hyacinthus by accident.

. Conclusions The Catalogue of Women is a treasure house of soundplay ranging from simple alliteration to vocalic, syllabic, and near-syllabic repetition in both word-initial and word-terminal position. Soundplay operates not only on verse-level but also on short, middle- and long-range parallel and corollary passages. It is preeminently, but not exclusively, in cases like these that entire nexuses of aural associations are orchestrated to highlight what is overtly expressed in the narrative snapshot of a given episode or part of an ehoie. Sometimes aural links are used covertly to ‘suggest’ an interpretation that is not explicitly stated in the text. From a generic perspective, the wealth, variety, and sophistication of soundplay that has been explored in this chapter must be understood together with the fact that the Catalogue of Women represents a novel crossing-over of ehoie-poetry to catalogue-poetry. It is exactly under the scope of the generic fusion of these sub-species of Greek epic that we should be studying the richness and intricacy of soundplay. To put it simply, these features of soundplay may well reflect the efforts of a cross-generic hybrid like the Catalogue of Women seeking to find its own style.



Part III: The Epic Cycle

 The Gods in Cyclic Epic The role of the divine in Cyclic epic is multifarious, covering a wide range of themes such as wrath, rivalry, foretelling of the future, love and parentage of both immortal and mortal children, counseling, metamorphoses, and immortalization. The aim of this study is to map the function of gods in Cyclic epic and explore, where this is feasible, their role in unraveling the plot. Before examining each theme in detail, a preliminary observation about the state of the material available is required. The Epic Cycle comprises three sections: a ‘theogonic’ (Theogony, Titanomachy), a Theban (Oedipodea, Thebais, Epigonoi, Alcmeonis), and a Trojan (Cypria, Aethiopis, Ilias parva, Iliou persis, Nostoi, Telegony). The information that has survived with respect to the epics belonging to each of these sections shows a pattern of ‘ascending improvement.’ Whereas we possess an extremely limited amount of material concerning the ‘theogonic’ epics, we are better informed about the Theban section, and much better about Trojan epics for which we are fortunate to possess plotsummaries by Proclus.1 For the ‘theogonic’ section, and to some extent for the Theban one, our ability to develop arguments about the roles of the gods is seriously limited. Nevertheless, some of the material found in Apollodorus’ Bibliotheca, used with caution, allows us to make a few assumptions also about these epics, despite the lack of detailed summaries of their content.2

. Divine Wrath in the Theogony and Titanomachy Wrath constitutes one of the central themes of Archaic Greek epic at large. The wrath of Achilles in the Iliad, of Poseidon and Helius in the Odyssey, of Zeus in the Hesiodic Theogony, of Athena in the Nostoi not only determines the course of the plot of these poems but is also deeply enmeshed in their poetics. The view of the world presented in this epic universe is colored by anger and revenge, which led to an ongoing and profound reconsideration of the limits and limitations of key concepts of archaic ethics, such as heroism, hybris, justice, and friendship.

 1 On Proclus as a source for the poems of the Epic Cycle, see Severyns 1938a, 1953; Davies 1986, 91–111; Burgess 2001, 12–46; West 2013, 4–11; Fantuzzi and Tsagalis 2015, 1–40; Currie 2016, 55–56 and 229–233. 2 On the Bibliotheca and the Trojan epics of the Cycle, see now West 2013, 11–16. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-012

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic In the ‘theogonic’ section3 of the Epic Cycle it is virtually impossible to develop any consistent argument with respect to the theme of wrath. The only general observation that can be made is based on comparison with the Hesiodic Theogony. The succession wars among the immortals follow a structure marked by attempts of the father (Uranus, Cronus) to protect himself from his descendants by incarcerating them (either in Tartarus or in his belly).4 These tactics of ‘preventive self-protection’ stem from the almost built-in tendency of each generation to pose a threat to the previous one in a world marked by anger and revenge. Divine fathers, unlike mortal ones, are not normally worried about family continuity, nor are their sons concerned with showing respect to them. The absence of an end of life makes kingship everlasting. The same observation applies to possessiveness and wrath. Strife is in the divine world almost a reflex and revenge is its unavoidable side-effect. In the Cyclic Titanomachy attributed to Eumelus,5 the divine wars may have covered a very wide range of struggles for the rule of the cosmos, extending well beyond the Titanomachy itself, i.e. the clash between the Titans and the Olympians. We are in no position to know what role wrath played in all these conflicts, but we should remind ourselves that neikos among gods in epic is mainly (but not solely) inter-generational wrath. The following example is indicative of this. The re-imprisonment of the Cyclopes in Tartarus by Cronus, after the help they have provided in the castration of Uranus, who had incarcerated them in Tartarus in the first place, seems to pave the way for their subsequent release by Zeus, since they will fight on his side against the Titans. Since the second summoning of the Cyclopes from Tartarus and their provision of special weapons to the Olympians is based on their wrath against the Titans who had incarcerated them there, the support they provide to the Olympians becomes a cardinal event of the Titanomachy’s plot — an event that should not be treated as a thematic sine qua non of the tradition. In Eumelus’ poem, Zeus’ release of the Cyclopes amounts to a foreshadowing of his future victory, since the weapons the Cyclopes provide (thunderbolt to Zeus, trident to Poseidon, and helmet of invisibility to Hades) mirror the ensuing distribution of the world in three spheres between Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades (see fr. 6* GEF, EGEF).

 3 See p. 283 (this volume). 4 On the ‘Succession Myth’ in the Hesiodic Theogony and its oriental predecessors, see West 1966, 18–31; 1997, 288–305. On the incarceration of divine opponents and Near-Eastern parallels, see West 1997, 297–300. 5 See Davies 1989, 13–18; D’Alessio 2015, 202–212; Tsagalis 2017a, 42–82.

Divine Wrath in the Theban Epics  

. Divine Wrath in the Theban Epics In the Theban section of the Epic Cycle, divine wrath looms large. Pisander’s elaborate testimony allows us to reconstruct the plot of the Oedipodea (arg. Oedipodea, pp. 17–19 PEG = apud Σ Eur. Phoen. 1760).6 The narrative incipit is based on Hera’s wrath for the incestuous love of Laius for Chrysippus. As a goddess who protects marriage, she is angered at Laius and Thebes and sends the Sphinx against the city, while Chrysippus commits suicide out of guilt. The fundamental role of Hera’s wrath in the Oedipodea is also seen in her final appeasement by means of Oedipus’ second marriage to the parthenos Euryganeia. As in the case of ‘theogonic epic,’ divine wrath is inherited from one generation to the next. But whereas in the purely immortal world of the Cyclic Theogony and Titanomachy its consequences are limited due to the fact that it concerns only the immortal gods, in the mortal world it can end in disaster. The suicide of Chrysippus and the killing of the Sphinx do not put an end to Hera’s anger but only mark its first stage. By solving the riddle of the Sphinx, the mortal Oedipus for a second time, like his father Laius, commits the crime of questioning divine power.7 As a consequence, the wrath of Hera is renewed and transferred to him in a sequence of events that will involve himself, his father and mother, and of course the very means by which Oedipus had challenged Hera’s might, i.e. human knowledge and its limitations. At the end of the Oedipodea, Oedipus’ marriage with Euryganeia, an epic model of the ideal wife, brings the epic full circle. The lack of a comprehensive summary for the other three Theban epics of the Cycle does not allow us to draw solid conclusions regarding the treatment of the theme of divine wrath. What can be said with a fair amount of certainty is that divine anger played a smaller role in the Thebais and the Epigonoi but a more important one in the Alcmeonis. In the Thebais, we find divine anger, for example, in Erinys’ role in carrying out Oedipus’ curse against his sons (fr. 2 PEG [= EGF, GEF]), Zeus’ disapproval of the expedition of the Seven, and Athena’s wrath at Tydeus’ cannibalism; but none of these interventions (even Zeus’) drives the poem’s plot in the way Hera’s anger stamps the Oedipodea.8 Likewise in the Epigonoi, in which the gods favor the expedition of the sons of the Seven.9 In the Alcmeonis, the main example of divine anger is Erinys’ wrath against

 6 See Davies 1989, 19–31, and 2014; Cingano (Oedipodea) 2015a, 213–225; Torres-Guerra (Thebais) 2015, 226–243; Cingano (Epigonoi) 2015b, 244–260; Debiasi (Alcmeonis) 2015, 261–280. 7 Fr. 2 GEF. 8 See Davies 1989, 22–28; Davies 2014, 27–98; Torres-Guerra 2015, 226–243. 9 See Davies 1989, 29–31; Cingano 2015b, 244–260; Davies 2014, 107–114.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic Alcmaon for killing his mother Eriphyle.10 In contrast to the Thebais and the Epigonoi, this wrath permeates the entire poem, as the wanderings of Alcmaon, persecuted by Erinys, form the Alcmeonis’ main theme. Looking at the Theban epics of the Cycle as a section, we can see that divine wrath is central to the Oedipodea and perhaps to the Alcmeonis but secondary to the Thebais and the Epigonoi. In the former pair of epics, it constitutes their narrative incipit, runs through the entire plot and is centered on the epic protagonists (Laius and Oedipus – Alcmaon).

. Divine Wrath in the Trojan Epics In the Trojan epics of the Cycle divine wrath prevails. Although it is not present in every single poem, it drives the divine master plan to bring the Age of Heroes to an end. The first poem of this section, the Cypria, begins with Zeus and Themis devising a plan to alleviate the earth from the burden of human overpopulation by causing the Trojan War (arg. Cypr. ll. 84–85 Severyns). A closer look shows that divine wrath in this poem is instrumental as it figures as the driving force of the plot in many of its episodes. What is equally important is that nearly all five parts in which we can subdivide this epic begin and end with divine or divinerelated action,11 sometimes taking the form of anger, as the following overview illustrates (arg. Cypr. ll. 86–169 Severyns): a. Marriage of a goddess, Thetis, and a mortal, Peleus (86–105) 1. Neikos, theon krisis, wrath of Hera and Athena (86–90) 2. Aphrodite sets her plan in motion (91) 3. Prophecies by Helenus and Cassandra about Paris and Troy (92–94) 4. Aphrodite brings Paris and Helen together; they leave Sparta (95–102) 5. Hera sends a storm against them; they arrive at Troy and marry (103–105) b. An army is mustered to get Helen back (106–124) 1. Zeus grants Helen’s brothers heteremerian in the Underworld (106–109) 2. Iris tells Menelaus what happened during his absence (110–111) 3. He consults Agamemnon (111–112)

 10 See Debiasi 2015, 264, 276. 11 By ‘divine-related action’ I am designating action that is carried out by humans but involves a god (e.g. sacrifice).

Divine Wrath in the Trojan Epics  

4. They visit Nestor: stories of Epopeus, Oedipus, Heracles’ madness, Theseus and Ariadne, i.e. stories of human folly or ate punished by the gods (112–117) 5. They muster an army; Odysseus is recruited. Army is gathered at Aulis (118– 122) 6. Sacrifices. Prophecy of Calchas (snake eating sparrows) about the length of the war (122–114) c. Expedition to Teuthrania (125–134) 1. Siege of Teuthrania. Telephus repels the Greek army and kills Thersander (125–127) 2. Achilles wounds Telephus when Dionysus traps him in a vine (127–128) 3. The Achaean army sails away from Mysia. Achilles arrives at Scyros after a storm. He leaves Deidameia pregnant (129–131) 4. Telephus goes to Delphi to ask the god how he will have his wound cured (132) 5. Following Apollo’s advice he goes to Argos, where he is cured by Achilles. Telephus promises to show the Achaeans the way to Troy and that neither he nor anyone among his descendants will fight against them (133–134) d. Second gathering of the army in Aulis and journey to Troy (135–147) 1. Agamemnon arrogantly kills a deer and insults Artemis claiming that he is better than her in hunting (135–137) 2. Due to Artemis’ wrath the winds do not blow and the ships cannot sail (137– 138) 3. Calchas says that Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia must be sacrificed so that the goddess is appeased (138–141) 4. They bring Iphigenia from Argos. At the sacrifice Artemis snatches her and takes her to the land of the Taurians where she makes her priestess at her temple (141–143) 5. The army departs. They stop at Tenedos. Achilles kills Tenes who attacked the Achaeans by throwing stones at them, not heeding Thetis’ warning that Apollo would avenge the death of his son and/or priest. While sacrificing to appease Apollo, Philoctetes is wounded by a snake coming from the altar. Because of the disgusting smell of his wound, Odysseus, on Agamemnon’s orders, conveys him to Lemnos and leaves him there with Heracles’ bow and arrows (144–147)

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic e. Beginning of the war, first hostilities (148–169) 1. Thetis advises Achilles not to jump first from his ship in order to avoid death. Protesilaus, who is the first to set foot on the shore, is killed by Hector. Achilles routs the Trojans and kills Cycnus, son of Poseidon (148–151) 2. The Achaeans negotiate with the Trojans asking for the return of Helen and her possessions but no agreement is reached. Hostilities begin anew (152–154) 3. The Achaeans sack small cities in the Troad (155–156) 4. Achilles desires to see Helen. Aphrodite and Thetis make this possible (157–158) 5. Achilles restrains the Achaeans who are eager to return home. He sacks Lyrnessos and Pedasos and kills Troilus in an ambush at the temple of Thymbraean Apollo. He captures Lycaon and has Patroclus sell him as a slave to Lemnos. He captures more cities in the Troad (159–163) 6. The Achaeans divide the spoils. Achilles takes Briseis, Agamemnon, Chryseis (164–165) 7. Palamedes is killed by Odysseus (who holds a grudge against him, since he had revealed Odysseus’ effort to avoid recruitment to the war by simulating madness (166; fr. 30 PEG = 20 EGF, 27 GEF) 8. Zeus’ plan to help the Trojans by making Achilles withdraw from battle. Catalogue of Trojan allies (167–169) Divine wrath is instrumental for the narrative unraveling and Weltanschauung of the Cypria.12 The fact that this epic begins and ends with Zeus’ planning the Trojan War and end with him planning the temporary defeat of the Achaeans indicates both the extent and the weight of divine intervention in the human world. Zeus’ anger against the world of men that sets in motion the plot of the Cypria creates the framework within which this epic (as well as the entire Trojan Cycle) will operate. Coming from the supreme deity this wrath is targeted not at a single hero or nation but at the entire human race.13 This is a profound statement by the poet of the Cypria, since the context within which Zeus’ plan is activated is the wedding of a goddess (Thetis) and a mortal (Peleus) that represents the meeting between these two worlds. Given that catalogic epics like the Catalogue of Women (Ehoiai)14 and the Megalai Ehoiai treat the marriages between immortals and mortals, the product of which is the Race of Heroes, it can  12 See Currie 2015, 281–305; Davies 2019. 13 On the theme of Διὸς βουλή in the Cypria, see the emblematic work of Kullmann 1955, 167– 192 (= 1992, 11–35); important recent contribution by Marks 2002, 1–24. 14 See pp. 235–253 (this volume).

Divine Wrath in the Trojan Epics  

be no coincidence that the Epic Cycle sets out with Zeus’ plan to bring the Race of Heroes to an end. This is a powerful metapoetic move, which brings about a narrative epic that will ‘end’ all catalogic epic poetry. Zeus’ plan to help the Trojans by making Achilles withdraw from battle echoes a theme of paramount importance for the Iliad. Of course, the beginnings and endings of Cyclic epics as they have come down to us through the summaries of Proclus may have been adapted to the epics following and preceding them, either within the Cyclic canon or the wider thematic canon of Trojan epics including the Iliad and the Odyssey.15 In this case, what Proclus describes as the final episode of the Cypria fits the beginning of the Iliad so closely that it may have been shaped just for that purpose by the source on which Proclus depended for his summaries. On the other hand, we cannot exclude the possibility that the Cypria depends upon an oral epic tradition of almost the same content, a tradition whose last episode was taken by the Iliadic tradition and used as the platform upon which to base the epic’s plot. Other instances of divine wrath in the Cypria involve Hera and Athena after the episode of the θεῶν κρίσις; Artemis who is insulted by Agamemnon in Aulis (μηνίσασα, arg. l. 137 Severyns); and Apollo who is insulted by Achilles in Tenedos. The former pair (Hera and Athena) will evolve into the principal divine supporters of the Achaeans and enemies of the Trojans in their expedition to Troy, while the latter (the siblings Artemis and Apollo) will be key antagonists of the Achaeans and protectors of Troy. Creating a balance between the Achaean and Trojan sides, these four gods will be intricately interwoven with the fate of specific heroes throughout Cyclic and Homeric poetry: Hera’s wrath becomes immediately manifest when she drives Paris off course to Sidon early in the Cypria;16 she and Athena will play a key role in the destruction of Troy in the episodes of the stealing of the Palladium in the Ilias parva and of the Wooden Horse in both the Ilias parva and the Iliou persis. Artemis and Apollo, on the other hand, will be closely associated with the fate of Agamemnon (Iphigenia’s return from the land of the Tauri immediately precedes the murder of Agamemnon in the Nostoi) and Achilles (Apollo will help Paris kill Achilles in the Aethiopis). In this way, it can be argued that divine wrath in the Cypria is instrumental for the plot of this epic but also programmatic for the entire Epic Cycle. In the Aethiopis, Achilles kills two children of gods (Penthesilea, daughter of Ares and Memnon, son of Eos) and becomes the target of divine wrath, but not from their respective parents: his death, undoubtedly the emotive pinnacle  15 See chapter 14, p. 377 n. 79 (this volume). 16 On the importance of this episode for early Greek criticism on Homer, see Currie 2021, 5–13.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic of this epic, results from Apollo’s wrath over the murder of his son Tenes in Tenedos. Apollo’s anger at Achilles is a long-lasting and pervasive feature of the Trojan myth, the more so since its cause was handled in the Cypria and its end in the Aethiopis, where it is likely that in the Aethiopis Achilles was killed by being hit at the sole vulnerable part of his body, his heel. The interpretive consequences of this motif within the framework of divine anger deserve consideration.17 If Achilles was invulnerable with the exception of his heel, this presupposes not only an effort made by Thetis to make him immortal but also that Apollo knew the hero’s weak spot and revealed it to Paris. The same two gods are directly involved in the episode of the killing of Tenes by Achilles in the Cypria, Thetis having advised her son not to kill Apollo’s son. Moreover, in both the Cypria and the Aethiopis Achilles is involved in a purification sacrifice to Apollo. In Tenedos, the sacrifice does not appease the god’s anger who sends a snake from his altar that wounds Philoctetes. In the Aethiopis, Achilles after killing Thersites offers sacrifices to Artemis, Apollo, and their mother Leto on Lesbos, and he is purified by Odysseus.18 Given that Proclus refers to the arrival of Memnon (opening the second part of the poem that culminates in the death of Achilles) immediately after the purification rituals on Lesbos, we should ask ourselves why Achilles offered sacrifices to these three particular gods. Leto is of course the mother of the twins Artemis and Apollo, but why should they have

 17 Davies (1989, 55–56 and 58) argues in favor of an invulnerable Achilles (with the exception of his heel) in the Cyclic Aethiopis, and leaves open the possibility of an invulnerable Telamonian Ajax in Cyclic epic by drawing attention to Aeschylus’ Thracian Women (fr. 83 TrGF 3), in which Aeschylus seems ‘to have described the difficulty Ajax encountered in committing suicide because of his invulnerability’ (58). The same view is shared by Rengakos (2015b, 308), who draws attention to Apollodorus’ Epitome (5.4) and a now lost sixth-century amphora from Chalcis (LIMC s.v. ‘Achilleus’, nr. 850, pp. 182–183), which both indicate that Achilles was presented as invulnerable. The earliest source to explicitly mention Achilles’ invulnerability is Statius in the first century AD (Achilleid, 1.134–140). The tradition of Thetis trying to make her son immortal is first attested in Ap. Rh. 4.869–879 (third century BC), but this does not mean that we should identify immortality with invulnerability. In the Iliad (21.166–168, 568–570), Achilles is presented as liable to wounding. On Thetis making up the story of dipping Achilles in the Ocean’s waters to reinvigorate his invulnerability, see Fantuzzi 2012, 75. 18 On the role of Odysseus and the relation between the Thersites episode in Iliad 2 and the Aethiopis, see Kullmann 1960, 146–150; Reinhardt 1961, 114–115; Ebert 1969, 159–175; Marks 2005, 1–31. For a typical analytical approach to this issue, see Wilamowitz-Moellendorff 1916, 268–270. See also West (2013, 43), who argues that this role ‘is inspired by his mission to Chryse in Il. 1.308–311, 430–474, when he took propitiatory sacrifices to Apollo in the context of purification from a plague (313–316)’.

Divine Wrath in the Trojan Epics  

been angered at Achilles because of the death of Thersites?19 In the full version of this episode, which can be reconstructed from Propertius (3.11.15–16) and Quintus of Smyrna (1.630–674), Achilles (like the Achaean army as a whole) is impressed by the beauty of the dead Amazon Penthesilea once her helmet is removed, and is ‘filled with remorse that he has killed her instead of taking her back to Phthia as his bride’.20 It would appear, then, that Achilles was ‘defiled’ by two murders, that of Penthesilea and that of Thersites, for which he felt remorse. Proclus’ ‘he is purified from the killing’ (καθαίρεται τοῦ φόνου, singular), which is a rather vague expression in tune with the elliptical style of his summary, should not deter us from assuming the obvious, i.e. that Achilles was purified on Lesbos from both murders.21 If the beginning of the Aethiopis indeed included the story (reported by Apollod. Epit. 5.1–2) that Penthesilea had been purified by Priam after accidentally killing the Amazon Hippolyte, as an explanation why the Amazons came to support the Trojans, then Achilles’ sacrifices on Lesbos would constitute a ‘doublet’ of the purification ritual earlier in the poem, which suggests a connection between the two. For the selection of the

 19 Aeth. arg. ll. 180–184 Severyns: ‘and Achilles kills Thersites after being abused by him and insulted over his alleged love for Penthesilea (τὸν ἐπὶ τὴν Πενθεσίλεια λεγόμενον ἔρωτα). This results in a dispute (στάσις) among the Achaeans about the killing of Thersites. Achilles then (μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα) sails to Lesbos, and after sacrificing to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, he is purified from the killing by Odysseus’ (trans. West, GEF, 111). In contrast to the Thersites episode in Iliad 2, in which Theristes fails to win the support of the army as his criticism against Agamemnon is ‘cast by the narrator as a self-generated (?) minority view’ (Rosen 2007, 94), in the Aethiopis his death at the hands of Achilles whom he had ridiculed is endorsed by the Achaean army and results in strife. From this perspective, Rosen (2007, 97) is right that there was something very problematic with Achilles’ reaction and killing of Thersites that caused so much turmoil among the army that Achilles had to sail to Lesbos, offer sacrifices to Apollo, Artemis, and Leto, and then be purified by Odysseus. Critics have tried to explain the στάσις that arose in the Achaean army by recourse to Thersites heroic pedigree (Agrius, Thersites’ father was the brother of Oeneus, Diomedes’ grandfather; see Quint. Smyrn. 1.766–781; on his parentage, see Kullmann 1960, 148; Gantz 1993, 621–622; Spina 2001, 3; Marks 2005, 2 n. 3). A second explanation that has been suggested, not contradictory to the previous one, is that in contrast to Iliad 2 Thersites in the Aethiopis may have engaged in satirical mockery of Achilles’ behavior, a stance that is quite different from his subversive criticism in Iliad 2 (Rosen 2007, 93). I am sympathetic to both of these explanations, although none of them deals with the specific gods involved in the purification (our first example of this practice, on which see Parker 1983, 130–143) or explicates the trip to Lesbos. 20 West 2013, 141, whose reconstruction I am following here. 21 For a similar short-cut, see Proclus’ summary of the Telegony (arg. ll. 312–313 Severyns), where he seems to cover only the second set of sacrifices ordered by Tiresias to Odysseus in the Odyssey (first sacrifice to Poseidon, 11.130–131; second sacrifice to all the gods, 11.132–134).

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic three particular gods to whom Achilles sacrifices on Lesbos (Apollo, Artemis, and Leto) there may have been several reasons. Apollo as a god of purification may have attracted Artemis and Leto, even if this triad is generally associated with Delos rather than Lesbos.22 But a more specific rational suggests itself. It would have made good sense for Achilles to sacrifice to Artemis to expiate his killing of Penthesilea, an Amazon whose wild life and virginity were under the remit of the divine protector of virginity, Artemis herself.23 Regarding Apollo’s involvement in the sacrifices, would it be too bold to argue that, since in the cases of Tenes, Troilus, and Thersites Achilles had not restrained his own anger, Apollo’s wrath against him would be somehow renewed? It is also possible that Apollo’s anger against Achilles had grown stronger because he had taken as slave Polyxena after killing Troilus at the temple of Apollo Thymbraeus (Cypr. arg. l. 162 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 3.32).24 In any case, Apollo’s anger against an arrogant Achilles in the Aethiopis must have concluded a theme featuring in the poems of the Cycle from its very beginning. Seen from this perspective, the murder of Thersites is narratively entrenched in the general blueprint of Cyclic myth and may have been only the pretext for the last and failed attempt by

 22 West (2013, 43), observing the connection of Apollo, Artemis, and Leto as a triad with Delos, entertains the idea that Calchas sent Achilles to Delos. But Proclus explicitly says Lesbos and, as West himself notes, Achilles is also regularly connected to this specific island in the Iliad (9.129, 271, 664). I fully agree with the following observation by Sammons (per litteras electronicas): ‘Apollo’s role would be natural in connection with purification for homicide, and one could imagine that Leto and Artemis received sacrifice as well because these three are often worshiped together. However, in that case it would still be strange for the two goddesses to be mentioned in Proclus’ summary, which is usually not generous with incidental details. In other words, if the sole point of the episode was that Achilles was purified after appealing to Apollo, probably only Apollo would be mentioned. This implies that the sacrifice to Artemis and Leto should have been more than just incidental in the original poem’; see also Sammons (2017, 197 n. 66), where he refers to the possibility that Penthesilea ‘herself was a favorite of the goddess, and Achilles had to appease her wrath in order to obtain Apollo’s favor’. 23 Penthesilea’s association with Artemis may have been either generic or personal. Diodorus represents Amazons as hunting together with Artemis (4.16) and offering sacrifices to Artemis Tauropolos (2.46). With respect to the city of Pyrrichos in the Peloponnese (named after Achilles’ son Pyrrhus), Pausanias mentions local cults of Artemis Astrateia (named after the fact that it was there that the Amazons ended their expedition) and Apollo Amazonios, founded by the Amazons themselves (3.25.3). A personal association between Artemis and Penthesilea may lie behind Quintus of Smyrna’s report that Penthesilea had accidentally killed her sister Hippolyte in a deer hunt (1.18–25). 24 See Lambrou 2018, 75–85.

Divine Wrath in the Trojan Epics  

Achilles to appease the wrath of the gods, especially Apollo, before his approaching death near the Scaean Gates.25 In the other epics comprising the Trojan section, divine wrath is almost solely associated with Athena who is both the chief helper of the Achaeans in their attempt to sack Troy and the avenger of their wrongdoings during the capture of the city.26 Athena’s decision to punish the impious Achaeans is first conceived in the Iliou persis, after Ajax son of Oileus throws down the goddess’ xoanon while dragging Cassandra violently from her temple (Il. pers. arg. ll. 261–262 Severyns). Her wrath is fully expressed in the very beginning of the Nostoi, when she causes strife between Agamemnon and Menelaus about the departure of the fleet for Greece (Nost. arg. ll. 279–280 Severyns). The death of the Locrian Ajax at the sea near Caphareus may not have been caused only by her (Poseidon having struck the final blow), but her role is clearly instrumental in his punishment for the sacrilege he had committed in her temple at Troy (Nost. arg. ll. 294–295 Severyns). The Telegony, the last poem of the Epic Cycle, may have included a scene in which Odysseus performs sacrifices in Ithaca to all the immortal gods, according to Tiresias’ advice in Od. 11.132–134 (Tel. arg. ll. 313–314 Severyns).27 The aim of these sacrifices may have been to appease the gods’ anger for his mistreatment of the bodies of the suitors, who were only buried after the intervention of Athena. It is clear that in the epics of the Trojan section of the Cycle, the theme of divine wrath is, again, unequally represented. It looms large in the Cypria, where it is not attached to a single deity, it is instrumental in the Aethiopis, in which it is associated with Apollo, and then re-emerges in the Iliou persis and the Nostoi through the figure of Athena, who has become hostile to the Achaeans because of their insolent behavior during the sack of Troy.28

 25 A point that seems to have escaped attention is that whenever a στάσις erupts among a group of people in Cyclic epic, it is somehow connected to Achilles or Odysseus or both. In the Cypria, although the term στάσις is not employed by Proclus, Achilles restrains the Achaeans who desire to return to Greece (this can hardly be unconnected to a στάσις; see arg. ll. 159–160 Severyns). In the Telegony Odysseus leaves Ithaca due to a στάσις of the suitors’ relatives (arg. l. 308; see Merkelbach 1969, 146; Tsagalis 2008, 90; see also chapter 15, p. 384 [this volume]). The Aethiopis seems to represent a more complicated case, since it involves both Achilles (who is ultimately responsible for the στάσις of the army because he killed Thersites) and Odysseus (who purifies him at Lesbos). 26 Apollo is another god whose action in the episode of Laocoon may have been instigated by anger. 27 See Tsagalis 2014, 456–461 and 2015, 380. 28 On the function of the cardinal theme of Athena’s wrath in the Odyssey, see Clay 1983.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic

. Divine Rivalry Divine rivalry is a standard theme of Cyclic epic. It takes two forms, as it refers to either the inter-generational struggle between gods for the rule of the cosmos or to intra-Olympian rivalries over support given to favored mortals or reconfirmation of divine status. In the ‘theogonic’ section of the Cycle, inter-generational clashes are subordinated to the succession process that marks divine wars. These conflicts amount to the central driving force of the narrative, up to the point when the rule of Zeus is established for good. In the Titanomachy,29 the Olympian gods go to war against the Titans. There is no reason to assume that this poem would have also involved a Gigantomachy30 and/or a Typhonomachy, i.e. the conflict between Zeus as ruler of the world and the Giants and Typhoeus respectively, who aimed to overthrow the Olympians after their defeat of the Titans.31 For the Theban epics, no solid argument can be put forward, due to the paucity of the material available to us, but it seems that there were no intraOlympian rivalries of the form that we know in the Trojan epics. Hera’s anger against Thebes is not balanced by the support offered by a specific rival deity. Zeus’ punishment of the Seven and his disapproval of the expedition did not stem from his enmity to Hera; and although Athena may have temporarily supported Tydeus, there is no indication that the Olympians were split between a pro-Theban and a pro-Argive group. Intra-Olympian rivalries seem to be particular to the Trojan epics. Since we only have a limited number of fragments and other information concerning the plots of these poems, we are missing the details of scenes in which it is likely, that, as in the Iliad, gods would have competed with each other by means of supporting the Trojans or the Achaeans. What is clear is that Cyclic epic about the Trojan War contained numerous battle scenes, and it is virtually unthinkable that the gods would not have played a role in them. They may well have instigated the action of a given individual or set in motion a small-scale plan that drove the plot for some part of the poem. A clear example occurs in Proclus’ summary of Eugammon’s Telegony: in this epic, while ruling in Thesprotia as king, Odysseus, with Athena on his side, fights a war against the Brygoi, who are supported by Ares. The clash is interrupted by the intervention of Apollo (Tel. arg. ll. 317–320 Severyns). Since this is the only instance where Proclus

 29 On the Titanomachy, see Davies 1989, 13–18; D’Alessio 2015, 202–212; Tsagalis 2017a, 42–82. 30 See Davies 1989, 13–14. 31 See D’Alessio 2015, 208–209; Tsagalis 2017a, 77–82.

