Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism: Textual Genres and 'Reality' from Homer to Heliodorus 9783110638851, 9783110636369

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Michael Lipka Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism

MythosEikonPoiesis

Herausgegeben von Anton Bierl Wissenschaftlicher Beirat: Gregory Nagy, Richard Martin

Band 13

Michael Lipka

Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism Textual Genres and ‘Reality’ from Homer to Heliodorus

ISBN 978-3-11-063636-9 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-063885-1 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-063916-2 ISSN 1868-5080 Library of Congress Control Number: 2021943148 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. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

To the ASCSA and BSA, most generous institutions of serene scholarship, and to their beautiful gardens.

Foreword and Acknowledgements This book is the slowly ripening fruit of my fascination with the representation of communicating gods in ancient Greek polytheism. Over more than a decade, it has benefited from the generous advice of many scholars who have commented on different versions of individual chapters at different times: Lucia Athanassaki, Ewen Bowie, Frederick Brenk, John Dillon, Nanno Marinatos, Donald Mastronarde, John Mikalson, Robert Parker, Christopher Pelling, Spyridon Rangos, Antonios Rengakos, Jörg Rüpke, and Bernd Seidensticker are those whom I still recall. I wholeheartedly thank them ˗and others who contributed to the book˗ for their time and their instructive criticism. Two scholars in particular facilitated the publication of this book. Georgia Petridou, the (initially anonymous) reviewer, put at my disposal her profound expertise and even greater generosity in sponsoring an approach that responded critically to ˗rather than continuing˗ her own contributions to the field. Even more, I must thank Anton Bierl, editor of MEP, who stood by the book unreservedly, devoted much time to scholarly and editorial discussions, was always reliable, efficient, available and quick in his judicious responses, in a word, a παράδειγμα φιλίας. As for the more technical aspects of the completed version of the book, Katharina Legutke, acquisitions editor of classical studies at DeGruyter, as well as Anne Hiller and Ulla Schmidt, both responsible for the production process, saw the text through the press in a professional, unbureaucratic, and always good-humored mood. In particular, Ulla Schmidt was extremely generous with her time and her acumen, in ensuring the swift and accurate realization of hundreds of corrections in the numerous proofs. Besides, Brian McNeil checked the English (and thereby also its contents). Brian’s astonishing efficiency in reading through large amounts of texts with incredible speed and still painstaking attention to detail is only matched by his even greater kindness of reading similar versions again and again. Still, in terms of patience no one could possibly match my wife, Elena, who for yet another decade bore my quirks and long absences in Athens with her characteristic stoic and caring resilience. I have tried to include relevant bibliography until 2020, with a deliberate emphasis on more recent publications. But while I thereby try to be as up˗to˗date and balanced as possible, I refrain from heaping up bibliography for the bibliography’s sake. Given that the book covers a millennium of textual production in more than a dozen genres, no one will expect to find a full discussion of all relevant approaches that scholars in the past have taken to individual issues. Instead, I will give precedence to my own argument and respond primarily to https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-001

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Foreword and Acknowledgements

those approaches which either reinforce or oppose it. Although I have tried hard to read and sift most relevant bibliography, I am aware that, inevitably, I will have missed some important contributions. Still, despite the truism that the bibliography is enormous, let it be said that omission does not automatically imply ignorance on my part. Relevance and focus remain debatable matters, especially when dealing with such an enormous bulk of textual material. My translations are mostly adaptations from existing translations or new translations from scratch. Preferably, due to availability, I rely on the most recent Loeb translations. As for transcriptions of proper names, I prioritize lucidity over consistency. The same holds true of my abbreviations of ancient sources. Most of them are based on the 9th edition of Liddell & Scott (1940), while some follow the fourth edition of the Oxford Classical Dictionary (2012); others are my own. I generally adhere to Latin or English, when referring to work titles, but in the case of fragments, I normally offer a transcription of the Greek titles (without diacritics) because such a procedure facilitates identification better than translating the Greek title into Latin or English. As for the numbering of fragments, in those cases in which I follow standard editions such as PCG and TrGF, I do not mark the source edition specifically. For reasons of convenience (although not systematically), I sometimes refer the reader to the Loeb translations of dramatic fragments. Here, the introduction to the relevant plays is often very useful to get a quick idea of the highly conjectural contexts or contents. Where I quote fragments according to less standardized collections, I mark the source by the surname of the editor, whose edition I use. Like its three precursors, this book was written on the second floor of the Davis Wing of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (= ASCSA), in the Byzantine Room of the British School at Athens (= BSA), and in the beautiful gardens that surround them. It is with profound and long˗overdue gratitude that I dedicate it to these timeless havens of scholarly contemplation.

Contents Introduction

1

Epic 25 Iliad and Odyssey: Epiphanies 25 Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica: Epiphanies 33 Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: Epiphanies 35 Iliad and Odyssey: Dreams 39 43 Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica: Dreams Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: Dreams 44 Comparative Aspects and Reality 46 Narrative Hymns 51 54 Disguised Gods Undisguised Gods 56 Hymnic Parody: The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) 63 Narrative Hymns and Cult Didactic Poetry 69 Hesiod’s Theogony Parmenides 70 Callimachus’ Aetia Sappho’s Lyric

69 72

75

Drama 79 83 Introducing the Plot Concluding the Plot 91 Reversal Epiphanies 98 Fully Emplotted Epiphanies 100 Dionysus: Deus Praesentissimus 107 Zeus: Deus Absentissimus 120 128 Dreams in Drama Historiography 137 Pre˗Imperial Period: Epiphanies 138 Imperial Period: Epiphanies 148 Dreams 151 Historical Biography 157 Epiphanies 158

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Epiphanic Daimons 162 Dreams

160

Periegesis 165 165 Epiphanies Dreams 169 Autobiography

173

Epigraphic Genres 181 182 Public Inscriptions Private Inscriptions 196 Erotic Novel 203 Epiphanies 204 207 Dreams Epiphanic Ecphrases 212 Epiphanization of Mortals 214 216 Homeric Imitations Medical and Philosophical Treatises on Dreams Neoplatonic Treatises 228 Plotinus Iamblichus 229

219

227

Magical Recipes 233 ‘Mithras Liturgy’ 236 Conclusions 247 Generic Patterns 247 Reality and ‘Epiphany˗Mindedness’ 248 Epiphanies in the Lifeworld and Intentional Reality 249 Dreams in the Lifeworld and Intentional Reality 252 Divine Fiction Versus Piety and Religion? The Question of ‘Aetiologies’ 254 Bibliography General Index

257 287

Index of Ancient Sources

299

Introduction ‘It is a mark of the trained mind never to expect more precision in the treatment of any subject than the nature of that subject permits’. Arist. EN 1094b 23˗25

More than 30 years ago, H. S. Versnel posed the question: ‘What did ancient man see when he saw a god?’¹ Versnel responded magisterially by drawing attention to the occasion˗boundedness of epiphanies and ways of seeing. Meanwhile, he remained indifferent to the occasion˗boundedness of the very sources on which he based his argument. Versnel’s seminal contribution thus reflects a scholarly trend which has not changed over the decades: while students of Greek and Roman religion are virtually always alert to the occasion˗boundedness of religious phenomena, they are curiously indifferent to the occasion˗boundedness or generic parameters of their sources. Generic questions are normally left to the literary critic or art historian respectively, who in turn is less interested in religious matters. Nevertheless, it is the contention of this book that religious phenomena and genre must be viewed together. In fact, on methodological grounds, an inquiry into the occasion˗boundedness of the representations should precede the investigation of the occasion˗boundedness of the represented concepts, because the former determines the latter. This, combined with Heath’s insight that ‘there are no genreless texts,’² makes us modify Versnel’s question, and ask: ‘What did ancient man see in reality when he was represented as seeing a god?’ Such a reformulation implies a focus on the generic boundaries of representations of ‘seeing the gods’ as well as a focus on ‘seeing in reality’. There is much more at stake here than a pedantic insistence on the truism that different sources represent religious ‘reality’ differently. Rather, the task at hand is to detect ‘representational patterns’ behind these differences and by doing so to open up the studies of Greek religion to the concept of ‘fiction’. For it seems to me that modern scholarship tacitly construes narrative ‘fiction’ in opposition to ‘religion’: if Homer’s epiphanies are ‘religious’, so the argument runs, they cannot be understood as mere fiction. Such an approach goes along with the postulate of an ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of the Greeks, i. e. their willingness to consider epiphanic Homeric gods as constituent ˗or at least normal˗ elements of the human lifeworld. Prominent scholars in the field take such ‘epiph Versnel 1987.  Heath 2004, 163 quoted and discussed by Goldhill 2008, 185 f. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-002

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Introduction

any˗mindedness’ for granted. In the study just quoted, Versnel implies that ancient man thought he could see the gods. Graf argues: ‘Epiphanies were real, and they were vital. Gods were irrelevant if they could not manifest themselves to humans … such appearances were wide˗spread, and were widely believed …’.³ Platt and Petridou in their monographic studies on epiphanies locate the ‘Sitz im Leben’ of epiphanies in Greek ‘culture’. Platt, for instance, intends to show that the ‘cultural discourse about the manifestation of deities and their human worshippers, and the mediating role played by representation in both the formation and communication of such epiphanies,’ are a ‘major cultural preoccupation’.⁴ Petridou claims that ‘the ubiquitous presence of epiphany in Greek art, literature, and epigraphy is … a reflection of its centrality in the Greek cultural tradition’.⁵ And according to Johnston, the audience is reminded by the Homeric Hymns that ‘at any moment gods might be walking through the human world in disguise’.⁶ This book is written to challenge this communis opinio. I will argue that if there had been a general Greek ‘epiphany˗mindedness,’ one would expect to find it evenly distributed over all or most textual representations. Patently, this is not the case. Only a minority of poetic genres (epic, narrative hymns, drama) represent epiphanies ˗as fiction˗ on a regular basis and normally with an exclusively dramatic or dramaturgic intent. However, the majority of poetic genres is reluctant or even hostile to represent epiphanies: this applies to iambic, elegiac, epigrammatic or even lyric poetry (except for Sappho’s allegories of Aphrodite). Didactic poetry, as investigated here, has only epiphany dreams. Epinicians are surprisingly unwilling to represent epiphanies or epiphany dreams, and where they do so (as in Pindar’s Pythian 4 featuring the campaign of the Argonauts, or the dream epiphany of Athena in Pindar’s Olympian 13), their models are clearly or most likely epic.⁷ Furthermore, all historical genres dealt with here (historiography, historical biography, periegesis, autobiography), which by the way all claim to faithfully represent reality, omit epiphanies or represent them only by distancing themselves through stylistic buffers such as ‘it is said that’ (I will have more to say about this ‘anecdotal mode’ below) with a clear tendency to chronological and local marginalization, while the same genres represent divinatory dreams in the third person authorial voice (= the ‘critical’ mode) time and again. Philosophical and medical treatises systematically ignore epiphanies,     

Graf 2004, 113. Platt 2011, 23. Petridou 2015, 11. Johnston 2018, 109. Cf. also the ‘epic’ epiphanies at Pi. N. 10.15 f., 10.50˗52, Ol. 1.71˗74.

Introduction

3

while they display a sustained interest in divinatory dreams. The reluctance to represent epiphanies is especially striking in the case of private inscriptions, where one would expect regular references to epiphanic lifeworld experiences, given that the epiphanic dream experiences are so frequently referred to in the epigraphic dossier. Curiously, the allegedly most epiphanic god, Dionysus, is never epiphanic (in the sense of ‘visible’) in the inscriptional evidence; while Zeus ˗inexplicably, if we believe in ubiquitous epiphanies in the human lifeworld˗ is not epiphanic even in those few poetic genres that cherish the representation of epiphanies. I hasten to add that I am not interested here in the question whether the Greeks vaguely ‘sense’ their gods to be potentially present. I will take it as a given that they do. I will also not question that the Greeks think of their gods primarily as persons, for here I fully agree with Versnel (who follows Burkert against Vernant): ‘… in every˗day religious practice individual gods were practically never conceived of as powers, let alone as cultural products, but were in the first place envisaged as persons with individual characters and personalities’.⁸ What I will be interested in is the question whether the Greeks may actually ‘see’ their gods in reality in human shape as human characters with the iconographic markers attributed to them by the arts in the human lifeworld. The short answer will be that there is virtually no material to support this view, and plenty of evidence against it. Not only is the distribution over different genres of epiphanic representations restricted; even within the same genre, the arrangement of epiphanic representations is not random. Rather, unlike the representations of many other realia within any given plot, epiphanic representations are normally positioned at specific neuralgic points of the narrative. In fact, it is the conceptual distance to human reality that makes them such a valuable structural device. I believe that we can isolate numerous textually/generically determined representational patterns which are largely detached from Greek ritual or religion. It will be my task, first, to reveal these generic patterns and, second, to demonstrate that these patterns cannot be reasonably applied to a more general framework called ‘culture’. They remain largely within the world of textual fiction. This course of reasoning leads me to numerous ‘heretical’ (though not necessarily new) readings such as that –unlike, e. g., choral passages˗ epiphanic representations in Greek drama have nothing to do with ritual or a particular theological ‘sense’ of religion; or that ‘Dionysus praesentissimus’ ˗just like ‘Zeus absentissimus’˗ is a character type generically bound to Greek drama with little or no grounding

 Versnel 2011, 317.

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Introduction

in the ritual reality of the drama that is exclusively expressed by the chorus. All this will also affect the notion of ‘aetiology’ because epiphanies are currently often viewed as ‘aetiologizing’ cult foundations, ritual developments etc. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence for an intense ‘dream˗mindedness’ of the Greeks throughout most textual genres, periods, and levels of society. Not that dreams are normally represented for their own sake. In virtually all literary contexts, they either initiate a development (exhortative function) or they anticipate it, often in a riddled language (anticipatory function). Dreams ˗unlike epiphanies˗ are thereby represented unreservedly by the authoritative third˗person voice of the narrator (= ‘critical mode’), and many authors who are very reluctant to represent full˗blown epiphanies (such as Herodotus and Plutarch) nevertheless represent all kinds of dreams without qualms. In a word, the evidence presented in this book suggests that the alleged ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of the Greeks is largely an academic chimaera, a late˗comer of christianizing nineteenth˗century˗scholarship. After all, for reasons of simple self˗demarcation, Christian (along with the Jewish and Muslim) theologians never tired of construing their own ‘invisible’ God in contradistinction to competing local polytheistic pantheons that were then construed as ‘visible gods’. The idea that ‘visible gods’ are a constituent element of Greek polytheism begins, in my view, as a convenient conceptual strawman among Christian apologists, who thereby exploit earlier criticism by pagan philosophers, most notably Xenophanes and Plato. As I shall argue in this book, it is founded on a mistaken, literal reading of Homer’s notorious anthropomorphism (in Iliad and Odyssey, but also the Homeric Hymns), which is reflected in Greek drama and figural art but in virtually no other genres, and has very little to do with the religious lifeworld experience of the ancient Greeks.

Definitions of Epiphanies, Epiphanization, Epiphany Dreams and Sign Dreams Epiphanies shall here be defined in a merely etic manner as visible apparitions of temporary, metaphysical manifestations of human˗like entities to human individuals in a waking state. I thus emphatically follow Pfister’s ‘exclusive approach’ with an emphasis on visual contact.⁹ Most modern scholars such as Graf,¹⁰ Pax¹¹, Petridou,¹² Platt,¹³ Versnel,¹⁴ and others prefer a more ‘inclusive’  Pfister 1924, cols. 278 f. is aware of the semantic differences, but focuses on the ‘… Form der göttlichen Offenbarung, bei der das übermenschliche Wesen, ein Gott, ein Heros, ein Totengeist persönlich sichtbar unter den Menschen erscheint’.  Graf 2004, 113˗115.

Introduction

5

definition of various forms of ‘divine presence’. Their broader approach includes all those cases in which the deity is not visible, but its presence is perceived through acoustic, sensational, olfactory, tactile or other ‘signs’, i. e. events that require ‘sign˗mindedness’ and hermeneutic expertise by an observer in order to reveal a concealed divine presence or convey a potential divine message. I will have more to say about this ‘inclusive’ approach in the conclusions. Suffice it here to state that, generally speaking, it is too vague a scholarly concept to serve as a surgical hermeneutic tool. Admittedly, if I had set my mind on offering a semasiological analysis of the occurrences of the Greek word epiphaneia, the inclusive approach would be the right path to pursue. However, the sources themselves suggest that the Greeks are aware of a difference between the ‘exclusive’ and ‘inclusive’ meanings of epiphaneia. Such an awareness is suggested by the clear representational differences of either meaning along generic lines. For instance, few scholars would question the fact that in Herodotus’ world the major Olympians are omnipresent in the human lifeworld. However, they are virtually never represented as being visible (only some local heroes appear as potential epiphanies). Nevertheless, even full invisibility still implies divine presence in Herodotus. On the other hand, Homer can represent his gods in an unrestrained ‘visible’ mode. In fact, when they are present, Homeric gods are ‘visible’ at least to some (divine or mortal) protagonists. Full ‘invisibility’ to everyone is tantamount to divine absence in Homeric poetry. My point is this: the inclusive meaning of epiphaneia would describe the representations in both Herodotus and Homer, but it would also brush over the clear representational distinctions found in both authors. More generally, the representation of exclusive ‘epiphanies’ is verifiably genre˗bound, while the representation of inclusive ‘epiphanies’ is genre˗indifferent. Dealing with inclusive ‘epiphanies’ ultimately serves to blot out the generic distinctions and thus to overcome the representational problem by ignoring it in the first place, or ˗better˗ by defining it away.

 Pax 1962, cols. 832˗834; Pax 1955, 20, 29 (distinction between ‘partial epiphany’ and ‘epiphany’).  Petridou 2015, 2: ‘Epiphany denotes the manifestation of a deity to an individual or a group of people, in sleep or in waking reality, in a crisis or cult context … The perception of the deity’s epiphany may be sensorial (i. e. the perceiver may see, hear, feel, or even smell the deity) or intellectual (i. e. the perceiver may be aware of the deity’s presence without seeing, hearing, etc. anything)’.  Platt 2011, 7: ‘manifestation of deities to mortals’.  E. g. Versnel 2011, esp. 37; Versnel 1987, esp. 51 f., who, however, does not give a succinct definition, but simply describes what people ‘saw’.

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Introduction

There is another argument for the exclusive meaning as the basis of our discussion. In the relevant OCD entry, Albert Henrichs prosaically remarked: ‘The concept is much older than the term’.¹⁵ In literature, the word epiphaneia is first attested in the second half of the fifth century BCE, in inscriptions in the first half of the third century BCE.¹⁶ So, unless we want to fully exclude pre˗classical material from our investigation and at the same time risk severe terminological inconsistencies in following ancient word usage, we have no choice but to adopt an etic position. Hence, whatever path we choose, be it inclusive or exclusive, we will have to begin with a merely a priori ‘definition’ of ‘epiphany’. This makes the exclusive approach heuristically a much safer choice, thanks to its easier verifiability: ‘seeing a deity’ is expressed explicitly in the text, while ‘sensing its presence’ is normally not. I will use the term epiphanization, when ordinary humans or material objects are represented as momentary ‘epiphanies’. Epiphanized humans may include exceptionally beautiful women (so in Herodotus’ Phye episode or the mistress in the erotic Novel), and epiphanized objects would include cult images felt or perceived to come momentarily alive (as in Callimachus’ mimetic Hymns). With its focus on ‘visibility,’ this book cannot ignore dreams, because from Homer to Artemidorus and beyond, dreams, like epiphanies, are construed by the ancients as visual forms of divine intervention, i. e., they are ‘seen’;¹⁷ besides, the frequency of dream representations throughout all genres has to be investigated in relation to the scarcity of waking epiphanies. When epiphanies occur in dreams, I will speak of epiphany dreams. While the distinction between waking epiphany and epiphany dream is not always clear˗cut,¹⁸ I will side with Harris and consider epiphany dreams as normally a category of their own.¹⁹ This can be proved not least by generic distribution. To repeat my point already made, both Herodotus and Plutarch (in his Lives) are deeply sceptical about the existence of waking epiphanies, but both authors mention epiphany dreams without any reservations or qualifications time and again.

 Henrichs in OCD4, s.v. ‘epiphany’, 526.  Hdt. 3.27; Syll. 3 398.17 [278 BCE].  Cf. Harris˗McCoy 2012, 11.  Cf. Versnel 1987, 48 f.  Despite formal similarities, the ancients are in general aware of the difference between epiphanies and epiphanic dreams. For instance, Aug. Doct. Christ. 2.17.27 distinguishes between epiphanies (oculis) and epiphany dreams (somnis) in which the Muses occur. Especially for epiphany dreams cf. Harris 2009, 23˗49. Interestingly, Aristides speaks of a state ‘halfway between sleep and waking’ (Aristid. 48.32), so also the Neoplatonists, cf. Marin. Vita Procli 30 with Edelstein 2, 153 n. 23.