Divine Rivalry  

explicitly mentions an intra-Olympian rivalry, manifested in alliances with warring armies, we may explore in brief its function within the Telegony. Eugammon’s decision to make Athena the Thesprotians’ supporter is unsurprising, since their leader is the goddess’ constant favorite, Odysseus. The non-Greek Brygoi, on the other hand, belong to the barbarian tribes of the North, notorious for their ‘uncivilized’ way of life (and perhaps of fighting), which explains why they enjoyed the support of the cruel god of war, Ares, similar to the Amazons. The intervention of Apollo separates the parties and causes the episode to end in a stalemate, making it seem pointless. Moreover, none of the above elements explains why Proclus and/or his source considered the episode important enough to include it in a summary of the epic. Can its inclusion be due to mere chance or to its size within the Telegony? Perhaps it must be seen as an attempt made by Eugammon to rival the closing scene of the Odyssey, where Athena, heeding a sign sent by Zeus, intervenes to avoid an imminent clash between the relatives of the suitors and Odysseus (Od. 24.539–548). The judgement of the goddesses in the Cypria is the perfect example of intraOlympian rivalry. Here three goddesses of first rank (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite) compete with respect to their beauty. Zeus decides that a mortal should adjudicate and Hermes escorts the three goddesses to Ida near Troy, where the shepherd Paris is asked to resolve the conundrum (Cypr. arg. ll. 86–90 Severyns). Within the Cypria, the episode is the first step in Zeus’ plan to alleviate the burden of humans on the earth by causing the Trojan War that will considerably decrease their numbers. By making a human decide the outcome of an intra-Olympian rivalry, Zeus inaugurates a more systematic involvement of the gods in the world of humans. The gods’ support of one or the other side in the ensuing war ultimately stems from Paris’ choice, which was in turn induced by Zeus’ divine will. Αnother example of divine rivalry, though with different stakes, seems to have been the scene of the psychostasia (technically a kerostasia) in the Aethiopis, in which Eos and Thetis, the divine mothers of the two adversaries Memnon and Achilles, watched Zeus weighing the souls of their sons before their fatal conflict. Although Proclus does not refer explicitly to it, scholars almost unanimously accept that such a scene formed part of the Aethiopis.32 Divine rivalry

 32 See Aeschylus’ Psychostasia (frs. 279–280 TrGF); West 2000, 343–347; cf. Kullmann 1960, 32–47, 316–335. That a psychostasia/kerostasia scene was included in the Aethiopis is further supported by several vases dating before Aeschylus’ time that represent this scene; on which see LIMC s.v. Memnon, nrs. 16–25; s.v. Achilleus, 172; see also Heitsch 2001, 241–242; 2005, 434–435, and Il. 8.69–74; 22.209–213; Rengakos 2015b, 307–308; Davies 2016, 17–18 and 25–31.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic would have underpinned the dramatic effect of this episode, as even immortal mothers cannot save their mortal sons from what fate decides. Divine rivalry can thus take different forms and have various functions within the scope of a single epic or set of epics. It ranges from functioning as a guiding principle for the succession process in the ‘theogonic’ section of the Cycle to shaping the form of a specific episode or serving as the cause of the entire Trojan War.

. Divine Counseling Providing advice certainly formed part of the range of roles played by the gods in Cyclic epic. Divine counseling scenes may have even occurred in contexts where humans are not involved, in the ‘theogonic’ section of the Cycle. It is possible that the reference in the pseudo-Aeschylean Prometheus Bound (197– 241) to Prometheus advising the Olympians how to defeat the Titans (after the Titans had failed to listen to Prometheus’ counsel in the first place) reflects an episode in the Titanomachy. If such an episode formed part of Eumelus’ epic, then it might have made a significant contribution to the development of the plot and the final outcome of the clash between the Olympians and the Titans.33 Advising favored mortals is something that we expect the gods to do. Aphrodite advised Paris and Aeneas in the Cypria (arg. l. 90 Severyns) and Athena advised Epeus in the Ilias parva (arg. ll. 222–223 Severyns). Divine counseling of mortals seems to follow a specific narrative pattern comprising the following phases: 1. god/goddess advises individual heroes, reassuring them about the final success 2. advice involves a general plan 3. god/goddess tells the hero how to carry out this plan with specific undertakings In the Cypria, Aphrodite reassures Paris after he gives her the apple of Discord that she will fulfill her promise and deliver to him the most beautiful woman in the world (a, arg. ll. 89–90 Severyns). Aphrodite’s advice involves a general

 33 Prometheus’ role in the Titanomachy as a herald of the Titans is based on fr. 5* GEF = EGEF (= Hesych. ι 387 [II 449 Cunningham]: Ἴθας· ὁ τῶν Τιτήνων κῆρυξ, Προμηθεύς. τινὲς Ἴθαξ), an old suggestion by Welcker 18822, 2.415, repeated by Pohlenz 1916, 588 n. 2, and given new life by West 2002, 113.

Divine Counseling  

plan: Paris must be re-instituted as prince in Troy and then bring Helen of Sparta to Troy (b).34 Aphrodite advises Paris to build a ship or ships and instructs Aeneas to sail with him to Sparta.35 In Sparta, she brings Paris and Helen together as lovers and makes sure that they return safely to Troy (c, arg. ll. 91–105 Severyns). In the Ilias parva, Athena advised Epeus and Odysseus, the former concerning the building of the Trojan Horse, the latter on how to use it to sack Troy. Her counseling may have followed the same narrative blueprint, with the materialization exceeding the limits of this epic and stretching into the Iliou persis: Athena decided to bring the war to an end by advising Epeus and Odysseus (a). Her general plan was that Epeus should build a Wooden Horse and Odysseus realize that Troy can be sacked only by deceit (b).36 She then told both of them how to implement the plan with specific undertakings. The Horse was to be built, using wood from Mt. Ida, with a hollow belly to hide troops. The fleet should withdraw to Tenedos, while Sinon, left behind, would tell the Trojans that the Wooden Horse is a gift to Athena from the Achaeans, who have decided to sail home after realizing that they cannot capture Troy.37 Once the Wooden Horse would be inside the city, the soldiers should come out at night, open the gates and send a signal to the fleet to sail back to Troy. Then the city will fall (c).38 Two cardinal moments in the Trojan saga, the abduction of Helen and the sack of Troy, were presented in the Cyclic epics as dependent on a divine plan that is materialized by the advice given to specific individuals by the goddesses

 34 Although Proclus’ summary is silent about this stage of the myth, it is likely that it featured in the Cypria and was not invented by the tragedians (Sophocles and Euripides in their plays entitled Alexandros): the prophecies of Helenus and Cassandra and Aeneas’ participation in Paris’ journey (Cypr. arg. ll. 91–94 Severyns) all point to a previous recognition of Paris by Priam and Hecuba. Paris cannot have been a Trojan prince from the start of the poem, as he leaves unexplained what he was doing on Mt. Ida, where the three goddesses and Hermes visited him. 35 Proclus’ summary is inconclusive on the number of ships (ναυπηγεῖται, συμπλεῖ). Apollod. Epit. 3.2 assumes more than one (νῆας); Pherecydes (fr. 138 EGM) and Lycophron (Alex. 101) mention nine. 36 Il. parv. arg. ll. 222–223 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 514; cf. also Od. 8.492–495; Stes. Il. pers. fr. 100.10–12 Davies and Finglass; Eur. Tr. 9–12. 37 Arist. Po. 1459b, where ‘Apoplous’ and ‘Sinon’ are mentioned as episodes of the Ilias parva; also the Tabula Iliaca Capitolina, with West 2013, 204. 38 Il. parv. arg. ll. 230–232 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 5.14–15. The dismantling of a part of the Trojan walls in order to bring the Wooden Horse inside the city may, as Anderson (2011, 941) observed, ‘reflect a tradition that the city walls, built by Poseidon and Apollo, were impregnable (cf. Il. 7.452–453 and 21.441–457).’

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic Aphrodite and Athena. This observation is crucial not only with respect to the importance the gods have for the progression of the epic plot, but also on the level of poetics. The beginning and end of the epic narrative are carefully planned, reflecting the fact that divine agency both causes the war and brings it to completion.

. Divine Metamorphoses In Cyclic epic change of shape occurs especially in scenes involving intercourse.39 In the Titanomachy, Cronus changes his shape into that of a horse and mates with the Oceanid Philyra to produce the Centaur Chiron (fr. 10 PEG = 9 EGF = 12 GEF).40 This process is, of course, based on the idea that the creature born from such an intercourse will have to resemble his father, hence the need for Cronus to take the shape of a horse in order to produce a ἱπποκένταυρος. From a narrative point of view, we cannot be sure if this story occurred early in the epic, as the involvement of Cronus might suggest, or if it was mentioned as a brief flashback digression much later, when Chiron is introduced into the narrative. The latter option seems preferable. It would imply that temporary divine transformation into animal form was employed as a means for the creation and introduction into the plot of a character who would play an important role in a following episode and the overall plot. Chiron was culture-hero in the manner of Prometheus or Palamedes (fr. 11 PEG = 6 EGF = 13 GEF),41 and it is plausible that in the Titanomachy he played a significant role in the transition to the mortal world, with which the poet would have dealt in the last section of his poem. In the Thebais, Poseidon is transformed into a horse in order to mate with Erinys. The offspring of this union is Arion, Adrastus’ divine horse that is re 39 Given the paucity of information available, it would be risky to argue that gods do not take the shape of a human in the manner, e.g. of Athena-Deiphobus in the Iliad and Athena-Mentes in the Odyssey. Viewed from this angle, the observation that divine metamorphosis in the Epic Cycle pertains to scenes of mating with mortals describes the material we have at our disposal and should, in no way, be treated as restrictive. On the special role of divine metamorphosis into animals in procreation contexts, see West 2007, 152 n. 112. 40 ὁ δὲ τὴν Γιγαντομαχίαν ποιήσας φησιν ὅτι Κρόνος μεταμορφωθεὶς εἰς ἵππον ἐμίγη Φιλύρᾳ τῇ Ὠκεανοῦ, διόπερ καὶ ἱπποκένταυρος ἐγεννήθη Χείρων. τούτου δὲ γυνή Χαρικλώ. The designation of Chiron as son of Cronus and Philyra is in perfect agreement with Σ Ap. Rhod. 1.554 (pp. 47.20–48.2 Wendel = fr. 10 PEG = fr. 9 EGF = fr. 12 GEF), which is ascribed to the Titanomachy offering the same genealogical details. In this light, it is likely that Apollod. Bibl. 1.2.9 is drawing (with respect to this feature) on Eumelus’ poem. 41 See Davies 1989, 16.

Divine Metamorphoses  

sponsible for his salvation in the expedition of the Seven against Thebes (fr. 8 PEG = fr. 6C EGF = fr. 11 GEF).42 The narrative potential of this metamorphosis would have been considerable, the more so since transfer of the horse from Poseidon to Adrastus was anything but direct. Arion was first presented as a gift to Copreus, king of Boeotian Haliartos, then passed on to his guest Heracles, who used it to defeat Cycnus, son of Ares, in a horse race, and finally given to Adrastus.43 It is attractive to think that in the Thebais, Poseidon’s metamorphosis into a horse initiated a narrative digression, covering the stories of Arion, Copreus, Heracles, and Cycnus, that would have either prepared for or provided gravity to the poem’s apparent narrative climax: the ‘miraculous’ salvation of the leader of the Seven. In the Cypria, Nemesis changes forms until she has to accept the fact that she cannot escape from Zeus’ sexual advances (frs. 9–10 PEG = 7–8 EGF = 10–11 GEF). Nemesis and Zeus finally couple in the form of a goose and a gander. The offspring of this mating is Helen, who grows in a large egg, the expected product from such a union. The transfer of the motif of shape-shifting from Thetis being unwilling to marry Peleus to Nemesis trying to escape from Zeus must have been determined by the fact that Thetis had already been ‘rewarded’ by Hera with Peleus (the greatest mortal alive and dearest to the gods) as her husband for rejecting Zeus’ sexual desires in the past.44 The paramount importance of this event is reflected in the central role of the wedding of Peleus and Thetis for the conception and plot of the Cypria and the entire Trojan War saga. The episode of the mating of Nemesis with Zeus may have been part of a speech by Aphrodite to Paris, in which she would have given him advice about the people

 42 Poseidon’s epithet κυανοχαίτης (‘dark-maned’) that may indicate his association with horses is tellingly applied to his horse-son Arion in the Thebais (7 PEG = 6A EGF = 11 GEF: εἵματα λυγρὰ φέρων σὺν Ἀρίονι κυανοχαίτῃ). This observation was made as early as Pausanias (8.25.8: αἰνίσσεσθαι οὖν ἐθέλουσι τὰ ἔπη Ποσειδῶνα Ἀρίονι εἶναι πατέρα). On the use of κυάνεος for gods’ hair in Homer under the influence of an Egyptian tradition claiming that the gods’ hair was of pure lapis-lazzuli, see Griffith 2005, 329–334. 43 Cf. Σ (Τ) on Il. 23.347; Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.8. 44 For Thetis’ shape-shifting to elude Peleus, cf. e.g. Apollod. Epit. 3.13.5; Pind. Nem. 4.62–65; see also Forbes Irving 1990, 181 n. 49; Ormand 2014, 101–103. On the transfer of this motif to Nemesis evading Zeus, see RE 19.1 s.v. ‘Peleus’. col. 298 (Lesky); Davies 1989, 39; West 2013, 81. For Peleus as especially dear to the gods, see Il. 24.61; [Hes.] Cat. fr. 211.3 M-W, and Davies 1989, 34–35. For the marriage with Peleus as Hera’s reward to mitigate Zeus’ punishment of making Thetis live with a mortal man, see Cypr. fr. 2 PEG = EGF = GEF, and Davies 1989, 30. Cf. West 2013, 70: ‘the story of his pursuit of her will have been dealt with in a parenthesis giving the background to her union with Peleus’.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic he would meet in Sparta.45 If this reading is correct, this story of divine transformation into animal shape, again in a context of mating and procreation, was narrated by a goddess, who as the counselor and guide of Paris, played a crucial role in the poem; and just like in the Thebais and Titanomachy, it introduced a figure with a key-function in the plot. There are, then, close similarities between the instances of divine metamorphosis found in the Cyclic epics and marked differences from the metamorphoses in Homeric epic. In Homer the main form of divine transformation is into human shape, and although we find the shape-shifter Proteus (Odyssey 4) and cases in which the gods take the form of birds, the contexts of divine metamorphosis are very different. Homeric gods do not change shape to mate and procreate, or avoid doing so; they take human shape in order to counsel, deceive or help mortals, or turn themselves into birds in order to observe or make a speedy exit.46

. Joint Intervention In Homeric epic gods sometimes intervene in human affairs jointly, but there is no example in which two gods of different status undertake the same role in the same episode and for the same reason. In the Cypria, Aphrodite and Thetis bring together Achilles and Helen (arg. ll. 157–158 Severyns): καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα Ἀχιλλεὺς Ἑλένην ἐπιθυμεῖ θεάσασθαι, καὶ συνήγαγεν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ Ἀφροδίτη καὶ Θέτις. And after these events Achilles desires to look upon Helen, and Aphrodite and Thetis brought them together.

If we try to reconstruct this episode, we must postulate another scene, elided by Proclus, in which Achilles would have asked Thetis to have Zeus tell or order

 45 Kullmann 1955, 183 (= 1992, 26); Davies 1989, 37; West 2013, 80. West also notes the use of πέπρωται, the tense of which suggests that this fragment comes from a speech. 46 See Il. 7.58–60, 14.289–291, where Apollo and Athena and Sleep respectively take the shape of birds and sit on tree branches, in order not to be noticed; also Il. 13.62, 15.237–238, 19.350– 351; Od. 1.320, 3.372, 22.240. See West 2007, 153 and n. 114, and, for Semitic parallels, West 1997, 185. It is not always clear whether the poet is referring to divine transformation into a bird or he is simply using a simile; on this issue, see also Dirlmeier 1967, 2; Kirk 1990: 239–240 on Il. 7.59–60; West 2011a, 189 on Il. 7.58–61.

Joint Intervention  

Aphrodite to arrange a meeting between Achilles and Helen.47 Apart from the traditional links between Aphrodite and Helen and Achilles and Thetis, we should bear in mind that Thetis and Aphrodite are both goddesses of concealment, who transfer their loved ones from one place to another.48 It was in this manner that Achilles’ desire to see Helen was fulfilled ― a desire that was probably motivated by the fact that he had never set eyes on her, since he was not one of her suitors. The narrative thrust that such an episode, featuring a double divine intervention, may have had is suggested by its similarity to the start of the Iliad. Just as in the Iliad Achilles tells Thetis to go to Zeus and ask him to grant victory to the Trojans as long as he abstains from battle, so in the Cypria Achilles told Thetis to ask Zeus to instruct Aphrodite and facilitate a meeting between himself and Helen. It is not a coincidence that Achilles’ desire and its fulfillment occur immediately after the Trojans had refused a settlement by returning Helen to the Achaeans who are besieging their city and raiding the countryside and smaller cities in its vicinity. From this point onwards, Achilles undertakes various initiatives and becomes, as in the Iliad, the central figure of the narrative: he meets with Helen, restrains the Achaeans who desire to return to Greece, drives away Aeneas’ cattle, sacks Lyrnessos and Pedasos, takes Briseis captive, quarrels with Agamemnon, and withdraws from battle.49 Seen from this vantage point, the double divine intervention that makes possible the meeting between Helen, the cause of the war, and Achilles, the greatest Achaean hero, brings Achilles to the limelight and functions as a kind of introduction to the ensuing ‘Achillean’

 47 On this ‘intermediate’ scene, see Tsagalis 2008, 96–106. Differently West 2013, 119. On the meeting place between Helen and Aphrodite, see my remarks (2008, 97 n. 14): ‘Aphrodite would easily have transported Helen close to the ships where she would meet Achilles. Although Aphrodite rescues Paris twice by transporting him far from the battlefield (Iliad 3 and 20, respectively), Helen refers ironically (Il. 3.400–401) to Aphrodite in terms of her ability to transport Helen to one of the goddess’ best loved cities’. See also Clader 1976, 73–74. 48 In the Iliad, Aphrodite sweeps away Paris (3.380–382) and Aeneas (5.311–318); Thetis at the end of the Aethiopis snatches Achilles’ body from the pyre and transfers him to the White Island. The motif seems to have been transferred from the Indo-European goddess *Ausos, represented in Greek mythology by Eos (Indic Uṣas), who swept away her beloved Tithonus (Homeric Hymn 5.218–238); Slatkin 1991, 28. See further Tsagalis 2008, 99–100. 49 As I have argued elsewhere (2008, 106) the purpose of Achilles’ restraint of the Achaeans was to show the profound influence the meeting with Helen had exercised on Achilles; the same view is shared by West 2013, 119. Differently, Konstan 2015, 169 n. 15, who places too much emphasis on the force of εἶτα in Proclus’ summary. Temporal markers like εἶτα (attested only twice in Proclus’ summaries of the Trojan epics) or μετὰ ταῦτα or ἔπειτα show nothing with respect to the causal links between episodes.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic section of the epic. Moreover, it would not be far-fetched to argue that this whole scene is imbued with metapoetic overtones, the more so since the two goddesses involved, Aphrodite and Thetis, are key figures in the wedding of Thetis and Peleus, which triggers the entire Trojan saga. In any case, the Cypria seems to have supplemented the poetic traditions reflected in the Hesiodic Catalog of Women (fr. 204.87–92 M-W), according to which Achilles was not among Helen’s suitors, since he was brought up by Chiron at Mt Pelion.50 We are in no position to know what the content of this scene with latent erotic tension between Achilles and Helen may have been,51 what these two figures may have said to each other ― the presence of Thetis and Aphrodite would lent the episode special status and authority. As in the psychostasia scenes, in which goddesses (like Thetis and Eos in the Aethiopis) stand by their beloved ones but cannot influence their fate, so Aphrodite and Thetis may have stood by Helen and Achilles knowing the inevitability of what is to ensue. Achilles will now be deeply involved in a war he has not caused and is not bound by oath to fight, and Helen will stay inside the walls waiting for the disastrous end of a war she herself has provoked.

. Prophecies and Signs Gods also make their presence known through prophecies and signs, which loom large in the Epic Cycle, both in the Theban and in the Trojan section.52 Prophecies are mainly expressed by seers, but they can also be conveyed either by an official oracle (e.g. Apollo’s oracle to Telephus concerning his healing; see Cypr. arg. ll. 132–133 Severyns) or by the gods themselves (e.g. Thetis).53 In addition, the gods manifest themselves by means of tokens expressing divine will (e.g. the two snakes coming our of the sea and killing Laocoon and one of his sons (Il. pers. arg. ll. 248–251 Severyns). In the Oedipodea, there must have been a reference to the oracle of Apollo that Laius’ son would bring destruction to his father’s kingdom. And although  50 See Tsagalis 2008, 102. 51 With the word ‘latent’ I express my agreement with West 2013, 119 (contra Davies 1989, 48 who thinks that Proclus’ phrasing indicates that Achilles and Helen made love), who opts for the expression ‘romantic attachment’. 52 See Stockinger 1959, 86–94; Kullmann 1960, 221–223 counts 17 oracles and wondrous signs in the Trojan section of the Epic Cycle (without counting the Nostoi and the Telegony). 53 Thetis foretells Achilles that he will die by the hand of Apollo, if he kills in the first place his son Tenes (Apollod. Epit. 3.26).

Prophecies and Signs  

there is no surviving fragment or information concerning the role of the seer Tiresias in the poem, it is hard to think of an Oedipodea without him, since he is a figure belonging to the deep structure of Theban myth.54 In the Thebais, the central role of Amphiaraus would have in all probability been linked to the interpretation of divine signs. While we lack direct evidence for such signs, the Iliad refers to ill omens from Zeus that deterred the Mycenaeans, who were initially favorable to Polynices’ cause, from marching against Thebes (Il. 4.376– 381). Although Polynices’ and Tydeus’ recruitment visit to Mycenae ‘not otherwise attested, is surely invented ad hoc to account for Agamemnon’s knowing about Tydeus,’55 the specific reference to the Mycenaeans’ change of mind because of Zeus’ ‘unfavorable signs’ (παραίσια σήματα, Il. 4.381) and the following reference to Tydeus’ ‘obeying the omens of the gods’ (θεῶν τεράεσσι πιθήσας, 398) to spare Maeon during an ambush of the Cadmeans, seem to be reflections of an important motif of the Theban saga, according to which there were ill and favorable omens before the expeditions of the Seven and the Epigonoi respectively.56 It seems plausible that in both epics Amphiaraus was the one who interpreted these omens.57 The Iliad has simply transferred this motif to a Mycenaean context, in order to explain why the Mycenaeans did not take part in the expedition, although they were favorable to it. The absence of a reference to the king of Mycenae at the time of the presbeia, together with the abrupt change of mind of the Mycenaeans, shows that there was no tradition of their participation in the war.58 In the Epigonoi, in any case, Amphiaraus appears to have prophesied, from his oracle below the earth, that the signs of Zeus are favorable and that this time Thebes would fall.59 In addition, Tiresias advised the Thebans to abandon their city before the Argives’ arrival.60 This epic also dealt in considerable detail with his daughter Manto, who after her father’s death at the spring Tilphoussa, was sent to Delphi to offer a tithe to Apollo and to marry the first mortal she encountered after leaving the god’s sanctuary (Rhacius, son of Lebes). She then went to  54 See Cingano 2015a, 216 and n. 10. 55 West 2011a, 146–147 on Il. 4.376–381. 56 See West 2011a, 147 on Il. 4.408. 57 Stockinger 1959, 88 n. 11 highlights the following verbal similarity between Il. 4.381 (ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς ἔτρεψε [the Mycenaeans]) and Σ in Od. 11.326 (ὁ μὲν Ἀμφιάραος ἀπέτρεψε τοὺς Ἀργείους καὶ τὸν ἐσόμενον ὄλεθρον προεμαντεύετο); see also Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.2 (Ἀμφιάραος … τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀπέτρεπε and Ἀμφιαράου δὲ ἀποτρέποντος). 58 West 2011a, 146–147 on Il. 4.376–381. 59 Il. 4.408 with Davies 2014, 109–110; also Pind. Pyth. 8.49. See Stockinger 1959, 89. 60 Diod. 4.66.4–5, 67.1; Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.3; Paus. 9.33.1.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic Claros, named after her tears for the fall of her city, where she founded an oracular shrine of Apollo (fr. 3 PEG = 3 EGF = 4 GEF). Here we see something that can also be observed in other Cyclic epics: seers, apart from interpreting the gods’ will, also play a central role in new foundations through their wanderings, as the poets associate ktisis myths with well-known manteis.61 Given that the foundation of new settlements presupposed a favorable oracle to signal the god’s approval, the role of seers was of the utmost importance in this context. In the Alcmeonis, Apollo revealed through an oracle that Eriphyle, already bribed by Polynices to convince her husband Amphiaraus to join the Seven, had been bribed a second time by Polynices’ son Thersander, who gave her the robe of Harmonia in order to convince her son Alcmaon, a seer like his father Amphiaraus, to participate in the expedition of the Epigonoi (Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.5).62 The god also made it clear that victory would come for the Argives only if Alcmaon was their leader (Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.2). This oracle led to the murder of Eriphyle by Alcmaon, who started wandering as he was persecuted by Erinys (Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.5). At this point, a second oracle given to Alcmaon by Apollo determined that his wanderings would be over when he would find a land not seen by the rays of the sun at the moment of his mother’s murder. This turned out to be the newly formed silt deposits at the mouth of the river Acheloos (Apollod. Bibl 3.7.5). Thus the Alcmeonis associated two cardinal events in the story of Alcmaon, his participation in the expedition and the end of his wanderings, with the expression of Apollo’s will. If seen within the wider framework of the Theban epics, of which the Alcmeonis was the final one, we may argue that prophecy as a manifestation of divine will framed the Theban saga, which began in the Oedipodea with Apollo’s oracle to Laius that the birth of his son would be disastrous for him and his kingdom, and ended in the Alcmeonis with Apollo’s oracle to Alcmaon and his deliverance from Erinys at the mouth of the river Acheloos.

 61 See Cingano 2015b, 257: ‘Alcmaon, Amphilochus, Tiresias, Manto, Mopsus, Chalcas, all are mantic characters connected to mantic contests and/or oracles in various parts of the Greek world; they represent different areas and epic traditions and, as was the case with the Melampodea (frs. 270–279 M-W), their contests, marriages and journeys sketch out a broad map of the sacred places and mantic genealogies of the Greek world, connecting East and West, Acarnania and Anatolia. If one looks at the fragments and at the title, centered on the name of the protagonist, the same considerations of antiquarian and mythological lore combined with the theme of the traveling hero in a colonial world apply to the poem Alcmeonis.’ 62 On the motif of the second bribing of Eriphyle, see Gantz 1993, 525; Olivieri 2004, 83–85; cf. Prinz 1979, 174–176); Breglia Pulci Doria 1991–1994, 129. The second bribing may have also featured in Stesichorus’ Eriphyle (fr. 93 Davies and Finglass).

Prophecies and Signs  

In the Trojan section of the Epic Cycle, prophecies seem to have been frequently employed, especially in the Cypria.63 This poem probably included: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

the oracle of Helenus to Paris (l. 91 Severyns) the prophecy of Cassandra for the fate of Troy (ll. 91–92 Severyns) the Delphic oracle ordering Agamemnon to sacrifice to Dionysus Sphaltes (? Lyc. 206–210) Calchas’ interpretation of the snake-sparrows sign in Aulis (ll. 123–124 Severyns) the oracle of Apollo to Telephus about his healing (ll. 132–133 Severyns) the Delphic oracle to Agamemnon that the sack of Troy depends on an argument between Odysseus and Achilles (Od. 8.75–82) the prophecy of Calchas about the sacrifice of Iphigenia (ll. 138–140 Severyns) Anius’ prophecy that Troy will fall in the tenth year (? Σ in Lyc. 570, Pherec. fr. 140 EGM, Od. 6.162–165) Thetis’ prophecy to Achilles that he will be killed by Apollo if he kills Apollo’s son Tenes (Apollod. Epit. 3.26) Thetis’ warning to Achilles not to be the first to set foot on Trojan soil, lest he die (Apollod. Epit. 3.29; cf. Σ in Lyc. 245, Ov. Her. 13.93–95).64

It has been rightly observed that prophecies function as (homodiegetic) prolepses or flash-forwards to future events, and that ‘the anticipatory mode of narrative was particularly characteristic of this epic’.65 The unusually high density of prophecies in a single epic would have made the gods’ presence in the Cypria’s plot very strong; and given that the majority of these prophecies come from, or have to do with, Apollo, we can plausibly state that the Cypria highlighted the power of this god and anticipated his important future role in the Trojan saga as a whole. Equally remarkable in the Cypria are the prophecies of Thetis. Her advice to Achilles not to kill Tenes and not land first in Troy is indicative of her general role in the Trojan saga: she will act as a ‘seer’ throughout, but only with respect to her son Achilles.66 Calchas’ prophecies, meanwhile, are so closely associated with the first and second gathering of the army in Aulis that they may have been employed as a way of emphasizing his role as the official seer of

 63 See Rengakos 2015a, 158. 64 See Stockinger 1959, 90–91. 65 Rengakos 2015a, 157–158; see also Kullmann 1960, 221–223. 66 See Aethiopis (below) and Thetis’ role in Iliad 1.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic the Achaeans. Finally, it should be noted that there is considerable overlap between some of the poem’s prophecies: those of Helenus and Cassandra constitute a pair referring to the future of Paris and Troy, and Anius’ prophecy basically repeats what Calchas had already foretold during the first gathering in Aulis, namely that the war would last ten years. Although not as frequent as in the Cypria, prophecies are anything but rare in the other Trojan epics. In the Aethiopis, Thetis foretold to Achilles ‘the events concerning Memnon’.67 In the Ilias parva, all prophecies are related to the sack of Troy, spreading ‘a superstitious glow’ over this epic:68 Calchas prophesies that Helenus must be captured to reveal to the Achaeans which oracles must be fulfilled to sack Troy (Apollod. Epit. 5.9); Helenus tells the Achaeans that Troy will fall if Philoctetes and Neoptolemus join the Achaean army, if the Palladium is stolen from Troy and the bones of Pelops are obtained (Il. parv. arg. ll. 211–212 Severyns and Apollod. Epit. 5.10); Cassandra warns the Trojans that the Wooden Horse will bring destruction (Apollod. Epit. 5.17, Tabula Iliaca). In the Iliou persis Laocoon tries to warn the Trojans about the Wooden Horse but he is killed by a creature coming out of the sea, together with one of his sons (Il. pers. arg. ll. 248–249 Severyns). The portent’s differentiation between the sons of Laocoon, one dying and one surviving, appears to refer to the distinct fates of the two lines of Troy’s royal house: the line of Priam perishes, that of Aeneas survives.69 Of the epics relating the events after the Trojan War the Nostoi undoubtedly contain the largest number of prophecies:70 Calchas foretold that Ajax Oileus would be punished for violently dragging Cassandra from Athena’s temple; the contest between the seers Calchas and Mopsus included the interpretation of signs; the ghost of Achilles spelled disaster before the Achaean fleet’s departure for Greece (Nost. arg. ll. 291–293 Severyns); Thetis specifically warned Neoptolemus against crossing the Aegean and Helenus later guided him to the place where he was fated to settle (Nost. arg. ll. 296–297 Severyns; Apollod. 6.12);71 and Proteus predicted an afterlife in Elysium for Menelaus and Helen (Od. 4.561–569). In the Telegony, Odysseus carried out in Ithaca the sacrifices Tiresias had told him to perform, when he visited the Underworld (Tel. arg. ll. 313–314 Severyns). As in the case of the Cypria, the prophecies in these two epics mainly

 67 Aeth. arg. ll. 186–187 Severyns: τὰ κατὰ τὸν Μέμνονα προλέγει. See Stockinger 1959, 91. 68 Welcker 18822, 277: ‘ein abergläubischer Schein’. 69 Robert 1881, 193, 1920–19264, 1249; Bethe 19292, 254–255. See Il. pers. arg. ll. 250–251 Severyns: ἐπὶ δὲ τῷ τέρατι δυσφορήσαντες οἱ περὶ τὸν Αἰνείαν ὑπεξῆλθον εἰς τὴν Ἴδην. 70 See Stockinger 1959, 93–94; Danek 2015, 375. 71 See West 2013, 263.

Divine Parentage  

function as internal prolepses, foreshadowing events after the Trojan War, and the Nostoi resemble the Cypria, both in oracle-density and in the relatively large number of characters foretelling the future (Calchas, Thetis, Helenus). Even a cursory look at the prophecies featuring in the post-Iliadic epics shows that they refer to central themes of the individual poems: the fate of Memnon and Achilles, the sack of Troy, and the subsequent fate of the Achaeans. In this way, the core events of the Trojan War saga are presented against the backdrop of divine will, which sets the pace and tone for developments in the mortal world.

. Divine Messengers A well-known difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey is that while in the former Iris is the standard divine messenger, in the latter it is Hermes who fulfills this function. For the Epic Cycle, it is difficult to draw any safe conclusions regarding the role divine messengers may have played, or their identity. The terse summaries of Proclus do not mention them when their mediation might be surmised, with the exception of one reference to a divine messenger in the Cypria, where Iris informed Menelaus about what happened in Sparta during his absence to Crete (Cypr. arg. ll. 110–111 Severyns). This silence could be due to elision, but since the most elaborate accounts of Apollodorus’ Epitome offer the same picture, it may be the case that divine messengers of the type we know from the Homeric epics were in fact rarely used in the Epic Cycle. If so, the reason for their absence may be that, in these epics, the ‘lesser’ gods intervened directly in human affairs, carrying their message to humans in person, and that Zeus’ role was more limited, obviating the need to have his dictates transmitted to humans by a divine messenger. However this may be, it is unlikely to be true that the Cyclic epics’ widespread and systematic use of prophecies to progress the narrative made the disclosure of divine will through messengers redundant. After all, prophecies also abound in Homeric epic, in which divine messengers are frequently used.72

. Divine Parentage Mortals with divine parentage feature prominently in the Theban and Trojan sections in the Epic Cycle. They can be usefully subdivided into two categories:

 72 See Stockinger 1959, 15–85.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic the offspring of a god and a mortal woman, and children born from a goddess and a mortal man. The former category includes a significant number of characters who are all killed in battle by other sons of gods or goddesses. In the Thebais, Cycnus, son of Ares and Pelopia or Pyrene, is defeated and killed by Heracles, son of Zeus (fr. 8 PEG = 6 EGF = 11 GEF). In the Cypria, Tenes, son of Apollo (and Procleia?) and Cycnus, son of Poseidon and Calyce, are both killed by Achilles (Apollod. Epit. 3.26; arg. ll. 149–150 Severyns). In the Aethiopis, the Amazon Penthesilea, daughter of Ares and Otrere, is also killed by Achilles (arg. ll. 175–177 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 5.1). Slightly different is the case of the Dioscouroi, Castor (Leda’s son by Tyndareos) and his twin Polydeuces (her son by Zeus). Interestingly, Castor, who is mortal, is killed by Idas, son of Poseidon and twin brother of Lynceus; both twins are subsequently killed by Polydeuces (Cypr. arg. ll. 106– 109 Severyns).73 With respect to his death, Memnon, son of Tithonus and the goddess Eos, also belongs to this group, since he is killed by Achilles, the son of Thetis (Aeth. arg. l. 189 Severyns). What can be gathered from this list is that mortals of divine parentage were treated as a special category of heroes, whose death had to be caused by another hero of the same semi-divine origin. What also emerges is the special status of Achilles within this group. He is responsible for killing no less than four pre-eminent children of gods in single combat: Tenes, Cycnus, Penthesilea, and Memnon. These duels indicate that, in contrast to the Iliad, Cyclic epic highlighted his semi-divine origin and his special status as Thetis’ son, painting a very different kind of hero. As far as the offspring of mortals and goddesses are concerned, Memnon (son of Eos and Tithonus), Achilles (son of Thetis and Peleus), and Telegonus (son of Circe and Odysseus) are all linked by means of two motifs stemming from their semi-divine origin: the first pertains to the involvement of their mothers in, and virtual absence of their fathers from, the Trojan saga, the second to their immortalization, which I will treat in more detail together with the fate of some other heroes in the next section. Eos and Thetis both actively engage with the fate of their sons: they give their sons divine armor made by Hephaestus;74 are present in the psychostasia scene before their final clash, and

 73 The conflict between the two pairs of twins of whom one brother is of divine parentage follows an old, Indo-European pattern. On the Dioscouroi and their Vedic and Baltic counterparts (called ‘sons of Dyaus’ [Vedic: divó nápātā] and sons of the sky-god [Baltic: Dieva dēli, Dievo sunėliai] just as the Dioscouroi are called ‘sons of Zeus’), see Ward 1968; Frame 2009, 72– 73. 74 Thetis: Iliad 18; Eos: Aeth. arg. ll. 185–186 Severyns.

Immortalization  

achieve immortality for their sons after their death (Aeth. arg. ll. 189–190, 199– 200 Severyns). In sharp contrast, Tithonus and Peleus stay completely out of the picture, both of them being firmly associated in the tradition with the theme of old age, which in Tithonus’ case has become emblematic for the unbridgeable gap between mortals and immortals.75 The case of Telegonus is somewhat different. His mother Circe must have played an active role in the first and last phase of his journey to seek his father Odysseus, but the tragic and accidental patricide that follows their meeting shows Odysseus’ active involvement in the story (Apollod. Epit. 7.36). Overall, we see a marked difference between the two groups of mortals with divine parentage. The children of gods and mortal women are presented as detached from their divine fathers. They are a special category of semi-divine heroes who meet their death at the hands of other semi-divine warriors. For the offspring of goddesses with mortal men, on the other hand, our evidence shows the mothers’ active involvement in the fate of their sons and their close communication; and these divine mothers succeed in making their sons immortal.

. Immortalization In Cyclic epic, gods are directly involved in the immortalization of the mortals they favor,76 securing a change of condition mainly, but not exclusively, after they pass away. In the Thebais, Athena intends to make Tydeus immortal, but changes her mind at the last moment when she witnesses him devour the brains of the Theban Melanippus (Apollod. Bibl. 3.6.8). In the Cypria, Artemis immortalizes Iphigenia as she is sacrificed and transfers her to Tauris, leaving a deer in her place (Cypr. arg. ll. 141–143 Severyns). In the Aethiopis, both Memnon and Achilles are immortalized after their death, the former through the successful entreaty of his mother Eos to Zeus, the latter by being transferred by Thetis to the White Island (Aeth. arg. ll. 189–190, 199–200 Severyns). In the Telegony, Athena ensures that Telemachus, Telegonus, and Penelope are all transferred to Aeaea, where Circe makes them immortal before they intermarry, Telemachus with Circe and Telegonus with Penelope (Tel. arg. ll. 327–330 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 7.37). Immortalization is, therefore, not only fairly frequent in the Cyclic epics but also directly related to the function of the gods. It shows the level of

 75 Homeric Hymn 5.218–238; see Richardson 2010, 247–248 on ll. 218–238. 76 I have deliberately refrained from mentioning the immortalization of Heracles, since it is not certain that this event would have been included in the Titanomachy.

  The Gods in Cyclic Epic their involvement in human affairs. The contexts in which immortalization is manifested display a remarkable variety, which testifies to the fact that immortalization is not, as some scholars have thought (especially regarding the Telegony), the sign of the literary taste of a later age, but a deeply-seated feature of archaic epic.77 Immortalization is presented as a divine reward for military prowess (Tydeus), virginity (Iphigenia), mother-son relationship (Memnon, Achilles), or alternatively as resulting from some purely exotic and, perhaps, magic force (Telemachus, Telegonus, Penelope).78 Its recurrent appearance in Cyclic epic stands out as one of its key differences from Homeric epic, where, in sharp contrast, the gods express pain and grief for their inability to change the doom of their favored humans.79 In the Epic Cycle, the gods are equally unable to prevent what has been determined by fate, but their ability to confer immortality after death provides them with a second best alternative.

. Conclusion Some of the roles undertaken by gods in the poems of the Epic Cycle pertain to typical epic themes that are equally shared by Homeric epic: wrath, rivalry, counseling, foretelling of the future, love and parentage of both immortal and mortal children. Other forms of divine activity, notably metamorphosis and immortalization, are virtually absent from Homeric epic, giving to the Cycle an exotic flavor. From the point of view of the narrative, divine wrath, rivalry, counseling, and prophecies play a major role in the plot of the individual Cyclic epics, whereas metamorphosis and immortalization do not seem to be instrumental to the telling of the story. One might, therefore, suggest, with a considerable amount of caution, that wrath, rivalry, counseling, and prophecies constitute ‘unmarked’ forms of divine activity, whereas metamorphosis and immortalization ‘marked’ ones. ‘Unmarked’ forms of divine engagement, to stick to linguistic terminology, derive their regularity from being almost the standard epic ‘response’ to the role of the gods. In contrast, marked types of  77 Monro 1884, 15, 17 and 1901, 361, 377; Jebb 19057, 153–155; Forsdyke 1956, 130–131; Jouan 1980, 102–103; see Burgess 2001, 167 for a rebuttal of this position. 78 Here the mother-son relationship is used almost comically. 79 A typical example of this phenomenon is the scene in Iliad 22 in which Zeus expresses pain for his inability to prevent the death of Hector. Given that this happens within the context of a psychostasia, the analogy with the Cyclic Aethiopis is even more telling. Immortalization is not unknown in Homer, but in contrast to the Cycle, it is peripheral and ‘unusual, not primary’ (Burgess 2001, 167 with emphasis on note 148).

Conclusion  

divine involvement deviate from the ‘default mode’ of divine action and seem to pertain to the Cycle’s taste for the exotic, the fantastic, and the miraculous. The dichotomy between ‘unmarked’ and ‘marked’ forms of divine activity, the former being instrumental for the narrative, the latter playing no role in the unraveling of the plot in Cyclic epic, has far reaching consequences for Homeric epic too. If placed next to the neoanalytical theory that Cyclic epic reflects preHomeric earlier epic traditions which functioned as sources for the Homeric epics, then we can see that those divine roles which had a narrative impact were the ones put in use by the Iliad and the Odyssey. On the other hand, part of those which were narratively inactive in oral Cyclic epic (immortalization of humans)80 were transformed by Homeric epic into heroic experience.81

 80 A special case is presented by divine metamorphosis, which though narratively inactive in Cyclic epic became narratively significant in Homeric epic. 81 See Slatkin 1991, 39, 121–122; Finkelberg 2015, 137–138 (= 2020, 179–181).

 γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων: Interformularity and Intertraditionality in Theban and Homeric Epic One of the most salient issues pertaining to the ongoing debate about written versus oral or oral-derived literature is the discrepancy between repetition and recurrence. Here is a recent presentation of this difference: To repeat is to do something again, with the rhetorical force of the second and subsequent repetitions stemming from their imitation or echoing of the initial item. On the other hand, to recur is to arise idiomatically — not because of a specific prior occurrence, but rather because the element or pattern is itself associated with the compositional and artistic task and redolent with inherent, embedded meaning. Formulas and typical scenes and storypatterns do not repeat in oral traditional epic. Homer does not resort to ‘rosy-fingered dawn’ at any given juncture because he deployed the phrase recently and wishes to capitalize on that salient usage. Nor do the elaborate scenes of feasting in the Odyssey or lamentation in the Iliad depend primarily on parallel instances that happen to precede them. The Odyssey is one very prominent recurrence of the Return pattern that proliferates throughout Indo-European story traditions. Formulas, typical scenes and story-patterns index the epic tradition, serving as lemmata to a finally untextualizable body of story. In this vein, they do not repeat; they idiomatically recur as the poet (re-) makes the poeminstance.1

If then repetition is intentional, whereas recurrence is symptomatic, are they representative of written versus oral or oral-derived literature or is the general picture rather blurred, as meaningful and intentional repetition can be observed in oral or oral-derived literature and recurrence in written literature? A second question connected with the prior one concerns a particular form of duplication in Greek epic tradition, namely the doublet.2 Is the doublet a manifestation of repetition or recurrence? Is it intentional and derivative or symptomatic and formulaic? It is these questions that I will aim to answer by recourse to a telling example of phraseological and thematic duplication in the Odyssey that resonates through both the Theban and Trojan sections of the Epic Cycle. But before I turn my attention to the Odyssey and Cyclic epic, I would like to dwell on the theoretical debate around which the following analysis will unfold. The question pertaining to the use of meaningful allusion in early Greek hexameter tradition is a notorious interpretive crux that has been treated in divergent

 1 Foley and Arft 2015. 2 See Bowra 1930, 94–96; Schadewaldt 19663, 150 and n. 2; Fenik 1968, 213–214; 1974, 142–207; Edwards 1987, 50–51; 1991, 19–20; Scodel 2002, 26–27; Kelly 2007b. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-013

Transferred Phraseology and Transferred Motif  

ways from different scholars and schools of interpretation. According to oral theory, phraseology and theme are both traditional in the universe of early Greek epic, and as such they do not repeat but only recur. This does not mean that meaningful allusion does not exist for oralists, but that it is created by manipulation of the audience’s familiarity with traditional structures. For oralists, meaningful allusion comes ‘from within the song’ that is pars pro toto of the song-tradition it belongs to. For them allusion is never derivative, as the very idea of priority is excluded within the universe of oral song.3 Conversely, neoanalysts argued that the most fundamental form of meaningful allusion in early hexameter poetry is text-based intertextuality, which in the case of Homeric epic takes a very particular form known as ‘motif-transference’: by studying the function of a motif in the ‘target text’ neoanalysts trace its ‘history’ all the way back to the ‘source text’. This is made possible, according to the neoanalyst argumentation, because motifs have progressively become particularized to a given context in the stable skeleton of narrative or the Faktenkanon of early Greek epic. This distinction between a ‘primary’ and a ‘secondary’ text or poem results in the re-use of the motif in a novel, non-traditional way in the ‘target text’. For neoanalysts derivative allusion can only result from the genious of the individual poet and requires a level of fixity that can be solely provided by written texts.4 According to a third line of interpretation, meaningful allusion of an intertextual nature is possible within the universe of oral poetry. The proponents of this approach argue for an oral neoanalysis and opt for a textless intertextuality.5 Meaningful allusion and derivative resonance are fully operable in oral poetry that has reached a degree of fixity by means of diffusion, selfawareness, cross-referencing, and a ‘stable skeleton of narrative’.6

 3 See, for example, Kelly (2012, 3–24), who stresses the importance of a scene’s ‘structural grammar’ and studies ‘how the poet manipulates his audience’s familiarity with that grammar in order to create uncertainty, excitement, and meaning, to direct, misdirect, and control their response, and on the smallest scales of narrative’ (3). 4 Some main proponents: Pestalozzi 1945; Kakridis 1949; Kullmann 1960, 1991, 425–455 (= 1992, 100–134), 2002a, 162–176; Reichel 1994, 1998, 1–22; Willcock 1997, 174–189; Griffin 1977, 39–53; Currie 2006, 1–45, 2016, 1–38. 5 Main proponents: Burgess 1997, 1–19; 2001, 2006, 148–189, 2009; Finkelberg 2000, 1–11 and 2011, 197–208; Tsagalis 2008, 2011a, 209–244, 2012a, 309–345; see also Introduction, pp. XV– XVI and chapter 1, pp. 3–33 (this volume). 6 For the term ‘stable skeleton of narrative’, see Lord 1960/20002, 99; see also Tsagalis 2011a, 211 and chapter 1, pp. 5, 25, n. 85, 28 n. 90 (this volume).

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων

. Transferred Phraseology and Transferred Motif My investigation focuses on a case of repeated or recurrent phraseology and repeated or recurrent motif respectively. The phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων is used in Od. 11.519–521 (in the context of the Nekyia) and 15.243–248 (in the context of the genealogy of the seer Theoclymenus). ἀλλ᾽ οἷον τὸν Τηλεφίδην κατενήρατο χαλκῷ, ἥρω᾽ Εὐρύπυλον, πολλοὶ δ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ αὐτὸν ἑταῖροι Κήτειοι κτείνοντο γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων. (Od. 11.519–521) But well I remember how the heroic Eurypylus son of Telephus fell to his sword, and how many of the Ceteioi, his men-at-arms, were slaughtered at his side, all on account of a bribe that a woman had taken. Ἀντιφάτης μὲν ἔτικτεν Ὀϊκλῆα μεγάθυμον, αὐτὰρ Ὀϊκλείης λαοσσόον Ἀμφιάραον, ὃν περὶ κῆρι φίλει Ζεύς τ᾽ αἰγίοχος καὶ Ἀπόλλων παντοίην φιλότητ᾽· οὐδ᾽ ἵκετο γήραος οὐδόν, ἀλλ᾽ ὄλετ᾽ ἐν Θήβῃσι γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων. τοῦ δ᾽ υἱεῖς ἐγένοντ᾽ Ἀλκμαίων Ἀμφίλοχός τε. (Od. 15.243–248) Antiphates became the father of the bold Oicles, and Oicles in his turn, of that great leader Amphiaraus, a man whom aegis-bearing Zeus and Apollo loved and blessed with every mark of their favour. Even so he never trod the path of old age, but fell at Thebes, the victim of a woman’s avarice, leaving two sons, Alcmaon and Amphilochus.

Is the expression γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων traditional or has it been constructed by the Odyssey? As far as the dictional and metrical constraints of early hexameter poetry are concerned, the phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων occupies the same metrical position, i.e. after the feminine or trochaic caesura, in verses ending in a strong pause that is marked by the lack of any form of enjambment. In other words, its two sole attestations in the entire Homeric corpus show that it is used at verse-end but also at the end of a short section devoted to a specific motif.7 The phrase at hand flags for both singer and audience the completion of a brief thematic unit (Od. 11.519–521 and Od. 15.243–248) embedded to a larger one, the exploits of Neoptolemus at Troy (Od. 11.510–537) and the genealogy of Theoclymenus (Od. 15.223–256) respectively.

 7 The convergence of phraseological- and motif-completion indicates the existence of a thematic surplus that is synchronically contextual and diachronically intertextual. See also the last section of this chapter.

Transferred Phraseology and Transferred Motif  

The epithet γυναίων is employed only in these two cases, in Moschus (2.45), and the Orphic Argonautica (673: γυναίων εἵνεκα φίλτρων) in the whole of Greek literature. In Homer, the word δῶρα (10x in the Iliad and Odyssey) is attested only three times at verse end,8 but it is only in Od. 11.521 and 15.248 that is preceded by εἵνεκα. The highly abbreviated and elliptical form of the two references, in which the phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων belongs, covertly shows that the audience was familiar with the relevant contexts, which it could easily evoke. I believe that these contexts were epic and not lyric or artistic. This is what I have argued elsewhere:9 The performance context is a decisive factor for screening out the multiplicity of traces and consolidating the function of significant allusion. The practicalities of the performance, few of which are retrievable today, would have exercised considerable pressure on the interpretation of mythological traces employed in Homeric epic. A useful comparandum may be the example of a modern rock concert. Huge crowds, great enthusiasm that often is out of control, shouting and responding to the rock star’s gestures, lack of space between the numerous spectators, standing instead of seating, loud noise, casual or provocative dress-code followed by both the rock band and the spectators are some of the performative circumstances that function as generators and constraints of meaning: the provocative content of many rock songs is thus mirrored on the entire performance procedure and, by extension, on the audience itself. It does not really matter whether spectators belong to different social strata or educational levels. Performance context erases difference and absorbs variation when the band appears on stage. I would like to argue that performance context was even stronger in archaic Greece as far as epic songs are concerned. A symposium or a religious festival as the locus of the performance, the single bard, the size of the poem, the unchanging tone of the dactylic hexameter, the musical accompaniment of the phorminx, the silence of the audience, the duration of the performance, and of course the status of epic song itself would have channelled mythical allusion towards other epic songs performed under similar conditions. As modern rock fans would be tuned to the specific musical universe of a rock festival and not to that of a classical concert (even if both were dealing with the same topic, say love), so ancient audiences could be keyed to a specific poetic note, when listening to an epic performance. Under such conditions, mythological reference could often equal oral intertextual reference, and oral intertextual reference could become oral epic allusion.

Is it possible, then, that this phrase has been transferred or adapted from a context10 in which it would specifically refer to the ‘archetypal’,11 within the uni-

 8 In the genitive plural (δώρων): Il. 24.68; Od. 11.521; Od. 15.248. 9 Tsagalis 2011a, 231–232. 10 That this context was poetic and not simply mythological can be seen by the ‘transfer of phrasing’. In this case, allusion not only ‘embraces the lexical level’, it is also signalled in it; on this point, see Currie 2012, 572.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων verse of archaic Greek epic, deception through bribery, i.e. the case of Eriphyle who is the only figure bribed twice by gifts (by Polynices and Thersander) in early hexameter poetry? In fact, our ancient sources inform us that such a transfer was possible and, moreover, was made with respect to the very same motif, i.e. ‘the gifts of Eriphyle’. According to Clement (Strom. 6.12.7),12 Agias of Troezen adapted a verse referring to the gifts of Eriphyle in the Epigonoi, and used it in a scene relating to Eriphyle in the Underworld that featured in his own poem, the Nostoi. Ἀντιμάχου τε του Τηΐου εἰπόντος (Epig. fr. 4 PEG 1 = 2 GEF) ἐκ γὰρ δώρων πολλὰ κάκ᾽ ἀνθρώποισι πέλονται, Ἀγίας ἐποίησεν (Nost. fr. 8 PEG 1 = 7 EGF = 7 GEF) δῶρα γὰρ ἀνθρώπων νόον ἤπαφεν ἠδὲ καὶ ἔργα. And where Antimachus of Teos had said For from gifts much ill comes to mankind, Agias wrote: For gifts delude peoples minds and (corrupt) their actions.

This example makes it plain that there was transference of phraseology and motif within Cyclic epic, and that the story of Eriphyle was fertile for exactly this kind of resonance between two different epics. Moreover, it shows that transference was possible between the different sub-sections of the Epic Cycle, i.e. the Theban section (Epigonoi) and the Trojan section (Nostoi). The case presented above is also instructive as far as the ‘mechanics’ of transference of phraseology  11 Eriphyle is the ‘archetype’ of the evil woman; see Rivero García 2008, 274–279. 12 Clement’s citation must be placed within the context of a standard topic in Christian apologetic literature written in Greek, namely whether the Greeks had taken their knowledge from the Jews. A further ramification of this topic is ‘Greeks drawing their knowledge from other Greeks’. The ‘theft of the Greeks’ topic seems to dominate in Stromateis I and V. This observation has led Bousset 1915 to argue for the existence of an intermediary source, different from his famous ‘Pantaenus-Quelle’ (the notes of Pantaenus that were used and published by his disciple Clement) which had been employed in the Excerpta, the Eclogae, and the Stromateis VI and VII. This theory, though refuted by Munck 1933, is not to be wholly discredited, for even if the scenario of the ‘Pantaenus-Quelle’ and intermediary sources are not on the right track, still the stress given to the topic ‘theft by the Greeks’ is valid.

Going to War: Female Guile and Male Prowess  

are concerned. The phrase ἐκ γὰρ δώρων … ἀνθρώποισι (Epig. fr. 4 PEG = 2 GEF) has become δῶρα γὰρ ἀνθρώπων (Nost. fr. 8 PEG = 7 EGF = 7 GEF), which shows that the key elements of the motif, i.e. gifts (δώρων ― δῶρα) and their destructive force on humans (ἀνθρώποισι ― ἀνθρώπων) were preserved when the transference was effected, since they belonged to the deep structure of the motif. What is perhaps the most important conclusion one should draw from this example is that the deep structure of the motif (δώρων | δῶρα ― ἀνθρώποισι | ἀνθρώπων) is analogous to the Odyssean phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων,13 and (tellingly enough), the phrase ἐκ γὰρ δώρων of the Cyclic Epigonoi corresponds exactly to the Odyssean expression εἵνεκα δώρων. Given that the Cyclic Epigonoi and the Nostoi are later than the Odyssey and that the abbreviated form of these references in the Odyssey by means of the phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων amounts to mere citations of epic sources, it is plausible that the Odyssey has transferred and, perhaps, adapted a motif and its built-in phraseology from an oral epic tradition, where they would have been at home. Since one of the attestations of this motif in the Odyssey alludes to the Theban cycle (15.243–248),14 while the other to the Trojan cycle (11.519–521),15 it is worth exploring the question pertaining to the reason(s) and way(s) this interconnection was developed in the first place. Once this is done, we will be able to draw some more general conclusions with respect to the nature and function of the link between the Theban and the Trojan epic traditions.

. Going to War: Female Guile and Male Prowess One of the most important motifs of early hexameter poetry is that of a hero’s or heroes’ departure for war. The two main strands of martial epic, the Theban and Trojan traditions had placed considerable emphasis on the mustering and departure of the Argive and Achaean armies to Thebes and Troy respectively. Both traditions had also put enormous stress on the departure of individual heroes, whose role in the relevant expeditions was going to be crucial. In the Theban tradition, the departure of Amphiaraus in the first, unsuccessful expedition of  13 By ‘analogous’ I refer to a certain degree of adaptation: while in the Odyssean passages the emphasis is on the gifts taken by women, in the Cyclic fragments the stress is on humans in general. 14 The first bribery of Eriphyle by Polynices belongs to the Thebais (see fr. 7* GEF) but could very well have been mentioned in the Epigonoi (fr. 4 PEG = 2 GEF) (and en passant even in the Alcmeonis). 15 See Il. parv. fr. 29 PEG = 6 EGF = 6 GEF. See also Σ Od. 11.520–1 (II 517–518 Dindorf).

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων the Seven, and the subsequent departure of his son Alcmaon in the second, successful expedition of the Epigonoi were integral parts of the stable skeleton of narrative pertaining to the Theban War epic tradition.16 Knowing, due to his ability as a seer to see the future, that the expedition of the Seven would fail, Amphiaraus was reluctant to take part in the war. But Amphiaraus was bound by oath to follow his wife’s (Eriphyle) advice in case there was another dispute between himself and Adrastus, since Adrastus had given him his sister Eriphyle as wife (with the proviso that she would arbitrate between them in the future). Taking advantage of this fact, Polynices, who had convinced Adrastus that an expedition should be organized against Thebes, bribed Eriphyle by offering her the golden necklace of Harmonia, a gift from the gods for Harmonia’s marriage to Cadmus. When Eriphyle advised Amphiaraus to take part in the war, he could not refuse, although he knew that the expedition would be unsuccessful. He told his son Alcmaon to avenge his death and departed for Thebes where he died. Before the expedition of the Epigonoi, in which the sons of the Seven attacked and sacked Thebes, Eriphyle attempted to bribe her son Alcmaon by accepting a gift (the robe of Harmonia) from Thersander, Polynices’ son. Alcmaon remembering his father’s words for revenge killed his own mother, either before or after the expedition. He then wandered around Greece persecuted by the Erinyes in search of a place on which the sun would not have set his rays. This was the new riverbanks of Acheloos. Even this cursory narrative makes it plainly clear that the theme of the departure of father (Amphiaraus) and son (Alcmaon) for the war constituted a doublet that dramatized important heroic issues, such as fate and heroism, human vanity, love for profit, deception, and revenge. In the Trojan War epic tradition, a hero’s departure for war is an equally important theme. According to the Cypria, Menelaus and Nestor travelled through Greece to muster an army by reminding various Greek leaders of the oath they had given to Tyndareos as suitors of Helen, by which they were bound to help Menelaus and Helen in case they were faced with danger.17 The Trojan War tradition must have thematized the departure of the two key figures of the Trojan expedition, i.e. Achilles and Odysseus, who were not bound by oath to take part in the war. Although the former’s willingness to participate in the war

 16 For an excellent review of the legend of Amphiaraus before Pindar, see Braswell 1998, 27– 41 with bibliography; see also Sineux 2007. 17 [Hes.] Cat. fr. 204.78–85 M-W; Apollod. Bibl. 3.10.9; see also arg. Cypr. ll. 118–119 Severyns: ἔπειτα τοὺς ἡγεμόνας ἀθροίζουσιν ἐπελθόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα (‘then they gather the leaders after going around Greece’).

The Typology of the Motif  

was not doubted by either the Iliad or the written Cypria, a version narrating his hiding at Scyros may have featured in some other oral version of the Cypria or in some lyric tradition.18 In the case of Odysseus, his faked madness that was exposed by Palamedes was undoubtedly narrated by the Cypria.19 Although bribery is not linked in the Trojan War tradition with either Achilles or Odysseus, it features with respect to the participation of another important hero in the war, Eurypylus, son of Telephus, the Mysian ally of the Trojans. What makes this information particularly relevant to this investigation is that Eurypylus is killed in Troy by Neoptolemus, Achilles’ son who is fetched from Scyros after his father’s death. As for Eurypylus, he is convinced to join the Trojans against the Achaeans by his mother, Astyoche, who is bribed by her brother Priam with the golden vine of Dionysus,20 i.e. of the same god who had trapped Telephus’ horse in a vine when wounded in the thigh by Achilles during the Teuthranian expedition.21 This connection becomes all the more important, if one bears in mind that Telephus had killed, before being wounded by Achilles, Thersander,22 one of the Epigonoi who had attempted to bribe Eriphyle with the robe of Harmonia and had joined the expedition to Troy like other Epigonoi (Diomedes, Sthenelus, and Euryalus).