Introduction

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When dealing with the notion of epiphany in various genres, one cannot ignore sign dreams, because they often complement epiphany dreams in structural and dramaturgic terms. By ‘signs’ I mean non˗verbal events that are perceived to convey a message. Since they are non˗verbal, the message must be decoded first by an interpreter who may or may not be identical with the alleged recipient of the sign message. Both the existence and the interpretation of signs are based on the ‘sign˗mindedness’ of the perceiving/interpreting parties (which is so brilliantly ridiculed by Aristophanes).²⁰ In other words, a sign is what an observer/interpreter claims ˗and his audience accepts˗ it is and means. In a very similar vein, sign dreams (≈ Harris’ ‘episode dreams’) offer signs that must first be deciphered by a competent dream interpreter.²¹ Apart from other genre˗specific distinctions, which will be dealt with in the individual chapters, epiphany and sign dreams are marked by one difference that pervades virtually all genres alike, with very few exceptions: epiphany dreams are generally exhortative, i. e. the divine dream figure advises or commands the dreamer and thus initiates future action in an authoritative and clear fashion, while sign dreams are normally anticipatory, i. e. predicting or foreshadowing an action, often in a riddled manner that requires interpretation.²²

Some Earlier Scholarship 1. Epiphanies: Except for ‘epic epiphanies,’ generic perspectives have not fared well in previous attempts to categorize epiphanic representations. Unsurprisingly, it is only in the category of ‘epic epiphanies’ that modern scholars, first of all Walter Burkert, are prepared to acknowledge a strong ‘literary’ element (informed by oriental models, according to Burkert).²³ ‘Epic epiphanies’ are identified as such by Pfister in his magisterial RE-article²⁴ and then taken over as a category by Pax in his dissertation and REC entry.²⁵ Perkins in an unpublished PhD thesis (1986) looks at epic epiphanies from the view point of comparative

 Cf. Beerden 2013, 23 f., who speaks of ‘omen˗mindedness’, cf. also her discussion of signs pp. 107˗138. For Aristophanes, e. g., Ar. Av. 717˗722.  Cf. Harris 2009, 49˗52. The terminology is not consistent. Latacz 1992, 77 speaks of ‘external’ dreams (≈ ‘epiphany dreams’) and ‘internal’ dreams (≈ ‘sign dreams’).  I owe the principal idea of this distinction to Whitmarsh 2011, 191˗204, esp. 199, who employs the terms ‘kinetic’ and ‘proleptic’ for the representation of divine intervention in the Greek novel.  Gagné / Herrero de Jáuregui 2019, introduction pp. 27– 31.  Pfister 1924.  Pax 1962, 839 f.; Pax 1955, 26.

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literature,²⁶ Hornblower discusses at length epic epiphanies in relation to Herodotus’ concept of epiphany;²⁷ Turkeltaub in his dissertation (2003) analyses narrative patterns of epic epiphanies, namely Homer. Epic epiphanies are a standard topic of Homeric studies; a quick look at Petridou’s recent entry in the Cambridge Companion to Homer or the two volumes in the Kernos-series under the title Les dieux d’Homère is sufficient to prove this point.²⁸ However, none of these or any other similar recent contributions pay any attention whatsoever to the representational boundaries set by the epic genre. Virtually the only scholar on epic poetry who is aware of the broader aspect of genres and religious realia at the same time, is ˗to my knowledge˗ Denis Feeney, but his magisterial 1991 book is mainly concerned with Latin epic and gods in general.²⁹ Epic epiphanies aside, genre has never to my knowledge been systematically employed as a taxonomic category of epiphanic representations. For instance, in Pfister and Pax the remaining taxonomic categories, which by the way differ substantially, are not generic (one may compare Pfister’s ‘mythical’ or ‘legendary’, or Pax’s ‘literary’ epiphanies). Other important publications on epiphanies have ignored genre. Marinatos and Kyrtatas edited a collection of articles in 2004 which brought together the papers of two conferences held in 2001 and 2002. The volume, which looks at the epiphany from the viewpoint of the textual and archaeological evidence, demonstrates that ultimately, each scholar employs the term epiphany with a different emphasis either on the side of ‘visibility’ or that of ‘presence’. Hence, the volume avoids a binding definition of epiphaneia. Rather, its declared aim is to explore ‘the typology and circumstances under which gods were thought to appear in the ancient Mediterranean world …’.³⁰ The necessity of a much stricter definition of the term ‘epiphany’ manifests itself in the conclusions which bear the heading: ‘Epiphany: Concept Ambiguous, Experience Elusive’. Platt’s monograph of 2011 is written from the view point of an art historian, and it proceeds in a broadly chronological sequence.³¹ Despite the use of textual material, Platt herself acknowledges a focus on the sacred imagery.³² The book tries to take the ‘insider’ (= emic) view on ‘seeing’ and asks us to put aside

      

Perkins 1986. Hornblower 2001, 140˗147. Petridou 2020; Gagné/Herrero de Jáuregui 2019; Pironti/Bonnet 2017. Feeney 1991. Marinatos/Kyrtatas 2004, 228, cf. 229˗231. Platt 2011, 24. Platt 2011, 17.

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both modern ‘rationality’ and the particular Christian notion of ‘epiphany’.³³ Platt defines the ‘Sitz im Leben’ of epiphanies very vaguely as Greek ‘culture’, and she intends to demonstrate that the ‘cultural discourse about the manifestation of deities and their human worshippers ….’ is a ‘major cultural preoccupation’.³⁴ Platt ignores generic questions of artistic or textual representations. For instance, she deals with votive reliefs, next to vase paintings, next to statuary, next to epic and historical texts, the underlying assumption being that a.) representing epiphanies is independent of generic conventions; b.) there is a common representational denominator among all the diverging genres. The present book, although restricted to the textual evidence, will challenge both assumptions. Petridou’s learned monograph on ‘epiphanies’ (2015) is a revised version of a 2006 PhD˗thesis. Petridou works on the assumption that ‘epiphanies’ exist as autonomous ‘cultural’ entities of a hypothetic reality, independent of the generic boundaries of their representations. She postulates a quadripartite epiphanic schema, which consists of crisis, authorization/legitimation, resolution, and commemoration,³⁵ and which, in her view, permeates Greek culture in general. She states that ‘the integral elements of epiphany …. and its functions remain surprisingly similar despite the chronological and generic diversity of its sources’.³⁶ I find this schema helpful for the representation of epiphanies in particular genres, but I deny it its general cultural relevance: it is applicable to some epiphanic representations in historiography (esp. the Herodotean Pan episode), and in Pausanias, as well as to some relevant epigraphic material. It is only partially suitable for a few epiphanies in tragedy, such as the gods in Aeschylus’ Eumenides or some Euripidean epilogue epiphanies. However, there are many other contexts of epiphanic representations for which the schema is inadequate, namely all epiphanies that have no aetiological slant/relation to the rituals or cults of the human lifeworld. To begin with, it is patently unsuitable for an analysis of our first, most important and influential troth of epiphanic representations, namely the two Homeric epic poems: many epiphanic episodes in Homer are much too long to be reduced to a mere ‘crisis’ situation (which

 Platt 2011, 20 f.  Platt 2011, 23.  Petridou 2015, 1, 18 f. so on p. 18: ‘The epiphanic schema can be very briefly described as follows: an epiphany motivated by a crisis may provide authorization to a human intermediary, or may lead straight to the resolution of the crisis without the authorization process being activated. The resolution of a crisis is more commonly than not followed by the introduction of some sort of commemorative structure, i. e. festival, statue, athletic contest, pilgrimage, etc.’  Petridou 2015, 11.

10

Introduction

could be done in a few lines), and no epiphany of the Iliad or Odyssey is provably aetiological, or ‘commemorated’ in some way later on, or of any but narrative consequence. Besides, many tragic and virtually all comic epiphanies cannot be fitted into Petridou’s epiphanic schema, nor can magic or philosophical ‘epiphanies,’ e. g. of Neoplatonism. In virtually all these cases, the application of Petridou’s schema would come at the cost of an extreme reductionism and decontextualization of the epiphanic representations. Add to this my principal objection to the postulate that all representations in the material or textual evidence can in principle reduced to a single ‘cultural’ matrix, which can be distilled from the very inhomogeneous source material and does not develop chronologically (an assumption which allows Petridou to ignore all chronology). As I see it, before arguing for an all˗encompassing unified epiphanic schema on the level of ‘cultural’ representation, we must first prove that such a single pattern exists on the level of textual representations. And here, we must explain not only the presence but also the wide˗spread absence of epiphanic representations in the texts.³⁷ 2. Dreams: The relevant epigraphic evidence on dream inscriptions has been dealt with competently by Renberg, Higbie, LiDonnici and others, and will be discussed in the relevant chapter.³⁸ As for bibliography, I have used with great profit Van Lieshout’s 1980 monograph (a revised version of his 1971 Cambridge DPhil thesis). Van Lieshout deals with the archaic and classical periods systematically from a philosophical viewpoint: ‘my only aim is to establish and register Greek views on dreams from their factual wording in the extant texts, regardless of who formulated them, or which literary genre or device they serve’.³⁹ Walde’s 2001 ‘Habilitationsschrift’ forms a useful and chronological series of interpretations of major dream passages in poetry from Homer to Lucan. Although she does not explicitly divide her material generically, the sequence of episodes

 Pace Petridou 2015, 17 f.: ‘Since my interests lie with the multitude of ways epiphany impacted on the cultural production of the Greek˗speaking world rather than with the specific ramifications of the emplotment of the epiphanic schema in particular generic contexts, I have not devoted any particular part of this discussion (although there are frequent references to all those subjects) to epiphany in any specific literary genre (like epiphany in archaic hymnography, classical tragedy or comedy, or Hellenistic epigram, etc.), system of beliefs and practices (epiphany in magic or theurgy), or epiphany in conjunction with any specific medium (such as epiphany in Hellenistic inscriptions or papyri)’.  Dedicatory inscriptions: Renberg 2010, 2003; Lindian Chronicle: Higbie 2003; Epidaurian iamata: LiDonnici 1995.  Van Lieshout 1980, 4. Cf. also his discussion on p. 8 of whether literary sources can afford knowledge of realia, which he affirms. I am not sure whether he means reality rather than realia in this passage.

Introduction

11

she analyses nevertheless reflects neatly three genres, namely archaic and Hellenistic epos as well as classical tragedy (she largely excludes Greek lyric and fragmentary dream accounts).⁴⁰ Her approach is solely philological, she prefers a close reading, and she surveys older, especially German scholarship on individual authors and their dream accounts (mostly poets).⁴¹ She states: ‘at the center of the study will be the question, what constitutes the specific suitability for the strategy of literary representation of the dream motif and why it can adopt the different functions and meanings that will be addressed’.⁴² I have made frequent use of her interpretations in the relevant passages, although I do not feel bound by her elaborate terminology.⁴³ By far the most momentous publication on classical dreams and dream experiences in Greece and Rome in the last decades is Harris 2009. Harris defines dreams as follows: ‘a dream is normally a life˗like sequence of images (occasionally a static image) seen while one is sleeping or half˗awake’. He adds a list of 13 features of typical dreams.⁴⁴ Harris’ declared aim is to answer ‘specific questions’ of the cultural history of dreaming.⁴⁵ He is aware of the generic differences of his sources, although he sometimes ignores them.⁴⁶ Harris focuses on epiphany dreams (in contrast to what he calls episode dreams, my sign dreams) as an ancient experience different from ours and outlines its history until modern times. We learn that, in marked contrast to Harris’ episode dreams, epiphany dreams are considered to be self˗evidently clear to the ancients, so that Artemidorus can virtually exclude their discussion from his account (he mentions 4 epiphany dreams out of 95 dream narratives, on Harris’  Walde 2001, 5.  Walde 2001, 8˗12.  Walde 2001, 13: ‘Im Zentrum der Untersuchung wird also die Frage stehen, was die besondere Eignung des Traummotivs zur literarischen Darstellungsstrategie ausmacht und warum es die unterschiedlichen Funktionen und Bedeutungen, die im Folgenden zur Sprache kommen werden, annehmen kann’.  Cf. her ‘glossary’ pp. 16˗18, explaining her terminology.  Harris 2009, 14˗17, quotation p. 14.  Harris 2009, 20.  Harris 2009, 21 f. One may compare (p. 37): ‘…. it is evident from the Homeric poems that archaic Greeks had no difficulty at all in supposing that the gods were willing to disguise themselves, and were willing to make use of messengers …. so you could believe that you had been instructed by a god even if the actual visitor looked less than divine.’ It may be doubted that the Homeric poems tell us anything about how the archaic Greeks thought outside the occasion of a rhapsodic performance. Elsewhere, Harris is more cautious, when he points out (p. 133): ‘We know that we cannot say about the historical Vergil or the historical Ovid that they believed that the gods behaved just as they behave in the Aeneid or the Metamorphoses and we know that we cannot assume that they thought as their actors do about the interpretation of dreams.’

12

Introduction

counting).⁴⁷ Harris is also keenly aware of the fact that epiphany dreams are represented as a ‘princely prerogative’ at least until Socrates.⁴⁸ Furthermore, Harris dedicates considerable space to the establishment of criteria for identifying fabricated dreams. These criteria may be summarized as follows: a dream account is invented if 1. it renders someone else’s dream, not one’s own; 2. it serves the author’s own agenda or purposes; 3. its contents are coherent and lack bizarre elements; 5. it predicts accurately later events; and 6. it is ‘petitioned’ as in incubation rituals. By contrast, according to Harris, genuineness is suggested when the documentation of the dream follows immediately after waking, the dream discredits the reputation of the narrator, and the narrator is not exactly sure about the events, due to memory gaps.⁴⁹ Admittedly, Harris’ criteria are not indisputable: for instance, they are effectively molded on a very limited selection of texts, and here predominantly the Hieroi Logoi by Aelius Aristides (whom Harris considers to be a ‘relatively credible witness’)⁵⁰ and similar largely first˗person dream accounts. Besides, his criteria are strictly etic, and virtually no ancient author would sign up to them (nevertheless, I hasten to add that also my own approach is based on ‘etic’ criteria). Finally, hardly any ancient author would ever refer to a dream of his or her protagonist for merely ‘historical’ reasons. More than other narratives, divinatory dreams require a context to be intelligible. Nevertheless, despite these possible objections, Harris’ common˗sensical criteria are the best there are, if we want to judge the genuineness of the contents of ancient dream accounts from a modern perspective. But we should bear in mind that mere ‘genuineness’ is hardly ever sufficient to explain the representation of a dream in any ancient narrative.

Definition of Genres By looking at epiphanies and divinatory dreams as generically bound representations, this book approaches them through a heuristic tool, that is not normally employed by historians of religion or students of religious studies, but by theoreticians of literature for whom the connection between the empirical world and genre is a given: ‘The empirical world, in order to be perceived, must of necessity be translated into something it is not – into a model of reality, endowed with a

   

Harris Harris Harris Harris

2009, 28. 2009, 39. 2009, 91˗122, for the criteria see pp. 105 f. 2009, 118˗122, quotation p. 121.

Introduction

13

meaning and therefore with a form. Genre functions as a mediator, permitting such models of selected reality to enter into the language of literature; it gives them the possibility of “being represented”’.⁵¹ In what follows, I will argue that genres offer numerous patterns for the representation of epiphanies and dreams. It is a primary goal of this book to identify these genre˗bound patterns and their intergeneric differences. With the term ‘genre’ we encounter the same problem as with ‘epiphany’, namely that ˗to repeat Albert Henrichs’ dictum on epiphanies˗ ‘the concept is much older than the term’. Thucydides is the first to give ‘genre’ some theoretical attention when he distinguishes the properties of the works of poets from those of the logopoioi (≈ prose authors).⁵² But it is only with Aristotle’s Poetica that we find a keen awareness of textual genres, although not even the Stagirite is very specific. In fact, he only speaks ˗as do modern Greeks˗ of poetic εἴδη.⁵³ Now, εἶδος means ‘kind, species, conceptual entity’, and is anything but austerely ‘terminological’. For example, within the Poetica it is also employed for ‘components’⁵⁴ or ‘types’⁵⁵ of tragedy. While the philosopher is keenly aware of the concept, his terminology for ‘genre’ remains vague and uncommitted. We conclude that ‘genre’ like ‘epiphany’ can be defined only as an etic term. The validity of the definition must then be checked against the very texts we try to interpret. Even on an etic note, however, defining ‘genre’ is not an easy task. To illustrate the difficulty, Goldhill begins his essay on the genre of the novel with a famous response from St. Augustine to the question what time is: ‘I know what it is as long as no one asks me’ (si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio).⁵⁶ However, for Goldhill, genre is of primary importance, it ‘is a name for how the representative or the typical is encoded’.⁵⁷ It both expresses and defines socio˗political behaviour.⁵⁸ The semantic fluidity, and the abiding centrality of genre as a hermeneutic tool, are also stressed, for instance, by Calame: ‘… it can be said that the poetic and literary genres exist as the vague collection of properties shared by all the linguistic realizations that they subsume

       

Conte 1994, 125. Th. 1.21.1 with Hornblower 2001, 135. Arist. Poet. 1447a 1. Arist. Poet. 1452b 13, 25; 1456a 33. Arist. Poet. 1455b 32. Aug. Conf. 11.14. Goldhill 2008, 186. Goldhill 2008, 185˗190.

14

Introduction

and as the practical constellation of “regulatory conventions” established by tradition’.⁵⁹ So how shall we define genre when dealing with epiphanic representations? Whitmarsh leads the way when he points out: ‘Genres are in general, as constructionist scholarship has taught us, fluid things, liable to continuous reinvention: they are structured by ‘family resemblance’ rather than phylogenetic classification’.⁶⁰ Already in 1982 Alastair Fowler had turned to this useful Wittgensteinian concept when defining ‘genre’. He concluded: ‘Genres appear to be much more like families than classes’.⁶¹ If, on Whitmarsh’s definition, genres are indeed liable to continuous reinvention, they are transient and occasion˗bound, and depend for their survival on evolution, i. e. authorial choices, which relate to the expectations of the audience. Ultimately, they are historically determined social phenomena involving different groups of people (authors, performers, audiences, recipients). Along this line of reasoning, Glenn Most suggests that we should view genre … not as a recipe from handbooks but rather as a social phenomenon ….. Genre is often formulated as a set of rules, but it may be better to understand it as a historically contingent and flexible reciprocal system of mutually calibrated expectations, correlating some participants who are more or less active (call them poets, though all poets are listeners or readers before, while, and after they are poets) with others who are more or less passive (call them listeners or readers …) within a loosely bounded but largely self˗conscious cultural community (whose borders in space and time are often quite unclear), in which each group delegates to the other specific roles, duties, pleasures, and anxieties.⁶²

On Most’s reading, then, genre is a historically contingent social phenomenon, namely a system of expectations of two indispensable participants (author, audience) within a loosely defined but self˗conscious cultural (here: Greek) community. Although Most is concerned only with tragedy, his definition holds true of other genres, including prose genres, too. Plato’s or Athenaeus’ dialogues offer examples of how such a ‘system of mutually calibrated expectations’ may shift within a single sympotic framework as well as of the social dimension of genres understood as such.⁶³ Even more, Most’s definition is also applicable to  Calame 2019, 38.  Whitmarsh 2011, 13 f.  Fowler 1982, 40˗44, quotation p. 41.  Cf. also Conte 1994, 112: ‘…. genres are matrixes of works, to be conceived not as recipes but as strategies; they act in texts not ante rem or post rem but in re.’ or ibid. 114 f.: ‘genre is not only our descriptive grid, a scheme dictated by our empirical research, but also an expectation inscribed within the experience of the authors and of the readers whom their works prefigure.’  Carey 2009, 33: ‘The term symposion bundles together a wide range of occasions …’.

Introduction

15

non˗literary texts such as dedicatory inscriptions and magical recipes. These minor genres can convey complex messages very briefly in a highly stylized manner due to their often very strict generic conventions which facilitate, for instance, the use of a highly abbreviated diction (e. g. the ex˗iussu˗inscriptions). While we can thus ˗at least for the scope of this book˗ offer a working definition about what genre is and does, we must still ask what informs it. In a classic article, Gregory Nagy argues that archaic Greek poetic genres are determined by their performative occasions.⁶⁴ So it stands to reason that epic poetry, tragedy etc. start their prodigious career with ‘epic’, ‘tragic’ etc. occasions on or for which the relevant texts are composed. It would, however, be fundamentally wrong to maintain that all ancient texts respond to real occasions: for not only do occasions condition genres, but generic characteristics also evoke occasions. In the latter case, Nagy speaks of ‘absolutized’ occasions or occasionality.⁶⁵ Often, we do have to consider both occasion and occasionality simultaneously for the proper evaluation of a text. For instance, Callimachus’ Hymns may have been composed for recitations at the Alexandrian court. But such (hypothetic) recitations are fundamentally different from ˗and indifferent to˗ the performative occasions (whatever they were) on or for which their apparent generic models, namely the Homeric Hymns, are composed. The same holds true of prose genres, although in this case it may be more appropriate to speak of ‘absolutized’ occasions at least in those cases in which a work is intended by an author not for recitation, but (also) for reading. Performative ‘occasions’ are historically bound. When they change, the relevant genres also change or become obsolete. The awareness of generic development explains the attempts by the Alexandrians to salvage the ‘occasion˗boundedness’ of earlier texts by classifying extensively their textual material according to genres. While this awareness leads to generic systematization, it also paves the way for a hitherto unprecedented play with ‘occasionality’ in the contemporary literary production, in other words, a hugely increased ‘contamination of literary genres’ (of course, stricto sensu no genre is ever ‘uncontaminated’).⁶⁶ Occasion/Occasionality are tied to the audience’s expectation of ‘form’ and ‘contents’. ‘Form’ is relatively uncontentious if we restrict its meaning to metrical and linguistic features. As for contents, we should distinguish between argument and plot. Argument will be used here to designate the constellation of characters and events of a narrative, as it is construed in the mind of the audience on the

 Nagy 1994.  Nagy 1994, 18 f.  Fantuzzi/Hunter 2004, 22˗37.

16

Introduction

basis of its cultural pre˗configurations/knowledge. For instance, the death of Hector forms part and parcel of the argument of the Iliad, as any schoolboy in antiquity would have known. Plot is the way in which elements of the argument are selected and arranged for representation. Hence, the tragic and climactic way in which Hector’s death is emplotted in the last books of the Iliad belongs (largely) to the genius of one particular poet. On this definition, any argument must first be emplotted to be represented. In the case of Greek tragedy, for instance, the authors can thereby be highly selective and arrange the material in various ways (not necessarily along a time˗axis) because the relevant mythical arguments (e. g. Oedipus˗myth etc.) are well˗known.⁶⁷ By contrast, comic arguments are normally invented from scratch and built around a new ‘grand idea’ of the playwright. The author cannot allude to ˗or rely on˗ a culturally preconfigured argument. He must invent the argument without preknowledge of his audience, a fact which makes its emplotment much more challenging (as was already argued by the fourth century BCE comedian Antiphanes).⁶⁸ Genre is only one significant parameter in composing or decoding a text. The other is the author. To quote Most again: ‘Authors can be just as little imagined without genres as genres without authors: the latter would be an idealist vacuum, the former a positivist chaos’.⁶⁹ Of course, the temptation to reconstruct the author’s view from the narrative persona of a text is strong because the latter is ubiquitous: Homer already calls upon the Muses in the first˗person singular, as do Hesiod and others. Callimachus’ poetic ego experiences the advent or presence of the deities with awe and excitement in some of his Hymns; historians appear as protagonists in their own narratives in the third or also first person etc.  To my knowledge, the term ‘emplotment’ is first employed systematically by Hayden White in the introduction to his celebrated Metahistory. The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth˗Century Europe (Baltimore 1973). The author introduces the notion of ‘emplotment’ as a mode of representation of a story. He distinguishes four kinds of emplotments. These happen to coincide by and large with major genres of Greek literature in which epiphanies are found, namely romance, tragedy, comedy, and satire, while he considers epic as a potential fifth mode (White 1973, 7˗11). He defines ‘emplotment’ as follows: ‘Emplotment is the way by which a sequence of events fashioned into a story is gradually revealed to be a story of a particular kind.’ (p. 7), also: ‘… the historian confronts a veritable chaos of events already constituted, out of which he must choose the elements of the story he would tell. He makes his story by including some events and excluding others, by stressing some and subordinating others. This process of exclusion, stress, and subordination is carried out in the interest of constituting a story of a particular kind. That is to say, he emplots his story’ (p. 6 n. 5). Hayden White does not venture beyond the subject of his book, namely nineteenth˗century historians and philosophers, but ‘emplotment’ is a useful heuristic tool in a much broader range of representations of ‘reality’.  Antiphanes fr. 189; cf. Bierl 2002, 13˗21.  Most 2000, 16.

Introduction

17

In all these cases, it is virtually impossible to distinguish the authorial voice from the narrative persona, although the two are presumably never fully congruent, and are sometimes entirely separate. In this book, I will generally avoid the cumbersome expression ‘the narrative ego of Homer’ and just speak of Homer. I am nevertheless fully aware of the fact that what I am talking about is normally only the narrative persona. To be accurate, I would often have to place the names of the authors in inverted commas.

Terminology and Selection of Genres In what follows, I will employ a generic terminology that is largely indebted to ancient usage. To further clarify its meaning, I will begin each chapter with a brief section in which I will attempt to define and briefly discuss my own understanding of the genre at hand. In general, I trust my generic labels are, even if not uncontentious, at least self˗explanatory. Only three genres represent gods as a matter of course, all three poetic, namely epic, narrative hymns, and drama. These will be dealt with here in depth. Other genres represent gods primarily at very specific positions within the narrative (especially the beginning) or in dreams, namely those with a claim on representing reality (especially didactic poetry, historiography, historical biography, periegesis, autobiography, epigraphic genres, erotic novel, medical and philosophical treatises). I deal with daimons, who typically belong to the philosophical discourse, only in those (rare) cases in which they are construed as actually ‘visible’ entities (i. e. not as an internal ‘voice’ vel sim.). All in all, Greek daimonology, especially in Platonism, is a philosophical question of ontological hierarchies and has been competently dealt with by others.⁷⁰ For the sake of comprehensiveness, I offer a chapter on two important Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Iamblichus) and their concepts of ‘light’ epiphanies in relation to the soul. Very similar concepts are found in magical recipes and here especially in the ‘Mithras Liturgy,’ the most extensive ˗and highly untypical˗ epiphany account of ancient polytheism.

 Pl. Smp. 202E–203A; cf. e. g. Timotin 2012.

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Introduction

Modes of Reality The question of ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ is ultimately the question of how real epiphanies are in the mind of the polytheistic Greeks. Reality, as Conte remarked, is itself a culturally determined concept: ‘… reality is nothing but a totality of perceptions determined by cultural codes and is therefore itself a construction …’.⁷¹ Being a cultural construction, it differs from culture to culture. Naturally, it will be impossible to discuss in depth the notion of reality in ancient Greek thought here, but we may note three preliminary categories of reality which will serve us well in the analysis that follows. 1. Lifeworld Reality: This is reality par excellence in the modern western world. It is informed by individual personal experiences and ultimately serves to cope with life on an individual basis. It is based on perceptions not necessarily shared by other individuals or the community. In fact, it often looks at the community in opposition to itself. 2. Intentional Reality: This form of reality serves the formation of social identities/groups. It is based on collective perceptions. It is situated in the collective memory of a community and is monitored or manipulated by its representatives. Gehrke, who coins the expression ‘intentional history’, writes: ‘“Intentional” in this sense denotes the elements of subjective and conscious self˗categorization as belonging to a particular group, ethnic or other sort’.⁷² ‘Intentional history’ reflects the official version and is common or public knowledge, even when it contravenes the individual’s lifeworld experience. The importance of ‘intentional history’ for the coherence and self˗identification of social groups has been highlighted by Gehrke: ‘Such knowledge of the past, in other words that which a society knows or holds for true about its past, its “intentional history”, is of fundamental significance for the imaginaire, for the way a society interprets and understands itself, and therefore for its inner coherence and ultimately its collective identity’.⁷³ It is ‘that part of cultivated memory which is relevant for the group’s identity’.⁷⁴ Epiphanies represented as intentional reality are not necessarily real in terms of individual lifeworld experience, but in terms of social identity. Only they may authorize the change or preservation of the status quo of rituals and cults within a local community because they form the most authoritative overriding form of expression of divine will.

   

Conte 1994, 125. Gehrke 2001, 298. Gehrke 2001, 286. Gehrke 2010, 16.

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3. Invented Reality = Fiction: Following De Temmerman, fiction will be here defined as ‘untruth that is intended not to be believed as truth but rather to be acknowledged as untruth ….⁷⁵ ‘Intention,’ as referred to in this quotation, is ‘genre’˗related, in other words the claim on fictionality in, say, epic poetry or drama is markedly different from that in historiography or the novel: ‘crucial to fiction …. is the contractual relationship between its sender (the author, storyteller, etc.) and recipient (the reader, listener, etc.)’.⁷⁶ The ‘contractual relation’ is an alias for ‘genre’. Poetic genres normally offer a mixture of all three forms of reality. After all, as we learn from Hesiod, the Muses freely disseminate both reality/truth and fiction.⁷⁷ It will be one task of the following chapters to distinguish these three modes of reality on generic grounds in poetic texts. Much more than poetic genres, prose genres including the Greek novel and inscriptions are indebted to ˗and informed by˗ ‘lifeworld /intentional reality’ or its conceptual derivate, realism. It is therefore in these prose genres that one would primarily look for evidence for real Greek ‘epiphany˗mindedness’.

Ritual Reality and Drama The longest chapter of this book is, predictably, dedicated to Greek drama. Greek drama is pivotal for our topic not only because of the frequent staging of gods, but also because more than other genres it offers a chance to catch a glimpse of epiphanies in relation to general religious concepts and ritual reality. Scholarly opinions thus oscillate between two poles, namely a ‘ritual’ and a ‘non˗ritual’ approach. For instance, Fowler 1999 formulates succinctly the credo of the ‘ritualists’: ‘Greek tragedy is about nothing if not religion’.⁷⁸ Arguably the most influential ‘ritualist’ study of the relation of Athenian tragedy and religion in the last two decades is Christiane Sourvinou˗Inwood’s 2003 publication Tragedy and Athenian Religion. She tries to demonstrate that ‘tragedy was perceived by the fifth˗century audiences not as a discrete unit, a purely theatrical experience, simply framed by ritual, but as a ritual performance’.⁷⁹ She distinguishes ‘real’ tragic gods of cult from the metatheatrical divine construals of comedy. In a word, she

    

De Temmerman 2016, 5 f. De Temmerman 2016, 6. Hes. Th. 27 f. Fowler 1999, 174. Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 1.

20

Introduction

relegates comic gods to the realm of fiction.⁸⁰ In taking tragic gods as ‘lifeworld reality,’ Sourvinou˗Inwood anticipates many similar publications, such as Lefkowitz’s monograph on Euripidean gods (2016) in which the American scholar represents Euripidean gods ‘as accurate descriptions of the powers of the gods, and descriptions of their relationship to mortals’.⁸¹ Stepping in the footsteps of Hugh Lloyd˗Jones, David Kovacs, and others, Lefkowitz takes Euripides’ gods as reflections of the author’s lifeworld experience. Her Euripides is decidedly not the Euripides of Aristophanes nor that of the biographical tradition that makes him a critical and dangerous sophist. Rather, her Euripides is a protagonist of his own plays, i. e. subject to violent, unforgiving gods whose justice is far remote from Christian compassion and forgiveness. As is to be expected, much of Lefkowitz’s argument rests on Euripidean epiphany scenes. Lefkowitz’s bias manifests itself in the fact that even within the narrow framework of Euripides she ignores the satyr play throughout.⁸² One may think of the only fully extant satyr play, Euripides’ Cyclops, a play which offers a decidedly more complacent picture of the (minor) gods. The Syleus, another Euripidean satyr play, stages Hermes, though hardly in his ‘tragic’ garb as unforgiving or brutal.⁸³ It seems arbitrary to privilege representations of tragedy over those of satyr plays if one believes, as Lefkowitz does (and I do not), that ‘reality’ can be distilled directly from dramatic representations. Only a few scholars have raised objections, so for instance Mikalson 1991 who summarizes his basic view as such: ‘The gods of poetry are, I would claim, the products of literary fantasy and genius, not of Greek religious spirit’.⁸⁴ He is followed by Scullion (2002), who goes a step further and denies all historical connections of Greek drama with the cult of Dionysus; Stark (2004), who like Scullion rejects a generic bond with Dionysus and stresses instead the social aspect of Old Comedy and its various character ‘types’; and Finkelberg (2007), who insists on a strong element of ‘entertainment’ and ‘spectacle’ already in the fifth century BCE. Most scholars would at least acknowledge a dramaturgic side of dramatic epiphanies, such as Wildberg (who avoids taking sides and asks how Euripides reconciles these two ‘disparate’ concepts)⁸⁵ or Mastronarde who ˗among other

 Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 52 f., 176 f.  Lefkowitz 2016, xii.  Lefkowitz 2016, 193˗204.  Cf. Krumeich/Pechstein/Seidensticker 1999, 457˗473.  Mikalson 1991, 5. As was to be expected, he was attacked by the ‘ritualists’, thus Sourvinou˗Inwood 1997, but partly vindicated by Versnel 2011a, 30˗34.  Wildberg 2002, esp. 119˗123.

Introduction

21

aspects˗ does not hesitate to place tragedy next to epic poetry in an Aristotelian manner (2002, 21): ‘Moreover … the gods in epic and tragedy are a “literary device” that serves the needs of the narrative and the creation of meaning out of a series of events, and as a “literary device” (and in drama an iconographic and presentational device) their contribution can be appreciated even by those who no longer believe in the traditional gods in the same way or by many even later recipients, such as ourselves, brought up in a monotheistic culture’. In my view, the discussion between ‘ritualists’ and ‘non˗ritualists’ has been impaired by four methodological flaws. First, despite Brelich’s warning that both tragedy and comedy distort reality towards the superhuman and subhuman respectively,⁸⁶ scholars who consider comedy to be just as real as tragedy currently form a tiny minority.⁸⁷ Rather, both the ‘ritualists’ and ‘non˗ritualists’ alike focus on tragedy. Comedy is disqualified as irrelevant to the discussion of ‘religious reality’.⁸⁸ Scholars of both camps thus miss the opportunity to put their approach into a generic perspective. Second, both sides take dramatic texts as monolithic textual/performative entities and are not prepared to accept an obvious (to my mind) distinction between the chorus, which forms the ritual link to the cult of Dionysus, and the speech/narrative sections of the plot, which form the actual ‘spectacle’ and fully absorb drama since ca. 350 BCE at the latest. Staged epiphanies belong to the second, ‘spectacle’ part and thus survive the demise of the chorus and the ‘secularization’ of the genre in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. A distinction between choral and actor performance is suggested not only by the different historical development of both parts, but also by the rules of production: playwright and actor are initially identical and are ˗if successful˗ paid by the polis, while the chorus is paid by its chorus leader.⁸⁹ Third, the two sides virtually never distinguish between epiphanic representations of dramaturgically motivated emplotted gods and theological key concepts that exist independently of such epiphanic representations. For instance,  Brelich 1975, 112.  I fully subscribe to the minority view of Miles 2011, 126, who says about Aristophanes: ‘The gods are more than “comic constructs” because they are tools of dramatic persuasion and as such, in the setting of Old Comedy, set in 5th century BCE contemporary Athens, the dramatist needs to pull on that reality to make his comic distortion believable and persuasive to an audience, all of whom had one form of relationship or another with gods and heroes in Athens. In this sense then, comic gods are comic constructs but only to the degree that tragic gods are tragic constructs, formed to suit the roles required of them in a way that is persuasive to the audience’.  Some notable exceptions are Barrenechea 2018; Miles 2014; Miles 2011.  Stark 2004, 90 f.

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no one will doubt that there is plenty of theology in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon or Choephori without the emplotment of epiphanic gods, while there is very little religious thought in the reversal epiphanies of Iris and Rage in the middle of Hercules Furens, or at the end of Aristophanes’ Aves with the appearance of Poseidon, Heracles and the Triballian god for that matter. In a word, epiphanic gods are neither necessarily tantamount nor tied to ‘theology’, nor the other way around. Fourth, dramatic allusions to ˗or the parody of˗ rituals are not sufficient to prove that the relevant texts are themselves part of a (Dionysiac) ritual. For instance, it is indisputable that there are numerous references to Eleusinian mysteries and Dionysiac festivals in Dionysus’ kathodos in Aristophanes’ Ranae. ⁹⁰ And it is equally indisputable that there are many more references to Athenian rituals or festivals both in Aristophanes⁹¹ and some 20 ‘ritual’ plays of Old Comedy.⁹² However, ‘dealing with rituals’ is far different from ‘staging as rituals’: ‘ritual’ texts do not normally signpost their ritual character by references to other unrelated rituals, but by the textually often invisible (ritual) actions/performances in which they are embedded. In this sense, a perfectly mundane statement can acquire a profound ritual meaning during a ritual action off˗scene.

Polytheism This book is restricted to the textual evidence that represents gods in a Greek ‘polytheistic’ environment. I use the term with reservations, because apart from a strong Christian bias,⁹³ its employment implies a number of assumptions that may be contested on various grounds, namely a.) that ‘god’ is a clearly defined analytic entity ˗a conceptual measurement unit, so to speak˗ which may be classified in terms of quantity (which raises the question of how to evaluate ‘quality’, for instance in the case of daimons, or prophets, or angels); b.) that religious perceptions of the ancients can be described in terms of ‘systems’ (i. e.

 Cf. e. g. Bierl 2013b, 372˗374.  Cf. e. g. Anthesteria (Th. 743˗747, Ach. 960˗1232 with Habash 1995, 567˗574), Great/Rural Dionysia (Ach. 247˗279 with Bowie, A.M. 2010, 168; Pax 528˗532), Lenaea (Ach. 504 f., 1154 f.), Panathenaea (Ec. 730˗745 with Bowie, A.M. 2010, 166, Nu. 385˗387, 988 f., cf. Av. 1549˗1552), Cronia (Nu. 498), Diasia (Nu. 408˗411), Dipolieia (Nu. 984 f., Pax 420), Adonia (Pax 420), Brauronia (Pax 876), Theseia (Pl. 627), and very conspicuously the Thesmophoria in Thesmophoriazusae (passages and bibliography in Bowie, A.M. 2010, 166 f.); and ˗outside Attica˗ the Isthmia (Pax 879 f.).  Cf. Bowie, A.M. 2000, 327˗331.  Versnel 2011, 24 with the extensive bibliography in n. 3.

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nouns in ‘˗ism’); c.) that ‘gods’ form the defining parameters of the individual’s religious perceptions and hence offer the best criterion for classifying his or her religious allegiance; and d.) that ‘polytheism’ and ‘monotheism’ form two clearly identifiable, distinct oppositions. Nevertheless, virtually all ‘polytheisms’ contain ‘monotheistic’ tendencies in nuce (one may consider the rather common ‘henotheism’, which denotes temporary monotheistic tendencies within a polytheistic environment),⁹⁴ while all ‘monotheisms’ are potentially ‘polytheistic’ (one may compare the Holy Trinity within Christianity). Despite these well˗founded objections, I follow Parker⁹⁵ and others and adhere to the term ‘polytheism’ in the title of the book and elsewhere for lack of a better term to describe the ancient Greeks’ construal of their supernatural world. To quote Parker: ‘The attempt to confer logical coherence on polytheism is a hopeless enterprise. But the incoherence made it all the more flexible a tool for coping with the diversity of experience’.⁹⁶ Besides this, the application of the term allows me to exclude all Greek texts composed by non˗polytheistic, namely Jewish and Christian, authors. The reason for this exclusion is my belief that genres and generic markers of epiphanies in the relevant ‘monotheistic’ texts are different from that of the contemporary ‘polytheistic’ texts (take for instance the Christian/Jewish genres of ‘apocalypse’ or ‘Sibylline Oracles’).

 For henotheism after the classical period, see Versnel 2011, 138˗140, 303 f.; Versnel 1990; for a useful definition of henotheism, see Versnel 2011, 244.  Parker 2011, 66 f.; cf. Parker 2005, 387˗395.  Parker 2011, 98.

Epic By epic, I mean epic poetry in the sense of Aristotle’s Poetica, i. e. featuring one or more heroes as the protagonists of the plot and thus displaying a certain generic affiliation to tragedy. A distinction between epic and didactic poetry, which in Aristoteles’ terms is not ‘epic’ at all (such as Empedocles’ didactic poem),¹ is mandatory also in terms of epiphanic representations. The generic identity of epic is relatively uncontentious. If we restrict ourselves to fully preserved texts, it comprises the Iliad and Odyssey, alongside Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica. After Apollonius, no large˗scale epic is preserved before we reach Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica in the fourth century CE. Remarkably, the narrative perspective of epiphanic representations remains in principle unchanged. In fact, Quintus’ work is persuasive evidence for the independent persistence of generic perspectives over more than a millennium and across geographical and religious boundaries (in Quintus’ day, Christianity rules supreme).²

Iliad and Odyssey: Epiphanies Iliad and Odyssey employ the same dramatic device of epic epiphanies for very different ends. In fact, the two poems differ profoundly in their employment of the ‘Götterapparat’ and the parameters underlying the relation of god and hero. In general, and with the usual caveat, the Iliad represents the hero as subject to the whims of the gods and ultimately to a blind fate, while the Odyssey advocates more human responsibility and divine justice.³ The consequences for the representations of gods and heroes are so trenchant that no less a Homeric scholar than Wolfgang Kullmann speaks of ‘the incompatibility of the religious conceptions of the two epics’ and of ‘two opposite original [my italics] patterns of a religious explanation of the world which are mutually exclusive’.⁴ Kullmann suggests that both forms of representations are ‘original’, rather than deriving the one (normally the Odyssey) from the other (normally the Iliad) in an evolutionary

 Arist. Poet. 1447b 17˗20.  Cf. e. g. Zimmermann in id. 2011, 8 who comments on the history of the epic genre from Homer to Nonnus: ‘Die sprachlichen, formalen und narratologischen Charakteristika des Epos bleiben während dieses Zeitraumes weitgehend konstant.’  Od. 1.32˗34 with Sarischoulis 2008, 256˗262; Kullmann 1985, esp. 5˗8.  Kullmann 1985, 14, 23. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-003

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manner, as other scholars do.⁵ In order to highlight the differences in the representation of epiphanies in the two epics, while at the same time avoiding repetitions, I will deal with epiphanies in both poems together, but in a strictly comparative manner. I will thus attempt to highlight the specific dramatic features of epiphanies of the Iliad by contrasting them with those of the Odyssey, and vice versa. Beyond that, the two epics should be read separately. Let us begin with some common features. The protagonists of the Iliad and Odyssey are no ordinary mortals, but heroes. This means that they are loved, hated, assisted, and contested by the gods because of their character, past actions, or lineage, or simply out of sympathy or momentary affection. The relation between Homeric heroes and the divine protagonists is personal and intimate and mostly not dictated by previous ‘pious’ actions of the hero (unlike ordinary mortals, who must show ‘piety’ to receive divine favors). Many epiphanic representations of epic poetry form part of ‘divine visits’ or ‘divine recognition’ scenes built on stereotype patterns and themes,⁶ most notably the ’appearance-and-sensation’ topos.⁷ Such stereotypy suggests representational patterns or conventions, which in turn point to a long poetic tradition. Epiphanic representations in Homer are constructed and patterned as arming, sacrificing, prayer or supplication scenes. Unless proven otherwise, they are artificial poetic devices without any claim to relevance to ˗or veracity in˗ the lifeworld of the poet. It is important here to stress that the protagonists of the poems and the Homeric audience often do not know the same facts. While the protagonists may be unaware of the identity ˗or even presence˗ of the deities in front of them, the audience of the Iliad and the Odyssey is always kept in the know, because the Homeric poets ˗unlike, for instance, Quintus Smyrnaeus⁸˗ identify them painstakingly.