. The Typology of the Motif Amidst a wealth of mythological details, it is crucial (a) to locate the salient or primary features pertaining to the deep structure of the motif, (b) to determine the secondary features manifested as variations of the deep structure features, (c) to map the way both primary and secondary motifs are interwoven with specific mythical figures in early hexameter poetry, and (d) to detect and pinpoint a number of truly peripheral elements that belong to the ‘epic staging’ of this motif and have been developed when the motif and the mythical figures it had

 18 On this issue, see Tsagalis 2012c, 257–289, especially 278–283. For an analogy with Amphiaraus’ reluctance to participate in the expedition of the Seven, see Apollod. Bibl. 3.60. 19 Arg. Cypr. ll. 119–121 Severyns: καὶ μαίνεσθαι προσποιησάμενον Ὀδυσσέα ἐπὶ τὸ μὴ θέλειν στρατεύεσθαι ἐφώρασαν, Παλαμήδους ὑποθεμένου τὸν υἱὸν Τηλέμαχον ἐπὶ κόλασιν ἐξαρπάσαντες (‘and they caught Odysseus pretending to be mad because he was reluctant to take part in the expedition with them, after Palamedes advised them to seize his son with the intention of harming him’). 20 See Il. parv. fr. 29 PEG = 6 EGF = 6 GEF. 21 Cypr. fr. 20 PEG 1. See also arg. Cypr. ll. 127–128 Severyns. 22 Arg. Cypr. ll. 126–127 Severyns.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων been attached to had become canonical during the process of shaping of epic traditions. This step-by-step process is indispensable for exploring the motif’s full potential as a dynamic mechanism producing meaning.

.. Primary Features (Deep Structure) The chief features of the motif ‘woman receives gifts to convince an unwilling hero to go to war’ belongs to the larger story pattern ‘unwilling hero is convinced to go to war’. In the latter women often play a key role, but mainly by being offered as a marriage gift by a third party, so that the hero can be persuaded to join up an expedition or the fighting. Another alternative is to have a woman close to the hero exercise all her persuasive force in order to make him change his mind. In the motif under examination the salient features comprising its deep structure are the following: A1. A hero is unwilling to go to war. A2. A third party is interested in making the hero take part in the war because he is an excellent warrior. A3. A female character, the wife or mother of the hero, is bribed by a third party in order to convince her husband or son to join the war. A4. The hero goes to war. A5. The hero dies in the war.

.. Secondary Features The secondary features of this motif are in fact internal ramifications developed around the main elements presented above. They never occur all at one given version of the motif but are diffused at random in all its variants. B1. The hero’s reluctance to join the war is due to the fact that he knows that he will die or because he is bound by an oath. B2. A third party offers to a female character associated with the hero a gift made by the gods. B3. A third party may or may not be related to the woman. B4. The hero may or may not find out about the bribery of his wife or mother. B5. The hero does not die in the war, but his ordeal has just begun.

The Typology of the Motif  

.. Epic Staging: Phase I In light of the aforementioned lists of primary and secondary features, let us now see how the various elements comprising the motif at hand are distributed within the stable skeleton of Theban and Trojan myth as manifested in early hexameter poetry. The focus will be the tales of Amphiaraus-Alcmaon and Eurypylus. Amphiaraus was unwilling to join the war (A1) because he knew that the expedition was not supported by the gods (B1), but Polynices (B3), who wanted him to take part in the expedition due to his excellent fighting skills (A2), bribed his wife (A3) Eriphyle with the golden necklace of Harmonia, a divine gift (B2) in order to convince Amphiaraus to take part in the expedition. Amphiaraus found out about the bribery (B4) but had to go to the war (A4) because he had accepted her as arbitrator between himself and Adrastus, who was supporting Polynices’ cause and was to lead the expedition. Amphiaraus died in the war (A5). Alcmaon was unwilling to go to the war (A1) because he was angry at his mother Eriphyle, who had been bribed by Polynices with the golden necklace of Harmonia in order to persuade Alcmaon’s father Amphiaraus to march against Thebes. Eriphyle was bribed again, this time by the son of Polynices, Thersander (B3), who offered her the golden robe of Harmonia, a divine gift (B2) in order to convince Alcmaon to go to the war (A3), since he was indispensable for an Argive victory against the Thebans (A2). Alcmaon, who knew about the first bribery but did not want to oppose his mother, was convinced and joined the expedition (A4). After sacking Thebes, he returned home and upon discovering that his mother had been bribed a second time (B4), he killed her. Persecuted by the Erinys, he fled and underwent various troubles until he was finally killed (B5). Eurypylus was unwilling to go to war (A1) because he had been advised by his father Telephus (B1), who had given this promise to Achilles when he healed the wound which he had inflicted to Telephus in the Teuthranian expedition. His mother, Astyoche, who was the sister of Priam (B3), was bribed by her brother who gave her a golden vine made by Hephaestus (B2),23 in order to con 23 Fr. 29 PEG 1 = 6 EGF = 6 GEF. On Astyoche as Priam’s sister, see Apollod. Bibl. 3.146; Serv. on Virg. Ecl. 6.72; Quint. Smyrn. 6.135–136; Σ Od. 11.521 (II 518 Dindorf); Eust. on Od. 11.521 (I 431 Stallbaum). A different genealogy is given by Dict. Cret. 2.5 and Hyg. Fab. 101.5. Eustathius (on Od. 11.521 [I 431 Stallbaum]) leaves open the possibility that the expression γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων may alternatively refer to Hermione, Menelaus’ daughter, offered to Neoptolemus as a future wife, if he would come to Troy. This explication is at odds with the story of the vine in the Ilias parva (fr. 29 PEG = 6 EGF = 6 GEF). Moreover, it is not attested in other sources and

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων vince Eurypylus to assist the Trojans against the Achaeans (A3). Priam had asked Eurypylus for help earlier, since Eurypylus was, like his father, a warrior of first rank (A2), but Eurypylus had refused. Astyoche was able to persuade Eurypylus to go to the war (A4), where he was killed (A5). At this first phase of ‘epic staging’, the primary features of the motif that belong to its core are fused with secondary features that accompany them without changing the motif’s structure.

.. Epic Staging: Phase II While the blending of primary and secondary features produces variants belonging to the same kernel, another process begins to make itself felt. As the Theban and Trojan War myths have attained a level of stability within the universe of early hexameter poetry, as far as the Faktenkanon of events and characters they comprise is concerned, the first phase of ‘epic staging’ was followed by a second one, which amounts to the epic contextualization of the motif according to the set of rules and constraints pertaining to the ‘mythical data’ of the Theban and Trojan War traditions. As the motif begins to be tied to particular events and figures of the two great epic traditions, it becomes internally recontextualized, i.e. it begins to acquire further features that are part and parcel of the epic texture it is incorporated in or it further develops in more detail existing features belonging to the standard mythical armature of certain figures or situations. This phase is characterized by a tendency to enhance the unity of primary and secondary features by creating new associations and analogies, by fully exploiting the ‘epic apparatus’ of traditional song so as to make each singer’s epic idiolect conform to the ‘epic register’ of features and phraseology pertinent to the specific motif. We can trace this ‘epic register’ with respect to the tales of AmphiarausAlcmaon-Eriphyle and Telephus-Eurypylus by locating common or analogous features in the versions of the tales offered by later poets, such as Stesichorus, Archilochus, and Pindar. These similarities and analogies cannot be explained by means of internal imitation between these poets. This is an unavoidable conclusion, since e.g. Archilochus (in the Telephus elegy) cannot have imitated Stesichorus (Eriphyle)24 due to a chronological non sequitur nor could Pindar  seems to be Eustathius’ own explanation based on the assumption that γυναικεῖα δῶρα (sic) may refer to the ‘female gifts’ given to Neoptolemus, not the gifts given to Astyoche. 24 On Stesichorus’ Eriphyle, see Finglass 2014, 344–354.

The Typology of the Motif  

(e.g. Nem. 9) have imitated Archilochus with respect to a different story. The pairing of these features must have happened earlier and oral epic traditions pertaining to the Theban and Trojan Wars must have been the place where this ‘nesting’ of elements had originated. Such a pairing was not a result of imitation but a much more complex process pertaining to ‘epic staging’, as I had described it above. In what follows, I will offer a list (with brief analysis) of each one of these features.

.. Children of the Gods If taken at face value, the phrases π̣αῖδές τ̣ ᾽ ἀ̣θανάτων (Arch. P.Oxy 4708, fr. 1.14) and παῖδες θεῶν (Pind. Nem. 9.27–28) do not fit either context, since the former is awkwardly used for the Achaean army in Archilochus and the latter is clearly inappropriate for the fleeing Amphiaraus in Pindar.25 Although there are a number of examples showing that men of the heroic age were collectively called ἡμίθεοι,26 the addition of ἀδελφεοί to π̣αῖδές τ̣ ᾽ ἀ̣θανάτων in the Archilochus elegy (fr. 1.14) is unexpected and hard to explain,27 even if its meaning (‘brothers in arms’) is rather clear. A crucial feature in determining whether this phraseology was not only used collectively for men of the heroic age but was particularly applied to some of them is the motif of flight. It is only in the Archilochus and Pindar passages that this phraseology is applied to heroes fleeing from the enemy. Without rejecting the collective use of the phrase, we may examine cases in which it would have been appropriately employed for specific heroes who are the children of gods and are persecuted by an enemy. Scholars have pointed to Cycnus, son of Ares, who routs Heracles (Stesich. fr. 166 Davies and Finglass) and Aeneas who is persecuted by Achilles (Il.

 25 The frustration about the function of these expressions is apparent in the commentaries of both Obbink 2005 and Braswell 1998 for Archilochus and Pindar respectively. 26 Ιl. 12.23; Hes. Op. 160; [Hes.] fr. 204.100 M-W; Simon. 523.1–2 PMG and 11.18 IEG; τέκνα θεῶν ([Hes.] fr. 204.101 M-W); παῖδες … τε φωτῶν καὶ θεῶν (Pind. Pyth. 4.13); see D’Alessio 2006, 21 with further examples from the classical period onwards. 27 West (2006, 14) acknowledges that ἀδελφεοί is ‘an unexpected addition’ and tries to explain it by saying that ‘anyone fathered by Zeus would be the half-brother of several gods and goddesses’. Obbink (2005, 36) rightly calls it a ‘striking collocation’ and adds that ‘the present expression may be an analogous expansion based on cases like Achilles’.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων 20.89–98 and 188–194; Cypr. arg. l. 160 Severyns and Apollod. Epit. 3.32).28 Let us explore them in detail. In the Theban tradition, Heracles, son of Zeus, defeats Cycnus, son of Ares, in a chariot race by using his horse Arion, whereas in the Heracles saga it is Cycnus who routs Heracles who in the end defeats him.29 The fact that Arion is a central feature of this episode is of particular interest to our inquiry because in the Thebais he is fathered by Poseidon. Arion is the thematic link between this episode and that of the flight of Adrastus in the expedition of the Seven, since Adrastus is the only one of the Seven who was able to get away alive due to his divine horse.30 The use of the epithet κυανοχαίτῃ (‘sable-haired’) for Arion in the Thebais is an indication that his father was Poseidon.31 Given that the HeraclesAdrastus link is a strong one in the Theban tradition via Arion, it is no wonder that the feature ‘children of gods fleeing’ was transferred together with Arion from Heracles to Adrastus. Why is it then applied to Amphiaraus in Pindar’s Nemean 9? It is no coincidence that the Pindaric maxim about the children of gods fleeing in the midst of panic is applied to Amphiaraus immediately before Pindar refers to the imminent blow on the hero’s back (i.e. while fleeing) by Periclymenus.32 Given that (a) Adrastus is a son of Talaus, who escapes with his divine horse Arion, fathered by Poseidon (Theb. fr. 11 GEF), (b) Parthenopaeus, one of the Seven, who is equally a son of Talaus in the Thebais (fr. 10 GEF) and so Adrastus’ brother, is slain by Periclymenus, and (c) Pindar applies this maxim to the fleeing Amphiaraus before being stabbed in the back by Periclymenus, it is possible that an expression like παῖδες θεῶν/ἀθανάτων καὶ ἀδελφεοί ‘children of gods/immortals and brothers’ would have suited Adrastus and his brother Parthenopaeus, while fleeing from the enemy. Pindar’s earlier reference to Ταλαοῦ παῖδες (Nem. 9.14) shows that he may have Adrastus and Parthenopaeus in mind. Since he is offering a positive presentation of Adrastus who is associated with Chromius, the laudandus of the epinician ode, Pindar would have liked to downplay Adrastus’ flight. This line of interpretation is further  28 See Braswell 1998, 97. 29 Heracles defeats Cycnus in a charior race: Theb. frs. 7–8 PEG = fr. 6 EGF = fr. 11 GEF; Cycnus routs Heracles: Stesich. fr. 166 Davies and Finglass; Pind. Ol. 10.15–16; Σ Pind. Ol. 10.19a-b, 20, 21a (I 315–317 Drachmann). 30 The association has been made by Σ (D) Il. 23.346 (van Thiel). See Severyns 1928, 220–221. 31 See Paus. 8.25.7–8: ‘εἵματα λυγρὰ φέρων σὺν Ἀρίονι κυανοχαίτῃ’. αἰνίσσεσθαι οὖν ἐθέλουσι τὰ ἔπη Ποσειδῶνα Ἀρίονι εἶναι πατέρα (‘his clothes in sorry state, with Arion the sable-haired’. So they want the verse to hint that Poseidon was father to Arion’). 32 Nem. 9.22–27; see also Apollod. Bibl. 3.77: Ἀμφιαράῳ δὲ φεύγοντι παρὰ ποταμὸν Ἰσμηνόν … καὶ Ζεὺς ἀθάνατον αὐτὸν ἐποίησεν.

The Typology of the Motif  

strengthened if we take into consideration that Pindar has followed the same practice in the case of the lack of propitious omens (Zeus’ failure to lighten when the Seven were ready to depart for Thebes).33 Seen from this vantage point, the transfer of a form of the expression ‘children of gods fleeing’ to Amphiaraus seems a reasonable choice. In the Trojan tradition this feature is interwoven with the role of Achilles, the more so since in the Cypria he routs both Telephus,34 son of Heracles, and especially Cycnus,35 son of Poseidon, when the Achaeans land at Troy (inner doublet).36 That this association was operative in antiquity is clearly seen in the poetry of Pindar, who stresses, by means of a series of rhetorical questions in asyndeton, that Cycnus, Hector, Memnon, and Telephus were all killed by Achilles.37 Is it a coincidence that the two heroes Achilles routs in the Cypria (Telephus and Cycnus, the former trying to escape on his horse) are linked with the Heracles-Cycnus episode in the Theban tradition, Telephus being Heracles’ son and Cycnus being Poseidon’s whose horse Arion had made Heracles victorious over the other Cycnus, son of Ares? The Achilles-Cycnus encounter offers a strong parallel of how the phrase παῖδες θεῶν/ἀθανάτων may have been used for both collective and hero-specific routing pertaining to the same episode, since in the Cypria Achilles routs the Trojans immediately after killing Cycnus: ἔπειτα Ἀχιλλεὺς αὐτοὺς τρέπεται ἀνελὼν Κύκνον τὸν Ποσειδῶνος (Cypr. arg. ll. 149–150 Severyns). Although technically Telephus is the son of a demi-god (Heracles) and grandson of a god (Zeus), the inner doublet with Cycnus (Telephus and Cycnus being the main warriors38 killed by Achilles in the Cypria) may have led to the transfer of this phraseology to him as well. Archilochus’application of the  33 See Braswell 1998, 81–82. 34 Fr. 20 PEG (= Σ (D) Il. 1.59 [15 van Thiel]: … ὁρμήσαντος δὲ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν (sc. τὸν Τήλεφον) Ἀχιλλέως οὐ μείνας ἐδιώκετο. 35 See Janko (1986, 56), who rightly claims that ‘[t]he association [of Cycnus] with Achilles, a Thessalian hero, accords with the usual [Thessalian] location of our [the one associated to the Heracles saga] Cycnus; the Cycni were originally one and the same’; see also Robert 1920-19264, 81–82. 36 Cypr. arg. ll. 149–150 Severyns. In addition, Achilles made Aeneas, son of Aphrodite, flee (Cypr. arg. l. 160 Severyns and Apollod. Epit. 3.32). 37 Pind. Isth. 5.39–42: λέγε, τίνες Κύκνον, τίνες Ἕκτορα πέφνον, | καὶ στράταρχον Αἰθιόπων ἄφοβον | Μέμνονα χαλκοάραν· τίς ἄρ᾽ ἐσλὸν Τήλεφον | τρῶσεν ἑῷ δορὶ Καΐκου παρ᾽ ὄχθαις; (‘say, who slew Cycnus, who Hector and the fearless leader of the Aethopians, Memnon of the bronze armor? Who wounded brave Telephus with his own spear by the banks of Caicos?’); see also: Σ Pind. Ιsth. 5.48a-b (III 246 Drachmann). 38 Next to Troilus, another son of a god.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων expression to the fleeing Achaeans may be an adaptation of this phraseology from an epic featuring Achilles routing Telephus, Cycnus,39 and the Trojans. But what about the use of ἀδελφεοί after παῖδες ἀθανάτων in Archilochus’ elegy? Is it possible that the Theban and Trojan traditions shared such a feature? This answer escapes us due to lack of information but some thoughts about a possible bridge between the two traditions are under way. The historical reality lurking behind Cycnus, son of Poseidon, is instructive. If Kukkunnis was Alaksandu’s predecessor as king of Wilusa,40 his equation in early Greek mythical tradition with Cycnus is worth pursuing. The aural similarity between Kukkunnis and Cycnus explains only part of the story, since it leaves unanswered the question pertaining to his identification with Poseidon’s son Cycnus, instead of Ares’ son Cycnus. The preference for Poseidon’s instead of Ares’ offspring lies in the fact that, although Heracles had sacked Troy for the first time,41 his entire mythical entourage (even that belonging to non-Trojan adventures like the defeat of Cycnus, son of Ares) could not be carried wholesale to the second expedition against Troy in which he had no role. The great hero of the new expedition against Troy was Achilles, who had to show himself worthy of the great exploits of his predecessor. Being both children of gods, the analogy between them was enhanced even more.42 When the Aeolian settlers of the western part of Asia Minor next to Lesbos started hearing stories about a great king of Wilusa named Kukkunnis, they had to make him confront their great hero, Achilles. The story of Heracles, who had sacked Troy first because of the divine horses promised but not given to him by Laomedon, gave them a nice example to compete with. Cycnus, son of Ares, defeated by Heracles who had a divine horse Arion, fathered by Poseidon, became Cycnus son of Poseidon whom Achilles, their own hero, would defeat, as he had defeated Telephus, Heracles’ son. The change of father between the two ‘Cycni’ reflects an effort to make them fit the mythical saga they belong: as Ares’ role in Theban myth was well founded, since the first event of this saga was the marriage of his daughter

 39 On Cycnus, see West 2011a, 40–41. 40 West 2011a, 40. 41 On the ‘epic biography’ (Homeric and Hesiodic) of Heracles, see Bernardini 2010, 387–391. On his presence in the epos minore of the archaic period, see Bernardini 2010, 392–400. 42 See West (2018, 265–280), who sees a line leading from the epic of Gilgamesh to the Iliad through the intermediary of a lost epic on Heracles that was directly influenced by the epic of Gilgamesh. This line of thought could be extended to the three great heroes: Gilgamesh > Heracles > Achilles.

The Typology of the Motif  

Harmonia to Cadmus,43 so Poseidon loomed large in Trojan myth, given that he had built (together with Apollo and Achilles’ grandfather Aeacus)44 the walls of the city that Heracles sacked, the very walls Achilles would fail to take. By having Achilles fight against Cycnus,45 Poseidon’s son, the Trojan War tradition recalled the god’s role in the early mythical history of Troy.46 In this light, it is not unthinkable that if Heracles’ Arion became the vehicle for the transfer of phraseology and features to the myth of the Seven, then given Heracles’ association to Achilles and the Trojan saga, some of these features could also be transferred to the Trojan myth as well. Telephus and Cycnus were strong connecting points.

 43 The Theban and Trojan traditions were also paired by means of Cadmus and Peleus, in whose weddings to the daughter of a god (Harmonia, daughter of Ares, and Nereus’ daughter Thetis) lie their very beginnings. See Pind. Ol. 2.78–83: Πηλεύς τε καὶ Κάδμος ἐν τοῖσιν ἀλέγονται· | Ἀχιλλέα τ᾽ ἔνεικ᾽, ἐπεὶ Ζηνὸς ἦτορ | λιταῖς ἔπεισε, μάτηρ· | ὃς Ἕκτορα σφᾶλε, Τροίας | ἄμαχον ἀστραβῆ κίονα, Κύκνον τε θανάτῳ πόρεν, | Ἀοῦς τε παῖδ᾽ Αἰθίοπα (‘Both Peleus and Cadmus are numbered among them; and his mother, since she persuaded Zeus’ heart with prayers, carried Achilles there, who felled Hector, the invincible, upright column of Troy, and gave death to Cycnus, the Aethiopean son of Eos’); see also Σ Pind. Ol. 2.147a-e, 148 (I 96–97 Drachmann). For the weddings of Cadmus and Peleus in Pindar, see Pyth. 3.88–95 and, for the marriage of Peleus, Nem. 4.66–68. See also Ov. Met. 12.86–94, where Cycnus highlights the gap of power between his own father Poseidon ‘who rules both Nereus and his daughters and the whole sea besides’ (12.93–94: qui | Nereaque et natas et totum temperat aequor) and Achilles’ ‘second-rank’ divine ancestor, Nereus (with the analysis of Papaioannou 2007, 59–67). 44 See Pind. Ol. 8.30–44, where it is also stated that Troy would fall because part of the walls was built by the mortal Aeacus; see Σ Pind. Ol. 8.41a-b, 44a-d (I 247, 248 Drachmann). 45 The death of Cycnus by a stone thrown at him by Achilles is reflected in the duel between Telamonian Ajax and Hector in Iliad 7, where Ajax wounds Hector by throwing a stone at him; see Finkelberg 2002, 251–261 (= 2020, 140–149). 46 It is perhaps not a matter of sheer chance that both Achilles’ father Peleus and Amphiaraus’ father Oecles took part with Heracles in the first expedition against Troy. Heracles, who had saved Troy (together with Telamon and Oecles) from a sea monster sent by Poseidon because Laomedon did not pay him back for building the walls of Troy (Il. 7.451–453; 20.145–148; 21.442–457), was also deceived by Laomedon who had agreed to give him the horses his ancestor Tros had received from Zeus as compensation for his abduction of Ganymedes. When Heracles came back later with a whole army, he sacked Troy and slew all of Laomedon’s sons (who had earlier killed Oecles trying to protect the Greek ships) with the exception of Podarces who saved himself by giving Heracles Hesione’s golden veil and was renamed Priam (Apollod. Bibl. 2.134–136).

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων .. Flight The motif of flight in the expedition of the Seven is associated with the successful flight of Adrastus who escapes because of his horse Arion (frs. 7–8 PEG = fr. 6 EGF = fr. 11 GEF), the unsuccessful flight of Amphiaraus who is ‘saved’ from his opponent Periclymenus, his body disappearing under the earth47 and immortalized (Pind. Nem. 9.24–27),48 and of course the defeat of the Seven.49 In the abortive expedition to Teuthrania, the Achaeans flee under the attack of Telephus,50 but when Achilles fights back, the Mysian king flees and is wounded in the thigh by Achilles’ spear (Cypr. arg. ll. 125–128 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 3.17; cf. Σ (D) Il. 1.59 [van Thiel]). We now know that Archilochus had referred (fr. 304 IEG) to Neoptolemus dancing the pyrrhiche after the defeat of Eurypylus and, as West has suggested, this reference may have occurred in the lost part of the Telephus elegy, by reminding his audience ‘how the Telephus saga ended: with the hero’s son slain and his opponent performing a victory dance’.51 If this suggestion holds true, then it is not unthinkable, given that Archilochus ‘will not have been the first to connect the pyrrhiche with Pyrrhos’,52 that he may have taken both his version of the Telephus episode and the final victory of Neoptolemus/Pyrrhus over Eurypylus from a lost epic or pair of epics relating the entire Telephus myth from the arrival of the Achaeans in Mysia to the death of Eurypylus in Troy. Along these lines and given that Eurypylus’ arrival at Troy is described in terms of an aristeia (Il. parv. arg. ll. 219–221 Severyns: Εὐρύπυλος δὲ ὁ Τηλέφου ἐπίκουρος τοῖς Τρωσὶ παραγίνεται, καὶ ἀριστεύοντα αὐτὸν ἀποκτείνει Νεοπτόλεμος), it is not unthinkable that in this lost

 47 For the topic of the vanishing body of a hero, see Coppola 2008, especially (for Adrastus and Melanippus in Sicyon) 147–148; for the disappearance of Amphiaraus’ body, see Bener 1945, 47–50; Currie 2005, 212. Within the larger framework of the Amphiaraus-Achilles analogy, it is interesting to note that in the Cyclic Aethiopis (arg. ll. 199–200 Severyns) Achilles’ body is transferred to the White Island after his death by his mother Thetis. 48 See also Pind. Ol. 6.12–17; Nem. 10.8–9. 49 The ‘flight’ feature is also used, in a different scope, earlier in the same Pindaric ode (Nem. 9.13: φεῦγε γὰρ Ἀμφιάρην) with respect to Adrastus’ fleeing from Amphiaraus before the expedition to Thebes; see D’Alessio 2006, 20. 50 See [Hes.] Cat. fr. 165.14–15 M-W: αὐτὰρ Τήλεφος] ἔτραπ᾽ Ἀχαιῶν χαλκοχιτών[ων and (perhaps) fr. 165.20 M-W: πεφοβημένο̣ [. 51 West 2006, 17. 52 West 2006, 17.

The Typology of the Motif  

epic Eurypylus may also have routed the Achaeans,53 before being killed by Neoptolemus, just as his father Telephus had routed them in Mysia, before being wounded by Neoptolemus’ father Achilles. Since these episodes belonged to the Faktenkanon of early epic, the use of analogous phraseology in Pindar (Nem. 9.26–7: ἐν γὰρ δαιμονίοισι φόβοις φεύγοντι καὶ παῖδες θεῶν) and Archilochus’ elegy on Telephus (φεύγ[ειν δέ τις ὥρη] (3) — ἐφόβησε (6) — ἐ̣ φόβε̣ ι̣ (7) — φύζαν (24)) points to the sharing of the same feature within the scope of the same motif linking the stories of AmphiarausEriphyle-Alcmaon and Telephus-Astyoche-Eurypylus.

.. Μόνος Although a hero’s exceptional prowess in war is typically presented as a characteristic he alone possesses in contrast to the rest of the army, it seems to have been put into a specific use in the context of the Theban and Trojan myths. In the expedition of the Seven, Adrastus is the only one who survives (Theb. frs. 7– 8 PEG = fr. 6 EGF = fr. 11 GEF; Apollod. Bibl. 3.60). His good fortune is reversed in the expedition of the Epigonoi, since his son Aegialeus is the only one dying at the hands of Laodamas (Pind. Pyth. 8.51–53: Ἄδραστος ἥρως· τὸ δὲ οἴκοθεν | ἀντία πράξει. μόνος γὰρ ἐκ Δαναῶν στρατοῦ | θανόντος ὀστέα λέξαις υἱοῦ; Apollod. Bibl. 3.83: καὶ Λαοδάμας Αἰγιαλέα κτείνει). The Archilochus elegy stresses the fact that Telephus alone was able to put the Achaeans into flight: P.Oxy. 4708 fr. 1.5: κ̣α̣ὶ̣ π̣ο̣τ̣ [ε μ]οῦν̣ ος̣ ἐ̣ ὼν̣ Τήλεφος Ἀ̣ρκα̣[σίδης fr. 1.25: ἤ]ρ̣ειδε[ν μο]ῦ̣ν̣ ος̣

The same feature is employed by Pindar (Ol. 9.70–73) with respect to Patroclus standing with Achilles against Telephus,54 at a point when the Mysian king has routed the rest of the Danaans to their ships: τοῦ παῖς ἅμ᾽ Ἀτρείδαις | Τεύθραντος πεδίον μολὼν ἔστα σὺν Ἀχιλλεῖ | μόνος, ὅτ᾽ ἀλκντας Δαναοὺς τρέψαις ἁλίαισιν | πρύμναις Τήλεφος ἔμβαλεν.

 53 See Fowler EGM II, 542, who rightly notes that ‘the Odyssey passage and a depiction of Eurypylos slain by Neoptolemos on a late sixth-century hydria (LIMC Eurypylos no. 1) indicate the same conclusion’. 54 See below under ‘Healing’.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων whose son, brought with the Atreidae in the plain of Teuthras, stood by Achilles alone, when Telephus routing the mighty Danaans hurled them against their beached ships.

The multiple similarities between Ol. 9.70–73 and Archilochus’ elegy on Telephus (fr. 1.7: ἄλκι̣ μ̣[οι — Ol. 9.72: ἀλκντας; 1.12: προ]τ̣ ροπάδην — Ol. 9.72: τρέψαις; 1.13: ἐς νέας ὠ[κ]υ̣π̣όρ[ο]υ̣ς̣ — Ol. 9.72–73: ἁλίαισιν | πρύμναις) are indicative of the fact that both Archilochus and Pindar draw on an earlier epic on Telephus. The μόνος feature is also applied to Patroclus55 (and Achilles) standing on their ground to fight Telephus. This earlier epic and the Theban epic tradition may have shared the analogy of the solitary fate of individual heroes, such as Adrastus, Aegialeus, Telephus, and Achilles when faced with great danger. Once more, the symmetrical development is more about situations than individuals.

.. Horses In the Theban tradition, Heracles with his horse Arion defeats Cycnus, son of Ares, and Adrastus escapes with the help of the same horse (frs. 7–8 PEG = fr. 6 EGF = fr. 11 GEF), while Amphiaraus fails to flee with his chariot (Pind. Ol. 6.13– 14; Nem. 9.24–27). In the Telephus episode in the Trojan tradition, Telephus fails to escape on horseback from Achilles (fr. 20 (II) PEG = Eust. on Iliad p. 46.36). Other authorities (Σ (D) Il. 1.59 [van Thiel] and Apollod. Epit. 3.17) do not mention Telephus’ horse but refer to his running away and pursuit by Achilles. (a) Eust. on Iliad p. 46.36: πέπονθε δὲ τραῦμα δεινὸν ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλέως ἀμπέλου ἕλικι συμποδισθέντος αὐτῷ τοῦ ἵππου κατὰ Διονύσου πρόνοιαν καὶ πεσόντος εἰς γῆν. He suffered a terrible wound by Achilles, when his horse was entangled in the tendril of a vine, according to the forecast of Dionysus, and fell to the ground.