Athena’s Double Epiphany in Iliad 22 At the very climax of the Iliad, after Zeus, far aloof in heaven, has weighed the future of Achilles and Hector on the ‘scales of fate’ (Il. 22.209˗213) and Apollo is finally forced to withdraw his support from Hector, Athena appears in physical shape on the battlefield, first to Achilles, then to Hector:

   

Cf. Kullmann 1985, 14˗20. García 2002; Edwards 1992. See p. 55. Wenglinsky 2002, 38˗42.

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But the goddess, flashing eyed Athena, came to Peleus’ son, stood close to him and spoke the winged words: ‘Now indeed, glorious Achilles, dear to Zeus, I expect that by having slain Hector we two will bring great glory for the Achaeans to the ships … because now it is no longer possible for him to escape us … But stop now and take a breath; I myself will go and persuade him to fight with you man to man’. So spoke Athena, and he obeyed … But she left him and came to the noble Hector, in the likeness of Deiphobus in outward appearance and restless voice; and coming up to him she spoke the winged words: ‘Dear brother, hard indeed is quick Achilles pressing on you by chasing you with swift feet around the city of Priam. But come, let us make a stand, and defend ourselves by staying here’.⁹

Athena succeeds in persuading Hector, who does not recognize the real identity of the epiphanic deity, to face Achilles in duel combat, in which the Trojan is due to succumb some 150 lines later. It is only at the very moment of his death that Hector becomes aware of Athena’s deceit.¹⁰ Few Iliadic passages demonstrate better the extent to which the Iliadic ‘Götterapparat’ engineers the world of human beings through epiphanic interventions. As for the constellation of divine and human characters, not only does Apollo, guardian of Troy and Hector, stand against Athena, protectress of the Greeks and Achilles, but also the quarrel between the two gods is decided by Zeus, who thrones in heaven and must consult the ‘scales of fate’. The passage offers in a nutshell various types of ‘visibility’. For instance, throughout the Iliad, Zeus remains far aloof in heaven even at a singularly important moment, just as virtually always in the archaic and classical textual evidence. I shall say more about Zeus’ absence in the human lifeworld when I discuss drama. Meanwhile, Athena appears in three shapes, namely, to her protégé Achilles in her ‘normal’ shape for encouragement and honest advice; to Hector, disguised as his brother Deiphobus for deception; finally, invisibly (at least to Hector) when assisting Achilles during the combat (Il. 22.277, λάθε δ’ Ἕκτορα).¹¹ The coordinating voice in terms of visibility is the omniscient poet, who knows about Zeus’ consulting the ‘scales of fate’ in heaven as well as the true identity of Deiphobus and the (invisible) assistant of Achilles during the fight, alias Athena. Without these multilayered epiphanic interventions, the scene of book 22 would not be conceivable in dramatic terms, and without the scene, the plot of the entire Iliad would be pointless.

 Il. 22.214˗231.  Il. 22.296˗305.  Apollo’s final support of Hector is couched in neutral terms (Il. 22.203 f. ἤντετ’ ᾿Aπόλλων/ ἐγγύθεν).

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Divine and Heroic Cast of Epiphany Scenes It is not by chance that the poet of the Iliad chooses Apollo and Athena as helpers of the two central heroes in this culminating scene of Iliad 22. Standing for the two combatting parties of the Trojan War, Apollo and Athena form the most frequent ‘epiphanic’ deities in the poem and together account for approximately half the epiphanic scenes.¹² Not so common, but nevertheless attested, are epiphanies of other Olympian gods such as Poseidon, Iris, Aphrodite, Ares, Hera, and Hermes.¹³ Thetis reveals herself repeatedly, but only to her son Achilles.¹⁴ As is to be expected, also Achilles and Hector are paralleled as recipients of epiphanies. In fact, they are the most frequent recipients of epiphanies in the Iliad. Simultaneously and hardly by chance, they are the two greatest combatants before Troy.¹⁵ By contrast, the fact that an epiphany to Agamemnon is attested only once,¹⁶ and to Priam never outside book 24,¹⁷ may suggest that the social status (τιμή) of the recipient is not the determining factor of the frequency or intensity of epiphanies. Furthermore, epiphanies are restricted to male heroes, with one exception: Helen ˗the most heroic among all Iliadic women˗ encounters two goddesses in person, both of whom are connected to her husband’s single combat.¹⁸

 Apollo: Il. 5.432˗442 (to Diomedes), 7.17˗62 (to Helenus), 10.515˗519 (to Hippodamus), 15.220˗262 (to Hector), 16.698˗711 (to Patroclus), 16.715˗726 (to Hector), 16.783˗804 (to Patroclus), 17.70˗82 (to Hector), 17.319˗342 (to Aeneas), 17.582˗592 (to Hector), 20.79˗111 (to Aeneas), 20.375˗380 (to Hector), 21.544˗598 (to Agenor), 21.595˗22.21 (to Achilles); Athena: Il. 1.188˗222 (to Achilles), 2.155˗207 (to Odysseus), 2.279˗282 (to the Achaeans, then to Odysseus), 2.445˗454 (to the Achaeans), 4.68˗104 (to Pandarus), 5.710˗908 (to Diomedes), 7.17˗62 (to Helenus), 10.503˗514 (to Diomedes), 17.543˗574 (to Menelaus), 19.340˗356 (to Achilles), 21.284˗304 (to Achilles), 22.214˗225 (to Achilles), 22.226˗247 (to Hector).  Poseidon: Il. 13.43˗125 (to the two Ajaxes, Achaeans), 13.206˗239 (to Idomeneus), 14.135˗153 (to Agamemnon), 14.354˗387 (to Achaeans), 20.318˗340 (to Aeneas), 21.284˗304 (to Achilles); Iris: Il. 2.786˗807 (to Trojans), 3.121˗124 (to Helen), 11.195˗211 (to Hector), 18.165˗202 (to Achilles), 24.143˗188 (to Priam), with Turkeltaub 2007, 55 n. 13 and 59 n. 23; cf. Erbse 1986, 55˗65 (who considers the personified Iris a Homeric invention, cf. ibid. 64 f.); Aphrodite: Il. 3.383˗389 (to Helen), 5.311˗344 (to Diomedes); Ares: Il. 5.461˗470 (to the Trojans); Hera: Il. 5.710˗908 (to the Achaeans); Hermes: Il. 24.339˗469 (to Priam), 24.677˗694 (to Priam).  Il. 1.357˗361 (to Achilles), 18.35˗147 (to Achilles), 19.2˗39 (to Achilles), 24.120˗142 (to Achilles).  For references, see the preceding footnotes. For Achilles’ privileged contact with communicating gods in the Iliad, see Turkeltaub 2007, 68˗77.  Poseidon to Agamemnon Il. 14.135˗153.  Iris (messenger of Zeus) to Priam, Il. 24.143˗188; Hermes to Priam 24.339˗469, 677˗694.  Iris: Il. 3.121˗124; Aphrodite: Il. 3.383˗389.

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In the Odyssey, Athena appears in different shapes to different protagonists, but always to further Odysseus’ cause;¹⁹ besides this, Hermes approaches mortals in order to convey messages from above;²⁰ on one occasion, he has more to say.²¹ Exceptionally, Ino/Leucothea encounters Odysseus, a reminiscence of Thetis’ frequent encounters with her son Achilles in the Iliad, despite its typically Odyssean touch.²² Epiphanic passages in the Odyssey add up to twenty encounters and are thus conspicuously less frequent than Iliadic ones. In order to compensate for this limitation, the Odyssey features some longer epiphanies, especially that of Athena in the 2nd and 3rd books of the Odyssey, as well as numerous encounters with immortal (or better, ‘timeless’) ˗non˗Olympian˗ fairy˗tale entities such as the Sirens, Calypso, Circe, the Cyclopes, and many more. In other words, while the plot of the Iliad allows for widespread epiphanic intervention, the Odyssey focuses on one single Olympian deity (Athena), but adds the world of fairy˗tale ruled by semi˗divine beings. As for heroes interacting with gods in the Odyssey, Odysseus, and Telemachus feature prominently. Among females, only Calypso is granted a divine encounter, but she is a (minor) deity of the world of fairy˗tale, not a heroine.²³

Visibility of Gods While Homer’s audience is informed about the identity of the various epiphanic characters, Homer’s protagonists are much less so. Their ‘vision’ of the epiphanic god is sometimes deliberately misled, limited or fully impaired through some kind of mysterious ‘air/mist’.²⁴ It has already been said that with the exception of Zeus, who is always absent from the human lifeworld, gods may appear in

 Od. 1.96˗324 (to Telemachus, Eurymachus), 2.267˗3.373 (to Telemachus, Nestor, Noemon), 2.382˗387 (to the Ithacans), 6.20˗47 (to Nausicaa), 7.18˗38 (to Odysseus), 8.7˗23 (to the Phaeacians), 8.193˗200 (to Odysseus), 13.221˗440 (to Odysseus), 15.1˗44 (to Telemachus), 16.156˗174 (to Odysseus), 17.361˗368 (to Odysseus), 19.33 f., 20.30˗55 (to Odysseus), 22.205˗275 (to Odysseus), 24.502˗548 (to Odysseus, Ithacans).  Od. 1.38˗43 (to Aegisthus), 1.81˗86 with 5.28˗147 (to Calypso).  Od. 10.275˗308 (to Odysseus).  Od. 5.333˗353 (to Odysseus), cf. Kullmann 1985, 11.  Od. 1.81˗86, 5.28˗147.  Cf. for the terminology of ‘air/mist’ cf. Bettini 2017, 31˗37.

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the Homeric lifeworld in different ways. The question of ‘who sees what’ deserves further attention.²⁵ To begin with the obvious, in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, gods are visible to each other: Hermes encounters Calypso in her residence on the remote island of Ogygia, and the poet comments: ‘Calypso, the beautiful goddess, recognized him when she saw him face to face: for the immortal gods are not unknown to each other, even if someone dwells far away’.²⁶ This is clearly what one would expect in the epic world, in which the gods converse with each other like humans. Nevertheless, in poetic terms such divine omniscience is not always expedient, and thus even here, the poet of the Iliad allows for exceptions: gods can be invisible to their fellow gods, if only by means of some mysterious magic device such as Hades’ cap.²⁷ Poseidon unsuccessfully tries to fool his brother Zeus and sister Hera by assuming various human shapes. But the very attempt suggests that he thinks the deception is likely to work.²⁸ Things are different with heroes. Gods may introduce themselves by name, but this seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Normally, it is the epic poet himself who calls the deity in question by its name (while in drama, a deity on stage either introduces itself or is introduced by one of the protagonists).²⁹ In fact, the Iliad and the Odyssey leave gods unidentified in the speeches of their mortal protagonists.³⁰ But the author supplies the divine name and thus removes potential uncertainties on the part of his audience. An undisguised appearance of the gods is explicitly said to constitute a privilege granted only to the Phaeacians, in addition to the Cyclopes and Giants.³¹ However, the evidence does not bear out this restriction, since gods in both Homeric poems often appear before heroes without a disguise being mentioned.³² Even if we assume that in some of these cases a disguise is implied, there is no characteristic or meaningful lack or omission of undisguised epiphanies in

 Cf. Bettini 2017; Turkeltaub 2007, esp. 56, who distinguishes between post factum recognition after departure, direct visual, verbal, aural, or unspecified recognitions of the gods; Smith 1988; Strauss Clay 1974; Kullmann 1956, 93˗105.  Od. 5.78˗80.  Il. 5.845 (Athena wearing Hades’ cap and thus being invisible to Hades); cf. Bettini 2017, 34.  Il. 13.355˗357, but both Hera (Il. 14.153) and Zeus (Il. 15.8) identify him easily, with Smith 1988, 166.  Mussies 1988, 12˗15.  Wenglinsky 2002, 38˗41 referring to Jörgensen 1904, 363˗367, cf. Erbse 1986, 259 f.  Od. 7. 201˗206.  Il. 1.188 – 222, 1.357– 361, 2.155 – 207, 2.445 – 454, 4.514– 516, 5.123, 5.432– 442, 10.507 f., 11.195 – 211, 11.714– 717, 15.243, 18.165 – 169, 20.48 – 53, 20.375, 23.388 – 393; Od. 10.277 f., 15.9, 17.360 – 363, 24.27– 97 al.

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the Iliad, as has been repeatedly claimed by Pucci and others (without ever giving the full evidence).³³ What we do find is a deliberate and playful ambiguity in terms of visibility, or even simple dramaturgic expediency. Often a deity may be present but remain incognito, at least for some time. Thus, Diomedes is able to identify Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares and Athena on the battlefield only after the explicit removal of the mist.³⁴ Ultimately, it is up to the deity/poetic expediency, whether and to what extent the divine identity is revealed and the god made fully visible.³⁵ Hence, Athena appears before Odysseus and Telemachus, but only the former (and the dogs) identify the goddess in disguise, ‘because the gods are not visible to everyone’.³⁶ Most remarkable is Athena, taking on the role of a servant carrying a golden lamp in front of Odysseus and Telemachus.³⁷ Odysseus sees the goddess (after all, he ‘plans’ with Athena the attack on the suitors, Od. 19.51 f.), while his son only notices a strange radiance originating from the lamp. The passage illustrates the particular intimacy between Odysseus and Athena.³⁸ It also shows the function of reciprocal definition through such ‘partial’ epiphanies: Odysseus’ superior heroic status is marked by the exclusive visibility to him of the goddess, while Athena’s divinity is characterized by her power to stay hidden albeit carrying the lamp in front of Telemachus. A disguise may be incomplete: a case in point is the ‘transformation’ (ἐικυῖα, ἐεισαμένη) of Aphrodite into an aged wool˗comber from Lacedaemon on her encounter with Helen. Helen still perceives ‘the beautiful neck, the charming breasts and the flashing eyes’.³⁹ Aphrodite’s physical transformation is intentionally superficial, her unearthly beauty remains discernible. In a similar vein, Poseidon poses as Calchas and thus enjoins the two Ajaxes to stand their ground

 Pace Pucci 1986, 9 f.; Pucci 1998, 69˗96 passim. See, for instance, Pucci 1998, 74 f. commenting on Il. 1.197˗200. Here, Athena appears in her normal shape, as Pucci himself acknowledges, and there is thus no need for further description because 1. everyone knows what the goddess looks like, and 2. her appearance is irrelevant to the plot. The poet can, of course, be very explicit about the appearance of an undisguised god if he chooses, e. g. at Il. 1.43˗49 (description of Apollo after his descent from Mt Olympus); so also Athena at Il. 5.733˗747 (arming herself for battle), al. For the Iliad’s alleged reticence also Pucci 1998, 79 (‘reticence with which the deities are represented …’), 81 f.  Il. 5.330 f., 433, 600˗607, 815, 824.  Cf. Od. 10.573 f.  Od. 16.154˗163.  Od. 19.21˗52.  Cf. Bierl 2004, 51˗55.  Il. 3.385˗417, esp. 396 f.

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against Hector. However, his real identity is revealed by the signs left by his footprints.⁴⁰ One could quote many examples of such partial disguises.⁴¹ Disguised or not, Homeric gods are represented in human shape. There is a long˗standing discussion about whether they can, in addition, appear as birds or whether the relevant passages are just shorthand comparisons, i. e. whether they keep their normal anthropomorphic appearance and merely act like birds.⁴² Admittedly, given that epiphanic birds are attested in Minoan art, the former idea of identification would have a possible, though very distant, cultural precedent.⁴³ But when, for instance, Athena and Apollo perch on a tree of father Zeus ‘similar to vultures’ and ‘relishing (fighting) men’⁴⁴ this looks to me much more like a parody of conventional epiphany scenes, i. e. Homer parodying his own epiphanic conventions. For what it is worth, later epic omits similar references to potential bird˗shapes of the gods. Disguise is generally not determined by gender, but, once again, by dramaturgic expediency. The warrior goddess Athena adopts the disguise of exclusively male protagonists in the Iliad because the world of the Iliad ˗i. e., the battlefield˗ is the men’s world,⁴⁵ while she masquerades as both male and female in the Odyssey;⁴⁶ Hera and Iris appear in the Iliad in male disguise for the same reasons.⁴⁷ However, one wonders whether a male disguise for a goddess such as Aphrodite would be admissible outside a comic context. The ‘normal’ external features of the gods are taken for granted, so that the hero may confidently determine the identity of the deity, even if the latter is disguised. In fact, Ajax states explicitly: ‘well˗known are the gods’ (ἀρίγνωτοι δὲ θεοί περ), when he identifies the (disguised) Poseidon.⁴⁸ Odysseus may not always be able to identify his patroness Athena. But the fact that the goddess re-

 Il. 13.43˗80, esp. vv. 68˗72 with Petridou 2015, 81.  Athena appears to Diomedes as a mortal, but Diomedes recognizes her nevertheless, because of her divine speech, Il. 5.793˗863, esp. vv. 815˗824. Poseidon appears in front of Agamemnon as an ‘old man’, but he dashes over the plain shouting like nine or ten thousand warriors, Il. 14.135 f., 148 f. The river˗god Xanthus appears before Achilles ‘resembling a man’, but his subsequent speech betrays his divine nature without much ado, and he is accordingly addressed as the river˗god by Achilles, Il. 21.211˗226.  Cf. e. g. Petridou 2015, 87˗91 (undecided); Dietrich 1983, 57˗59; Erbse 1980 (in bird disguise) whom I follow, against Dirlmeier 1967 (comparison).  Burkert 2004, 5 – 9.  Il. 7.58 – 60 with Burkert 2004, 6.  Il. 2.280, 4.86 f., 17.55, 21.284 f., 22.224˗228.  Male: Od. 2.267 f., 2.401 etc.; female: Od. 4.796 f., 13.287˗289; 20.31 etc.  Il. 2.790˗795 (Iris), 5.785 (Hera, with Dietrich 1983, 63 f.).  Il. 13.72.

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bukes her protégé for his ignorance demonstrates that she expects him to know better.⁴⁹

Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica: Epiphanies Divine and Heroic Cast of Epiphany Scenes In his epiphanic representations, Quintus Smyrnaeus seems to imitate his direct (lost) cyclic models more closely than he imitates the Iliad and Odyssey. The principal plotline is a sequel to the Iliad, only simpler, linear, and apparently close to the archaic sources of the epic cycle, in which Aristotle identifies similar ‘flaws’ of linear narratives.⁵⁰ His relative reluctance (if compared to the Iliad and Odyssey) to represent full˗blown epiphanies as part and parcel of his plot may have been caused by a similar scarcity of epiphanies in the relevant works of the cyclic epics. The divine cast of the Posthomerica is more or less fully identical with that of the Homeric epics, although its ‘Götterapparat’ is much simpler. While Zeus stays aloof in heaven as usual and is ˗like all gods˗ subject to Fate (Αἶσα, Moῖρα, Κήρ)⁵¹, Poseidon is notably less frequent in the Posthomerica than in the Iliad, where he appears almost three times as often.⁵² By contrast, Thetis’ role is markedly more prominent than in the Iliad, even after the death of Achilles in book 3 of the Posthomerica. ⁵³ Ares occurs proportionally more often than in the Iliad. ⁵⁴ The messenger function of Hermes and Iris is extremely restricted in the Posthomerica: together they are ‘sent’ by Zeus only twice.⁵⁵ All this may reflect similar constellations of the divine protagonists in the cyclic poems. For what it is worth, the reduced importance of messengers has been singled out independently as a typical feature of the epic cycle.⁵⁶ While Apollo and Athena are still the most important divine agents on Quintus’ battlefield and intervene on numerous occasions on behalf of their human protégés, these interventions are rarely represented in fully˗fledged epiphanic

       

Od. 13.299 f. with 312 f. Arist. Poet. 1451a 16˗35. Quint. Smyrn. 3.487 f., 3.650 f., 11.272˗277; 13.559˗561 al. with Gärtner 2007, esp. 239. Wenglinsky 2002, 43, 57 f. Wenglinsky 2002, 68˗70. Wenglinsky 2002, 43, 61˗63. Hermes: Quint. Smyrn. 3.699; Iris: Quint. Smyrn. 14.467˗491. Tsagalis 2016, 105 f., 114.

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terms, as we know them from Homer. Normally, the physical presence is explicitly mentioned but the poet shies away from details. For instance, Athena descends from heaven ‘in the likeness of clouds, lighter than the wind’ to support the Achaeans while Eurypylus, grandson of Heracles and defender of Troy, wreaks havoc among the Achaeans.⁵⁷ Or take this: when Eurypylus, the champion of the Trojans, is killed by Neoptolemus and the Trojans withdraw, Ares descends from heaven in order to check the retreat of his protégés. He shouts at the Trojans but remains invisible ‘concealed in dense mist’. Only the seer Helenus recognizes the voice.⁵⁸ There is plenty of further evidence.⁵⁹ Many divine interventions of the Posthomerica are introduced with the formula ‘and x would have happened if y (name of a god) had not intervened’ (cf. the characteristic καί νύ … εἰ μή formula). Such ‘if not’ scenes, also labelled reversal passages, are potentially ‘epiphanic’ and essentially Iliadic, although Quintus employs them much more frequently than the poet of the Iliad. ⁶⁰ Two notable full˗blown epiphany scenes must now be analysed in greater detail, both involving epiphanic Apollo.

Epiphanic Apollo Like the description of Hector’s death in book 22 of the Iliad, the death of Achilles in book 3 of the Posthomerica is introduced by an elaborate epiphanic scene. When Achilles continues slaughtering countless men after his friend Antilochus is killed, Apollo descends from heaven to stop him: He [scil. Achilles] would have killed every one of them [the Trojans] … if Apollo had not become implacably angry at the sight of the countless throngs of heroes being killed. Immediately, he sprang down like a wild beast from Olympus … That great god shouted terrifyingly to scare Achilles with his divine voice, turn him away from the battle, and rescue

 Quint. Smyrn. 7.556˗563.  Quint. Smyrn. 8.237˗266, cf. 326˗328.  Apollo: Quint. Smyrn. 4.4˗6, 9.255˗259, 9.291˗320; Aphrodite: Quint. Smyrn. 11.283˗297, cf. 11.479 f. with Wenglinsky 2002, 260 f.; 13.326˗330 with Wenglinsky 2002, 263; 13.385˗392 with Wenglinsky 2002, 262 f.; 14.57˗69, cf. 151˗153; Ares: Quint. Smyrn. 8.237˗266, cf. 326˗328 with Wenglinsky 2002, 244˗246, 8.340˗358, 11.405˗413; Athena: Quint. Smyrn. 5.359˗362, 451˗455, 7.142˗144, 7.556˗563, 9.403˗405 with 9.483 f., 11.283˗287, 12.395˗415, 447˗482; Poseidon: Quint. Smyrn. 9.291˗332, 14.580˗587.  Wenglinsky 2002, 179; for their Homeric employment and bibliography cf. Bakker 1997, 178˗180.

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the Trojans from death: ‘Get back son of Peleus …’ But Achilles was not afraid of the god’s immortal voice: the relentless death spirits were already flying around him …⁶¹

Achilles immediately recognizes the identity of the god but ignores the divine command. In response, Apollo ‘made himself invisible among the clouds and thus concealed in mist he sent a painful arrow which struck him straight at the ankle’.⁶² Some 120 lines later and after killing many more enemies, Achilles succumbs to the poison of the arrow. Truly Homeric is also Apollo’s epiphany to Aeneas and Eurymachus in the shape of the seer Polymestor. This disguise is well chosen because it endows Apollo’s words with mantic authority: It was then that noble Apollo stepped towards Aeneas and warlike Eurymachus, the son of Antenor, while they battled the mighty Achaeans … the god addressed them immediately, after taking the form of the seer Polymestor …: ‘Eurymachus and Aeneas, offspring of the gods, it is not right for you to yield in front of the Argives …’. Thus he said, mingled with the winds and became invisible; but they sensed the god’s martial power. He infused them at once with boundless bravery …⁶³

Wenglinsky comments: ‘This is the only example in the Posthomerica of the commonest type of divine action in the Iliad, the encouragement of mortal characters by a god disguised as a mortal’.⁶⁴ Unless we want to credit Quintus with an unlikely innovative mood, the scarcity of such themes in his work is due to his epic sources, which in turn would suggest that the frequent divine exhortations by gods of their favorites in the Iliad are not generically determined but rather an individual feature of the poet of the Iliad. Are they meant to be parody?

Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: Epiphanies Divine and Heroic Cast of Epiphany Scenes While the fourth˗century CE Quintus seems to imitate his cyclic sources more closely than the Iliad and Odyssey, the third˗century BCE Apollonius responds to the Homeric poems by deliberately suspending Homeric conventions, not least in his epiphanic representations. His relation to the two Homeric epics is    

Quint. Smyrn. 3.32˗42. Quint. Smyrn. 3.60˗62. Quint. Smyrn. 11.129˗144. Wenglinsky 2002, 250˗252, quotation from p. 251.

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a ‘bouncing back’ rather than ‘imitation’, and thus very similar to the response to their Homeric precedents of the Callimachean Hymns, with which I will deal in the next chapter. Apollonius’ Olympian gods are never represented as being universally visible, despite their explicit physical presence. Thus, Athena descends from heaven on a cloud and reaches the Argonauts on the shore of Thynia in order to help them pass the Symplegades’ clashing rocks.⁶⁵ However, her intervention remains unnoticed by the Argonauts (who attribute their salvation to the strength of the Argo, Athena’s ship, instead).⁶⁶ Hera darts down from heaven when the Argo is in danger of following the wrong, disastrous route, and with a cry from the Hercynian rock she warns the heroes, who turn their ship around. But apart from the cry, nothing suggests that the Argonauts take notice of her.⁶⁷ Aphrodite saves Boutes when he jumps into the sea after being seduced by the Sirens. A single Greek word (ἀντομένη = ‘meeting him’) suggests an epiphanic encounter (without any details whatsoever).⁶⁸ The flashing of the golden bow of Apollo (who for this purpose descends from heaven) serves as a beacon to the lost Argonauts at the very end of the poem, but again, only the bow seems to be visible.⁶⁹ Besides, Apollo appears to the Argonauts in passing on his way to the Hyperboreans. No communication is involved, in marked contrast to the Homeric epics, where an epiphany is normally tantamount to a divine message. I am not the first to point out that Apollonius’ story is a cult aetiology of Apollo Eeoïus.⁷⁰ Occasionally, minor gods are represented in interaction with mortal heroes, but their interaction is not so much based on visibility as on a vague perceived presence.⁷¹ Four episodes of the Argonautica display a more direct epiphanic in-

 A.R. 2.537˗548, 2.598˗603.  A.R. 2.611˗614 with Feeney 1991, 72˗75.  A.R. 4.640˗644 with Klein 1930, 235 f.  A.R. 4.912˗919.  A.R. 4.1706˗1713.  A.R. 2.669˗719 with Lye 2012, 238 f.; Faulkner 2004, 59 f.; Matteo 2007, 457 f.; Feeney 1991, 75˗77; Hunter 1986. In a very similar, aetiological vein, the ghost of Sthenelus, a comrade of Heracles who had died and been buried in a barrow at the shore, appears above his grave. This causes the Argonauts to halt, offer libations, and build an altar to Apollo, the savior of ships. And the place receives the name ‘lyre’ from Orpheus’ dedication of his instrument (A.R. 2.911˗929), cf. Hitch 2012, 142.  Cf. e. g. 1. Glaucus: he is introduced (in a manner similar to the ‘prompter’/Muses at 1.22) as a ‘prompter’ (ὑποφήτης) of Nereus, who appears to the Argonauts in person from the sea (with a detailed description of his appearance) and addresses them, thus clarifying that Heracles is destined to be left behind and not to reach Colchis, A.R. 1.1310˗1331, cf. Faulkner 2004, 58 f.; Hunter 1993, 88 f.; Feeney 1991, 71. 2. Hecate appears to Jason after the hero has invoked her through a

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teraction. The last is no doubt imported from outside,⁷² while the other three are most likely Apollonius’ inventions. In these three, Jason, the undisputed central hero, is actively involved, twice as a recipient and interpreter, once as the object of Medea’s love. But Apollonius adds his own un˗Homeric flavor by his choice of the epiphanic gods: three out of four are non˗Olympians. I discuss the passages in their order of occurrences. One may well sense an epiphanic climax towards the end of the poem. 1. At some point in the past, we are told, Hera tests Jason’s righteousness by turning into an old woman and asking him to carry her through the river Anaurus when melting snow has raised its level, and he obeys.⁷³ The anecdote, which follows the popular pattern of disguised deities being carried through a river by a pious man,⁷⁴ is remarkable not only for its lack of connection with the main account of the Argonautica, but for its incompleteness, since we do not learn why Hera tests Jason in particular, or why all this should concern Aphrodite – or the reader, for that matter. Furthermore, the episode is not attested before Apollonius. It stands to reason, then, that Apollonius invents the story to justify Hera’s fondness for Jason, as is argued by Dräger.⁷⁵ 2. Medea’s love of Jason is induced by Eros. This Eros constitutes a playful combination of epiphany and allegory reminiscent of Sappho’s Aphrodite, which I shall discuss below. Eros’ approach to Medea and the shot with his

sacrifice, asking her for assistance against Aeëtes (A.R. 3.1212˗1224). While her frightening appearance is described, she has no message to deliver, cf. Schaaf 2014, 214˗222; Żybert 2012, 382˗389; Knight 1995, 274 f. 3. Helios prophesies to his son Aeëtes (we do not know anything more about Helios’ mode of communication) that he should avoid the treacherous plans and conspiracies of his own offspring, a prophecy which Aeëtes duly recalls when the Argonauts arrive with the sons of Phrixus (his grand˗children) (A.R. 3.596˗600). 4. Circe: The Argonauts encounter her at A.R. 4.660˗752, Knight 1995, 184˗200, but she is no longer represented as a deity, cf. Knight 1995, 187. 5. Thetis: the encounter between Peleus and Thetis, mortal husband and divine wife, is described as a ‘partial’ epiphany: only Peleus is able to see his wife clearly, and she touches his hand, A.R. 4.852˗855. Besides, Thetis explicitly asks Peleus not to betray her or her sisters when she helps the Argonauts pass Scylla and Charybdis and the Wandering Rocks in the Straits of Messene, A.R. 4.861˗864, 933˗938, cf. Faulkner 2004, 60 f.; for the question of visibility, also Hunter 1993, 78 n. 11.  Pi. P. 4.19˗23; Hdt. 4.179, cf. already Klein 1930, 23, who derives the Triton account from ‘a local tradition that entered the story of the Argonauts from outside’.  A.R. 3.66˗73.  Structurally similar accounts are those of the disguised Aphrodite, whom Phaon ferries across the straits between Lesbus and Asia (Hunter 1989, 105 [ad loc.]); cf. also Plato’s homonymous comedy, Pl. Com. frs. 188˗198.  Dräger 2001, 117.

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love˗arrow are described in particular detail,⁷⁶ although he is said to be ‘invisible’ (ἄφαντος).⁷⁷ As an epic protagonist, Eros is un˗Homeric, and his introduction (from lyric?) into epic poetry may well be Apollonius’ invention.⁷⁸ The Apollonian episode offers the poet the opportunity to dwell and expand on Medea’s wavering emotions, namely, the internal struggle between desire (ἵμερος) and shame (αἰδώς).⁷⁹ In other words, the god/sentiment ‘L/love’ serves as a catalyst for the representation of the struggle between emotional and heroic reasoning, lust and discipline, individual and communal welfare. In Homer, heroic reasoning, discipline, and commonweal ultimately win the day, but in Apollonius, it is Medea’s sentiment that prevails. 3. Three heroines, local patron deities of Libya, address Jason during his midday doze, when the expedition has reached an impasse in the Libyan desert. In good Homeric manner, the three heroines are visible only to Jason. He is terrified and turns his head away to avoid eye contact (this reaction implies that the goddesses do not appear in his dream). Nevertheless, he catches a glimpse of their stunning appearance. They encourage him to get up, and in riddled language announce his salvation through Poseidon (Jason himself is initially unable to decipher the message). Suddenly, a horse (= Poseidon) appears, and Peleus deciphers the sign: the Argonauts are to carry the Argo.⁸⁰ 4. In the most elaborate epiphanic scene of the Argonautica, Triton (= the Nile) appears in the shape of a sturdy man, when the heroes are looking for an outlet from Lake Triton in Libya.⁸¹ The man/Triton offers Euphemus the clod of earth which is to become the island of Thera in the future. He gives a detailed description of the itinerary and disappears with the tripod offered by the Argonauts to the local gods.⁸² After a further offering Triton appears from the depths of the sea, this time in his true form (described in much detail and called a τέρας αἰνόν) and thus guides the Argo to the sea.⁸³ In our context, the most important feature is the fact that Triton appears first disguised as a youth, and then in his fully undisguised form. This may be due to an initial reluctance or  A.R. 3.275˗298.  A.R. 3.275 with Feeney 1991, 78.  Klein 1930, 28˗30, 221˗225.  Α.R. 3.648˗652.  A.R. 4.1305˗1379, cf. Walde 2001, 192˗196 (who, however, considers the scene to be an epiphany dream).  For a comparison with the Glaucus passage of the first book (A.R. 1.1310˗1331), cf. Faulkner 2004, 58 f. Knight 1995, 275 f. correctly remarks that Glaucus and Triton together replace Poseidon, a natural candidate for the divine cast of the Argonautica, and yet absent.  A.R. 4.1541˗1585.  A.R. 4.1602˗1619.

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suspicion towards the strangers on the part of Triton, or to the fact that his physical appearance is here construed as a divine reward for the sacrifice offered to him by the Argonauts. The latter scenario, however, would be highly unusual for an epiphany in Greek texts: Greek gods do not normally appear visibly after a sacrifice is offered to them. At most, they respond through a sign.⁸⁴

Iliad and Odyssey: Dreams All epiphany dreams in the two major epic poems are exhortative, i. e. they admonish the recipient or drive him into action. By contrast, Penelope’s sign dream in book 19 of the Odyssey (vv. 535˗553) is anticipatory in that Odysseus’ imminent return is announced. Compared to the number of epiphanies, dream passages in the Homeric epics are scarce, but when they appear, clearly patterned and elaborate.⁸⁵ Their small number can therefore not be blamed on a general epic hostility towards dream representations, but dramaturgic economy: the frequent employment of epiphanies makes divinatory dreams often redundant. Like the representations of epiphanies, those of epic dreams follow specific representational patterns, as has been known for almost a century.⁸⁶ Male recipients of dreams in the Iliad are scarcely surprising, given the subordinate role of female protagonists in the poem. By contrast, the poet of the Odyssey employs divinatory dreams with a clear strategy in mind: while communication through epiphanies is the distinctive mark of the male hero, less heroic characters, including women, are awarded divinatory dreams or signs. Hence, while Odysseus and Telemachus are granted numerous epiphanies, but no dreams, in the Odyssey, Penelope has two divinatory dreams⁸⁷ (the only other divinatory dream of the Odyssey is granted to Nausicaa, for the same reasons).⁸⁸ Nor is it by chance that the only anxiety dream of the two great epics is reported by a woman again (Penelope)⁸⁹ (although Rhesus’ epiphany dream in the Iliad, foreboding his imminent death, may perhaps also qualify as such).⁹⁰ These observations are corroborated by two later epic poems: in Apollonius’ Argonautica

 For the episode, cf. Lye 2012, 236 f. and Pi. P. 4.13˗37, for the Thera connection, also Hunter 2015, 312 f.  Edwards 1992, 309.  Edwards 1992, 309; Arend 1933, 61˗63.  Od. 4.795˗840, 19.535˗553.  Od. 6.13˗40.  Od. 20.87˗90.  Il. 10.496 f.

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and Moschus’ Europa, we encounter four major dream accounts: only one (that of Euphemus at the very end of the Argonautica) is dreamt by a male, and this dream is a maverick on more than one account, as we will see presently. Social distinctions of divine communication in the Homeric epics may go further: unsurprisingly, epiphany dreams are conceptually and dramaturgically closer to epiphanies than sign dreams, and their recipients are thus generally represented in Homer as being aristocratic heroes. To prove this, we may recall Harris’ fine observation that before Plato, and most notably in Herodotus (who features some ordinary people), epiphany dreams remain a royal or at least aristocratic prerogative.⁹¹ To somehow invert and expand this argument, while Homeric heroes in both the Iliad and the Odyssey receive numerous signs, they receive no sign dreams. But Penelope receives a sign dream once, in order for the poet to prepare the recognition-scene of her husband without betraying his identity as yet (in fact, the sign dream is followed by a sort of epiphany dream of an eloquent eagle, explaining the signs).⁹² While the sign dream here has the obvious advantage of ambiguity, such ambiguity seems to be generally below the elevated status of the great Homeric heroes. Hence, with the necessary caveat, we may postulate that the social status of the recipient in Homer is related to his or her mode of divine communication, namely (in descending order of elevation): epiphany ˗ epiphany dream ˗ sign ˗ sign dream. The great male heroes are addressed by the gods in the first three modes, but not the last, while more humble mortals are addressed in the latter three, but not the first. Homeric dream figures in general resemble the shadows of the dead: The dream figure of epiphany dreams always displays a human ‘likeness’ (εἴδωλον)⁹³ which is volatile ‘like a breath of air’,⁹⁴ into which it dissolves after its task of delivering a divine message ˗its own or that of another god˗ has been accomplished.⁹⁵ In a word, the few dream figures of the Homeric epic seem to be not much different from the εἴδωλον/ψυχή of the dead, with which they are sometimes grouped together or compared.⁹⁶ In the Odyssey, Athena appears in a dream.⁹⁷ In the Iliad, gods do not appear in dreams, with two possible exceptions. First, a passage at the end of Iliad 24

      

Harris 2009, 25, 39. Od. 19.535 – 553. Od. 4.796˗837. Od. 6.20. Il. 23.99˗101; Od. 4.838 f. Il. 23.65˗107; Od. 11.207 f., 11.222, 24.11˗14, cf. also the expression δῆμος ὀνείρων, Od. 24.12. Od. 6.20˗51.

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has been interpreted in the sense that Hermes appears to Priam in a dream. The context is as follows: Zeus orders his son Hermes to bring Priam into the Greek camp ‘without being seen’, in order to ransom the body of Hector.⁹⁸ Hermes descends to earth ‘in the shape of a young ruler with the first beard, in whom youthful beauty is most pleasant’.⁹⁹ Disguised as such, Hermes drives Priam on a chariot into the Greek camp after pouring sleep on the guards.¹⁰⁰ Before leaving Priam to Achilles and returning to heaven again, Hermes reveals his true identity to Priam.¹⁰¹ After the successful completion of the mission, Priam rests in Achilles’ tent: But the helper Hermes could not sleep as he thought in his mind how he could guide king Priam away from the ships unnoticed by the holy gate keepers. He stood above his head and addressed him: ‘Old man, it seems you do not care about any evil …’. He said this, and the old man was seized with fear, and made the herald get up. And Hermes yoked for them the horses and mules, and himself drove them speedily through the camp, nor did any man notice them. But when they had now come to the ford of the fair˗flowing river, eddying Xanthus, … then Hermes went away to high Olympus.¹⁰²

Arguing with similar dream scenes such as Agamemnon’s dream of Iliad 2, the relevant volume of the Basel commentary by Brügger, following Lévy and others (including Vergil!), holds that Hermes is here a dream figure, while Richardson in the earlier Cambridge commentary explicitly states that he is not (refuting Lévy).¹⁰³ Who is right? Parallel wording is indeed found in other dream passages but standing ‘above the head’ of someone does not necessarily mean ‘in sleep’. Against it speaks in our case that in Iliad 24 this ‘oneiric’ Hermes would be ‘surrounded’ seamlessly by lifeworld epiphanies of Hermes. After all, when he drives Priam to Achilles and when he returns with him to the city of Troy, he does so in person. Furthermore, given the preference for the ghosts of dead mortals as dream figures, why does the poet not choose, say, the ghost of the dead Hector, if he really wanted to represent a warning dream figure in this passage? By contrast, apart from this passage, whenever they convey a message in person to the great heroes, the Homeric gods do so in person, both in the Iliad and in the Odys-

 Il. 24.329˗338.  Il. 24.347 f.  Il. 24.440˗447.  Il. 24.460˗469.  Il. 24.679˗694.  Pro: Brügger 2009, 238; Lévy 1982, 32 f.; Contra: Richardson 1993, 347. Cf. Verg. Aen. 4.554˗570 (but at 4.259˗278 Hermes addresses Aeneas when the latter is awake).

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sey. In short, the balance tips towards Richardson’s view. Hermes appears to Priam while the king is awake. The second Iliad passage with a (semi˗)divine dream figure and a male addressee is equally exceptional, namely Agamemnon’s celebrated dream in Iliad 2: here, the personified Dream (Ὄνειρος) ‘stands above the king’s head’ disguised as Nestor, calls himself ‘Zeus’ messenger’¹⁰⁴ and, as such, delivers Zeus’ message to Agamemnon. Dream displays all the features of Iris, Zeus’ normal messenger in the Iliad. ¹⁰⁵ The replacement of Iris by Dream may perhaps be due to the particular (misleading and fallacious) contents of the message.¹⁰⁶ The author of Iliad 2 juxtaposes Agamemnon’s inherited leadership with his utter incompetence in comprehending the complex will of the god(s): in other words, his ultimate inadequacy as a true leader. If so, the dream serves to parody Agamemnon’s leadership and as such stands alone in the tradition of Greek epic: first of all, epic dreams are not normally personified and, secondly, they never expose nor embarrass the heroic recipient, even when they mislead him. In a word, the first dream in the tradition of western literature is, in fact, a bold bowdlerization of divinatory dreams in general, and of epiphany dreams in particular.¹⁰⁷ There is only one sign dream in the two Homeric epics: in a famous passage of book 19 of the Odyssey, Penelope is alone with Odysseus (in disguise) and reports to him a dream she had seen recently: in it, she feeds twenty geese. An eagle dives down from the mountain and kills all twenty. Penelope describes how she weeps in her dream for her loss, but how the eagle returns, alights on a roof˗beam and announces that this is a vision foreboding the return of Odysseus and the slaughter of the suitors.¹⁰⁸ This passage is the most complex of all the Homeric dream passages. It has been interpreted as a ‘wish˗dream’, a ‘day dream’, ‘not a dream in the strict sense

 Il. 2.5˗34, esp. 20 f., 26, cf. 59.  One may compare Iris’ appearance to Helen at Il. 3.121˗124, in which the goddess ‘stands close by’ in disguise, cf. Il. 2.786˗807; for ‘standing above the head’, see also Hermes standing above Priam’s head when addressing the latter at Il. 24.682, or the phantom created by Athena and sent to Penelope at Od. 4.795˗803, similarly Od. 6.21, 20.32. For the messenger role of Iris in the Iliad, taken on by Hermes in the Odyssey, see Pisano 2017, 115˗133 (suggesting functional/ dramaturgic reasons).  In a very similar vein, ὕπνος = personified ‘Sleep’ occurs as a full human personality at Il. 14.231˗360, for this personification, see Erbse 1986, 18˗23. A more specific term for divinely inspired dream visions of real future events is ὕπαρ, Od. 19.547, 20.90, with Kessels 1978, 186˗189.  Cf. Walde 2001, 19˗31.  Od. 19.535˗553.