(b) Σ (D) Il. 1.59 (15 van Thiel): ὁρμήσαντος δὲ ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως οὐ μείνας ἐδιώκετο· ἐν δὲ τῷ τρέχειν ἐμπλακεὶς ἀμπέλου κλήματι τὸν μηρὸν τιτρώσκεται, νεμεσήσαντος αὐτῷ Διονύσου, ὅτι ἄρα ὑπὸ τούτου τιμῶν ἀφῄρητο.

 55 On the role of Patroclus in this episode, see below under ‘Healing’.

The Typology of the Motif  

After Achilles rushed on him, he did not hold his ground and was pursued; while running he was entangled in a vine and wounded on his thigh, Dionysus being angered at him, because he had deprived him from due honor.

(c) Apollod. Epit. 3.17: ὁρμήσαντος δὲ Ἀχιλλέως ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν οὐ μείνας ἐδιώκετο· καὶ διωκόμενος ἐμπλακεὶς εἰς ἀμπέλου κλῆμα τὸν μηρὸν τιτρώσκεται δόρατι. After Achilles rushed on him, he did not hold his ground and was pursued; while being pursued he was entangled in a vine and wounded on his thigh by a spear.

The phrasing in these two last sources is so similar that they must be drawing on a common source. Since Apollodorus has omitted the reference to Dionysus, which is attested in both Eustathius and the Σ (D) Il. 1.59 (15 van Thiel),56 then it is probable that Eustathius’ version is the most accurate. This line of thought is central to the role played by the horses in this episode, given the overall contextualization of this motif. In fact, if the son of Thetis was chasing Telephus with his own chariot, driven by the divine horses Balius and Xanthus, who were Poseidon’s gifts in the wedding of his father Peleus,57 the sequence Poseidon > Heracles > Adrastus (Arion) in the Theban tradition would correspond to the sequence Poseidon > Peleus > Achilles (Xanthus and Balius) in the Trojan tradition.58 Poseidon’s horse(s) would guarantee the success of their owner, whereas  56 See above sources (a) and (b). 57 See Cypr. fr. 3 PEG = fr. 3 EGF = fr. 4 GEF. 58 After Xanthus talks to Achilles in Il. 19.408–417, the narrator caps the horse’s speech by referring to the Erinyes who put an end to his talking ability, given to him by Hera (Il. 19.407). Dietrich (1964, 9–24) has argued that the Erinyes are involved because they are associated with the Harpyiai (Σ Il. 23.347 [V 324–325 Erbse]), one of whom (Podarge) had fathered to Zephyrus Achilles’ horses Xanthus and Balius. The analogy is telling. Arion was born to Erinys and Poseidon (Theb. frs. 7–8 PEG = 6 EGF = 11 GEF); see Edwards 1991, 285; Heubeck (1986, 154), argued that the Erinyes may have acted in this way ‘not to end the unnatural phenomenon of a talking horse […] but to prevent the disclosure of some secret or prophecy which must not be revealed to mortals; this may have been their role in the obscure Melampous story (Od. 11.291– 293, 15.234)’. Another potential explanation is that what we see in Il. 19.408–417 is analogous to what may have happened in the Theban epic tradition with respect to Arion. Is it possible that Arion told Adrastus that the rest of the Seven would perish and that only he would survive? The tradition of the Iliad (that is aware of Arion’s divine parentage [23.347]) may be reflecting such a story. This would explain why Hera is the one who makes Xanthus speak (Il. 19.407). In Theban epic, the pro-Argive and anti-Theban Hera may have done the same with Arion at the crucial moment of the fall of the Seven so as to tell Adrastus that it is time for him to flee.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων their lack would make even the son of Heracles (Telephus) fail to escape, very much unlike Adrastus. In this way, the entire epic contextualization of this feature would gain in depth. Furthermore, the substitution of the immortal horses of Tros (given to him by Zeus in compensation for the abduction of his son Ganymedes), a version followed by the Iliad (5.265–267), by a divine vine made by Hephaestus (and given to Zeus) in the Ilias parva (fr. 29 PEG) would be indicative of the effort of this Cyclic poem not just to disagree with the Iliadic tradition, but also to remind audiences that Eurypylus would go to his death by means of a Dionysiac vine (ἄμπελος), exactly like his father Telephus. Like father, like son.59 Seen from this vantage point, the stress put by both Archilochus and Pindar on the armies of the Achaeans and the Seven going to their ruin, men and horses alike, is far from accidental (Arch. P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.18–19: … [μ]έ̣νο̣ς πνείοντες̣ ὁμῶς αὐτο̣[ί τε καὶ ἵπποι | ἀ̣φ[ραδί]ῃ, μεγάλως θυμὸν ἀκηχέ̣[μενοι·60/ Pind. Nem. 9.21–2: φαινομέναν δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἐς ἄταν σπεῦδεν ὅμιλος ἱκέσθαι | χαλκέοις ὅπλοισιν ἱππείοις τε σὺν ἔντεσιν).61

.. Heroic Foreknowledge Being a seer, Amphiaraus was aware that the expedition of the Seven was doomed to fail and that he would die in the war,62 but he had to join up. Pindar

 59 See Kelly 2015, 342. 60 ‘Breathing ferocity, they [and their horses] alike, in their f[olly], greatly sore at heart’ (transl. by West 2006, 12). 61 ‘But this crowd hastened to its plainly shown destruction with bronze armor and horses and weapons’. Pindar’s emphasis on horses in this Ode ties well with the fact that Chromius was victor in the chariot-race. On the other hand, verses 80–81 reflect the typical motif of ‘all forms of combat’ (see Sappho fr. 16.1–2 Voigt). 62 Apollod. Epit. 3.60: Ἀμφιάραος δὲ ὁ Οἰκλέους, μάντις ὢν καὶ προειδὼς ὅτι δεῖ πάντας τοὺς στρατευσαμένους χωρὶς Ἀδράστου τελευτῆσαι, αὐτός τε ὤκνει στρατεύεσθαι καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς ἀπέτρεπε. It is also worth observing that what is said by Pindar (Pyth. 8.50: ὄρνιχος ἀγγελίᾳ; Nem. 9.18–19: αἰσιᾶν | οὐ κατ᾽ ὀρνίχων ὁδόν) parallels what is said by Aeschylus (Sept. 597: τοῦ ξυναλλάσσοντος ὄρνιθος βροτοῖς) in reference to Amphiaraus and his prediction that the expedition was doomed to fail. Another striking parallel attested in the same context in both Pindar’s Nem. 9 and Aesch. Sept. is the expression πίαναν καπνόν (Nem. 9.23) and τήνδε πιανῶ χθόνα (Sept. 587), again in the context of Amphiaraus’ involvement in the expedition. Since the Septem is dated to 467 BC, it seems that Aeschylus is imitating Pindar with respect to Nem. 9 (474? BC). But how are we then to explain this with respect to the other parallel between Pindar and Aeschylus concerning Amphiaraus (Ol. 6.17: ἀμφότερον μάντιν τ᾽ ἀγαθὸν καὶ | δουρὶ μάρ-

The Typology of the Motif  

probably knew by means of the Cyclic Thebais that Zeus’ failure to lighten at the moment the Seven were ready to depart for Thebes was a sign known to the seer Amphiaraus.63 Although a similar feature marks the beginning of the Achaeans’ abortive expedition to Teuthrania, since Calchas64 informed the army that this was a sign sent by Zeus,65 just as with Amphiaraus before the departure of the Seven, and that it would take them ten years to sack Troy, the analogy is rather typological and not derivative or specific. On the other hand, Telephus seems to be the hypostasis of ‘ein wissende Dämon’ (a knowledgeable demon) with connections to the Underworld through (mainly but not solely)66 the adventures of his father Heracles with respect to cattle-rustling and the world of the dead.67 His knowledge of the way the Achaeans should follow to reach Troy is telling in this respect.68 According to the prophecy of Amphiaraus (Pind. Pyth. 8.44–55),69 Alcmaon should lead the expedition of the Epigonoi in order to sack Thebes. Pindar’s version is compatible with another piece of information relating that Amphiaraus advised his other son Amphilochus as well by means of the so-called ‘norm of the polyp’, according to which his son should be, octopus-like, adaptable ‘to whatever people he comes across’.70 Given that this prophecy cannot  νασθαι — Sept. 569: ἀλκὴν ἄριστον μάντιν, Ἀμφιάρεω βίαν)? The time difference is extremely tight (Ol. 6.15: 468 BC — Sept. 467 BC) and, what is more significant, we know that (according to the Σ Pind. Ol. 6.15) Asclepiades of Mirlea said that this verse was taken from the Cyclic Thebais (fr. 10 PEG = 7 EGF = 6 GEF). Drawing material from different Pindaric epinician odes with respect to a single character (Amphiaraus) and piling it in the same passage of the same work (Septem) seems to me a technique less likely to be used by Aeschylus than adapting this material directly from the Thebais. 63 See Braswell 1998, 81. 64 Cypr. arg. ll. 122–124 Severyns; Apollod. Epit. 3.15. 65 κατὰ Διὸς βούλησιν γεγονέναι αὐτοῖς τὸ σημεῖον τοῦτο. 66 Davies (2000, 9 n. 16) notes that the name of Telephus’ son Eurypylus can be traced back to associations with the Underworld. Telephus’ father Heracles has, after the first sack of Troy, fought against the Coans and their king Eurypylus. The name may have been transferred to Heracles’ grandson from that adventure. 67 Davies 2000, 9, n. 16. 68 Amphiaraus may be treated as a hypostasis of a chthonic Poseidon or a Hades who is confused with Dionysus. On his association to chthonic Erinys, see Legras 1905, 12–13. In Od. 15.244 he is modified by the epithet λαοσσόος (‘rousing/stirring the people’), which is regularly employed for war-deities (Ares: Il. 17.398; Eris: Il. 20.48; Athena: Il. 13.128, Od. 22.210; Apollo: Il. 20.79). 69 See also Pind. Pyth. 8.39–43. 70 ‘πουλύποδός μοι, τέκνον, ἔχων νόον, Ἀμφίλοχ᾽ ἥρως, | τοῖσιν ἐφαρμόζειν, τῶν κεν κατὰ δῆμον ἵκηαι, | ἄλλοτε δ᾽ ἀλλοῖος τελέθειν καὶ χροιῇ ἕπεσθαι’ (Theb. fr. 4 PEG = “Hom.” 3 EGF =

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων have been given to Alcmaon and Amphilochus when Amphiaraus was departing for the war, since Alcmaon was only a boy and Amphilochus a baby,71 the most likely context for Amphiaraus’ appearance from his underground oracle to both his sons, who were now grown up men and skilled warriors, would have been an oracular consultation before the sack of Thebes by the Epigonoi, an episode that must have featured in the Alcmeonis.72 Likewise in the Trojan tradition, in which according to the prophecy of Helenus (Apollod. Epit. 5.9),73 Neoptolemus (like Alcmaon) should come to Troy, so that the city can be sacked. Amphiaraus’ appearance to his son is equally paralleled by Achilles’ to Neoptolemus74 just after the latter’s arrival from Scyros to Troy and immediately before his military exploits, among which the killing of Telephus’ son Eurypylus is the most prominent one. It is to be noted that when Achilles appears to Neoptolemus, he has just received his father’s armour, i.e. he will soon be a ‘second Achilles’.75 In both cases a prophecy makes it clear that the son of the greatest warrior who took part and died in the first expedition against Thebes (Amphiaraus)76 and the second expedition against Troy (Achilles) respectively, is a prerequisite for the success of the aggressors. In this way, father and son are more closely connected to each of these stories, the more so since the two sons will play equivalent roles while being on the battlefield: Alcmaon will kill the chief Theban leader Laodamas (son of Eteocles), who has previously killed Aegialeus (son of Adrastus), and Neoptolemus will slain Eurypylus (son of Telephus), who has previously killed important Achaean warriors such as Machaon (son of Asclepius) and Peneleus. Moreover, in both cases the dead father appears and advises his son(s), who after the sack of Thebes and Troy respectively will wander.  *8 GEF). I am following Debiasi 2013, 195–207, and 2015, who attributes this fragment to the Alcmeonis. 71 See Gantz 1993, 507. 72 See Debiasi 2013, 195–207. 73 See also the compressed version of this prophecy in Il. parv. arg. ll. 211–213 Severyns. 74 Il. parv. arg. ll. 217–218 Severyns: καὶ Νεοπτόλεμον ἐκ Σκύρου ἀγαγὼν τὰ ὅπλα δίδωσι τὰ τοῦ πατρός· καὶ Ἀχιλλεὺς αὐτῷ φαντάζεται. 75 The analogy between Amphiaraus’ sons Alcmaon-Amphilochus and Achilles’ son Neoptolemus can be also seen in their respective wanderings. On Alcmaon, see Apollod. Bibl. 3.87–90; on Amphilochus, see Apollod. Epit. 6.2; on Neoptolemus, see Nost. arg. ll. 296–300 Severyns. On Alcmaon’s mythic geography that is mapped on the basis of his wanderings, see Olivieri 2010, 299–314. 76 Both Amphiaraus (‘Simonides’ 6.3.4 FGE; Aesch. Sept. 587–589; Hdt. 7.221) and Achilles (Σ (D) Il. 19.326 [van Thiel]) knew that it was fated for them to die in Thebes and Troy respectively.

The Typology of the Motif  

.. Suffering at the River In both Archilochus P.Oxy. 4708 and Pindar’s Nemean 9, the central scene of the fight between the Achaeans and the Seven takes place next to a river, Caicos and Ismenos respectively: Arch. P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.8–9: … ἐϋρρείτ̣ ης δὲ Κ[άϊκος π]ι̣ π̣τ̣ό̣ ν̣ των νεκύων στείνετο καὶ [πεδίον Μύσ̣ι̣ ο̣ν̣

Pind. Nem. 9.22: … Ἰσ-μηνοῦ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὄχθαισι …

Pindar’s emphasis on fighting at a river is also seen from the comparison between Chromius (the laudandus of the Ode) and Hector, whose ‘fame is said to have grown … near the streams | of Scamander, and by the steep banks of Heloros’ (39–40: Ἕκτορι μὲν κλέος ἀνθῆσαι Σκαμάνδρου χεύμασιν | ἀγχοῦ, βαθυκρήμνοισι δ᾽ ἀμφ᾽ ἀκταῖς Ἑλώρου).77 It should be made clear that in both Archilochus and Pindar, the feature under examination consists in the suffering and not just the fighting taking place by Caicos and Ismenos respectively. In both cases the attacking side (Achaeans and the army of the Seven) are defeated with great losses by the riverbanks. This element is typical of the last phase of the process I have described as ‘epic staging’ (phase II), during which rules and constraints pertaining to the ‘mythical data’ of the Theban and Trojan War traditions are put into use. Caicos and Ismenos are typical features of the myths of Teuthrania and the Seven and they form integral part of their epic rendering. The analogy between Ismenos and Caicos seems to go deeper than a mere parallelism. In the Hellenistic or post-Hellenistic hexameter poem (P.Oxy. 214 = P.it.Lond. 39 = CA pp. 76–78) on the story of Telephus (and perhaps Eurypylus) there is, among other features, a clear reference to the Argives turning red [because of their blood] the great stream of Caicos (15–16):78 (Ἀργεῖοι) ξανθοῦ φοινί-

 77 See D’Alessio 2006, 20–21. On Chromius and Hector, see Braswell 1998, 120–121. 78 The presentation of the river Caicos turning red because of the carnage taking place there during the fight between Telephus and the Achaeans is also attested in Accius’ Tel. fr. 15 (D’Anto 633 = Klotz [619 W] = Non. p. 488, 10–11): flucti cruores volverentur Mysii. According to

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων ξαντε̣ς ἐ[πεὶ] μ̣έ[γα] χ̣ε̣ῦ̣μα Καΐκου | Τηλέφου τ̣ό̣[σοι δάμεν οὐ]κέτι θωρηχθέντες.79 According to an ingenuous suggestion by Weil,80 we should read Ξάνθου instead of ξανθοῦ, since the speaker of this entire passage may well be Astyoche, mother of Eurypylus, who is praying to the immortals (10: [κλ]ῦτ̣ έ μοι ἀθάνατοι) asking them not to duplicate the carnage inflicted upon the Argives by her husband Telephus but to strike an agreement between Trojans and Greeks (13: [σ]υνθεσίη Τρώεσσι καὶ Ἀ[ργ]είοισι γε[ν]έσθω). She makes it clear that she is not praying that the Argives die after turning red (by their blood) Xanthos as it has happened in Caicos when they were slaughtered by Telephus. This typically Hellenistic approach to the Telephus and Eurypylus story is telling for many reasons. By reversing the archaic version of the story in which Astyoche was bribed by Priam in order to send her son Eurypylus to the war, here she speaks with a clear intention of putting an end to the bloodshed. What is particularly relevant to our investigation is that (a) the Telephus and Eurypylus episodes are effectively linked in a single epyllium, and (b) that the encounter between the fathers (Telephus and Achilles) at Caicos is paralleled by the encounter between the sons (Eurypylus and Neoptolemus) at Xanthos (Scamander). Is this last feature, i.e. the reference to a clash between Eurypylus and Neoptolemus at Xanthos, an innovation introduced by the poet of the Telephi epyllium or a much older feature that had been developed when the Eurypylus story was shaped as to duplicate that of Telephus? And, if so, what does this tell us about the association between Ismenos, Caicos, and Xanthos/Scamander within the context of the link shared by the Theban and Trojan sagas? To answer this question, we should bear in mind that Archilochus, who is our earliest source for the Telephus and Eurypylus tales, had dealt with both the episode of Telephus routing the Achaeans at Caicos and Eurypylus killing Neoptolemus. Although we do not know whether in his own poetry he had presented Eurypylus facing Neoptolemus at the river Xanthos, his elegy on Telephus preserves an almost verbatim repetition of phraseology pertaining to the cramming of a river with corpses by Achilles in the Iliad (21.220: στεινόμενος νεκύεσσι — Arch. P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.9: νεκύων στείνετο).81 This is the only time in archaic Greek poetry that the expression στείνεσθαι νεκύων is employed with reference

 Stanley 1663, 712, Accius’ model may have been Aeschylus’ Telephus. Handley (1957, 25–27) and Jouan (1966, 224) rightly suggest caution, though they do not exclude this possibility. 79 I owe this reference to West 2006, 13. 80 See Weil 1900, 97–98; Pellin 2010, 533. 81 See also Il. 21.208 (χέρσ᾽ ὕπο Πηλείδαο) and Arch. P.Oxy. 4708 fr. 1.11 (χέρσ᾽] ὕ̣π᾽ ἀμειλίκτου φωτὸς ἐναιρό[μενοι).

The Typology of the Motif  

to a river.82 The imitation is unmistakable. But the μάχη παραποτάμιος in Iliad 21 is imitated not only by Archilochus but also by the poet of the Telephi epyllium. In this case, the imitation is wholesale: Tab. 5: Shared Features in Iliad 21 and the Telephi epyllium. Iliad 

Telephi epyllium

–: εἰ δύναταί τι | χραισμεῖν

: χραισμῆσαι

: τὸν ἄριστον ἐνὶ κρατερῇ ὑσμίνῃ

: τὸν ἄριστον ἐν Ἀργείοις [Ἀχιλῆα

: ἶφι δαμέντα

: ἶφι τ̣ ό̣̣ [σοι δάμεν

: ἔνθ᾽ ἕλε Θερσίλοχόν τε Μύδωνά τε …

: ἔνθα δέ κεν Μενέλαος ἐκέκλιτο,83 ἔν̣ [θ᾽ Ἀγαμέμνων

: καί νύ κ᾽ ἔτι πλέονας κτάνε Παίονας ὠκὺς : [οὔ] κ̣εν ἔτι ζώοντες ἐς Ἴλιον ἦλθον Ἀχιλλεύς

[Ἀχαιοί

–: ἐναρίζων | πρὶν ἔλσαι κατὰ ἄστυ

: ἐξενάριξε πρὶν Ἕκτορος ἀντίον καὶ

Τρῶας πειρηθῆναι | ἀντιβίην

ἐλθεῖν

: Τρώεσσι … καὶ ἀμύνειν

: τ[ῷ] ἀμυνέμεν

Why would both Archilochus and the poet of the Telephi epyllium imitate the Iliadic μάχη παραποτάμιος by the banks of Xanthos/Scamander featuring a completely different episode? This would have made sense, only if the Hellenistic poet had imitated Archilochus, which is not the case. The answer lies both in the fact that Achilles features in the carnage at river Caicos as well as in the slaughter of the Trojans at Xanthos/Scamander in Iliad 21, and in the association between Xanthos/Scamander with the encounter between Eurypylus and Neoptolemus that must have featured in an archaic epic on the Telephus myth which both the Iliad and Archilochus were aware of. It can hardly be a coincidence that in the same context (Il. 21.146) Scamander is called with his divine name, i.e. Xanthos. The sharing of this feature within the context of the story of TelephusEurypylus and the Seven must go back to relevant epic traditions of the Archaic Period followed by Archilochus and Pindar. This is highly probable since Pindar refers to the river Caicos in Mysia and to the Mysian plain in the context of Tele 82 Pellin (2010, 534) offers a list of late authors using a relevant expression, among whom only Quint. Smyrn. (7.100) and Triph. (543–544) employ the expression στείνεσθαι νεκρῶν | νεκύων. 83 See also Arch. P.Oxy. 4708 fr. 1.12: ἀπ̣έ̣κλινον ἐϋκν̣ ήμ̣[ιδες Ἀχαιοί.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων phus’ wounding by Achilles (Isth. 5.41–42: … τίς ἄρ᾽ ἐσλὸν Τήλεφον | τρῶσεν ἑῷ δορὶ Καΐκου παρ᾽ ὄχθαις; Isth. 8.48–50: ἀρετὰν Ἀχιλέος· | ὃ καὶ Μύσιον ἀμπελόεν | αἵμαξε Τηλέφου μέλανι ῥαίνων φόνῳ πεδίον). In fact, Amphiaraus’ fleeing by the river Ismenos before being hit at the back by Periclymenus is also mentioned by Apollodorus (Bibl. 3.77: Ἀμφιαράῳ δὲ φεύγοντι παρὰ ποταμὸν Ἰσμηνόν, πρὶν ὑπὸ Περικλυμένου τὰ νῶτα τρωθῇ, Ζεὺς κεραυνὸν βαλὼν τὴν γῆν διέστησεν), in a passage whose phrasing points to Pindar as Apollodorus’ source. Ismenos as the area where the battle took place (more precisely at the Ismenion ‘past which the river Ismenos flows’)84 is also mentioned by Pausanias (9.10.2), who also seems to be drawing on a standard feature of the expedition of the Seven. Under the scope of the analysis presented above, Ismenos, Caicos, and Xanthos/Scamander may have formed a nexus of geographical references whose association with the myths of the Seven and Telephus-Eurypylus must have been shaped as early as the Archaic Period in the context of the interaction between the Theban and Trojan epic traditions.

.. Fighting Spirit D’Alessio85 has drawn attention to the correspondence between ἄλκιμοι – αἰχμηταί (P.Oxy. 4708 fr. 1.7–8) and μαχατάν | θυμόν and θυμὸν αἰχματάν used for Amphiaraus and the laudandus Chromius respectively (Pind. Nem. 9.26–27 and 37). ἄλκιμος is also used in Arch. frs. 95 (ἀλκίμῳ) and 148 IEG (]ρους ἀλκίμους), as well as adesp. iamb. 38.10 IEG (ἀλκιμωτέρους). The combination θυμός with ἄλκιμος is attested in Callin. fr. 1.1 IEG (ἄλκιμον ἕξετε θυμόν) and Tyrt. fr. 10.17, 24 IEG (ἄλκιμον … θυμόν). αἰχμητής is common in Archilochus (fr. 24.13 IEG: χερσὶν αἰχμητέων ὕπο; fr. 91.5 IEG: αἰ]χμητὴς ἐών; see also fr. spur. 324.3 IEG: αἰχμητά δύω, i.e. Heracles and Iolaus).86 The combination of θυμός with μαχατάς/αἰχμητάς is unique in Pindar who prefers θυμός ‘with a proper name or a general term such as ἀνήρ, γυνή, φώς’).87 The verbal echo in Pindar’s ode shares with Archilochus’ elegy the same context, namely the fleeing of Amphiaraus and the Achaeans respectively. Fighting spirit seems to have been used as an associative mechanism of fathers and sons in the Theban and Trojan traditions of the Seven and Telephus.

 84 Braswell 1998, 87. 85 D’Alessio 2006, 20. 86 I owe these parallels to Obbink 2005, 34 on 7 and 8. 87 Braswell 1998, 96 on Nem. 9.26–27; see also 117 on Nem. 9.37.

The Typology of the Motif  

Thersander’s fighting spirit in the Cypria (arg. ll. 126–127 Severyns; Paus. 9.5.14) may be reflecting his equivalent fighting spirit in the Epigonoi. It is perhaps no coincidence that Thersander and Peneleus (a skilled warrior and next king of Thebes, since Thersander’s son Tisamenus was not yet of age), were killed by Telephus (who excelled against the Achaeans) and Eurypylus (ἀριστεύοντα) respectively (the last two being equally wounded/killed by a father and a son, Achilles and Neoptolemus also excelling in the battlefield). The general feature of ‘fighting spirit’ appears to have acquired a specific function in the last phase of the epic staging of the motif under examination.

.. Healing Healing skills are equally a feature that must have been associated with the role certain persons played in Theban and Trojan saga. Amphiaraus was considered to possess healing abilities, like his ancestor Melampus.88 These abilities may well be attributed to him at a much earlier date than it is generally thought. According to Herodotus (8.134), a certain Mys was sent by Mardonius, who was waiting with his army in Thessaly for the winter to pass, to consult the oracle of Amphiaraus. The fact that this consultation involved incubation makes it clear that next to the oracular there was also a medical side in Amphiaraus’ sanctuary.89 Herodotus is no doubt drawing on some earlier source that goes back to at least the sixth century BC.90 In this respect, Amphiaraus’ connection to Asclepius is also telling. As early as Stesichorus (Eriphyle, fr. 92a-e Davies and Finglass) Asclepius is hit by Zeus’ thunderbolt because he had risen Capaneus and Lycurgus (the latter a floating member of the Seven) from the dead,91 an episode that brings in mind Amphiaraus’ ‘death’ by Zeus’ thunderbolt in the Theban tradition, as well as Amphiaraus’ fight with Lycurgus in the context of the Nemea

 88 See Löffler 1963, 14–16. 89 See Schachter 1981, 23. 90 Terranova (2013, 19) draws attention to the fact that Amphiaraus was recognized as a θεός by the Megarians (as early as the Archaic Period?; see Dion. Byz. Anaplous Bosphori 227 Gilles) and by the Oropians (end of fifth century BC, see relief in the National Museum at Athens [NM 1397]). She rightly, in my view, speaks of an intermediate phase in the evolution of Amphiaraus from hero to healing divinity associated with Asclepius. See also Petsalis-Diomidis (2006, 212), who draws attention to the fact that in the Amphiareion at Oropos Amphiaraus is sometimes presented on a chariot, a tendency reflecting the belief that his shift from heroic to divine status was closely associated with the episode of his disappearance on his chariot. 91 See Torres 2012, 523.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων incident. It should not escape our attention that this version of the death of Asclepius is related by Stesichorus in his Eriphyle, a poem dealing with the core of Theban epic saga. Moreover, in the Amyclaean throne and a shield band from Olympia dated to 575–570 BC, Amphiaraus is involved in a quarrel with Lycurgus that Adrastus and Tydeus try to stop.92 Given the fact that Asclepius’ healing abilities are as old as the Iliad (2.731; 4.194; 11.518), we wonder whether he did not share this feature with Amphiaraus. The fact that they both had a daughter called Iaso is no doubt a later feature that underlines their medical role, but it seems to be an extension of an older association with respect to their healing abilities.93 In Pindar (Pyth. 3.5–8) Chiron is referred to as the one who taught Asclepius how to cure every kind of disease.94 Likewise, in the Cypria Achilles heals Telephus after wounding him.95 Since Telephus does not die from the wound and Achilles’ healing spear is a gift of Chiron to Peleus in his wedding according to the Cypria,96 it must go back to an early phase of the story that antedates the Cypria and must come from the source on which Archilochus drew for his elegy on Telephus. Achilles’ healing abilities in this episode can be also seen on a Red-Figure drinking bowl from Vulci by the painter Sosias (around 500 BC)97 depicting Achilles placing a bandage on Patroclus’ wounds. If this piece of information is combined with Pindar’s reference to Patroclus standing together with Achilles to face Telephus who is routing the Achaean army in Mysia (Ol. 9.70–73), then it is plausible that this scene must have featured at least in the Cypria, if not in an earlier epic poem on Telephus (given the similarities between Ol. 9.70–73 and the Archilochus elegy on Telephus that precedes the written Cypria). In fact, the wounding of Patroclus would have functioned as a neat explanation of Achilles’ routing and wounding of Telephus.98 The existence of a Hesiodic epic Precepts of Chiron (Χείρωνος Ὑποθῆκαι) in the Archaic Period shows that Achilles’ healing abilities were widely known and explained as the result of his education by the Centaur Chiron.99 This is confirmed inter

 92 Amyclaean throne; shieldband, Olympia, c. 575–550. 93 See Σ in Aristoph. Pl. 701e (Chantry). 94 See also Apollod. 3.10.3. 95 See Cypr. arg. ll. 132–134 Severyns: ἔπειτα Τήλεφον κατὰ μαντείαν παραγενόμενον εἰς Ἄργος ἰᾶται Ἀχιλλεὺς ὡς ἡγεμόνα γενησόμενον τοῦ ἐπ᾽ Ἴλιον πλοῦ. 96 Fr. 3 PEG = 3 EGF = 4 GEF; see also Apollod. Bibl. 3.170. 97 Berlin, Antikenmuseum, F 2278. See LIMC 1.1, 114–115, s.v. ‘Achilleus’ [Kossatz-Deissmann]; for the attribution of this scene to the Cypria, see Kullmann 1960, 193–194. 98 Preiser 2000, 50. 99 Such pairing of activities is also shared by Heracles and Achilles whose ‘chiastic’ relation is also worth mentioning: both wound and try to heal or save from unending pain individuals

The Typology of the Motif  

alia by the fact that the Iliad (11.830–832)100 refers to Achilles’ possession of ἤπια φάρμακα and knowledge of healing techniques by Chiron,101 despite the fact that it deviates from its standard presentation of Achilles as having grown up in his parents’ palace in Phthia. This ‘healing’ feature continues to be linked with the Telephus story, since one of the eminent Achaeans killed by his son Eurypylus was no other than Asclepius’ son Machaon,102 whose healing abilities had been put into good use just before, when he cured Philoctetes’ wound.103