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of the word’,¹⁰⁹ a ‘symbolic’ dream,¹¹⁰ a ‘subtle variant of the eagle and snake motif’ (i. e., the geese replacing the conventional snake),¹¹¹ a ‘redundant form of divination’,¹¹² a ‘hybrid’ (between an episode and an epiphany),¹¹³ and a dream Penelope ‘actually never had’, a ‘stratagem’,¹¹⁴ and finally, as ‘unique among Homeric dream representations because it seems to resemble most the modern concept of dreams’.¹¹⁵ It is truly exceptional in that it is the only sign dream in the Homeric epics and the first of its kind in western literature, but also in that its contents inaugurate the long history of Greek sign dreams involving speaking animals. Equally astonishing is the fact that in its second part, its animal protagonist, the eagle, himself offers the interpretation, reminiscent of the solution of an animal fable at the end of the text. The entire constellation would seem unnecessarily complex unless we are prepared to detect a pinch of epic humor here. For instance, the poet could have represented the killing of the geese as a traditional Homeric portent witnessed by Penelope in a waking state. In that hypothetical case, the poet would have given to the disguised Odysseus the role of an interpreter. As it stands, it is the eagle that interprets a dream in a dream, and its interpretation is only confirmed by Odysseus, whose subsequent statements do not add any facts to what we already know or would have easily guessed. Of course, the communication of facts is not the point anyway, but rather the representation of Odysseus’ masterly self˗control, which deceives even his wife. Its deliberate misguidance of Penelope means that the dream may well be read as a parody, just like Agamemnon’s dream in book 2 of the Iliad.

Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica: Dreams Quintus has two epiphany dreams both involving Athena. This fact is consonant with Athena’s significant role as a deity in the plot of the work. Truly Homeric is only the second one: Athena appears, disguised as a young girl, in Epeius’ dream and instructs him to build the Trojan Horse and to finish it in three days. When he wakes up, Epeius immediately recognizes the goddess.¹¹⁶ This passage is a

       

Cf. Kessels 1978, 98, 107. Rozokoki 2001, 1. Athanassakis 1987, 265. Struck 2016, 255. Harris 2009, 50. Winkler 1990, 153. Walde 2001, 55. Quint. Smyrn. 12.104˗114, 147 f. with Wenglinsky 2002, 298˗300.

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perfect example of the employment of epiphany dreams for exhortative ends. Athena initiates the building of the Wooden Horse by giving instructions that are so specific that only a deity could convey them. A mortal would not have this kind of knowledge. An exhortative epiphany dream is the only dramaturgic option, because a sign dream would be much too unspecific. The earlier epiphany dream in Quintus is a strange hybrid: Athena shrewdly sends Dream to Penthesileia in the likeness of the Amazon’s father, encouraging her to face Achilles in battle, and thus accelerating her own death. The scenario is a remake of Agamemnon’s dream in book 2 of the Iliad. ¹¹⁷ The two dreams coincide in that dramaturgically they push the plot towards disaster. Apart from that, however, they differ, and the difference may show how little Quintus knows ˗or cares˗ about the sophisticated dramatization of Agamemnon’s dream in the Iliad: Quintus not only considers the Iliadic Dream a fully-fledged god (and not parody), but he even disguises him!

Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica: Dreams Apollonius relegates dream accounts to the last two books of his Argonautica, where they do not motivate any actions or decisions of the protagonists, but create an atmosphere of marvel and suspense (although the actual events of the narrative cannot always be paralleled with details of the dream visions). In fact, two of the three recipients of dreams (Circe, Euphemus) are no protagonists at all (Circe is credited with ‘exceptional marginality’ by a recent interpreter),¹¹⁸ while only the third, Medea, is. To begin with, Medea ˗undecided whether she should help Jason˗ sees her own future in the dream, i. e., the marriage to Jason. In Apollonius, neither a dream figure nor a sending deity is mentioned, although a case could be made (and has been made) for Hera.¹¹⁹ Whoever the sender is, Apollonius explicitly and repeatedly points to the fact that this is an anxiety dream (as it happens, just as in the Odyssey, a dream dreamt by a woman).¹²⁰ Simultaneously, if interpreted allegorically,¹²¹ the dream comes true, so it is also divinatory, or better an-

 Quint. Smyrn. 1.124˗137; cf. Il. 2.5˗41 with Wenglinsky 2002, 150, 295˗298.  Walde 2001, 185: ‘außergewöhnliche Marginalität’.  A.R. 3.616˗635, with Walde 2001, 175˗184; Kessel 1982, 158˗161. For Hera as the sender cf. e. g. Hunter 1989, 164; sceptical: Walde 2001, 179.  Cf. ἐξ ἀχέων, A.R. 3.616; οἷά τ’ ἀκηχεμένην, A.R. 3.618.  For the question whether it is an allegorical dream see Walde 2001, 183.

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ticipatory. It must be stressed that this is as close as Medea comes in the poem to divining the future. In marked contrast to earlier versions by Pindar and Euripides, in Apollonius, she remains primarily a magician, and is never turned into a full˗blown seer. Apollonius employs a similar literary technique of combined anxiety and divinatory dreams in the case of Circe’s nocturnal ‘visions’ before the arrival of the Argonauts.¹²² Ultimately, both Medea’s and Circe’s visions represent female anxiety dreams foretelling the future, with a literary ancestry that goes right back to Athena’s disguised nocturnal appearance to Nausicaa in the Odyssey. ¹²³ Medea’s and Circe’s dreams correlate, not only because the two women share similar (magic) competences, a comparable extra˗domestic and marginalized/isolated social status, as well as a common descent, but also because they appear as active protagonists in their own dreams.¹²⁴ Furthermore, Circe’s vision is as redundant for the overall development of the plot as is Medea’s. Euphemus’ epiphany dream is marked as programmatic both by its position less than fifty lines before the end of the poem and by its unusual contents: … he had dreamed that the divine clod, which he held in his palm against his breast, was being moistened with white drops of milk, and that from the clod, small as it was, emerged a woman in the shape of a virgin. Overcome with untamable desire, he slept with her, but then cried as if he had made love to his daughter, after he had suckled her with his own milk. But she comforted him with gentle words: ‘I am Triton’s offspring, my friend, the nurse of your children, not your daughter, for Triton and Libya are my parents. Entrust me to the daughters of Nereus to live in the sea near Anaphe, and I shall later emerge into the sunlight, prepared for your descendants.¹²⁵

Since Euphemus cannot solve the riddle, he consults Jason (because the seer par excellence, Mopsus, has already died), who offers an ingenious answer: the maiden is the island of Calliste/Thera (the founding city of Cyrene, a fact that is, deliberately, not mentioned although clear to the reader).¹²⁶ The dream is un˗Homeric on at least four accounts. To begin with, its first part, which is in fact a sign dream, reflects brute male sexual phantasies with allusions to incestuous sex, a topic that is inconceivable in archaic epic. Second, albeit principally an  A.R. 4.664˗669, 723 f., with Hunter 2015, 173 f.; Walde 2001, 184˗192; Kessel 1982, 161˗163, esp. 163: ‘…Circe’s dream serves as an allegorical prediction of coming events, as a means of building up an atmosphere of fear and tension …’.  Od. 6.25˗40; Clauss 1997, 160.  Cf. Walde 2001, 190: ‘Medea und Kirke sind Bild und Spiegelbild’.  A.R. 4.1732˗1745.  A.R. 4.1731˗1764 with Morrison 2020, 107 f.; Hunter 2015, ad loc.; Walde 2001, 196˗201; Kessel 1982, 164˗166.

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epiphany dream, the dream is dramaturgically not exhortative, but anticipatory. The message is deliberately vague to both the protagonists and Apollonius’ audience. It requires the ingenuity of the greatest Argonaut, Jason, to be interpreted properly. Third, the female dream figure symbolizes the deified island of Calliste/ Thera, i. e. a personification of a locality and a deity completely irrelevant to the plot of the Argonautica (both as a deity and as a location). Fourth (connected to the previous point), the raison d’être of the dream is aetiological, pointing far beyond the scope of the actual poem. It resembles Euripidean epilogue epiphanies that are directed to the audience/reader rather than to the protagonists on the stage/in the narrative. It is not by chance that Euphemus’ dream comes to stand less than fifty lines before the end of the work and forms a kind of coda to the entire plot. One scholar even compares it to a ‘satyr play’, i. e. the humorous conclusion of a tragic trilogy.¹²⁷

Comparative Aspects and Reality For more than a millennium, the Iliad and Odyssey shape the concept of Greek epiphanies in Greek polytheism: first, the two poems feature epiphanies more than any other Greek text; second, the two texts stand at the beginning of Greek textuality in general, and their representations (not only the epiphanies) are normally taken as reference points of Greek culture by ancient and modern recipients alike. It is not by chance that the only case in which genre is invoked by modern scholarship to classify epiphanic representations is ‘epic epiphanies’. Christian apologists do nothing to refute this one-sided image: rather, following in the footsteps of earlier philosophers such as Xenophanes and Plato, they all too willingly take these epiphanic representations at face value and build their criticism of Greek polytheism on them.¹²⁸ Even modern scholarship is often enticed to take the Homeric representations as reflections of polytheistic ‘lifeworld’ reality. However, it is important to stress that subsequent Greek epic poetry responds to ˗rather than imitates˗ the Iliad and Odyssey. This means that Quintus’ relative scarcity of epiphanic representations may reflect a similar scarcity in his epic sources. Such a train of reasoning would underline the singularity of the epiphanic representations of the Iliad and Odyssey even in their own day. The least epiphanic among the major extant epic poets is clearly Apollonius, although, more than any other such poet, he exploits

 Walde 2001, 199.  Cf. Herrero de Jáuregui 2019 for the pagan origins of Christian criticism.

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the dramaturgic potential of epiphanic representations by placing them climactically towards the end of his work. We have to look for Nonnus’ Dionysiaca to find epiphanic representations of the same quantity as in the two Homeric poems, perhaps naturally, given that in Nonnus the protagonist is ultimately a god. Epiphanies in Homer and the Posthomerica are not sensational decoration, but a dramaturgic conditio sine qua non at pivotal moments of the plot: in book 22 of the Iliad the death of Hector with the double epiphany of Athena, in book 3 of the Posthomerica the death of Achilles with the previous threats of a fully epiphanic Apollo. Quintus normally implies such epiphanies, without spelling out specific details (appearance of the god, impression on the spectators). This is, for instance, achieved through his frequent employment of ‘reversal passages’: ‘and x would have happened if y (name of a god) had not intervened’ (cf. the characteristic καί νύ … εἰ μή formula). Even when the epiphanic circumstances are mentioned, the poet does not concern himself much with standard details characteristic of the relevant Homeric type˗scenes. For instance, when Aphrodite snatches away Aeneas, the poet is little interested in how this is achieved, but in why. The goddess does not even address the hero.¹²⁹ More generally, in contrast to the poet of the Iliad, Quintus regularly fails to attribute patent divine intervention to any particular deity.¹³⁰ Two explanations may be put forward. Wenglinsky argues with the concept of a ‘unified divine power of which individual deities represent, as it were, various aspects, united in purpose’. This would mean that henotheistic tendencies so typical of Quintus’ own age would have entered his archaic plot.¹³¹ While this cannot be refuted, much more likely is the assumption that Quintus once again reflects his sources of the cyclic epics, where the only epiphanies that can be reconstructed with fair certainty are gods counselling humans.¹³² Despite his obvious indebtedness to the Homeric poems in general and the Odyssey in particular,¹³³ Apollonius responds to the Homeric gods and epiphanic representations by modifying rather than copying them. Apollonius’ gods are  Quint. Smyrn. 11.283˗297; cf. 11.479 f.  Wenglinsky 2002, 38˗41.  Wenglinsky 2002, 42: ‘The very fact that the poet attributes actions to unidentifiable divine entities indicates that he conceives of a unified divine power, of which individual deities represent, as it were, various aspects, united in purpose. Moreover, by attributing to unidentifiable divine entities the type of actions he does, Quintus is able to give the impression of a high degree of divine involvement in the action of the poem, while restricting the participation of the gods as characters to its most crucial and dramatic events, and to disconnect the gods as characters from implausible occurrences and from doing harm, both types of action faulted by ancient critics’.  Tsagalis 2016, 105 f.  E. g. Hunter 2015, 14˗21; Knight 1995, esp. 267˗305 (representations of gods).

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‘single˗functional’: in other words, they intervene on special occasions with one specific ˗effectively dramaturgic˗ task at hand. When this task is fulfilled, they disappear from sight. While the gods of Homer and Quintus move freely in the human lifeworld and are indistinguishable from human beings (were it not for their immortality and physical strength), Apollonius’ gods appear out of nowhere, intervene and leave. Their physicality (eating, drinking, pain, etc.) is remarkably reduced, if compared to Homer.¹³⁴ Most importantly, for most of the time, they hide in ‘heaven’, which is best defined negatively as a parallel non˗ heroic theatre of action.¹³⁵ ‘Along with the reader, the gods generally watch the story unfold from a distance …’.¹³⁶ With the exception of minor deities, fully fledged epiphanies are almost absent. In marked contrast to Homer and Quintus, ‘the Argonauts rely primarily on indirect [my italics] modes of communication such as religious ritual and divination by seers to determine the gods’ will, because direct communication is not readily available to them’.¹³⁷ Unlike Homer and Quintus Smyrnaeus, Apollonius seems to employ divine communication, and epiphanic representations in particular, with the objective of a dramaturgic climax culminating at the end of the entire work, and here in particular the Triton epiphany and Euphemus’ dream, which points to events far beyond the scope of the Argonautica (such as the foundation of Thera and ultimately Cyrene). Faulkner, discussing this climactic development,¹³⁸ points to the prominence of seers and divination in the first two books, while at the beginning of book 3, with the council of the three goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite, the gods enter the scene more directly, though from a distance. At this point, divination is still the only means of divine communication, albeit a precarious one: Mopsus, who is the only seer after the death of Idmon, is apparently unaware of Hera’s involvement, as is Phineus in book 2.¹³⁹ In book 4, there follows ‘an explosion of the divine in the world of the Argonauts with a breath˗ taking increase of divine encounters and communication.¹⁴⁰ How real are epiphanies in Homeric poetry? Bakker postulates that for the archaic Greeks ‘myth and epic are living realities … The past in this experience

 Knight 1995, 277.  Knight 1995, 277˗279.  Lye 2012, 243, and generally her conclusions, ibid. 243 f.  Lye 2012, 225.  Faulkner 2004.  For Mopsus, cf. A.R. 3.927˗946 with Faulkner 2004, 55 f.; for Phineus, cf. Clauss 2016, 146. Mopsus’ last appearance is the interpretation of the crow˗sign sent by Hera towards the end of book 3, cf. A.R. 3.938˗947 with Faulkner 2004, 57 f.  Faulkner 2004, 58.

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does not simply precede the moment of speaking; it still exists, elsewhere, in another time and place. … Memory not only provides access to a reality that is ontologically prior; it also makes that reality present and is, as such, a strong mental experience’.¹⁴¹ Bakker assumes that through performance ‘… mythical time comes to the present, where it is re˗presented and re˗lived’.¹⁴² To begin with, even if Bakker was right, the result would only be a vague ‘presence’ of the ‘presentified’ deity in the mind of an audience. It would thus not meet the criterion of visibility applied in this book. Besides, some may doubt whether ‘presentification’ through performance is itself an exclusively ancient category, since modern theatre and cinema can make things look pretty much alive. Bakker’s main contribution to the argument is his claim that ‘presentification’ manifests itself in archaic poetry through deixis and the use of the aorist. Naturally, there is more here that cannot be discussed in detail: in a nutshell, I hold that with regard to deixis, even if we grant that the poet occasionally represents himself through deictic markers as being ‘present’ at the events of the plot, nothing suggests that the audience would not see through this performative technique and would not still take the text for what it is, namely fiction (there is no such thing as ‘fiction’ in Bakker’s approach). As for the merely temporal aspect, it is well˗known that the aorist (hence its name) denotes an ‘indistinct’ unique, normally past event or action, and thus stands in contradistinction to both the imperfect and perfect, which denote, respectively, continuance and completion with a permanent result. Bakker’s ‘presentification’ through the epic aorist would go against all later uses of the Greek aorist, which is characterized by an ‘indistinct’ temporal relation to the present tense of a past event or action. While Bakker’s approach cannot be entirely refuted, it is a highly uneconomical explanation for a rather well˗documented and clear syntactical phenomenon. I will have to say more about ‘fiction’ in the following chapters and in the conclusions of this book. Suffice it here to state my general view that in the ‘mythical’ genres of epic, narrative hymns, and drama we must strictly distinguish between visible gods and heroes. The former, as I will argue in the following sections, are represented as fiction in the sense defined in the introduction. Although this view is not clearly expressed in the philosophical discourse before Xenophanes,¹⁴³ numerous parodic elements in archaic poetry suggest that the Homeric audience already perceives the representation of epiphanic Homeric

 Bakker 2005, 140 f.  Bakker 2005, 174.  Xenoph. EGP III, D 8˗14 (= D/K 21 B 11˗16); Lesher 1992, 83˗94.

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gods as fiction, without considering such a fiction as ‘impious’. For unlike the Abrahamic religions, Greek polytheism is very fond of ‘divine’ fiction, i. e. fiction with god(s) as protagonists (see the conclusions at the end of this book). By contrast, the historicity of the great Homeric heroes and their (human) vicissitudes in the epic, hymnic or dramatic genres is never questioned by any ancient critic, be he polytheist or monotheist.¹⁴⁴ We should therefore not be seduced by those artistic genres that represent epiphanic gods next to such ‘real’ heroes into assuming that their visible juxtaposition reflects ‘lifeworld’ experiences. How else could one represent communication of gods with humans in vase painting, if not in an epiphanic mode? The fact that the demarcation lines between fiction and reality are drawn differently in antiquity does not mean that they are non˗existent or should be ignored. From earliest times, the ancients have well˗defined notions not only of reality but also of fictionality. Hesiod already teaches that the Muses disseminate both, reality and fiction;¹⁴⁵ and Odysseus’ various imaginary accounts in the Odyssey prove, if proof was needed, that Homer is familiar with the two concepts and their successful application for poetic effect.¹⁴⁶

 Cf. Veyne 1988, 41 f.  Hes. Th. 27 f.  E. g. Od. 13.256˗286, 14.199˗359, 17.415˗444.

Narrative Hymns Scholars ˗tipped off by Thucydides’ term prooimion ¹ and similar closure verses (‘passage formula’) in all but one of the Homeric Hymns˗ have long suspected that at least some Homeric Hymns started off as hymnic preludes to (lost) epic poems. While such a prelude function may apply to some shorter Homeric Hymns,² the original poetic autonomy of the longer Hymns (2˗5), which are plausibly dated between ca. 650 and 450 BCE, has been accepted by many scholars.³ Strauss Clay, for instance, suggests that these longer Hymns should be read together as (at least originally) independent poetry, in fact as an independent genre.⁴ Maslov even goes so far as to argue that Thucydides’ term prooimion is here employed in the sense of ‘opening prayer, invocation’ and thus comes close to postulating a new genre of hymnic proems.⁵ Richardson, by contrast, cautions us against precluding a prelude function also for the longer Hymns.⁶ The longer Homeric Hymns to Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite (Hom. Hym. 2˗5), which I shall call henceforth ‘narrative’ Homeric Hymns,⁷ are panhellenic in outlook. The divine deeds are told at length, the gods addressed are the great Olympians, the stories involved focus on a number of well˗known panhellenic myths. In fact, the panhellenic element is so strong that some scholars, most prominently Strauss Clay in her magisterial The Politics of Olympus and others in her wake, assume a central theological message behind the longer Hymns and sometimes beyond that. For Strauss Clay, for instance, the longer Homeric Hymns complement Homer and Hesiod’s Theogony in that they ‘bridge’ the mythical interstice between these two mythical reference works. In my view, this approach ignores the random sequence of the longer Hymns as well as the apparent importance of length as a taxonomic criterion (the first Hymns are the lon-

 Th. 3.104.4 f.  E. g. Vergados 2013, 585.  For all narrative Homeric Hymns, a dating in or around the sixth century BCE has been plausibly defended, with the Hymns to Aphrodite (5) and Apollo (3) closer to or in the seventh century and the Hymn to Hermes (4) closer to or in the fifth century, cf. Faulkner 2011, 9˗16 (surveying modern approaches); also Vergados 2012, 121˗147 (on Hom. Hym. Herm. [4]). The question whether the Delian and Delphic parts of the Hymn to Apollo (3) were originally composed independently need not concern us here; for the question, cf. Bierl 2017, 253 f.; Chappell 2011.  Strauss Clay 2011; 1989.  Maslov 2012.  Richardson 2010, 1˗3.  Faulkner 2011, 21 follows Furley/Bremer 2001, I, ix and calls them ‘literary’, a misnomer due to their apparent oral nature, at least at an early stage. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-004

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gest), the conspicuous absence of Zeus and Athena as recipients of major Hymns (Zeus has only one single Hymn of 4 lines, Athena is addressed in two Hymns in a total of 21 lines). Rather, the thematic homogeneity is due, not so much to a single panhellenic ‘theology’, but to the fact that all the longer Hymns are composed within the same performative framework, about which I shall offer some suggestions at the end of this chapter. The narratives of the longer Homeric Hymns differ from epic in that they focus on the deeds of the divine laudandus. In fact, we may want to think of the Homeric Hymns as divine aretalogies as opposed to heroic aretalogies of epic.⁸ This explains why we do not find dreams in them, because gods send dreams, they themselves do not normally dream. But the narrative Homeric Hymns and epic also differ in their representations of lifeworld epiphanies: ‘Where Homer is chiefly interested in the reaction of the affected mortals, for the hymn˗writers epiphany is a climactic revelation of divine power, which may lead to the foundation of a cult. The gods of epic serve above all as a foil to mortal suffering and achievement: the Hymns portray a divine world to which mortals are admitted only as a kind of witnesses’.⁹ Divine aretalogy is firmly tied to the deeds of the gods in the human lifeworld in the narrative Homeric Hymns. In fact, all the narrative Homeric Hymns deal with a single (or in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo [3] possibly two) mythical episodes of the god’s biography, which is firmly located in the human lifeworld, and sometimes with extreme geographical accuracy. To illustrate this point, one may take the divine travelogues. For instance, in the Delian part of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), Leto encounters during her journey numerous personified toponyms, which may be inspired by catalogues of cult places of Apollo/Artemis.¹⁰ Such a divine itinerary in catalogue form is a hymnic stereotype, as a brief look at corresponding lists of toponyms in the Pythian part (Apollo’s travel from Mt Olympus to Delphi to found his oracle/Apollo capturing a Cretan merchant vessel and guiding it to the harbor of Delphi)¹¹ as well as the wanderings of Demeter in her Hymn demonstrate. Eventually, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3) Leto arrives at Delos, which welcomes the pregnant goddess and thus attains Apollo’s eternal favor. The theme of the travelling goddess has rightly been recognized as being intrinsically epiphanic, even if Leto fails to encounter human beings stricto sensu, and the poet speaks in detail only about the

 Lipka 2018, 1 f. for the Homeric Hymns as ‘aretalogies’.  Parker 1991, 2, cf. Richardson 2015, 19.  Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 30˗88; cf. Kowalzig 2007, 72˗79.  Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 216˗387/388˗544.

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encounter with Delos of Leto.¹² Such an immanently epiphanic human lifeworld is typical of hymnic texts in marked contrast to, say, epic where the gods pop up in the human lifeworld only to assist their human favorite – or punish their enemy. To corroborate my argument, I will focus on those hymnic passages in which ‘visibility’ to human beings is a primary issue. Written centuries after the four narrative Homeric Hymns,¹³ Callimachus’ six Hymns follow their predecessors in their narrative breadth, their reference to the great Olympians and their playful panhellenism, often referring to cults in various parts of the Greek world of the same deity in a kaleidoscopic manner (cf. the Callimachean Hymn to Zeus [1]). However, they are playfully un˗Homeric in their complex, non˗linear structure, their recondite (= non˗panhellenic) topics, the versatility of the narrator’s voice, the omission of central themes of the Homeric Hymns (such as cult foundations, divine strife),¹⁴ and their occasional explicit rejection of Homeric accounts.¹⁵ Callimachus does not even shy away from the ostentatiously un˗Homeric Doric dialect in the Hymns to Athena (5) and Demeter (6), and turns to elegiacs in the Hymn to Athena (5). Unlike the authors of the Homeric Hymns, he addresses the Muses only once,¹⁶ while he experiments with the ‘poetic ego’ as an actual participant in the events in his Hymns to Apollo (2), Athena (5) and ˗to a lesser extent (with a long aretalogical part in the middle)˗ that to Demeter (6). His hymnody is a bouncing back from ˗rather than an imitation of˗ the Homeric precedent.

 Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 30˗88 with Petridou 2015, 274˗276. For some more epiphanic aspects in the Delian part, cf. Bierl 2017, 253˗259.  The Callimachean Hymns can be tentatively dated between 285˗246 BCE, Stephens, S.A. 2015, 16˗22. In their present form, they presumably pre˗date the final version of the Aetia, although Callimachus seems to have worked on the Aetia at different times in his life, so that some of its episodes may be contemporary with ˗or predate˗ certain parts of his Hymns, Harder I, 2˗8. The sequence in which the Callimachean Hymns have come down to us can be explained on the grounds of various internal criteria, and may thus reflect Callimachus’ own sophisticated arrangement, cf. Stephens, S.A. 2015, 12˗14; Acosta˗Hughes 2012, 124˗128.  Petrovic 2016, 168 f.  For the general relation of Callimachus’ Hymns to the Homeric Hymns, see Fantuzzi/Hunter 2004, 30˗32; for the omission of Homeric themes in Callimachus’ Hymns, see Petrovic 2016, 168 f. For refutation of Homeric accounts, cf. Call. Hym. Zeus (1) 58˗67 with Il. 15.187˗192; other ‘flaws’ that Callimachus ‘corrects’ may go back to works that were ascribed to Homer, cf. Clauss 1986, 157 f.  Call. Hym. Del. (4) 82.

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Disguised Gods Hymnic gods normally appear as humans when disguised. Unlike similar human disguises in epic, in the Homeric Hymns the hymnic disguise is not an eminent, eponymous character (such as Deiphobus in book 22 of the Iliad, see above), but an anonymous figure, a ‘type’, or nameless divine proxy. For instance, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5), the deity appears ‘like an unmarried girl in stature and appearance’.¹⁷ In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), the god appears ‘in the likeness of a sturdy and strong man in his first prime’ and god˗like, as the Cretan leader recognizes.¹⁸ This is the third, and ontologically ‘highest’, epiphanic form of the god after that of a dolphin and a star that precede it in the same Hymn. ¹⁹ In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), the goddess first travels around ‘effacing her beauty, and no man or deep˗girt woman … knew who she was’.²⁰ Then she sits down at the Parthenium well (‘Well of Maidens’), ‘and she looked like an old woman born in ancient times, debarred from motherhood and the blessings of garland˗loving Aphrodite’.²¹ In marked contrast to such anonymity, in the only scene of Callimachus’ Hymns in which a disguised deity is described, Demeter takes on the shape of Nicippe, her priestess, in order to prevent Erysichthon from cutting down trees in her sacred grove in Dotium/Thessaly.²² Such an un˗Homeric ‘naming’ ties in with other features of the Callimachean piece that are atypical of the Homeric Hymns, for instance: 1. the fact that here the penal/negative powers of the deity form the only element of the deity’s aretalogy. As in the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (7) and Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena (5), theodicy is the issue. This may be a later hymnic trait, not found as such in the four narrative Homeric Hymns; 2. the scene is relegated to the fringes of the Greek lifeworld and culture, deliberately away from the traditional Greek cult centers; 3. the tone is mocking and moralizing, as when the enraged Demeter turns Erysichthon into a voracious glutton who devours everything in his path and is

 Hom. Hym. Apol. (5) 81.  Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 449˗451, 464˗466.  Cf. Bremer 1975, 4 f. who calls the sequence an ‘ascent from demonic rule of powers experienced as theriomorph through the incomprehensible Tremendum and Fascinosum of the manifestation of light to the human shape’.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 91˗95.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 101 f.  Call. Hym. Dem. (6) 42˗44.

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kept at home by his embarrassed family; and who eventually, after consuming his family’s fortunes, ends up as a beggar at the crossroads;²³ 4. the fact that Erysichthon does not have an inkling of the true nature of the goddess in front of him, whose disguise is apparently complete. When gods appear in human shape in the narrative Homeric Hymns, their divine nature is difficult to discern, ‘because gods are hard for mortals to see’.²⁴ Nevertheless, their divinity is never fully effaced. In particular, two properties characterize the gods in disguise in epic and hymnic contexts, namely divine radiance and supernatural stature, leading to astonishment, awe, and fear, but also to love. This may be labelled the ‘appearance-and-sensation’ topos.²⁵ For instance, when Demeter enters the house of king Celeus in the shape of an ‘old woman born in ancient times’,²⁶ she ‘stepped onto the threshold: her head reached to the ridge˗pole, and she filled the doorway with divine radiance. The queen was seized by awe and reverence and pale terror’.²⁷ In particular, the aspect of ‘radiance’ may be expanded to considerable length, as in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5): Anchises looked at her closely, he wondered at her appearance, her stature and shining garments; for she wore a dress brighter than firelight, and she had twisted bracelets and shining ear buds. Round her tender neck there were beautiful necklaces of gold, most elaborate, and about her tender breasts it shone like the moon, a wonder to behold. Anchises was seized by desire …²⁸

I have italicized the words for ‘shining’ which pervade the entire passage and culminate in the comparison with the moon. When confronted with a god in disguise, at least one bystander is normally suspicious in the narrative Homeric Hymns. For instance, Anchises is alert to the divine appearance of the disguised Aphrodite.²⁹ The Cretan leader recognizes the divine traits of Apollo.³⁰ Callidice, Celeus’ daughter, perceives the ‘god˗like’ nature of Demeter.³¹

 Call. Hym. Dem. (6) 31˗117. We know of the Thessalian city of Dotium as a center of the worship of Demeter, but her grove, poplar, and priestess Nicippe are non˗entities apart from accounts depending on Callimachus. For parallel versions, see Hopkinson 1984, 18˗26. Furthermore, Hopkinson has convincingly discredited the idea of any specific cult setting, Hopkinson 1984, 32˗43. For the cult of Demeter in Alexandria and Cyrene, which is perhaps directly relevant, see Stephens, S.A. 2015, 265 f.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 111.  Cf. e. g. Grand-Clément 2017; Faulkner 2008, ad vv. 83 – 90; Richardson 1974, 208 f.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 101.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 188˗190.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 84˗91.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 92˗99.

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In order to conceal their true identity, gods may invent a story of their vicissitudes, just as in the Odyssey Odysseus invents fancy stories about his wanderings to conceal his identity until the final disclosure of his true name.³² Thus, in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5), Aphrodite claims to be the daughter of a Phrygian king who was snatched away by Hermes in order to marry Anchises.³³ Demeter invents a story and a fancy name (the reading of which is doubtful) and claims that after her arrival from Crete she escaped from her owners (who were about to sell her).³⁴ In the end, both Aphrodite and Demeter appear in their true, ‘divine’ shape. Non˗human disguise is tied to and virtually restricted to cult aetiologies: in his Homeric Hymn, Apollo leaps onto the ship of the Cretans (whom he has singled out as his Delphic priests) in the shape of a terrifying dolphin.³⁵ He orders the Cretans to erect an altar to him at the sea˗shore in his capacity as ‘Delphinius’ and they obey.³⁶ Besides this, Apollo, as a star, enters the adyton of the Delphic temple ‘through the very precious tripods’ and lights a fire ‘displaying his divine powers’. This has been read as an aetion of Delphi’s eternal fire.³⁷ When I discuss epiphanic Dionysus in the chapter on drama, I will touch upon the transformation of Dionysus into a bear and a lion in his Homeric Hymn (7). This passage is not a cult aetiology and possibly not even an aetiology at all, but an element of Dionysian ‘aretalogy’.³⁸

Undisguised Gods Appearance in full, plainly divine shape is found at neuralgic points in the Hymns to Demeter, Apollo, and Aphrodite. At the end of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5), the goddess appears undisguised in superhuman size: ‘… her head reached the well˗built ridge˗pole, while from her cheeks sparkled divine beauty, such as belongs to fair˗garlanded Cytherea, and she spoke and addressed him:

        

Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 464˗466. Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 159; cf. also the helmsman in Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 17-31. E. g. Od. 13.256˗286, 14.199˗359, 17.415˗444. Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 107˗142. Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 118˗137. Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 399˗417. Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 486˗510. Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 440˗447, with Richardson 2010, ad v. 444. Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 44˗57.

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“… Ask yourself whether I look to you like I did when you first saw me.”’³⁹ Her full divine shape conveys authority to her long speech that follows.⁴⁰ In the grand finale of the epiphanic ‘cult’ section of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), the divine laudanda now ‘changed her form and stature, thrusting old age away’, she turns into her divine shape and orders the building of a temple, which is carried out promptly.⁴¹ In his last and most important epiphany in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), Apollo eventually reveals his identity, apparently to make his speech more authoritative: ‘I am Zeus’ son: I proclaim to be Apollo’.⁴² It is difficult to imagine this line being voiced by a figure with a plainly human appearance. How the deity looked like in its own ‘physical’ shape, is often left up to us. Characteristic is Callimachus’ Demeter: ‘Her feet were on the ground, but her head touched Olympus’.⁴³ And in between?

Punishability of ‘Seeing an Undisguised God’ Fear or awe in the divine presence is scarcely surprising, and nothing suggests that seeing ‘gods’ is punishable in itself: after all, when they do not want to be seen, gods can disguise themselves. However, being seen in one’s physical shape without one’s consent, especially ‘naked’ (in the case of female deities), is another matter. Already in the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5), Anchises turns his eyes away from Aphrodite’s undisguised appearance and covers his face after the sexual encounter, because he fears for his virility! But when he saw the neck and lovely eyes of Aphrodite, he was afraid, and turned away the eyes, and covered his handsome face up again in the blanket, and begged with winged words: ‘When I first saw you, goddess, I realized immediately that you were a deity, but you did not tell the truth. Now I beseech you by Zeus the goat rider, do not leave me to dwell among mankind as a castrate, but be merciful; for man does not indulge in fertility who goes to bed with immortal goddesses.⁴⁴

The poet also makes sure that no one else is close by to watch the sexual intercourse with a goddess: during their sexual encounter ‘the others [scil. shepherds]

     

Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 173˗180. Cf. esp. Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 191˗290. Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 275˗304. Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 480. Call. Hym. Dem. (6) 58. Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 182˗190.

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were all following the cattle over the grassy pastures’.⁴⁵ The scene is over ‘when herdsmen turn their cattle and fat sheep back to the steading from the flowery pastures’.⁴⁶ This topic of ‘illicit seeing’ fascinates Callimachus in the second part of the Hymn to Athena (5). Here, the blinding of Tiresias after involuntarily seeing Athena bathing (with a short reference to Actaeon being torn apart by hounds after watching the naked Artemis) is featured to illustrate the maxim: ‘whoever catches sight of an immortal, when the god himself does not approve, this one sees at a great price’.⁴⁷ The blinding of Tiresias here is a composite conceptual constellation of two themes: blinding is a typical punishment for illicitly witnessing divine nakedness or intercourse;⁴⁸ and blindness serves as the prerequisite for special susceptibility to the divine message, whether in the form of poetry or of divination.⁴⁹

Explanatory Speech of the Epiphanic Deity Narrative hymns, especially the Homeric ones, often comprise an explanatory speech by the relevant deity after its epiphanic appearance. In this speech, the deity, explains, advises, or instructs mortal bystanders. For instance, Aphrodite concludes her Homeric Hymn with a long speech, 1. announcing the birth of Aeneas,⁵⁰ 2. praising Anchises’ ancestors and the gods’ fondness for them,⁵¹ 3. justifying why she (after the dire precedent of Tithonus) does not immortalize her lover Anchises,⁵² 4. acknowledging that Zeus’ scheme of revenge has succeeded with the destruction of Troy,⁵³ 5. foretelling Aeneas’ upbringing by the nymphs whose lives are linked to trees,⁵⁴ 6. warning Anchises on pain of death never to reveal the name of the child’s mother; he is instructed to pretend that it was a nymph (not Aphrodite) who bore him his son Aeneas.⁵⁵ Other,

 Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 76˗80.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 168 f.  Call. Hym. Ath. (5) 101 f.  Petridou 2015, 244 f.  Petridou 2015, 214 f. The Tiresias episode is provably pre˗Callimachean, and the same may be suggested for the so far unparalleled Actaeon story; cf. Stephens, S.A. 2015, 237; Vergados 2015.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 192˗199.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 193˗238.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 239˗243.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 244˗255.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 256˗283.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 284˗290.

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though shorter examples of such explanatory speeches after the actual epiphanic section are found in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), where the goddess offers cult instructions about the Eleusinian mysteries, shortly before she turns back into her physical shape.⁵⁶ One may also compare the two speeches in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3), in which the god reveals his name, gives cult instructions and foretells the future, bringing to a close the sequence of various epiphanic representations.⁵⁷ Finally, prophetic speech of this kind is found at the end of the Callimachean Hymn to Athena (5) after the fateful and illicit ‘seeing’ of Athena, in which the goddess predicts the death of Actaeon through his hounds and Tiresias’ prodigious career as a seer.⁵⁸

Emotional Responses by Human Observers From the Homeric epics onwards, fear, astonishment but also desire reflect the sentiments of the spectator, which accompany epic or hymnic epiphanic representations. But while these sentiments are stereotype elements and voiced in the third˗person authorial voice, it falls to Callimachus to largely expand on the psychology of the topic by turning from the third˗ to the first˗person authorial voice and switching from an one˗time mythical event to a contemporary festival context, and here most notably the procession and ‘arrival’ of a cult statue. Speaking as an ‘eye˗witness’ the first˗person narrative voice ˗unlike the third˗ person narrator of the Homeric Hymns˗ does not need the Muses as an inspirational force. ⁵⁹ For instance, in his Hymn to Apollo (2), the poetic ego appears as part of the agonizing crowd that expects the advent of Apollo in his Delian sanctuary.⁶⁰ The Hymn is remarkable for the immediacy of the effects on the environment/the poetic ego which are caused by the divine presence: the temple building shakes, doors rattle, the sacred palm nods, the poetic ego commands the fastenings of the doors of the temple to unbolt themselves, etc.⁶¹ The god (= his cult statue) appears ‘undisguised’, and his ‘golden’ possessions and fragrant hair are described in detail.⁶²

 Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 256˗275.  Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 475˗501, 532˗544.  Call. Hym. Ath. (5) 96˗130.  Remarkably, Callimachus only once invokes the Muses in his Hymns, namely at Call. Hym. Del. (4) 82.  Extensively for the poetic ego in this Hymn, Bing 2009, 33˗48.  Call. Hym. Apol. (2) 1˗8.  Call. Hym. Apol. (2) 32˗41.

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By employing a first˗person perspective here and in the Hymn to Athena (5), the stereotype description of the epiphanic experience of epic and hymnic mortals is turned into an ‘authentic’ personal experience. This is a revolutionary new hymnic perspective, even if the label ‘mimetic’, which is often used for it, may be misleading to some extent.⁶³ Two consequences of this ‘mimetic’ perspective should be stressed: 1. the epiphany takes place, not in the distant mythical past, but in the present tense on a specific (of course rather fictional) occasion witnessed by a bystander; 2. the first˗person representational mode shifts the emphasis from what the deity ‘does’ to what the observer ‘senses’, i. e. from the god in action to the anxious mortal in suspense.

Hymnic Parody: The Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) Most critics commenting on the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) are primarily interested in the question of the nature of Hermes. Versnel, for instance, in a long and balanced discussion, finds in the Homeric Hymn ‘the “little Herms”, largely disregarded in modern scholarship, but very much alive in the everyday imagery and experience of ancient Greeks’.⁶⁴ He identifies the typical feature of the god as his ‘thoroughly human nature’.⁶⁵ ‘The focus is not on “function”, nor even on “meaning” but on “character”’.⁶⁶ Jaillard takes Hermes as a paradigm of how a ‘new god’ enters an existing pantheon, in marked contradistinction to Apollo, the second divine protagonist of the Hymn. For Jaillard, the essence of the Hymn comes down to the question what it means to be a god.⁶⁷ For Strauss Clay, the Hymn is an important puzzle piece in the overall theological message of the longer Hymns concerning the mythical space between Hesiod’s Theogony and the Trojan events.⁶⁸ Before asking what kind of god is praised here, however, it is a methodological imperative to ask what kind of praise we are dealing with. For Versnel, Jail-

 Callimachus’ Hymns to Apollo, Athena and Demeter (2, 5, 6) are often called ‘mimetic’. Although the criteria of ‘mimetic’ poetry are few and contested, one important constituent element is the proximity of the poetic ego to the events which it observes or in which it participates. For a discussion, see Stephens, S.A. 2015, 11; Bing 2009, 33˗48; Payne 2007, 53˗56; Harder 1992 (who shows that many mimetic elements are also found in non˗mimetic hymns).  Versnel 2011, 374.  Versnel 2011, 318; cf. 375.  Versnel 2011, 376.  Jaillard 2007, 21.  Strauss Clay 1989, 95˗151.

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lard and Clay, the Hymn is ˗just like the other narrative Homeric Hymns˗ a piece of ‘serious’ hymnic poetry lauding specific aspects of a popular god.⁶⁹ And admittedly, stories of ‘baby˗Hermes’ as an encomiastic theme are not by themselves proof enough to demonstrate the parodic character of the poem as it is felt, for instance, by Horace.⁷⁰ After all, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3) has a long ‘birth’ story of the god in the first Delian part. Besides, a short Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (26) describes a god who like Hermes ‘grew in a fragrant cave’ and then rambled around in the mountains.⁷¹ However, we soon realize that even those critics who consider the Hymn to be a ‘serious’ theological statement relegate it chronologically to the last position among the narrative Hymns (namely the end of the sixth century BCE),⁷² which seems to amount to the admission that it differs susbtantially from its predecessors. Let us begin with the most important difference and element for the scope of this book, epiphanic representations. We find one epiphanic representation, namely, when Hermes and then Apollo encounter an anonymous old farmer. This epiphany is markedly untypical of the narrative Homeric Hymns: the farmer is the only mortal featured in the Hymn, he is naïve and ignorant, and unimportant for the plot (hence his anonymity).⁷³ The representation of both deities here is also exceptional because ‘there is no sign … that they (scil. Hermes and Apollo) attempt to disguise their divinity, and yet the old man seems quite unaware of this’.⁷⁴ The boy’s name has to be miraculously revealed to Apollo by a widewinged bird,⁷⁵ a further funny blow to Apollo’s omniscience: ‘the gods in this Hymn are humanized to the extreme’.⁷⁶ Apart from epiphanies, a hidden parody of the hymnic genre may be found in Hermes’ ‘hymn’ to himself, which he plays

 Strauss Clay 1989, 96: ‘However much Hermes may differ from the other long Hymns in tone, style, and structure, nevertheless, on the whole the poem conforms to the main generic features of the extended Homeric Hymns’, cf. Jaillard 2007.  Hor. Carm. 1.10.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (26) 6˗11.  Cf. Strauss Clay 1989, 95: ‘…. Generally assumed to be substantially later than the other major Homeric Hymns, the Hymn to Hermes displays numerous pecularities of diction as well as an apparently erratic narrative progress’, cf. also Vergados 2013, 121˗147 (second half of the sixth century BCE); Versnel 2011, 319 (late sixth century BCE).  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 87˗93, 187˗212, 354 f. For good discussions see e. g. Vergados 2013, 297301; Strauss Clay 1989, 114˗116.  Richardson 2010, 19.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 212˗214.  Vergados 2011, 96.