.. Second Gathering of the Army One of the most notorious cruces of the Cypria pertains to the arrival of the wounded Telephus at Argos, where he would be healed by Achilles. This piece of information is offered by Apollodorus, a Homeric scholium on the Iliad, and Proclus. Let us look carefully at all these passages:

 closely associated to the other member of the pair (Heracles wounds and tries to put an end to Chiron’s (Achilles’ tutor) endless suffering; likewise, Achilles wounds and heals Telephus (Heracles’ son). 100 ἐπὶ δ᾽ ἤπια φάρμακα πάσσε | ἐσθλά, τά σε προτί φασιν Ἀχιλλῆος δεδιδάχθαι (δεδάασθαι: Zenodotus), | ὃν Χείρων ἐδίδαξε δικαιότατος Κενταύρων; contrast Il. 9.438–439; see also, Σ (A) Il. 11.832a (ΙΙ 289 Erbse): : ὅτι Ὅμηρος δεδιδάχθαι μέν ϕησιν ἐνταῦθα τὴν ἰατρικὴν ὑπὸ Χείρωνος τὸν Ἀχιλλέα, περὶ μέντοι τῆς παρ᾽ αὐτῷ τροφῆς οὐδὲν συνέστακεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὐναντίον διὰ τῶν πραγμάτων ἐπιμαρτυρεῖ, τροφέα τὸν Φοίνικα συνεστακὼς τούτου; see Preiser (2000, 47) with further bibliography; West 2011a, 262 on Il. 11.830–832. 101 See Eust. on Il. 1.54–55 (I 73 van der Valk): τὴν δὲ κατὰ τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἰατρικὴν δηλοῖ; Σ (Α) on Dio’s Or. 18.72 (Dilts): ἐπεπαίδευτο γὰρ καὶ τὴν ἰατρικὴν Ἀχιλλεὺς ὡς παρὰ Χείρωνι τραφείς and Σ (Pr) on Dio’s Οr. 18.72 (Dilts): (Τήλεφος) … ἀπῆλθε παρ᾽ Ἀχιλλεῖ ἰάσεως εἵνεκα, ὑπὸ Χείρωνος πάλαι πεπαιδευμένῳ καὶ ταύτην τὴν ἐπιστήμην μετὰ τῶν τακτικῶν. 102 Il. parv. fr. 30 PEG = 7 EGF = 7 GEF: Μαχάονα δὲ ὑπὸ Εὐρυπύλου τοῦ Τηλέφου τελευτῆσαί φησιν ὁ τὰ ἔπη ποιήσας τὴν μικρὰν Ἰλιάδα. See Fowler (EGM II, 542 n. 63), who draws attention to the fact that since ‘Eurypylos is also the name of the king of Kos defeated by Heracles (Pher. fr. 78; § 8.5.3), and the Asclepiad Machaon is Eurypylos’ main victim at Troy[,] scholars have sometimes thought of a transferral from Kos to Mysia, or perhaps of a doubling’. 103 Il. parv. arg. l. 213 Severyns: ἰαθεὶς δὲ οὗτος [sc. Φιλοκτήτηϛ] ὑπὸ Μαχάονος. See also Il. 4.218–219, in which Machaon heals Menelaus’ wound by sucking the blood and spreading ἤπια φάρμακα which he had acquired through his father Asclepius, who had received them from Chiron (see Pind. Pyth. 3.5–7). The fact that Machaon cures Philoctetes’ wound, which had been caused by a snake, points to his father’s (Asclepius’) early association with snakes.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων Apollod. Epit. 3.18–21: [18] … τοὺς Ἕλληνας παρασκευασαμένους στρατεύεσθαι, ἀναχωρήσαντας δὲ ἀπὸ Μυσίας εἰς Ἑλλάδα μετὰ ἔτη ὀκτὼ πάλιν εἰς Ἄργος μεταστραφέντας ἐλθεῖν εἰς Αὐλίδα. [19] συνελθόντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἐν Ἄργει αὖθις μετὰ τὴν ῥηθεῖσαν ὀκταετίαν, ἐν ἀπορίᾳ τοῦ πλοῦ πολλῇ καθεστήκεσαν, καθηγεμόνα μὴ ἔχοντες, ὃς ἦν δυνατὸς δεῖξαι τὴν εἰς Τροίαν. [20] Τήλεφος δὲ ἐκ τῆς Μυσίας, ἀνίατον τὸ τραῦμα ἔχων, εἰπόντος αὐτῷ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνος τότε τεύξεσθαι θεραπείας, ὅταν ὁ τρώσας ἰατρὸς γένηται, τρύχεσιν ἠμφιεσμένος εἰς Ἄργος ἀφίκετο, καὶ δεηθεὶς Ἀχιλλέως καὶ ὑπεσχημένος τὸν εἰς Τροίαν πλοῦν δεῖξαι θεραπεύεται ἀποξύσαντος Ἀχιλλέως τῆς Πηλιάδος μελίας τὸν ἰόν. θεραπευθεὶς οὖν ἔδειξε τὸν πλοῦν, τὸ τῆς δείξεως ἀσφαλὲς πιστουμένου τοῦ Κάλχαντος διὰ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ μαντικῆς. [21] ἀναχθέντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἀπ’ Ἄργους καὶ παραγενομένων τὸ δεύτερον εἰς Αὐλίδα, τὸν στόλον ἄπλοια κατεῖχε. [18] The Greeks went to war after making their preparations. Then eight years after withdrawing from Mysia to Hellas they returned to Argos and went to Aulis. [19] So they assembled again in Argos after the aforementioned eight-year period, but without a guide who could show them the way to Troy they were entirely ignorant of where to sail. [20] But Telephus arrived dressed in rags from Mysia in Argos with his wound unhealed. Apollo had told him that he would be healed when the one who wounded him became his physician, so he came and begged Achilles and promised to show them the route to Troy. He was healed when Achilles scraped the rust off of Peleus’ spear. Once healed, he revealed to them the route, and Calchas verified the accuracy of his information through his divination. [21] But after they sailed from Argos and came to Aulis for the second time, the fleet was detained by a lack of wind.

Σ (D) Hom. Il. 1.59 (van Thiel): A 59/Ys … οἱ δὲ Ἕλληνες ὑπέστρεψαν εἰς τὸ Ἄργος. Τήλεφον δὲ ἀνίατον ἔχοντα τραῦμα ὁ Ἀχιλλεὺς ἐθεράπευσε κατὰ πεῦσιν τινὸς τῶν θεῶν (YAR). … The Greeks returned to Argos. Achilles, being told by one of the gods, cured Telephus who had an unhealed wound.

Procl. Cypr. arg. ll. 132–134 (Severyns): ἔπειτα Τήλεφον κατὰ μαντείαν παραγενόμενον εἰς Ἄργος ἰᾶται Ἀχιλλεὺς ὡς ἡγεμόνα γενησόμενον τοῦ ἐπ᾽ Ἴλιον πλοῦ. Then Telephus, having come to Argos in accordance to an oracle, is healed by Achilles, so as to guide the sail to Ilion.

Coming from three different sources these passages make it clear that the healing of Telephus took place in Argos, where Achilles and the Achaeans had gathered after the aborted expedition to Teuthrania. It was from Argos that they went to Aulis and from there to Troy, following the advice of Telephus about the

The Typology of the Motif  

route they should take. Here is then a crucial non sequitur according to Proclus’ summary, since the episode between Telephus and Achilles at Argos is flanked by contradictory information. We have been just told that Achilles was driven to Scyros by a storm on his way back from Teuthrania, and we will be informed that the second gathering of the Achaean army took place, like the first one, in Aulis.104 What was Achilles doing in Argos? This is undoubtedly the city in the Argolid and not the whole of the Peloponnese or Greece. Things become even more complicated, if we take into account that the phrasing of part of Apollodorus’ passage indicates that this is the second time the Achaeans are gathering in Argos (Epit. 3.18: … τοὺς Ἕλληνας παρασκευασαμένους στρατεύεσθαι, ἀναχωρήσαντας δὲ ἀπὸ Μυσίας εἰς Ἑλλάδα μετὰ ἔτη ὀκτὼ πάλιν εἰς Ἄργος μεταστραφέντας ἐλθεῖν εἰς Αὐλίδα. 3.19: συνελθόντων δὲ αὐτῶν ἐν Ἄργει αὖθις). So, when did they Achaean army or leaders reassemble before in the Argolid? As early as 1929, Bethe105 tried to explain this paradox by arguing that in the Cypria Telephus had been healed by Achilles in Aulis and that all our sources (Apollodorus, the Homeric scholia, and Proclus) had been contaminated by the influence of Euripides’ Telephus, in which the healing takes place in Argos. This line of interpretation is misleading. Cingano has shown that even if we admit the influence of Euripides on Apollodorus, this is unlikely for Proclus’ summary. Moreover, I would add, it is hard to believe that the Euripidean play had such a powerful impact on all these three sources. To find a way out of this impasse, Severyns106 suggested, on the basis of an Aristarchean scholium, that Agamemnon’s kingdom was placed at Argos according to the Cypria and not at Mycenae, as is the case in the Iliad,107 and that (on the basis of a scholium in Eur. Phoen. 125) Mycenae and Argos were treated by the neoteroi as identical.108 Severyns’

 104 There is a striking parallel between the Teuthranian expedition and the expedition of the Seven with respect to their function as a time frame for the ensuing Trojan and Epigonoi expeditions respectively. In each case the second expedition occurred ten years after the first (for the Teuthranian expedition, see Apollod. Epit. 3.17–19; for the Epigonoi, see Apollod. Bibl. 3.7.2). On this topic, see Terranova 2013, 16; on time-reckoning with respect to Calchas’ prophecy about the duration of the Trojan War, see West 2013, 104–105. 105 Bethe 19292, 239–241; see also Jouan 1966, 226, 245, 250. 106 Severyns 1928, 294. 107 Il. 2.569, 4.376, 8.180, 9.44. When Argos is designated as the place of Agamemnon’s kingdom in Homer, it stands for the Argolid in which the city of Argos belongs (Il. 1.30, 2.108, 4.171, 9.141 = 283). 108 See Σ Il. 11.46 (III 133 Erbse): ἐν Μυκήναις τὰ Ἀγαμέμνονος βασίλεια, οὐκ ἐν Ἄργει, ὡς οἱ νεώτεροι.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων hypothesis is bound to fail for two reasons, as Cingano has convincingly argued:109 first, it does not explain why after the abortive expedition to Teuthrania the Achaeans gathered first in Argos and not immediately in Aulis, and second, it stems from a scholium that cannot have been known to Apollodorus or Proclus. We are in no position to know whether the entire corpus of Cyclic poetry relocated Agamemnon’s kingdom at Argos, as is the case with early lyric that places his palace either in Sparta (Stesichorus and Simonides)110 or at Amyclae (Pindar).111 My take on this issue follows the suggestion of Cingano with a slight modification. The surfacing of Argos as the place of the assembling of the Achaean army both before the Teuthranian and the Trojan expeditions belongs to the general pattern of doubling certain episodes or features pertaining to the Theban and Trojan epic traditions. Argos was the natural place of gathering for the Argive armies of the Seven and the Epigonoi in the first and second Theban wars respectively. As such it may have influenced the Cyclic tradition of the Cypria, which tried to accommodate both the ‘Theban’ gathering at Argos and the ‘Trojan’ gathering at Aulis. Given the technical difficulties of gathering the Achaean fleet twice each time, first in Argos and then in Aulis (not to mention the absurdity of gathering the fleet at an inland location such as Argos), the Cypria may have featured gatherings only of the Achaean leaders at Argos before and after the Teuthranian expedition, leaving Aulis for assembling the entire fleet. Conversely, the Iliad opted for Mycenae as Agamemnon’s kingdom, leaving Argos to Diomedes, thus referring only to the gathering of the fleet in Aulis before the Teuthranian and Trojan expeditions.112

 109 Cingano 2004, 74. 110 Stes. fr. 177 Davies and Finglass; Sem. fr. 549 PMG; see Σ Eur. Or. 46 (I 102.21–24 Schwartz). 111 Pyth. 11.16, 11.32, Nem. 8.12, 11.34. 112 For the gathering of the Achaean army first in Argos and then in Aulis, see also Ibyc. S151.27–30 PMGF and (perhaps) ll. 36–37 (with respect to Cyanippus, provided that Barron’s supplement Κυάνι]ππ[ο]ς in l. 37 is correct). According to Apollod. (Bibl. 1.9.13), Cyanippus was the grandson of Adrastus and son of Aegialeus who was the only Argive leader to die in the successful expedition of the Epigonoi against Thebes. Ibycus is the sole source for the participation of Cyanippus in the Trojan war. As Cingano (2004, 75) has put it ‘Il distacco di Ibico dalla tradizione omerica evidenzia in filigrana il permanere in ambito argivo di tradizioni legate al ciclo tebano, che integravano il silenzio della tradizione epica. Grazie a queste riorganizzazioni genealogiche i Biantidi Egialeo e Cianippo, entrambi figli di Adrasto, erano inscritti nelle due diverse scansioni temporali e narrative dell’epica: Egialeo nel ciclo tebano, dove è l’unico di cadere in battaglia; Ciannipo è invece assente a Tebe e approba – seppur tardivamente – a Troia nel ciclo troiano’.

The Typology of the Motif  

.. Dionysus When Thersander was killed by Telephus, his son Tisamenus was to succeed him in the throne of Thebes, but due to his young age Peneleus became king. At that point, the gods (Dionysus: Paus. 9.19.1) send the Teumesian fox against the city. After this event and as the Achaeans were mustering their fleet for the second time at Aulis, Peneleus joined the expedition. He was a skilled warrior (see Iliad, in which he is mentioned several times and is one of the leaders of the Boeotian contingent), but he was killed by Eurypylus, son of Telephus (Paus. 9.5.15; Quint. Smyrn. 7.105; Dict. Cret. 4.17).113 Pausanias’ version that Dionysus sent the Teumesian fox against Thebes as a punishment because the Thebans made Peneleus their king, although he was not a descendant of Cadmus, is analogous to Dionysus’ role in the Telephus and Eurypylus story: he causes the former’s wounding and uses the latter as the means for the killing of Peneleus, who had succeeded Thersander in Thebes against Dionysus’ will. In this light, it is clear that Dionysus featured in both the Theban and the Trojan114 part of this story, since the old king (Thersander) and the new king (Peneleus) of Thebes participated in the Teuthranian and Trojan expeditions and were killed by father (Telephus) and son (Eurypylus) respectively. What is also important is that if the Teumesian fox featured in the Epigonoi (fr. 5 PEG = incerti loci 1 p. 74 EGF = *3 GEF), then it is very likely that in this poem there may have been a reference to the future killing of Thersander by Telephus, since the Teumesian fox pertains to a stage when Peneleus, successor of Thersander, is the king of Thebes. If this line of thought holds true, then we have ample evidence that the reduplication of the doublet between the two Theban expeditions and the Teuthranian and Trojan expeditions was operative at an early stage and independently from the Homeric epics.

 113 See Kullmann 1960, 69. 114 See Preiser (2000, 49), who draws attention to a krater by the painter Phintias (around 500 BC), on which is depicted Patroclus (on the left) in retreat looking at Diomedes who is bending forward because he is dragging something, perhaps the corpse of Thersander. On the right, a seated Dionysus is depicted, whose hand as well as his name are partly preserved. See Preiser (2000, 49) with further bibliography.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων .. Admonition to Abstain from the War According to Σ Juv. 6.655115 (see Kullmann 1960, 213),116 Telephus had advised his son Eurypylus not to take part in the war. In this version, which must be quite old, Eurypylus is bribed by his wife whose name is Eriphyle. Since this name is used twice in the same scholium, it cannot be a scribal error. But why would the scholiast have made such a reference on commenting Juvenal’s ‘Eriphylae’ (6.655)? Why didn’t he refer to the widely known Eriphyle, wife of Amphiaraus and mother of Alcmaon, as he got right Clytaemestra and the other figures from Greek mythology mentioned by Juvenal in this context? West117 says that the scholiast confused the two versions, but his confusion seems rather awkward, since he did get right all the other details. For example, why did he confuse only a name and not the rest of the narrative? And if he had drawn material from the famous Theban tale of Eriphyle, which Juvenal seems to refer to in the verse the scholiast is commenting on, why did he present Telephus as advising his son not to take part in the war on the Trojan side, in contrast to Amphiaraus who explicitly (Pind. Pyth. 8.44–46) said that the expedition of the Epigonoi would be successful only if Alcmaon was their leader? How is it possible that the scholiast was confused with respect to the most famous heroine of this tale, namely Eriphyle? In fact, it seems unlikely that the scholiast commenting on the name Eriphyle, who is mentioned by Juvenal together with the Danaids and Clytaemestra as negative examples of women who had killed their husbands, transferred the right name to the wrong story, which he quoted in detail, although it did not involve the murder of any husband. The only reasonable explanation is that he had found this name used in the same version in which he had found the information about Telephus’ admonition to Eurypylus not to fight at the side of the Trojans. After all, this would effectively explain why he designated Eriphyle as wife of Eurypylus and not as his mother. Being influenced by her designation as wife of Amphiaraus, he made her also wife of Eurypylus.  115 ‘atque Eriphyle’: Eriphyle, uxor Eurypili, filii Telephi. Qui Telephus cum venisset ad auxilium Priamo, plagatus est ab Achille, et cum non posset curari, sortitus est, ab Achille se solo posse curare. Venit supplex, petit se curari, promisso hoc, ut nunquam iam auxilio ferat Troianis, nec ipse, nec de suis aliquis. Curatus est; recessit. Post mortem huius, filius Eurypilus [sic] vir fortis fuit. Hunc saepius ad auxilium petit Priamus. Ille negavit, monitus scilicet a patre suo. Ergo cum non posset aliter Priamus eum sollicitare, fecit vitem ex auro, et misit ad uxorem eius Eriphylem. Haec, accepto munere tanto, marito persuasit. Venit in Troiam auxilium ferens. Hunc occidit Pyrrhus filius Achillis. 116 See also EGM II, 542–543. 117 West 2013, 191.

The Typology of the Motif  

According to fr. 22 PEG / Σ (D) Il. 1.59 (van Thiel), Telephus had sworn an oath that he would not help the Trojans in the future, if Achilles healed his wound. In addition, he would also need to show the Achaeans the route to Troy:118 Τήλεφος δὲ ἀνίατον ἔχων τὸ τραῦμα, εἰπόντος θεοῦ μηδένα δύνασθαι αὐτὸν θεραπεῦσαι ἢ τὸν τρώσαντα, ἦλθεν εἰς Ἄργος, καὶ πίστιν δοὺς μὴ ἐπικουρήσειν Τρωσὶν ἐθεραπεύθη ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλέως καὶ αὐτὸς ἔδειξε τὸν ἐπὶ Τροίαν πλοῦν. ταῦτα μὲν οἱ νεώτεροι· ὁ δὲ ποιητὴς λέγει Κάλχαντα ἀφηγήσασθαι τοῦ ἐπὶ Ἴλιον πλοῦ. Telephus, his wound refusing to heal, and the god (sc. Apollo) having told him that none could heal him but the one who wounded him, came to Argos, and after pledging that he will not assist the Trojans he was cured by Achilles and showed (the Achaeans) the way to Troy. This is what the neoteroi say. However, Homer says that Calchas told them about the way to Troy.

The phrase καὶ πίστιν δοὺς μὴ ἐπικουρήσειν Τρωσὶν may well be, given the highly compressed and abbreviated style of the scholia, an indication that Telephus’ oath extended not only to the immediate but also to the distant future, i.e. that neither himself nor anyone among his descendants would help the Trojans. To this piece of evidence, we should also connect the following information given by the Σ Od. 11.520 [II 517 Dindorf]):119 Εὐρύπυλος ὁ Ἀστυόχης καὶ Τηλέφου τοῦ Ἡρακλέους παῖς λαχὼν τὴν πατρῴαν ἀρχὴν τῆς Μυσίας προΐστατο. πυθόμενος δὲ Πρίαμος περὶ τῆς τούτου δυνάμεως ἔπεμψεν ὡς αὐτὸν ἵνα παραγένηται σύμμαχος. εἰπόντος δὲ αὐτοῦ ὡς οὐκ ἐξῆν αὐτῷ διὰ τὴν μητέρα, ἔπεμψεν ὁ Πρίαμος τῇ αὐτοῦ μητρὶ δῶρον {Ἀστυόχῃ} (secl. Jac.) χρυσῆν ἄμπελον. ἡ δὲ λαβοῦσα τὴν ἄμπελον τὸν υἱὸν ἔπεμψεν ἐπὶ στρατείαν (στρατὸν Q: ἐπιστρατεύειν dub. Jac. in ap. cr.) ὃν Νεοπτόλεμος ὁ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως υἱὸς ἀναιρεῖ. ἡ δὲ ἱστορία παρὰ Ἀκουσιλάῳ (fr. 40c EGM). Eurypylus, son of Astyoche and Telephus who was Heracles’ son, was ruler of Mysia, having got the power from his father. When Priam learned about his power, he sent him a herald asking him to become his ally. After Eurypylus’ reply that this was not possible for him because of his mother, Priam sent as gift to Eurypylus’ mother {Astyoche} a golden vine. She received the vine and sent her son to the expedition. Eurypylus was killed by Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. The story is attested in Acusilaus.

What does the phrase διὰ τὴν μητέρα refer to? That Eurypylus would not participate in the war because his mother did not allow him to go to Troy? Why was she unwilling to help her brother Priam trying to save his city against the  118 The story is told in similar form by Apollod. Epit. 3.20. 119 See Σ Eur. Or. 1391 (Schwartz); Od. 11.520–522; also Acus. fr. 40c EGM.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων Achaean host? Obviously because she was afraid that her son would die, if he went to Troy. She probably reminded him of Telephus’ promise to Achilles when he healed his wound that neither he nor anyone of his descendants would help the Trojans against the Achaeans.120

.. Setting Foot on Foreign Land Both Archilochus121 and Euripides122 lay stress on the first landing of the Achaeans in Mysia. Although this is a typical motif,123 the transfer of phraseology is unmistakeable: P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.9–10: [πεδίον] Μ̣ύσ̣ι̣ ο̣ν̣ P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.21: ἐπάτευν Μυσίδα Tel. fr. 696.1: στρατὸς τὰ Μυσῶν πεδί᾽ ἐπ[ι]στρωφῶ̣ν̣ πατεῖ

Since it is unlikely that Euripides had used as his model Archilochus where this form is attested only once, he must be drawing on Aeschylus’ Telephus,124 since Euripides uses this phraseology only in this case in the entire corpus of his plays, whereas Aeschylus employs it eight times (without counting compound forms like ἐμπατεῖν), of which two together with the root πεδ-: Ag. 1356–1357: τῆς μελλοῦς κλέος | πέδοι (Hermann: πέδον codd.) πατοῦντες Ch. 643: λὰξ πέδοι (Hermann: πέδον M) πατουμένας

If this is the case and given (a) that its use in Archilochus occurs in the same context with Aeschylus’ play, and (b) that Aeschylus is less likely to be drawing πατεῖν from Archilochus (since the verb is very common in tragedy),125 it is plausible that the expression ‘tread under foot’ (the Mysian plain) goes back to a lost archaic epic on Telephus.

 120 See EGM II, 542–543. 121 P.Oxy. 4708, fr. 1.9–10 and 1.21. 122 Tel. fr. 696.16 TrGF; see Obbink 2006, 9. 123 See Tsagalis 2012a, 337. 124 That certain features of Euripides’ prologues may be working as a Zitat to earlier plays on the same topic, see Danek 1992, 19–37. On Aristophanes’ use of Aeschylus’ Telephus in Ach. 332 (and discussion of the relevant scholium designating Aeschylus as Aristophanes’ model), see Platter 2007, 149 and n. 27 with further bibliography. 125 Only in Il. 4.157. I owe this observation to Obbink 2006, 9, who fails to note that πατεῖν accompanied by the root πεδ-is attested only in Aeschylus.

Doubling a Doublet  

. Doubling a Doublet The deep interaction between these two traditions based on similarity pertaining to both situations and characters is possible only if the Theban and the Trojan War sagas had acquired a stable skeleton of myth through their shaping by means of various oral versions of epic song. In this light, it is not unthinkable that Hesiod’s designation of the Theban and Trojan sagas as emblematic for the race of heroes (Op. 161–165) is equally true on the level of epic traditions.126 It seems that certain situations and characters functioned as a bridge between the two sagas and, what is more telling, that such resonances were conscious and meaningful, as the Odyssey examples show. As the Teuthranian expedition is a doublet of the successful expedition to Troy in the Trojan War epic tradition, so the expedition of the Epigonoi is a doublet of the expedition of the Seven. There are various features that corroborate these two analogies. Given this observation, the pairing of a motif inherent in the phrase γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων by the Odyssey brings to the fore a thorny but fascinating question: are we entitled to speak of doubling a doublet between the Theban and the Trojan War epic traditions? Is it possible that the Trojan War tradition has developed the idea of a first, unsuccessful assault at Mysia in the light of the first failed expedition of the Seven against Thebes? If a whole nexus of associations between the Theban and the Trojan myth shows that the Trojan War tradition has used elements organically pertaining to the Theban one (e.g. the transfer of heroes like Diomedes, Sthenelus, and Euryalus belonging to the expedition of the Epigonoi to the Troy War saga), is it not fair to argue that it has also aimed at duplicating the entire doublet ‘first unsuccessful expedition’ — ‘second successful expedition’? As Bethe has argued, Amphiaraus lies at the center of interest for the Theban expedition, more or less as Achilles for the Trojan one. The former’s departure for the war was a crucial point in the entire Theban saga. His anger against Eriphyle must have been of paramount importance, as was Achilles’ wrath in the Iliad. I am not sure that the so-called Ἀμφιαράου ἐξέλασις was an independent poem, but what is very plausible is that it reflects an earlier oral tradition or traditions that emphasized the seer’s role in the Theban expedition. Such a lay must have been very deeply embedded in the Theban saga, in fact so well builtin that it may have triggered a whole range of resonances with Achilles and his connection to the Trojan War, the more so since the hero initially came from a different mythical environment and had his own sweep of activities in ‘an area  126 See Krafft 1963, 118–119.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων reflecting the interests of Aeolic Greeks based on Lesbos’.127 It is exactly his gradual association with ‘a confederation of heroes from central and southern Greece whose one target was Troy’128 that necessitated a series of adjustments so that he could be presented as the principal hero taking part in the expedition. The resonances between Theban and Trojan epic myth discussed above show how deep and early is the interaction between the Theban and Trojan epic traditions. We are now in a position to assert that Archilochus treated both the Telephus and the Eurypylus story (fr. 304 IEG). West129 has suggested that he may have heard an epic poem or a pair of epic poems in which father and son featured in a single story as protagonists. The focus of this epic or epics would have been the whole mythical scope from the arrival of the Achaeans in Mysia to the death of Eurypylus at the hands of Neoptolemus. Such a suggestion caters well for the cross-generational dimension that is so characteristic of the Theban Cycle, as West130 himself observes. Extending this line of thought further, the Telephus-Eurypylus story as treated in Archilochus and the Epic Cycle makes it likely, given the wealth of similarities and analogies presented above, that it reproduced to a considerable extent and, of course, with the necessary modifications a story pattern that had been linked at an early stage with Amphiaraus and Alcmaon. Is it accidental that these were the only characters of Theban myth associated with independent poems or epic traditions, the Ἀμφιαράου ἐξέλασις and the Ἀλκμαιωνίς respectively? Is it mere chance that the Ἀλκμαιωνίς may have contained apart from the story of Alcmaon that of his father Amphiaraus as well?131 Isn’t this, among other things, a reflection of their belonging to a common mythical thread? Seen from this angle, the interconnection between the Theban and the Trojan Cycle with respect to this motif and the characters associated with it becomes a reasonable possibility. Perhaps, oral epics antedating the Homeric Odyssey had already stroke that chord, which is indicative of the existence of a notional Theban and Trojan Cycle long before their actual combination into a rigid canon, and is also representative of the powerful way these traditions resonated during the shaping of early hexameter poetry in the Archaic Period.

 127 West 2011a, 43. 128 West 2011a, 43. 129 West 2006, 16–17. 130 West 2006, 17. 131 See Debiasi 2015.

Interformularity and Intertraditionality  

. Interformularity and Intertraditionality I hope that the preceding analysis has shown that even a typical motif (such as that of a ‘woman receiving gifts to convince an unwilling hero to go to war’) has been gradually attached (within the framework of the larger story-pattern ‘unwilling hero is convinced to go to war’) to specific individuals in the Theban and Trojan epic traditions. In this light, we can now take a step back, return to our departure point recalling that our entire investigation started by means of the repetition of the expression γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων in the Odyssey, and ask ourselves on a rather theoretical level about the implications for our larger picture of archaic epic of the evocative power of thematic resonances woven in the fabric of formulaic expressions. In a recent study on the Odyssey, Bakker devoted his Epilogue to the reexamination of the time-old question ‘can deliberate repetition be formulaic’ or ‘can formulas be quotes’? Bakker opts for the term interformularity,132 a new coin in the already rich storehouse of terminology developed around formulas in Homeric diction. He argues that the evocative power of formulaic phrases is determined by their specificity, which is measured on the basis of their position on what he calls ‘the interformularity scale’.133 In his own words, [T]he more restricted an expression, the more specific the context in which it is uttered, and the higher the point at which it can be placed on the scale. (On the other hand, a high frequency of a context to which a given phrase is restricted will lower its position on the scale, since frequency diminishes specificity). It is also important to observe that the continuum of increasing specificity is quintessentially cognitive: it is based on the judgment of the performer/poet and the audience as to the degree of similarity between two contexts: the more specific a formula and/or the more restricted its distribution, the greater the possible awareness of its recurrence and of its potential for signalling meaningful repetition.134

Bakker reminds us of two key examples of meaningful repetition of formulas: the first one observed by Austin in 1975 pertains to the fact that 62 out of 66 occurrences of the formulaic phrase πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς are preceded by the speech-introductory formula τὸν δ᾽ ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη.135 This is a telling example of what Bakker calls a ‘staging-formula’,136 i.e. a standard phrase em 132 Bakker 2013, 158. 133 Bakker 2013, 159. 134 The italics are mine. 135 Austin 1975, 28–29; Bakker 2013, 162. 136 Bakker 1997b, 162–165; 2013, 163.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων ployed for the epiphany of an epic figure ‘whose formula it precedes in the verse’.137 Apart from the metrical constraints pertaining to the use of this nounepithet formula, there is no doubt that there is a specific context that is hereby evoked, since every time Odysseus will speak he is staged as a man of metis. This is an example that belongs to the low end of Bakker’s scale of interformularity. At the middle of this scale are placed expressions specific to a given episode, like the line ἥμεθα δαινύμενοι κρέα τ᾽ ἄσπετα καὶ μέθυ ἡδύ occurring no less than six times in the Odyssey (9.161–162; 9.556–557; 10.184–185; 10.467–468; 10.476–477; 12.29–30). The first-person plural imposes a first-level restriction to the use of this expression since it must belong to a character’s speech. The thematic resonances of the essential idea ‘and then we had a lavish meat’ leads to a further restriction and, subsequently, specification, as the phrase is used only in Odysseus’ Apologos.138 Next, we can posit a third-level restriction, since the theme of ‘pre-cultural plenitude as opposed to Ithacan limitations’ brings to the limelight the antithesis between the world of the Wanderings and the real world of Ithaca to which Odysseus strives to return. At the highest end of the scale are placed expressions that either ‘extend across the boundary of the work’139 or have minimal distribution. By drawing attention to Il. 2.488 and Od. 11.328 featuring the lines πληθὺν δ’ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ᾽ ὀνομήνω140 and πάσας δ᾽ οὐκ ἂν ἐγὼ μυθήσομαι οὐδ᾽ ὀνομήνω141 respectively, Bakker makes the important step that crosses over to another epic tradition, even if he avoids the word ‘text’ or ‘poem’ with its strong literate connotations. There are multiple examples of this last kind, which have been thoroughly discussed in the past in the context of an interaction of a sort between the Iliadic and Odyssean traditions.142 The crucial step is here that interformularity or oral intertextuality, as others have named it, can reach even the level of intertraditionality, i.e. it can refer to the performances of different epic traditions that become gradually crystallized in the course of time and share a considerable degree of symbiotic relationship. Internal interformularity within a given epic tradition or external interformularity between different epic traditions that amounts to intertraditionality has been systematically treated in two studies that have not attracted the atten-

 137 Bakker 2013, 163. 138 Bakker 2013, 164. 139 Bakker 2013, 168. 140 ‘I could not tell over the multitude of them nor name them’. 141 ‘I could not tell you the tales, not give you the names, of all’. 142 See e.g. Pucci 1987; ith a 1990; Tsagalis 2008.

Interformularity and Intertraditionality  

tion they deserve in the English-speaking world. In a detailed study of a number of iterata143 in the Iliad and the Odyssey Usener has shown that repeated phraseology extending to more than one verse in the Iliad and the Odyssey is regularly characterized by what one may call, following Mueller, a ‘high contextual surplus’, i.e. the sharing of a number of features between the two formulaic expressions ‘that are not required by the meaning of the line(s) in question’.144 For example, Il. 1.245–246 and Od. 2.80–81 that reiterate similar phraseology share a high contextual surplus for they both pertain to situations that seem to be paralleled: Achilles in a state of distress and anger against the injustice of Agamemnon has just expressed his decision to withdraw from the fighting. He swears an oath and makes a powerful symbolic gesture: he dashes to the ground the scepter, studded with golden nails, and sits down. In a while, when the assembly will be over, he alone will walk along the seashore and pray to his mother Thetis to persuade Zeus to give victory to the Trojans. Likewise, in Od. 2.80–81 Telemachus in a state of distress and anger against the suitors who are consuming his father’s fortune dashes to the ground the scepter in tears. When the assembly is over, he alone, like Achilles in Iliad 1, walks along the seashore and asks for the help of Athene. This is a typical case where the ‘high contextual surplus’ of these two scenes is not required by the reiterated phraseology. Telemachus did not ‘need’, so to speak, do what Achilles did after the end of the assembly in another epic tradition nor is the dashing of the scepter to the ground something that heroes regularly do when they are angered and in a state of distress. The two scenes belonging to two different epic traditions are, then, closely linked. The restriction of this iteratum or doublet to a set of characters is essential for understanding the function of what Mueller has coined ‘high con- textual surplus’. And this is the case with the example at hand. Conversely, a weak form of contextual surplus is at work when doublets are restricted to the same or adjacent books of the same epic.145 In a similar vein, Reichel has studied what he calls Fernbeziehungen (‘crossreferences’) in the Iliad. Treading on the path opened by the work of Basset and Schadewaldt,146 Reichel meticulously mapped a dense network of crossreferences in the Iliad that amounts to a massive mechanism associating persons, scenes, and situations. Leaving aside the sophisticated manipulation of time through an entire system of advance mentions, flashbacks, and para-

 143 On a useful collection of iterata in the Iliad and the Odyssey, see Strasser 1984. 144 Mueller 1984, 151. The italics are my own. 145 See Mueller 1984, 158. 146 Basset 1938, Schadewaldt 19663.

  γυναίων εἴνεκα δώρων narratives that stand beyond the scope of my study, I would like to draw attention to Reichel’s methodological treatment of the Iliadic iterata that makes a strong case in favor of planned and meaningful repetition and not just mechanical reiteration of phrase units. Although my final take on the explanation of this phenomenon is not the same with that advocated by Reichel who thinks that this can only be the result of written composition, his list of criteria for the establishment of intentional cross-referencing is extremely valid:147 1. repetition occurs (no matter whether it is required by the wording) inside a given plotline or a specific context; 2. repetition is supported by an implicit cross-reference through an explicit cross-reference to the same context; 3. within the environment of two or more passages, in which the repetition occurs, there are other repetitions too; 4. the repeated element occurs only very rarely or at minimum twice; 5. repetition involves a longer passage; 6. repetition is very specific with respect to its phraseology and hence applicable only to a very limited number of situations. The more criteria are met, the more probable is that we are dealing with meaningful and intended repetition. Reichel was able to reveal the existence of an internal system of references, a real Vernetzung (‘web of associations’), integral part of which are the so-called iterata (next to the repetition of longer passages, the structural and thematic parallel shaping of speeches and speech-based scenes separated by long chunks of text, and the sophisticated manipulation of time).148 Considering all the above observations, it is clear that the expression γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων, which meets most of the criteria for deliberate allusion, is not a mechanical reiteration of wording but a meaningful repetition amounting to an intertraditional cross-reference or an oral intertextual citation.

 147 Reichel 1994, 42. 148 Reichel 1994, 370.

 Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration In this chapter I will reconsider the value of the ancient evidence indicating that the episode of Achilles’ hiding at Scyros,1 in order to avoid recruitment for the Achaean expedition to Troy, formed part of the Cypria. The relevant material has been treated differently in the three major editions of the fragments of archaic Greek epic poets: whereas it is classified as fr. 19 PEG = 19 GEF, it is not included in Davies’ edition.2 In the first part of this article, I will cite all ancient authorities attributing this piece of information to the Cypria3 and explore the Homeric and relevant material offered by Proclus, and in the second, I will discuss the nature and function of the ancient evidence quoting this episode.

. Homer and the Cycle Ι. Σ (D) Hom. Il. 19.326 ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα ἱστορία ἔχει οὕτως· Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἑλένην ἁρπάσαντος Ἀγαμέμνων καὶ Μενέλαος τοὺς Ἕλληνας κατὰ τῶν Τρώων ἐστρατολόγησαν. Πηλεὺς δὲ προγινώσκων ὅτι μοιρίδιον ἦν ἐν Τροίᾳ θανεῖν Ἀχιλλέα, παραγενόμενος εἰς Σκῦρον πρὸς Λυκομήδην τὸν βασιλέα παρέθετο τὸν Ἀχιλλέα. ὁ δὲ γυναικείαν ἐσθῆτα ἀμφιάσας αὐτὸν ὡς κόρην ἀνέτρεφε μετὰ τῶν θυγατέρων. χρησμοῦ δὲ δοθέντος μὴ ἁλώσεσθαι τὴν Ἴλιον χωρὶς Ἀχιλλέως, ἐπέμφθησαν ὑφ’ Ἑλλήνων πρὸς Πηλέα Ὀδυσσεύς, Φοῖνιξ καὶ Νέστωρ. τοῦ δὲ Πηλέως ἀρνουμένου παρ’ αὐτῷ παῖδα μὴ τυγχάνειν, πορευθέντες εἰς Σκῦρον καὶ ὑπονοήσαντες μετὰ τῶν παρθένων τὸν Ἀχιλλέα τρέφεσθαι, ταῖς Ὀδυσσέως ὑποθήκαις ὅπλα καὶ ταλάρους ἔρριψαν σὺν ἱστουργικοῖς ἐργαλείοις ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ παρθενῶνος. αἱ μὲν οὖν κόραι ἐπὶ τοὺς ταλάρους ὥρμησαν καὶ τὰ λοιπά, ὁ δ’ Ἀχιλλεὺς ἀνελόμενος τὰ ὅπλα κατάφωρος γέγονε καὶ συνεστρατεύσατο. πρότερον δὲ ταῖς παρθένοις συνδιατρίβων ἔφθειρε Δηϊδάμειαν τὴν Λυκομήδους, ἥτις ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐγέννησε Πύρρον τὸν ὕστερον Νεοπτόλεμον κληθέντα, ὅστις τοῖς Ἕλλησι νέος ὢν συνεστρατεύσατο μετὰ θάνατον τοῦ πατρός. ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς. The other version is the following. After Alexander abducted Helen, Agamemnon and Menelaus recruited the Greeks against the Trojans. Knowing in advance that Achilles was fated to die at Troy, Peleus sent him to king Lycomedes at Scyros. Clothing him (sc. Achilles) with a woman’s dress, Lycomedes raised him as a girl among his daughters. When an

 1 On Achilles on Scyros in both Greek and Roman poetry, see Fantuzzi 2012. 2 EGF. 3 In this light, I will only deal with material designating, at least implicitly, the Cypria. By implicit citation I refer basically to a collective citation (κυκλικοί, νεώτεροι), which could, theoretically, include the Cypria. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110981384-014

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration oracle was given that Ilium would not be sacked without Achilles, Odysseus, Phoenix, and Menelaus were sent to Peleus by the Greeks. After Peleus told them that his son was not in his house, they went to Scyros. Assuming that Achilles was reared together with the young girls (sc. Lycomedes’ daughters), they threw, on Odysseus’ advice, weapons and baskets together with weaving tools in front of the girls’ appartements. The girls rushed to the baskets and the rest, while Achilles, after picking up the weapons, was revealed and joined the army. Before this incident and while he was living together with the girls, he seduced Deidameia, daughter of Lycomedes, who bore to him Pyrrhus, who was later called Neoptolemus and took part in the war (sc. at Troy), while being young, after his father’s death. This story is attested in the Cyclic poets.

ΙΙ. P.Berol. 13930 (Pack2 1203). Based on Luppe 1985, 10: ]καις ἐπει (δὴ) | ὅτε (τοῖς Ἕλλησιν | αὐτοῖς)] ἐξέπεσε χρησμὸς χωρὶς Ἀχιλλέως Ἴλιον μὴ πο]λ̣εμ̣οῦν, ἐξέπεμψαν πρὸς Πηλέα περὶ τοῦ υ̣]ἱ̣[ο̣]ῦ̣ λόγον ἀξιώσοντας. κρυφθείσης δὲ περὶ Ἀχι]λ̣λ̣έ̣α̣ τ̣ῆ̣ς [ἀλη]θείας Ὀδυσσεὺς καὶ Διομήδης] ἐπὶ ζήτησ[ι]ν̣ [ἐ]τράπησαν αὐτοῦ δι’ Ἑλλάδο]ς. παρ’ [ἀ]κοήν δέ, ὅτι παρά Λυκομήδει ο]ὗ̣τος ἦ]ν, ἐπὶ Σκῦρον παρεγένοντ[ο. αἱ δὲ παρθένοι Λυκομήδους ἠξίουν [μὴ ἐλθεῖν αὐτοῖς εἰς ἐπίδειξ[ι]ν. [ὁ δὲ] ἀγνοε̣ ῖ̣ ν̣ [ἔφησε νεανίαν ἐν τῇ οἰκίαι τρεφόμεν̣ [ο]ν̣ π̣α̣[ρ’ αὑτῷ οὐδένα. ὑπονοήσας δὲ Ὀδυσσεὺς ... [ .]. ρειτο ἐπιτρέφ[ ]ν ὅπλ̣[α κτλ. πα]νοπλ[ίαν) ].[ ]… when an oracle was given to the Greeks not to fight against Ilium without Achilles, they sent envoys to Peleus to ask for his son. Since the truth was hidden from them about Achilles, Odysseus and Diomedes turned to a search for him throughout Greece. When they heard that he was at Lycomedes’ palace, the went to Scyros. Lycomedes’ daughters considered appropriate no to show themselves to them (sc. the envoys). Lycomedes said that he did not know of any young man being reared in his house. However, Odysseus suspecting … [ … ] rear[ … ] weap[ons … etc. ar]m(or) ] . [

Homer and the Cycle  

ΙΙΙ. Σ Hom. Il. 9.668b (II 538 Erbse): Οἱ μὲν νεώτεροι ἐκεῖ (sc. ἐν Σκύρῳ), τὸν παρθενῶνά φασιν, ἔνθα τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἐν παρθένου σχήματι τῇ Δηϊδαμείᾳ συγκατακλίνουσιν. The neoteroi say that the girls’ appartements were there (sc. in Scyros), and it is there that they make Achilles, who was disguised as a girl, share a bed with (sc. have intercourse) Deidameia.

ΙV. Ptolem. Chenn. apud Phot. Bibl. p. 147a 18 (III 53, 18 Henry) = p. 17, 26 (Chatzis): ὡς Ἀχιλλλέα μὲν Ἀριστόνικος ὁ Ταραντῖνος (FGrHist 57 F1) διατρίβοντα ἐν ταῖς παρθένοις παρὰ Λυκομήδει Κερκυσέραν καλεῖσθαί φησιν καὶ Ἴσσαν καὶ Πύρραν. ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ καὶ Ἄσπετος καὶ Προμηθεύς. Aristonicus of Tarentum says that Achilles, who spent a period of time among the girls in the hourse of Lycomedes, was called ‘Kerkysera’, ‘Issa’, and ‘Pyrrha’. He was also called Aspetos and Prometheus.4

The obvious reaction to the information presented above is that Achilles was sent by his father Peleus to Scyros where he stayed among Lycomedes’ daughters and was later revealed by an Achaean embassy with either Odysseus, Phoenix, and Nestor or Odysseus and Diomedes, who were initially sent to Phthia to recruit the best of the Achaeans to the war.5 Things begin, however, to become complicated when we turn our attention to the few references to Scyros in the Homeric epics and to Proclus’ summary of the Cypria. In Homeric epic Achilles is only associated with Scyros by means of his son, Neoptolemus: in Il. 19.326 and 19.332, it is said that Neoptolemus is growing up in Scyros, and in Od. 11.506–509 Odysseus travels to Scyros,6 in order to bring Neoptolemus to Troy, where he excels in fighting and kills among others Eurypylus, the son of Telephus. In contrast to the picture painted by the scholiastic

 4 The meaning of these names is disputed. The first three are female and point to the fact that Achilles wore women’s clothes. Κερκυσέραν (< κέρκος, ‘tale’ or ‘penis’) has been emended into Κερκουρᾶν (‘the one who urinates from his tale’); Ἴσσαν may be either associated with the city Issa in Lesbos, named thus after the daughter of Macar or being a name play with the Latin forms Issa and Issus, which were colloquial forms of ipse/ipsa; as for Πύρραν, it may have meant ‘Read-Head’; conversely, Ἄσπετος and Προμηθεύς are male names, meaning ‘immense’, ‘great’ and ‘forethinker’ respectively; see Cameron 2004, 141. 5 This is also the opinion of Burgess 2001, 21. 6 According to Apollod. Epit. 5.11 and P.Rylands 22.7–8, Odysseus is accompanied by Phoenix.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration sources mentioned above and Ptolemaeus Chennus, Peleus willingly sends him (and Patroclus) to the war: Odysseus (Il. 9.252–259) reminds Achilles of the advice Peleus gave his son when he sent him to the war, and Nestor (Il. 11.765–772) recalls in a more detailed manner the episode of his visit (together with Odysseus) to Peleus’ palace in Phthia, as well as the advice Peleus gave to his son before sending him to Troy. The fact that Neoptolemus is presented as both being in Scyros and of an age that he can take part in the war indicates that Homeric epic is aware of an epic tradition in which Achilles had stayed in Scyros, where he had an affair with Deidameia. This version is attested in the Cypria (arg. ll. 129–131 Severyns: ἀποπλέουσι δὲ αὐτοῖς ἐκ τῆς Μυσίας χειμὼν ἐπιπίπτει καὶ διασκεδάννυνται. Ἀχιλλεὺς δὲ Σκύρῳ, προσσχὼν γαμεῖ τὴν Λυκομήδους θυγατέρα Δηϊδάμειαν),7 and is not to be confused with another version (reported by an exegetical scholium on Il. 9.668b), according to which Achilles sacked the island of Scyros at the time of the first recruitment in Aulis to subjugate the Dolopes who had revolted from the rule of Peleus.8 This last version featuring a heroic Achilles sacking Scyros is consonant with Il. 9.668, where it is said that ‘he sacked steep Scyros, the citadel of Enyeus’ (Σκῦρον ἑλὼν αἰπεῖαν, Ἐνυῆος πτολίεθρον).9 We do not need to get involved into fanciful explanations, of the kind entertained by ancient scholars10 who argued that the Scyros Homer is referring to in Il. 9.668 may have been a city and not the island on the NE of Euboea or that Achilles liberated the island from the Dolopes, who had revolted against Peleus. It is understandable that such explanations stemmed from the paradox of having Achilles sack the island11 where he had been offered hospital 7 ‘As they sail away from Mysia, a storm falls upon them and they are scattered. Achilles sets in at Scyros and marries the daughter of Lycomedes, Deidameia’. 8 εἷλε δὲ τὴν Σκῦρον (sc. Ἀχιλλεύς), ὅτε εἰς Αὐλίδα ἐστρατολόγουν, διὰ τὸ εἶναι ἐκεῖ Δόλοπας ἀποστάντας τῆς Πηλέως ἀρχῆς· ἔπλεον εἰς Σκῦρον Δολοπηίδα (fr. epic. auct. ignoti) τότε δὲ καὶ τὸν Νεοπτόλεμον ἐπαιδοποιήσατο. εἴκοσι δὲ ἔτη ἐστὶ πάσης τῆς παρασκευῆς τοῦ πολέμου, ὥστε δύναται ὁ Νεοπτόλεμος ὀκτωκαιδεκαέτης στρατεύειν. 9 This version reflects the school of Aristarchus; see Σ Il. 9.668a [II 538 Erbse] (ὅτι διὰ τούτων καὶ τὴν Σκῦρον πεπολιορκημένην ὑπὸ Ἀχιλλέως μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων πόλεων παραδίδωσιν). 10 See scholia vetera (ad loc.). 11 Proclus does not mention the sack of Scyros by Achilles, who is constantly presented in the Iliad as plundering and destroying various cities (Scyros: 9.668; Lesbos: 9.129; 9.271; 9.664; Tenedos: 11.625; Lyrnessos: 2.691; 19.60; 20.94; 20.191; Pedasos: 20.92; Hypoplacian Thebe: 1.366; 2.691; 6.415; 16.153). But Scyros is a different case, for it cannot be associated with Achilles’ activity in the wider Troad. Scyros is close to mainland Greece and far away from Troy and, most importantly, it was not pro-Trojan. The scholia vetera (T) Il. 9.668 try to explain this reference as the result of Achilles’ attempt to liberate the island from the Dolopes, who had revolted against Peleus. Achilles seems to have had his own tradition of sacking cities (independently

Homer and the Cycle  

ity in the past. This paradox though is based on the belief that Achilles’ hiding and cross-dressing episode at Scyros formed part of the Cypria. According to this line of thought, Homeric poetry had downplayed such a cyclic episode, although it may have been very much aware of its existence. The episode of Achilles’ arrival at Scyros after a storm may have also formed part of the Ilias parva,12 where in an analeptic reference, Odysseus may have told Neoptolemus, while they were still on Scyros, that part of his father’s past life which his mother Deidameia could not have possibly known, i.e. from his departure from Scyros until his death at Troy.13 Such a flashback may have included both Achilles’ forced landing on Scyros because of a storm after the abortive Teuthranian expedition (fr. 24 incerti operis, p. 82 PEG = Il. parv. fr. 4A EGF = Il. parv. fr. 4 GEF) and the description of the famous ‘Pelian’ spear, which was given to Peleus by Chiron and then passed on to Achilles (Il. parv. fr. 5 = PEG = Il. parv. fr. 4B EGF = Il. parv. fr. 5 GEF). This reference to Achilles’ spear may have been exploited by the poet of the Ilias parva during the fatal encounter between Neoptolemus and Eurypylus, Telephus’ son, in Troy. Achilles’ spear by which Eurypylus’ father was wounded and then healed by sympathetic magic, would thus become the ‘bridge’ between two pairs of episodes placed within the same context in the Cypria (Telephus: ll. 125–128 Severyns / Scyros: ll. 129–131 Severyns / Telephus: ll. 132–134 Severyns) and the Il. parv. (Scyros: ll. 217–218 Severyns / Eurypylus: ll. 219–220 Severyns) respectively. The fact that the episode at Scyros is placed next to the episodes with Telephus (Cypria) and Eurypylus (Ilias parva) shows that Telephus is ‘an old component of the Trojan legend’14 and his link with Achilles may be very deep. The Odyssey is clearly reflecting this ‘pairing’ of episodes, when (11.505–522) the analeptic reference to the recruitment of Neoptolemus from Scyros by Odysseus is immediately followed by the killing of Telephus’ son

 from the other Achaeans) and taking female slaves. When he was attached to the Trojan War expedition, his earlier activities were associated with the war against Troy; see West 2011a, 43. Other scholars argue that Achilles’ small-scale expeditions and sack of cities in the Troad belong to a traditional type of story, the ‘Tale of Foray’, and functioned as a kind of initiation rite for heroes who had not acquired their own oikos; see Leaf 1912, 242–248; Nagy 19992, 140– 141 and 272–273; Dué 2002, 3–4, 8–9, 61–65; Waldner 2000, 94–95. I owe this last observation and the bibliographical references to Fantuzzi 2012. 12 Bernabé (fr. 24 PEG) expresses doubts about this, whereas Davies (frs. 4A and 4B EGF) and West (frs. 4–5 GEF) adopt this view. 13 See Davies 1989, 64. 14 Kullmann 2011, 13–25.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration Eurypylus by Neoptolemus at Troy.15 The attempt to associate the fighting activity of the sons with that of their fathers would, thus, effectively create a link with the past as narrated in the Cypria. In a previous publication I have summarized the problem in the following way:16 These two traditions (Achilles hiding at Scyros versus Achilles arriving at Scyros after the Teuthranian expedition) are incompatible. Bernabé wrongly attributes to the Cypria (frs. 19 and 21 PEG) the episode mentioned by the scholia on Il. 19.326. Davies, more cautiously, lists both these fragments under ‘fragmenta incerti loci intra cyclum epicum’ (frs. 4–5 EGF). The Ilias parva may have been a better guess (see Il. 19.326 and Il. parv. 4Α [= fr. 24 incerti operis PEG], but also the problems associated with 4Β EGF). In my view, the Cyclic fragments reflect two rival traditions. In the first, Achilles, sent secretly to Scyros by either Thetis or Peleus to avoid going to Troy, has an affair with Deidameia, who will later give birth to Neoptolemus. In the second tradition, Achilles arrives at Scyros because of a storm, sacks the island, and marries Deidameia, who gives birth to Neoptolemus.

I will now offer further arguments supporting and elaborating my earlier thesis by scrutinizing Proclus’ summary of the Cypria (ll. 111–121 Severyns), by far the most authoritative account of the content of Cyclic epics: (arg. ll. 111–112) (arg. ll. 112–113) (arg. ll. 114–117)

(arg. ll. 118–119) (arg. ll. 119–121)

(arg. ll. 111–112) (arg. ll. 112–113) (arg. ll. 114–117)

(arg. ll. 118–119)

ὁ δὲ παραγενόμενος ἐπὶ τῆς ἐπ’ Ἴλιον στρατείας βουλεύεται μετὰ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ. καὶ πρὸς Νέστορα παραγίνεται Μενέλαος. Νέστωρ δὲ ἐν παρεκβάσει διηγεῖται αὐτῷ ὡς Ἐπωπεὺς φθείρας τὴν Λύκου θυγατέρα ἐξεπορθήθη, καὶ τὰ περὶ Οἰδίπουν καὶ τὴν Ἡρακλέους μανίαν καὶ τὰ περὶ Θησέαν καὶ Ἀριάδνην. ἔπειτα τοὺς ἡγεμόνας ἀθροίζουσιν ἐπελθόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα. καὶ μαίνεσθαι προσποιησάμενον τὸν Ὀδυσσέα ἐπὶ τῷ μὴ θέλειν συστρατεύεσθαι ἐφώρασαν, Παλαμήδους ὑποθεμένου τὸν υἱὸν Τηλἐμαχον ἐπὶ κόλασιν ἐξαρπάσαντες. He returns and plans an expedition against Ilium with his brother, and Menelaus goes to Nestor. Nestor in a digression tells him how Epopeus seduced the daughter of Lykos and was destroyed, the story of Oedipus, the madness of Heracles, and the story of Theseus and Ariadne. Then they gather the leaders, traveling through Greece.

 15 Of all the enemies Neoptolemus has killed in Troy, it is only Eurypylus, Telephus’ son, who is mentioned to the dead Achilles by Odysseus. The wording may also be significant since the compound κατενήρατο (χαλκῷ) in Od. 11.519 is a hapax. 16 Tsagalis 2008, 259.

Homer and the Cycle  

(arg. ll. 119–121)

And they caught Odysseus pretending to be insane because he did not want to join up, after Palamedes advised them to seize his son Telemachus threateningly.

From the summary of Proclus it becomes obvious that the episode of Odysseus’ reluctance to take part in the expedition to Troy, his pretending to be insane, and his revelation by Palamedes, Nestor, and Menelaus occurred in the Cypria at the very end17 of their traveling all around Greece and recruiting the other Achaean leaders.18 This makes it quite unlikely that Odysseus had visited (together with Nestor) Peleus’ palace in Phthia to recruit Achilles. The problems caused by the D-scholium on Il. 19.326 are multiple: although the concluding phrase (ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς) makes the Cypria by far the most probable candidate,19 the complete silence of Proclus concerning such an episode as well as the unsolvable discrepancy between the ἔφθειρε of the D-scholium and the γαμεῖ of Proclus’ summary (arg. l. 131 Severyns) raise serious doubts. The use of ἔφθειρε (‘seduced’) for Achilles with respect to Lycomedes’ daughter Deidameia is at odds with the use of γαμεῖ (‘married’), which is employed for the marriage of Achilles and Deidameia upon his sack of Scyros on the way back from Teuthrania (arg. ll. 130–131 Severyns).20 Kullmann is right that absolute precision on the part of Proclus is not to be sought,21 but it is very surprising that Proclus had decided not to refer at all to the recruitment of Achilles, the best of the Achaeans. The most reasonable explanation is that contrary to Odysseus’ problematic and unheroic recruitment, Achilles had been sent willingly by his father Peleus to Troy and that Proclus, who may well have regarded this episode as of minor importance (in the manner of the recruitment of Palamedes that is also not mentioned in his summary), decided to omit it. It is highly unlikely that the Cypria dealt with two problemat-

 17 Proclus’ καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα συνελθόντες εἰς Αὐλίδα θύουσι (Cypr. arg. l. 122 Severyns) indicates the completion of the recruitment and the transition to the next phase of the preparation for the war. 18 For a useful collection of ancient sources relating to the episode of Odysseus’ madness, see Zografou-Lyra 1987, 69–88. 19 Another, rather remote scenario, would be the Ilias parva, but see Tsagalis 2008, 258–261. 20 Since Proclus’ summary uses γαμεῖ only in the sense of ‘to marry’, e.g. Ilias parva (arg. l. 216 Severyns: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα Δηίφοβος Ἑλένην γαμεῖ); Telegony (arg. ll. 315–316 Severyns: καὶ γαμεῖ Καλλιδίκην βασίλιδα Θεσπρωτῶν), I take that it also has this meaning with respect to Achilles and Deidameia. I pay attention, following Kullmann who agrees on this point, to Proclus’ own ‘narrative’ grammar, not to the general use of γαμεῖ, which can also have the meaning it has in Modern Greek, i.e. ‘to have sexual intercourse’. 21 Kullmann 1960, 259.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration ic and unheroic recruitments (Odysseus and Achilles) but Proclus decided to refer only to the former at the expense of the latter. This thematic predilection is against the principles governing his summarizing technique and can hardly be explained (unless, as argued above, Achilles’ case is not a problematic recruitment).22 Moreover, Proclus refers to traveling all around Greece and gathering the Greek kings (arg. ll. 118–119 Severyns) before turning to the episode of Odysseus (arg. ll. 119–121 Severyns); in other words, if the episode of Achilles at Scyros really formed part of the Cypria, it may have been placed before the episode of Odysseus, which was the last in the list. If this was the case and Odysseus did not form part of the embassy to Peleus, we may start considering the possibility that the Cypria did not include the theme of Achilles hiding in Scyros but an easy recruitment in Phthia at the house of Peleus. In a nutshell, if there is no Odysseus to reveal Lycomedes’ trick, then there may be — at this stage of the plot — no Lycomedes, and hence no Scyros.23 Internal evidence based on analogy further strengthens Kullmann’s scenario against a reluctant Achilles hiding in Scyros. A careful reading of the summary of Proclus shows that the only episode pertaining to the recruitment of Achaean heroes that is narrated is that of Odysseus’ fake madness. Nestor, who is mentioned before that, does not count, since he becomes a member of the embassy24 that recruits various kings from all over Greece. Moreover, Proclus (arg. ll. 112–113 Severyns) mentions that Menelaus first went to Nestor, stayed there for a while (as it can be surmised from the multiple stories Nestor narrates (arg. ll. 114–117 Severyns: (a) Epopeus and the daughter of Lycus, (b) Oedipus, (c) the madness of Heracles, and (d) Theseus and Ariadne), and only then the two of them (I am rather sceptical about Agamemnon) went around Greece to recruit other leaders. The episode of Nestor furnishes Menelaus with a wise ‘helper’ who accompanies him in his recruiting journey. Since Proclus mentions only one more king, Palamedes, who participated in the embassy to Odysseus in order to reveal his fake madness, it is highly unlikely that he would not have done the same thing with Odysseus, i.e. refer to his crucial role in the revelation of Achilles’ hiding at Scyros, should this episode had featured in the Cypria. In  22 See Kullmann (1960, 258–259), who regards the reference in Il. 9.252–256 as reflecting the subject matter of the Cypria. 23 This line of thought leaves us with the problem of Σ (D) Il. 19.326 (516–517 van Thiel) which explicitly mentions Odysseus not only as member of the embassy but also as the person who devised the trick to reveal Achilles; however, see my discussion below. 24 Notice the change from singular to plural: καὶ πρὸς Νέστορα παραγίνεται Μενέλαος (Cypr. arg. ll. 112–113 Severyns) — ἔπειτα τοὺς ἡγεμόνας ἀθροίζουσιν ἐπελθόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα (Cypr. arg. ll. 118–119 Severyns).

Homer and the Cycle  

this light, the absence of any reference to Achilles in the recruiting episodes of the Cypria is better explained. Achilles went willingly to the war and so Proclus mentions in detail the only problematic recruitment, i.e. that of Odysseus, placed last in the list.25 The role of Palamedes is of paramount importance for explaining what is going on in this interpretive conundrum. There are two important elements to be taken into account stemming from the traditional role and function of Palamedes in the Cypria: the first is that Proclus mentions his involvement after ll. 118–120 (Severyns), i.e. after the completion of Menelaus’ and Nestor’s26 going around Greece and recruiting the Greek leaders. This is an indication ex silentio that if Achilles’ recruitment had featured in the Cypria, it should have been placed at this point of the plot. The second point is that Proclus’ summary bears a striking, albeit unnoticed, similarity to Σ (D) Il. 19.326 [van Thiel]: Palamedes and Odysseus, these two famous rivals in the field of polytropie in the Cypria,27 are the ones who devise the trick by which an Achaean leader who is unwilling to participate in the expedition is finally unmasked, namely Odysseus and Achilles respectively.28 The actual phrasing by Proclus (arg. ll. 120–121 Severyns: Παλαμήδους ὑποθεμένου) and Σ (D) Il. 19.326 (ταῖς Ὀδυσσέως ὑποθήκαις, 516– 517 van Thiel) is so similar that it may help us find a way out of this labyrinth. Odysseus plays the same role with Palamedes as the wise man who unfolds disguise,29 metaphorical in the case of ‘mad’ Odysseus and literal in the case of Achilles who is disguised in a woman’s clothes.30 We are not dealing with a

 25 The existence of an oracle according to which Achilles had to take part in the expedition to Troy so that the war may be won by the Achaeans (Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.8) is analogous to another oracle designating that Neoptolemus had to be brought to Troy (after Achilles’ death) so that Ilium may be sacked (Apollod. Epit. 5.9). This piece of information should not be used in reference to an embassy by Odysseus, Nestor, and Phoenix to Scyros (Σ [D] Il. 19.326 [516–517 van Thiel]), since the first oracle explains the dispatch of the embassy to Phthia and not the hiding of Achilles in Scyros, which results from Peleus’ or Thetis’ (Apollod. Bibl. 3.13.8; Σ [D] Il. 1.418 [49 van Thiel]; Hyg. fab. 96) foreknowledge that Achilles was doomed in Troy. 26 Kullmann (1960, 258) adds Agamemnon as a member of the Embassy. 27 See fr. 30 PEG. 28 On a comparison between Odysseus and Palamedes, see Kullmann 2002b, 166–167. 29 Although Odysseus and Palamedes belong to the same type of ‘wise man or hero’, they are traditionally distinguished with respect to the way they employ their mental skills. See Kakridis (1995, 93–94), who rightly notes that Odysseus can be described as a ‘débrouillard’, a person who uses all means at his disposal to achieve his goal, whereas Palamedes is better off in the realm of concrete innovations and practical solutions. 30 The ‘wise man’ or ‘wise hero’ traces his origins in Shamanism and is well attested in many cultures around the world. He excels mainly in the field of mental ability and manages to

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration substitution but with a rival version of the tradition of the Cypria, in which Odysseus together with Phoenix and Nestor visited first Peleus and then Lycomedes’ palace in Scyros. The presence of Phoenix in the place of Menelaus not only shows that there were variants as to the members of the embassy but also sheds light to the problem at hand. In fact, it implicitly tells us that we are dealing with a different version, since Menelaus (the key person in the recruitment because of his personal interest in the expedition) is absent. If we make the reasonable assumption that Phoenix was ignorant of Peleus’ plan to hide Achilles, then it is probable that the version offered by the D-scholium reflects a tendency strikingly different from the one attested in the Iliad, where Odysseus and Nestor went to Peleus’ palace, who at once sent Achilles to Troy together with Phoenix to keep an eye on his young son. It seems then that Σ (D) Il. 19.326 (516–517 van Thiel) reports a version that is the direct opposite from that attested in Iliad 19. The confusion between the two versions can be seen in later authors and commentators: Lycophron31 and Eustathius32 both confuse Odysseus with Palamedes and designate the latter as the one who revealed the disguised Achilles in Scyros.33 We must, therefore, distinguish between two different traditions, which I will call the D-scholium tradition and the Cypria-tradition. While the former emphasizes the positive side of Odysseus as a recruiter of Achilles, the latter highlights his rather negative role, since in the post-Homeric Cypria he tries to avoid his own recruitment and kills Palamedes by trickery with the help of Diomedes.34 With respect to the plot of the Cypria-tradition reflected in the postHomeric Cypria, the recruitment of Achilles may not be problematic at all, i.e. it

 overcome difficulties and solve problems by means of his intellectual supremacy (Kakridis 1995, 93). 31 Alex. 276–278: ὁ νεκροπέρνας, ὃς προδειμαίνων πότμον | καὶ θῆλυν ἀμφὶ σῶμα τλήσεται πέπλον | δῦναι, παρ᾽ ἱστοῖς κερκίδος ψαύσας κρότων. 32 On Il. 19.327 (IV 339 van der Valk): περὶ δὲ τοῦ ἐν Σκύρῳ, τὸν Νεοπτόλεμον τρέφεσθαι τοιαῦτά φασιν οἱ παλαιοί· ὅτι Θέτις, οἷα πάνυ φιλόπαις, ἐκεῖ πρὸ τοῦ Τρωϊκοῦ πολέμου τὸν Ἀχιλλέα ἐξέθετο, ἔνθα καὶ γυναικιζόμενον ὁ Παλαμήδης αὐτὸν ἤλεγξεν, ὡς καὶ ὁ Λυκόφρων ἱστορεῖ. 33 An argument ex silentio is the tendency of later authors to restore the ‘injustice’ of the Homeric tradition with respect to Palamedes; see Kakridis 1995, 98. The possibility that the Iliad has replaced Palamedes with Odysseus (pace Zografou-Lyra 1987, 88–89), in order to accentuate the latter’s positive role in the expedition, seems to me unlikely. Palamedes’ presence makes sense, as his role in the recruitment of Odysseus amply shows, only if Achilles was hiding at Scyros and a trick had to be devised to reveal Achilles’ deceit. 34 See fr. 30 PEG.

Homer and the Cycle  

may be consonant with the version offered by the Iliad.35 In other words, the dramatic reversal between two versions concerning Achilles’ recruitment may well be concerning the Iliad and the Cypria (as well as an earlier oral Cypriatradition) on the one hand, and the D-scholium tradition on the other. Seen from this angle, the Iliadic version of the recruitment of Achilles in Phthia deviates from the Cypria-tradition with respect to Odysseus’ participation36 and of course from his ‘verbatim’ report of Peleus’ words in Il. 9.254–258, which is clearly an Iliadic autoschediasma tailored to the epic’s main theme and the target of the embassy, i.e. to convince Achilles to stop his anger.37 The Iliad (see 9.252–259 and 11.765–772) aimed at presenting Achilles in a positive light, i.e. as willing to gain glory and support the Greek cause. His complaint in Il. 1.152–157 that the Trojans have never harmed him makes more sense against the background of someone who took part in the war willingly. By depriving Peleus of the ability to know Achilles’ fate and attempt to save his son, the Iliadic tradition increased the dramatic weight of Achilles’ lot and highlighted the irony of having the father send his son to his death. In this context, Odysseus’ attempt to convince Achilles to return to battle would be evaluated by the listeners against the backdrop of Odysseus’ fake ‘madness’ in a Cypria-tradition: on the one hand, the true hero Achilles who willingly went to the war is now advised to return to the battlefield by a swindler and trickster who had tried to  35 This suggestion is consonant with the Cypria’s presentation of Achilles as so determined to fight the war in Troy that he even holds back the Achaeans who are willing to return to Greece after the severe fighting going on in Troy (arg. ll. 159–160 Severyns: εἶτα ἀπονοστεῖν ὡρμημένους τοὺς Ἀχαιοὺς Ἀχιλλεὺς κατέχει). It would have been very odd, if Achilles was trying to avoid taking part in the expedition by hiding at Scyros dressed in women’s clothes, and then being so willing to stay at Troy. 36 According to Il. 3.205–224, Odysseus had visited Troy together with Menelaus to convince the Trojans to give Helen back. This is an Iliadic mirroring of the traditional role of Odysseus as an embassy member, who is sent to achieve difficult tasks, i.e. just as is the case with the Iliadic version of Odysseus’ and Nestor’s visit to Phthia. Dictys Cretensis (1.4) includes a third member in the embassy sent to Troy for Helen before the war, Palamedes. The same is the case with the embassy to Phthia: according to Tzetzes (Allegoriae Iliadis Prolegomena 455–458) Palamedes went together with Nestor and Odysseus to Phthia to recruit Achilles. Palamedes’ rivalry with Odysseus with respect to his participation in an embassy can be also seen in the episode of his journey to the island of Delos to bring the Oinotropoi to Troy, who would save the Achaean army from famine (which caused Odysseus’ envy and resulted in Palamedes’ drowning by Odysseus and Diomedes, Cypr. fr. 30 PEG = fr. 20 EGF [Paus. 10.31.2 on Polygnotus’ paintings at Delphi]). A different tradition is reported by the 4th century rhetor Alcidamas (Odysseus 1.20), who says that Palamedes bribed Cinyras, king of Cyprus, and convinced him not to take part in the Trojan War; see Kakridis 1995, 95. 37 See Kullmann 1960, 258–259.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration avoid recruitment in the first place.38 The point is subtle but effectively made: Achilles who went to Troy on his own free will shall not return home, while Odysseus who did not want to join the expedition will finally return to Ithaca. Peleus and Laertes add further force to this antithesis, showing how elaborate the interplay between the various epic traditions, Homeric and un-Homeric, can be.

. The Nature and Function of the Principal Sources I will now turn my attention to the nature and function of the ancient evidence quoting this episode and will discuss the problem of subscription and the possibility of conflation of various sources. I will then venture on offering a scenario for the origins of the mythical episode of Achilles’ hiding in Scyros.

.. The Subscription at the End of the D-Scholium The citation ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς (Σ [D] Il. 19.326 [516–517 van Thiel]) is not a ‘blanket’ citation39 pertaining to the whole historia, but only to its last part, i.e. the birth of Neoptolemus, which is the core of the lemma. Van RossumSteenbeek40 observes with respect to subscriptions in the MH (Mythographus Homericus): […] subscriptions should not be regarded as real sources to which the historiae go back, but rather as references to authors who deal with the same subject. Sometimes the complete story, other times part of the story, a particular detail, or only the subject seems to have been told or mentioned by the author found in the subscription.

The subject or topic of this historia is the naming of Neoptolemus, which comes at the end but has triggered the entire lemma appended to Il. 19.326. In other words, it is the Iliadic reference to Neoptolemus being in Scyros that the scholiast aims at explaining, and for this reason he appends a whole historia that in its core reflects the MH. Given that ᾽the MH collection was originally meant to be  38 See Davies 2007, 149–150. 39 On this term, see Cameron (2004, 93), who classifies surviving mythographic works of the Roman period into two classes according to the way they cite their sources: (a) those quoting them in the text, when the reference is made (Apollodorus, [Eratosthenes], Hyginus); (b) those that give them as blanket citations ‘for the whole story at the close of a section (MH, [Plutarch], many of the scholia) or in the margins (Parthenius and Antoninus Liberalis)’. 40 van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 112.

The Nature and Function of the Principal Sources  

read or consulted together with Homer᾽,41 the subscription ἡ ἱστορία παρὰ τοῖς κυκλικοῖς may be simply reflecting the source mentioned originally to account for a particular detail, i.e. the birth of Neoptolemus. The reference42 that the neoteroi related that it was there, i.e. on Scyros, where the women’s quarters were found, in which Achilles dressed as a woman slept with (?)43 Deidameia, as well as the mention44 that some (τινές) authors say that it was there (on Scyros) that Thetis hid Achilles, cannot designate the poets of the Cycle. This can be clearly seen by the fact that the scholiast (Il. 19.326a1) immediately draws the line between their version (μὲν) and that (δὲ) offered by the poet of the Ilias parva, according to whom Achilles arrived at Scyros driven by a storm on his way back from Mysia. Since the presence of Achilles in Scyros dressed as a woman can only refer to the same version with Thetis’ hiding him there, it can be inferred that the phrase οἱ μὲν νεώτεροι (Il. 9.668b) does not designate the poets of the Epic Cycle. The fact that in this scholium (Il. 9.668b), the scholiast draws the line between the neoteroi and the poet of the Iliad who explains Achilles’ presence in Scyros as the result of his sacking activity shows that, in this matter, Homer adopted the same version which we see reflected in the Ilias parva and had also featured in the Cypria (arg. ll. 129–131 Severyns). Therefore, the reference to the neoteroi may here simply designate another source and not the Cyclic poets.

.. Conflation of Various Sources To identify the sources of the historia offered by the Σ (D) Il. 19.326, we must first examine what Apollodorus has to say on this matter.45 Apollodorus refers only to the episode of Achilles hiding in Scyros in the non-Trojan section of his work. This can be safely inferred from the fact that the reference in the Bibliotheca (3.13.8) belongs to the section devoted to the genealogy of Peleus, where the  41 van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 117. 42 See Σ (T) Il. 9.668b. 43 The text is uncertain: κατακλίνουσιν. 44 See Σ (T) Il. 19.326a1. 45 Bibl. 3.13.8: λέγοντος οὐ δύνασθαι χωρὶς αὐτοῦ Τροίαν αἱρεθῆναι, Θέτις προειδυῖα ὅτι δεῖ στρατευόμενον αὐτὸν ἀπολέσθαι, κρύψασα ἐσθῆτι γυναικείᾳ ὡς παρθένον Λυκομήδει παρέθετο. κἀκεῖ τρεφόμενος τῇ Λυκομήδους θυγατρὶ Δηιδαμείᾳ μίγνυται, καὶ γίνεται παῖς Πύρρος αὐτῷ ὁ κληθεὶς Νεοπτόλεμος αὖθις. Ὀδυσσεὺς δὲ μηνυθέντα παρὰ Λυκομήδει ζητῶν Ἀχιλλέα, σάλπιγγι χρησάμενος εὗρε. καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον εἰς Τροίαν ἦλθε. συνείπετο δὲ αὐτῷ Φοῖνιξ ὁ Ἀμύντορος.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration context is not-Trojan at all, whereas the episode is completely missing from the Epitome, which agrees with Proclus’ version on the content of the Cypria.46 In fact, Apollodorus’ version47 clearly goes back to Euripides:48 in both versions Thetis is the one who dresses Achilles in women’s clothes before sending him to Scyros. Lycomedes is completely unaware of Achilles’ presence in Scyros. The picture we get from Σ (D) Il. 19.326 (reflecting to a large extent the MH) is not only quite different but also less coherent: Peleus, who plays the role of Thetis, just sends Achilles to Lycomedes, and it is the king of Scyros who dresses him in women’s clothes; Odysseus, Nestor and Phoenix as the three members of the embassy (instead of Odysseus, Diomedes, and Nestor)49 are an odd group, since we have to assume that Peleus is acting with the help of Lycomedes but against the will and knowledge of Phoenix. I will now argue that the scholiast conflates50 Iliadic with Cyclic material that did not come from the Cypria (the renaming of Neoptolemus makes sense only in the Ilias parva), and another source (with which I will deal in detail in the last part of this chapter). My argument is based on (a) the function of Peleus; (b) the composition of the embassy; and (c) the naming of Neoptolemus.

 46 For example, and with respect to the issue at hand, they both mention the effort of Odysseus to avoid recruitment, the episode of Telephus, and the recruitment of Neoptolemus and subsequent killing of Eurypylus (on which see below). 47 According to van der Valk (1963, 309), when the compiler of the MH started his work, he tried to cite his sources consistently, and so referred also to the Bibliotheca. In the course of his work, he changed attitude, since he realized that a standard mythographical compendium (a common manual, as Van der Valk calls it) would not enhance his status as a mythographer. He decided to avoid citing the Bibliotheca and restrict himself to other authors. In our case, it is unlikely that the source of the MH is the Bibliotheca and that the unknown commentator referred to Euripides by the term κυκλικός. The reference to the κυκλικοί would no doubt have created the impression that the commentator is a learned author, since in his era the Cyclic epics would have been read by very few people. On this point, see van der Valk 1963, 333. 48 See Jouan (1966, 206), who draws attention to the striking correspondence between the hypothesis of Euripides’ Scyrioi and the text of Apollodorus. 49 See Luppe 1985, 11. 50 A similar conflation can be seen in the scholia parisina (Cramer, An. Graec. Par. 3.26), where the diction pertaining to the Achilles episode in Scyros (as reported by the Σ [D] Il. 19.326) is used in the first part of the scholium parisinum and is then combined with the other version (post Teuthraniam), which featured in the Ilias parva (reported by Σ [bT] Il. 19.326).

The Composition of the Embassy  

. Peleus The only sources featuring Peleus as the parent who foresees his child’s future death in Troy are the P.Berol. 13930 and the Σ (D) Il. 19.326.51 All the other sources as well as artistic representations have Thetis playing this role. Given that this papyrus shares striking similarities in diction and theme with Σ (D) Il. 19.326 (see Appendix 3), we may safely conclude that the MH had used Peleus instead of Thetis. It is hard to speculate on the reasons of this change, but both the P.Berol. 13930 and the scholium D seem to be influenced by the immediate Iliadic context: when Achilles assigns (in a typically Homeric manner) to his θυμός his hope that it will be only himself who will die at Troy, he immediately recalls his father Peleus, an old man in Phthia, who may be by now dead (Il. 19.328–330). Such confusion may have resulted from the fact that ‘the MH collection was originally meant to be read or consulted together with Homer’.52

. The Composition of the Embassy It would have been completely unthinkable to make Phoenix look for Achilles, while Peleus would be trying to hide him. Phoenix, who is a μετανάστης, is made king of the Dolopes53 and is always supporting Peleus. How, then, can he participate in an embassy acting against Peleus’ will? In the P.Berol. 13930, in which the embassy includes only Odysseus and Diomedes, there is no such problem. The differences between the papyrus and the scholium are due to the influence of a source that enjoyed greater prestige because of Euripides with respect to the former, and the higher level of Iliadic influence with respect to the latter. Two features attested in the papyrus (Odysseus and Diomedes as well as the ignorance of Lycomedes about Achilles’ presence in Scyros) seem to be of Euripidean origin or of a source following Euripides (Apollodorus may have been a good guess but Diomedes is missing from the embassy there). Very much unlike the Cypria, in the historia offered by the scholium D there is a split between Agamemnon and Menelaus who recruited the other Achaean leaders (Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἑλένην ἁρπάσαντος Ἀγαμέμνων καὶ Μενέλαος τοὺς Ἕλλη 51 In the Heroicus (731–732), Philostratus the Elder gives a version, according to which Peleus sent Achilles to Scyros in order to avenge the death of his xenos Theseus, whom Lycomedes had killed. This story, which does not include the hiding motif, is of no value to our research. See Kossatz-Deissmann LIMC, s. v. ‘Achilleus’, 56. 52 van Rossum-Steenbeek 1997, 118. 53 See Il. 9.484 (Δολόπεσσιν ἀνάσσων) and Σ Il. 9.668b [II 538 Erbse].

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration νας κατὰ τῶν Τρώων ἐστρατολόγησαν) and Odysseus, Nestor, and Phoenix who recruited Achilles. In the Cypria, it is Nestor and Menelaus (we do not know about Agamemnon) that recruit all the Achaean leaders but Odysseus, since Palamedes is added to their embassy to carry out the difficult task of exposing the fake madness of the Ithacan king. Interestingly enough, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Odysseus, Nestor, Idomeneus and Phoenix are asked by Achilles to stay with him in Il. 19.310–311, just before starting to lament Patroclus and recalling Neoptolemus from Scyros (19.315–337). With the exception of Idomeneus,54 all the others are mentioned in Σ (D) Il. 19.326. Phoenix, as Edwards observes,55 rarely appears outside Iliad 9 (in Ιl. 16.196 as commander of the fourth regiment of Achilles’ Myrmidons; in Ιl. 23.360, where he is placed in a special position to inspect the chariot race in the Funeral Games for Patroclus — Ιl. 17.555 and 561 must be excluded, for it is Athena who takes the shape of Phoenix and addresses Menelaus). As to the three members of the embassy (in the scholium D), Odysseus, Nestor, and Phoenix also feature (Il. 9.252–259; 11.765–785) in the context of the visit of the first two to the house of Peleus to recruit Achilles. Phoenix could not have featured in this embassy, but he is both mentioned by Peleus in these two cases and participates in the new embassy to Achilles in Iliad 9. In my view, the scholiast (on Il. 19.326) is conflating details from his immediate and larger Iliadic context with the information he draws from his source about Achilles’ hiding at Scyros. This effectively explains the distinction in the scholium between the two Atreidae recruiting the rest of the Greeks and the embassy of Odysseus, Nestor, and Phoenix who go to Phthia and then to Scyros to recruit only Achilles.

 54 See Il. 13.376–382, where Idomeneus kills Othryoneus (who came to the war on the promise of Priam’s daughter, Cassandra) and utters an ironical taunt-speech offering to the dead Othryoneus the loveliest of Agamemnon’s daughters. Given this small digression, which seems to have been invented ad hoc, and the detail concerning Othryoneus’ coming to Troy at an early age (Il. 13.364), Idomeneus may be pointing to the situation in Iliad 9, in which Achilles, who also came to the war at a very early age, is offered (among other things) one of the daughters of Agamemnon as his wife (Il. 9.283–290). The short digression on Othryoneus may have been based on stark analogies with the stories of Agamemnon and Achilles: for Cassandra, whom Othryoneus wanted as his wife, will be brought back to Argos as Agamemnon’s slave, while his name (from Mt Othrys) may be reflecting Orestes’ name (from the word ὄρος). Tellingly enough, Achilles is promised to become (Il. 9.284) Agamemnon’s son-in-law on an equal status with Orestes. The Iliadic storyteller is clearly building on both the scene in Iliad 9 and the tradition of the Nostoi (where Cassandra will be murdered together with Agamemnon in Argos). 55 1991, 271 on Il. 19.311–313.

The Naming of Neoptolemus  

. The Naming of Neoptolemus Instead of explaining56 the metonomasia of Pyrrhus into Neoptolemus in terms of his father’s participation in the war at a young age,57 which is what all other sources unfailingly do,58 the scholium D on Il. 19.326,59 Eustathius (on Il. 19.327 [IV 338 van der Valk]),60 and Servius on Aen. 2.13 (= T III)61 ‘transfer’ the same explanation to Neoptolemus himself. This is a very strong indication that the scholiast and/or his source are using material from the Ilias parva,62 at a point just before the final subscription,63 and that this tradition is taken on by later authorities such as Eustathius and Servius. The naming of the son on the basis of the features pertaining to his father is common practice in Greek epic, as the names of Astyanax, Eurysaces, and Telemachus make evident.64 In the episode of the Ilias parva, Odysseus and Phoenix recruited Achilles’ son from Scyros. If the Ilias parva followed the Cypria only to the extent that Achilles had a son in Scyros, then Odysseus could very well had told Neoptolemus (whose name was changed from Pyrrhus by Phoenix once he convinced him to come to Troy) about his father’s past. Could this tale include the hidingepisode? I do not think so. The strongest among many other reasons is that Il. parv. fr. 4 (GEF) shows that Odysseus’ analeptic narrative to Neoptolemus in-

 56 Cebrián (2007, 386–387) distinguishes between a MH I, whose purpose was solely to place in comparison what was said in the Homeric and the Cyclic epics, and a MH II, who added etymological explanations. 57 Achilles being the youngest of the Achaeans must have belonged to the Faktenkanon of archaic Greek epic; see, beyond the Epic Cycle, [Hes.] Cat. fr. 204.85–93 M-W. On the motif of ‘young age’ in early epic and the cases of Cyanippus and Tisamenus, see Cingano 2010, 80–83. 58 See e.g. Σ (AaT) Il. 19.326a1; Paus. 10.26.4 (and the discussion below). 59 ἥτις ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐγέννησε Πύρρον τὸν ὕστερον Νεοπτόλεμον κληθέντα, ὅστις τοῖς Ἕλλησι νέος ὢν συνεστρατεύσατο μετὰ θάνατον τοῦ πατρός. 60 Νεοπτόλεμος δὲ ἐπεκλήθη ὁ τοῦ Ἀχιλλέως οὗτος υἱός, διότι νέος ὢν ἐπολέμησε. 61 Pyrrus admodum puer euocatus ad bellum est; unde dictus est Neoptolemus vέος εἰς πτόλεμοv. 62 See also Jouan 1966, 214 n. 1, which he does not discuss further. 63 I agree with Cebrián (2007, 387) who notes that ‘there is no evidence that this episode was narrated in the Cypria, as one would suppose given its position in the structure of the Epic Cycle’, but I disagree with him, when he says that ‘under this generic formulation the MH encapsulates the entire epic tradition that is different from Homer […]. The negative portrayal of the Iliad’s protagonist, almost a caricature, makes us think of a late epic text’. 64 Marin 2008–2009, 230.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration cluded the storm,65 which means that it pertains to the events after Teuthrania. The same reasoning applies to the appearance of Achilles’ phantom to his son upon his arrival at Troy. Achilles could not have given a different version than Odysseus. Moreover, it would be odd to try to convince Neoptolemus to come to Troy, if his father had attempted to avoid participating in the expedition. That said, this scenario must be rejected.66 With respect to the renaming of Pyrrhus as Neoptolemus there is one more piece of information, which we need to discuss. It is listed, erroneously in my view, as Il. parv. fr. 21 (PEG) = fr. 16 (EGF) = fr. 19 (GEF) [= Paus. 10.26.4 (III 151 Rocha Pereira)]: τοῦ δὲ Ἀχιλλέως τῷ παιδὶ Ὅμηρος μὲν Νεοπτόλεμον ὄνομα ἐν ἁπάσῃ οἱ τίθεται τῇ ποιήσει: τὰ δὲ Κύπρια ἔπη φησὶν ὑπὸ Λυκομήδους μὲν Πύρρον, Νεοπτόλεμον δὲ ὄνομα ὑπὸ Φοίνικος αὐτῷ τεθῆναι, ὅτι Ἀχιλλεὺς ἡλικίᾳ ἔτι νέος πολεμεῖν ἤρξατο. Homer uses the name Neoptolemus for Achilles’ son in all his poetry. The Cypria say that he was given the name Pyrrhus by Lycomedes, but Neoptolemus by Phoenix because Achilles started fighting when he was still young.

What Pausanias says is that the Cypria narrated (a) that Lycomedes had named Achilles’ son ‘Pyrrhus’, and (b) that he was later named Neoptolemus by Phoenix, because Achilles started fighting (at Troy) while he was still young. Achilles’ son must have been born when Achilles was in Scyros, either hiding or after Teuthrania, for otherwise Achilles’ knowledge (Il. 19.326–327) about his son being raised in this island cannot be explained. In the Iliad, the birth of Neoptolemus is not explicitly stated but all references to Achilles’ son point to the direction of the event after the Teuthranian expedition. Kullmann67 is right to argue that Neoptolemus’ birth was critically placed at the very end of the whole undertaking of the Teuthranian expedition. In this way, the Iliad needs only to specify a tiny part of this first abortive expedition with which the birth of  65 The expression ἀργαλέον λιμένα does not refer to an upcoming danger, i.e. Achilles’ facing the Dolopians and sacking the island, but has the meaning of ‘difficult to attain, dangerous’, as Severyns (1938b, 239–241) has convincingly shown. 66 See also the pertinent remarks of Marco Fantuzzi (per litteras electronicas): ‘The “approach” to Scyros of Achilles in the Ilias parva involves a forced landing following a tempest; therefore, it seems a bit strange that this poem could be a palinode of the eroticized version of the Cypria. Besides, if the Σ (T) Il. 9.668 champions the martial dimension of the Ilias parva, it is simply not probable that this poem had both the forced landing and the stay of Achilles in Scyros under parental compulsion (in any case, the coexistence of these two motifs in a single poem is extrememly improbable)’. 67 Kullmann 1960, 266.

The MH on the Story of Eurypylus: Some Observations by Analogy  

Neoptolemus was associated, i.e. the Scyros event. If Neoptolemus was associated with the hiding of his father in Scyros, then the Iliad would not have linked Neoptolemus with Achilles’ arrival at the island after the expedition to Teuthrania. Phoenix’s naming of Neoptolemus could only take place in the Ilias parva, which may have well included by means of a flashback narrative by Phoenix the earlier arrival of Achilles at the island, the marriage to Deidameia, and the birth of Neoptolemus. This is a strong argument about the fact that Pausanias’ reference to the Cypria pertains only to Lycomedes’ naming of Achilles’ son. The use of μὲν...δὲ is not against this interpretation, while the subsequent causal clause clearly delineates the context within which the giving of the second name could only take place. After all, Phoenix was the only person who went twice to Scyros (in this context): the first time with Achilles’ army after Teuthrania and the second time as a member of the embassy (together with Odysseus), who recruited Neoptolemus from Scyros after the death of Achilles.

. The MH on the Story of Eurypylus: Some Observations by Analogy The D-scholia on the Odyssey (11.519–521) include a historia, according to which Eurypylus, the son of Astyoche and Telephus was ruling the Mysians. Priam, after finding out about Eurypylus’ strength (motif of ‘exclusive participation’), asked him to help the Trojans. When Eurypylus refused to do so because his father Telephus had promised that neither he nor his descendants would fight at the side of the Trojans (on which condition Achilles had healed the wound of Telephus), Priam bribed Astyoche by a golden vine,68 which had been made by Hephaestus and offered as present to Zeus, who gave it to Laomedon so that he would allow Zeus’ beloved Ganymedes to be sent to Olympus as a wine-pourer of the gods. From Laomedon it was passed on to his descendants until it

 68 The feature of the fatal vine is also present, though not as a bribing gift, in the story of Eurypylus’ father, Telephus. According to Σ (D) Il. 1.59, Telephus was caught up in a vine while trying to escape from the pursuit of Achilles in the Teuthranian expedition, because Dionysus was angry against him for not having received proper honor. In this light, Achilles, Telephus, and Eurypylus’ lives are linked in Trojan myth through Dionysus. This scholium is included in the Cypria only by Bernabé (fr. 20 PEG). See Aloni 2007, 87.

  Cypria fr. 19 (PEG, GEF): A Reconsideration reached Priam. Eurypylus was killed at Troy by Achilles’ son Neoptolemus,69 as a punishment for breaking his promise. This story, which is known to the Odyssey (11.521: γυναίων εἵνεκα δώρων), is narrated by Acusilaus (fr. 40a EGM) and the Cycle (Σ Eur. Tr. 822 = ΙΙ 365 Schwartz; Eur. Or. 13