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on his newly invented lyre.⁷⁷ A god addressing himself in a hymn is truly a ‘perversion of the usual function of a hymn’.⁷⁸ More generally, where epiphanic gods must communicate with mankind in the narrative Homeric Hymns, they normally do so directly, i. e. in the epiphanic mode. There is neither much need nor use for the ambiguity of ‘meaningful’ divine signs once the divine identity of the epiphanic god has been established. Hence, divine signs are relatively restricted in the Homeric Hymns in these circumstances, with the telling exception of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), which indulges in satirizing the misguided ‘sign˗mindedness’ of its divine protagonists: in the course of his cattle theft, Hermes attempts to lead Apollo astray by deceptive signs (footprints of the cattle), threatening a mortal witness not to reveal the secret.⁷⁹ Apollo, then, needs the bird sign (οἰωνός) (!) in order to identify the actual thief (but not the whereabouts of the cows!).⁸⁰ When Hermes farts in Apollo’s arms, this again is a ‘divine sign’ (οἰωνός).⁸¹ Apollo declares that through such ‘sign’ (i. e. the smell) he will find the cows.⁸² In the end, however, Apollo needs Zeus’ intervention in order to be guided to the cattle by Hermes.⁸³ Apollo, as Hermes points out sarcastically, has the ‘privilege of prophetic knowledge from Zeus’ utterance’.⁸⁴ Finally, it is with a pinch of salt that Apollo announces that mankind will learn bird omens (οἰωνοί) from him alone, and without deception, and offers Hermes a (useless?) bee oracle in return.⁸⁵ Other humorous passages have been commented on by scholars. Not all of them reflect parody of the hymnic genre, but some important ones do.⁸⁶ In a word, I hold that the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) is a comic showpiece or parody of the hymnic genre. No one will dispute that Hermes is a natural choice for such a topic, given his role as a thief, trickster, and interpreter/creator of signs, both false and true. It may well be his ‘human’ nature that makes him a suitable candidate for such parody. But we cannot take the representation of the

 Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 55˗60.  Strauss Clay 1989, 110, cf. Vergados 2013, 4-14.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 68˗93, cf. 215˗226, 333˗364.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 212˗214.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 295.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 303.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 389˗402.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 471˗474.  Hom. Hym. Herm. (4) 533˗568, esp. 544 (‘bird omens’).  Vergados 2013, 26˗39 distinguishes (p. 27) ‘parody of themes or motifs found in the Hymns and/or elsewhere in Epos, parody of specific passages, situational humour, and “linguistic humour”’; cf. Vergados 2011, 87˗98; Richardson 2010, 19 f.; for signs/σύμβολα, see also Steiner 1994, 40˗49.

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two gods of this Hymn at face value. Both the trickster baby˗god and the ignorant and helpless Apollo form, in a sense, a parodic response to the much more solemn genre of narrative Homeric Hymns, and especially the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3). ⁸⁷ If this is correct, a further important chronological conclusion is unavoidable. For if the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) parodies the conventions of narrative Homeric Hymns in general and the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3) in particular, it stands to reason that by the time of its composition, these latter narrative Hymns must have been conceived already as a generically identifiable entity and corpus of Homeric Hymns and not as ˗say˗ prologues to any hypothetical epic poems. This would mean that the beginning of the corpus as well as the generic consciousness of the narrative Hymns qua hymns would go back at the latest to the time of the composition of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), i. e. according to the most widespread scholarly view, perhaps the end of the sixth century BCE. Such an pre˗classical dating of a corpus of narrative Homeric Hymns would also be in line with the fact that the current corpus does not offer a narrative hymn to Athena or Zeus: the absence of Athena may show that Athens had no hand in the collection, and the absence of Zeus that the Homeric tradition of a ‘distant’ Zeus who never directly interferes with human affairs is still strong. Callimachus then ‘rectifies’ these ‘flaws’ and reserves a place in his hymnic collection for the two gods.

Narrative Hymns and Cult If, then, narrative Homeric Hymns are composed as independent poetic pieces, the question of their position in cult emerges. As in epic and drama, we must carefully distinguish between speaking about cult and being performed within the framework of a specific cult. The former is a given, while the latter is unlikely. All narrative Homeric Hymns refer to realia of one or more local cults, which range from the erection of an altar at an unspecified place (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite [5]) to the representation of entire ritual sequences and terminology (Homeric Hymn to Demeter [2]). Only the relevant commentaries can offer a detailed line˗to˗line discussion of potential allusions to such cult realities. Among the very explicit representations of cult action we may mention the following: In the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3) the god orders the Cretans to erect an altar to him on the shore after he appears to them in the shape of a dolphin and to venerate

 Vergados 2013, 30 f. and 70˗73.

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him under the name of Apollo Delphinius.⁸⁸ He also instructs the Cretan merchants to become priests at Delphi and make a living by slaughtering animals.⁸⁹ The Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2) anticipates or ˗better˗ reflects experiences of initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries, and possibly even a tripartite structure of the actual rites.⁹⁰ Tellingly, the epiphanic section ends with the goddess, who herself orders the building of her temple⁹¹ and the performance of mystery rites.⁹² Further below, dietary provisions such as the prohibition of the consumption of pomegranates or other food connected to death lurks behind the lines of the Hymn. ⁹³ The cult legend of Demophon, most notably his ‘baptism in fire’, is an aetion of part of the initiation procedure.⁹⁴ Besides this, the Hymn ‘explains’ the later cult terminology, such as the terms dromena, hierophantes, etc.⁹⁵ Among the narrative Homeric Hymns, only the Hymn to Aphrodite (5) does not refer to any specific cult. Anchises proposes to build an altar on Mt Ida (one wonders to what deity exactly he would do this, given his confessed ignorance of the person/deity in front of him). This is taken by some scholars to refer to the actual establishment of a cult, a view correctly rejected by Faulkner, on the grounds that the poet is unspecific about the location.⁹⁶ Faulkner’s rejection is substantiated by Aphrodite’s answer: she denies her divine descent (and thus forestalls the erection of an altar).⁹⁷ In a word, the narrative Homeric Hymns speak a lot about cults. But does that mean that they are composed to form part of a specific ritual? Two stylistic criteria point against an original cult event, namely the fact that the narratives are ‘third˗person’ narratives of neutral speakers, not second˗person direct invocations, addresses or prayers, which are typical of other (e. g. epigraphic) hymns. Besides this, an initial invocation, often accompanied by various cult epithets (a typical element of ‘real’ hymns), is conspicuously missing.⁹⁸ Add to this the fact that no Hymn focuses on a single specific cult. For on the one hand, refer-

 Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 486˗510.  Hom. Hym. Apol. (3) 475˗501, 532˗544.  Cf. Petridou 2015, 266˗271.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 270˗272.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 192˗211, with Richardson 1974, ad loc.; 273 f., 473˗479.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 372˗374, with Richardson 1974, ad loc., cf. 411˗413.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 231˗255, with Richardson 1974 ad loc., and pp. 20, 23 f., 27, 29; Parker 1991, 8˗10.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 474˗476, with Richardson 1974 ad loc.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 91˗106 with Faulkner 2008, ad vv. 100˗102; also Olson 2012, ad vv. 91˗106 for the strongly literary flavor.  Hom. Hym. Aph. (5) 107˗142.  Cf. Bierl 2017, 232 f.

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ences to specific cult contexts are conspicuously missing in the Hymn to Aphrodite (5). On the other, in the Hymns to Demeter, Apollo and even the parodic Hymn to Hermes (Hom. Hym. 2, 3, 4), we find references to cult realia from various cults and locations of the deity in question, a sort a medley of ritual references.⁹⁹ In either case, there is no focus on one specific cult. By contrast, the narrative Homeric Hymns are conspicuously all˗encompassing/panhellenic in outlook. A further argument against a cult context is their striking mutual similarity: for it is inconceivable that the cults of (at least) five Olympians (Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite, add also the fragmentary first Hymn to Dionysus [1]) at different places would follow the same convention of long cult hymns with very similar structural and formal features all hugely indebted to epic poetry (e. g. meter, language, epiphanic representations, recognition scenes, chaire˗formula etc.). The enormous variety in form and contents of ‘real’ cult hymns collected by Furley/Bremer 2001 makes such a stunning similarity of both the ritual setting and the formal properties of the Homeric Hymns unlikely (Furley/Bremer label the Homeric Hymns therefore ‘literary hymns’ implying generic homogeneity).¹⁰⁰ Besides, in the case of doublets of the longer Hymns such as the Homeric Hymns to Dionysus (1, 7), Aphrodite (5, 6) and possibly (if actually two hymns) Apollo (3), do we have to reckon with two different cults of the same deity honored with different hymns? Or with two hymns for the same cult event? And why, if cult is the matter, does Zeus receive only one short hymn of 4 lines (Hymn to Zeus [23])? By contrast, if they were written as rhapsodic showpieces, the poets could reproduce an unlimited number of hymns, molded on the same patterns, without much effort. They could also easily parody their own poetic productions as in the case of the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4). The avoidance of Zeus, unexplainable in cult terms, would be in line with Zeus’ absence from the heroic lifeworld of the two great epics, about which I will have more to say later on.¹⁰¹ In a word, I hold that the epiphanic representations of the narrative Homeric Hymns are most likely rhapsodic showpieces and that their ‘Sitz im Leben’ is either a sympotic or an agonal context. They are not composed for a specific cult occasion, but following panhellenic rhapsodic conventions which are parodied by the most recent, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4). Even if rhapsodic showpieces, how real or realistic are the epiphanic representations? I think we have two alternatives. We may read them as panhellenic cult aetiologies, explaining, so to speak, the emergence of various cults in a sin-

 García 2002, 28 f.  Furley/Bremer 2001, I, ix.  See pp. 120-128.

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gle poem, or in other words as ‘intentional’ cult history. Take, for instance, the Homeric Hymn to Apollo (3): it could offer numerous ‘explanations’ of cult foundations all over the eastern Mediterranean. Those scholars who support this view of the narrative Homeric Hymns as ‘intentional history’ could argue that heroes – and that includes cultural heroes – are historical persons in the Greek mind, and the Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite, Demeter and Apollo involve largely cultural heroes. But even if read as ‘intentional history’, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) would not easily fit in, not only because of its complete lack of any aetiological tendency, but because of its parody of such tendencies in other Hymns. Moreover, the Homeric Hymns to Demeter, Apollo and Aphrodite would represent a novum, namely a panhellenic (instead of local) form of ‘intentional history’. Alternatively, and in my view much more convincingly, one may take the contents of all four narrative Homeric Hymns, including their epiphanic representations, as deliberately fictional accounts around cult matters of the relevant gods. Such an approach would allow us to also include the critical Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) within the same ‘fictional’ framework as the other narrative Homeric Hymns. If fictional accounts, what is their ultimate end? I submit that they serve to entertain the deity and thus to create divine pleasure (= τέρψις), as other poetic genres create pleasure among mortals. Such pleasure may be achieved through all kinds of fictional accounts, which may include aetiologies, but also parody or simply pleasant anecdotes about the deity’s powers such as Dionysus’ encounter with the pirates in the relevant Homeric Hymn (7). It is all too often forgotten that the hypothetical addressees of the Homeric Hymns are the gods, not humans. In Greek polytheism, gods do not need or seek an ‘explanation’ for their cults. But they look for pleausure (= τέρψις) from poetry, just as mortals do. Furthermore, the minor Homeric Hymns are generally not aetiological. If the raison d’être of the longer Homeric Hymns was aetiology rather than divine pleasure, what would be the common conceptual denominator between the three long ‘aetiological’ hymns (if we exclude the incomplete first Hymn to Dionysus [1] and the parody of the Hymn to Hermes [4]) and the remaining Hymns of the collection? Meanwhile, the idea of composing self˗consciously divine fiction, let alone a divine parody, to ‘please’ the very god that is represented or parodied, is inconceivable in Christian (or Jewish or Islamic) contexts. The emphasis on the aetiological character of the longer Hymns is, I fear, due to the fact that many scholars unconsciously read the narrative Homeric Hymns as if they were theological statements rather than gifts to the ‘pleasure˗seeking’ Greek gods. Unlike the original context of the Homeric Hymns, the literary context of Callimachus’ Hymns and their relation to the Aetia and other Callimachean works is

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largely undisputed. Arguments to support their literary nature are: 1. the highly recondite language and extreme selectivity in hymnic themes; 2. the practical impossibility that the narrative eccentricities of Callimachus’ Hymns could be relevant to any ‘real’ ritual; 3. the composite nature of the festive occasions which Callimachus hints at. For the poetically construed ‘festive occasions’ of Callimachus’ Hymns are composed of various ritual ingredients, normally following the outlines of a single historical festival sequence. Callimachus’ Hymn to Athena (5) refers us to an otherwise unattested Argive procession of the Palladium. For this there are parallels in Athens and elsewhere.¹⁰² The Callimachean Hymn to Apollo (2) poses as being performed at the Carneia in Cyrene; at least, this seems to be the theme of the longest narrative section of the poem (vv. 80˗96) and Apollo Carneius is explicitly mentioned (vv. 71 f., 80, although also other forms of Apollo appear). However, the Hymn shows various features that seem to be foreign to this festival and the specific form of Apollo Carneius, as far as we know it.¹⁰³ Or take Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter (6). By and large, the Hymn seems to belong to the Thesmophoria: a women’s festival dedicated to Demeter, with very explicit gender˗specific rites. Still, which Thesmophoria are meant remains unclear.¹⁰⁴ What is clear is the central message of the Hymn, itself not a typically hymnic point: Demeter protects nymphs/unmarried women (cf. v. 38, νύμφη = 1. nymph; 2. unmarried woman) from men’s violence, not by brute force ˗since that would be a ‘male’ reaction˗ but by inflicting long˗term suffering through unrestrained gluttony. In the Hymn, the speaker, the deity, and the victims (female worshipper at the Thesmophoria, Demeter, Nymphs/unmarried women = trees) are all female, while the offenders (Erysichthon/twenty youths) are all male.¹⁰⁵

 Stephens, S.A. 2015, 234˗236.  Stephens, S.A. 2015, 73˗75.  Stephens, S.A. 2015, 264˗267; for the Thesmophoria, see also Johnston 2013, 374˗378.  Cf. Bing 2009, 55˗59. The interpretation of Demeter’s epiphany would receive a remarkable twist, if Erysichthon is construed here not only as a violent male, but (also) as a (female!) daimon. On this reading proposed by Faraone 2012, the male Erysichthon would be transformed into the female daimon Boubrostis (= Famine/Hunger, cf. l. 102) through an epiphanic Demeter who herself has refrained from food and drink when looking for her daughter (this is duly stressed at vv. 8 f.).

Didactic Poetry Aristotle draws a clear generic line between didactic poetry and epic.¹ Profound differences between the two genres are manifest in the employment of epiphanic representations. To begin with, in the extant material of didactic poetry we find only epiphany dreams. These occur only on the ‘margins’ of the poem (primarily at the beginning), not in the central ‘didactic’ parts. These two observations are best explained by the fact that, unlike epic poetry, didactic poetry poses as representing the historical lifeworld, not fiction. Even non˗epiphanic contact between gods and mortals is markedly restricted in the didactic parts: Hesiod’s Works and Days offer only one single divinatory (sign) passage.² Only Callimachus’ Aetia represent (scarcely) oracles and signs.³ Parmenides and Callimachus thereby respond to ˗and exploit˗ Hesiod’s ‘poetic’ dream initiation of the Theogony, the former allegorically, the latter poetologically.

Hesiod’s Theogony With regard to the epiphanic character of Hesiod’s Muses at the beginning of the Theogony, when performing their dances, processions, and songs on Mt Helicon, they are generally invisible (‘covered in ἀήρ’). The answer to the question whether Hesiod is awake when he sees them depends on the interpretation of two ambiguous lines.⁴ According to these lines, it is the Muses who offer the bard’s staff to Hesiod. If Hesiod is meant to be dreaming, as I think, the staff handed to him by the Muses is the first reference to a dream apport and this would be the first first˗person dream description in Greek texts.⁵ Against a dream situation one may argue that in function and in position the passage resembles the epic invocation of the Muses, and that such invocations are not meant to represent dream experiences. However, to compare the scene with such epic invocations is to brush over its most significant innovative trait, namely an eponymous, historical

 Arist. Poet. 1447b 17˗20.  Hes. Op. 747; cf. ibid. 826˗828.  Oracles: Call. Aet. fr. 43.74˗77, 75.20˗38 Harder; elsewhere in the Aetia too, Delphic oracles may have played a role, but the original context remains obscure, Call. fr. 30a.7; 85a.9˗16 Harder; Signs: Call. Aet. fr. 43.59˗65 Harder. For the passage and Callimachus’ interest in birds and bird omens, see Harder 2012, II, 339.  Hes. Th. 30 f.; Semenzato 2017, 88 f.; Pucci 2007, 71.  Cf. Harris 2009, 43 f., who however considers Pi. O. 13.66˗68 the first apport passage; Lieshout 1980, 21˗23. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-005

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individual representing himself as ‘seeing’ the gods. Besides, for what it is worth, Callimachus apparently read the lines as a dream passage, when he adopted it by representing the first two books of his Aetia as a long dream revelation by the Muses. Last but not least, Aelius Aristides modelled his oneiric ‘initiation˗ scene’ of the Hieroi Logoi on Hesiod’s lines.⁶

Parmenides Parmenides’ didactic poem inverts much of what Hesiod intends to say, but still employs epiphanic representations, this time for clearly allegorical ends. Notably, in its present form, Parmenides’ poem begins without an invocation of the Muses.⁷ Instead, at the beginning the narrator is carried off by the maiden daughters of Helios (= Heliads) on Helios’ chariot to (or from) the ‘halls of Night’.⁸ The journey itself is described in some detail before the poetic ego arrives in front of the anonymous deity whose instructions make up the rest of the poem. Remarkably, this scene reverses the conventional movement of the Muses: here, the mortal ego travels toward/visits the goddess.⁹ Parmenides speaks allegorically. Whether the allegory is based on a waking epiphany scene, or whether the audience is asked to construe the text as a dream representation, remains ultimately undecidable, but the overall mysterious and fantastic scenario looks much more than the description of a dream. Parmenides thereby reacts to (i. e., partly imitates and partly develops) Hesiod’s proem of the Theogony in both poetic technique and transcendental contents, with the general theme of a youth (κοῦρος)¹⁰ being chosen by a deity and instructed.¹¹ The Heliads, an anonymous collectivity of female deities connected to a superior deity, Helios, bear a superficial resemblance to the Hesiodic Muses, although, unlike the latter, the Heliads are subordinate and themselves ‘servants’ to the anonymous goddess, without any knowledge of their own to share. Furthermore, unlike the Muses of the proem of the Theogony (who are ‘shrouded in thick air’), the Heliads appear unveiled in plain sight before the poetic ego. Hence, the excep-

 See p. 177.  Sext. Emp. Adv. Log. 1 (= Adv. Math. 7) 111, who transmits the beginning, suggests that no verses preceded the transmitted text (ἐναρχόμενος γοῦν τοῦ Περὶ Φύσεως γράφει τὸν τρόπον τοῦτον …).  Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 5, 9 f., with Palmer 2009, 53, 57 for the two interpretations.  Petridou 2015, 340, for the usual constellation, ibid. 290˗305.  Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 24.  Hes. Th. 32, 38.

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tional immediacy of the narrator’s contact with the divine is highlighted.¹² Also, the anonymous deity that follows appears to be visible in clear sight.¹³ Most importantly, Parmenides fully revises Hesiod’s claim that the Muses can deliver both ‘true’ and ‘false’ accounts.¹⁴ The Hesiodic dichotomy re˗emerges in Parmenides’ distinction between, on the one hand, ‘truth’ (ἀλήθεια) and, on the other, the ‘fantasies’ (δόξαι/δοκεῦντα) of mortals. Thus, the anonymous goddess instructs the narrator: It is necessary that you learn everything, both the unshakeable heart of well˗convincing truth (ἀλήθεια) and the fantasies (δόξαι) of mortals, in which there is no true belief. But nonetheless you will learn this too: how what is fantasy (δοκεῦντα) had actually to be, all through all pervading.¹⁵

In other words, the goddess herself will teach the poetic ego, and it is thus she who adopts the traditional role of the Muses. In an affirmation that is atypical of Hesiod and even more of Homer, her teaching includes human ‘fantasies’. Why no reference to the Muses in Parmenides? Why an anonymous goddess as the instructor? I suspect that in the mind of the philosopher, the Muses belong to the world of ‘fantasies (δόξαι) of mortals’. An author who characterizes mortals as ‘deaf and blind, stupefied, undiscriminating hordes’ is most unlikely to credit mankind or the Muses with any superior wisdom.¹⁶ For the same reason, other Olympians do not qualify for the conveyance of true knowledge either. They too belong to the world of human ‘fantasies’. Nevertheless, Parmenides feels the need for a superhuman ‘source’ of his supreme knowledge, and thus looks for a deity that is not compromised by its connection to myth or fiction (= ‘fantasies’). His anonymous deity has been variously identified by scholars as Dike/Justice, Hemera/Day, Peitho/Persuasion, Persephone, Nyx/Night and others.¹⁷ I would prefer some personified female concept that would imply specific philosophical knowledge, such as capitalized (Φιλο˗)σοφία, Γνῶσις, Θεωρία or even ᾿Aλήθεια. For the key property of the deity must be this kind of (no doubt philosophical) ‘knowledge’. After all, the narrator represents himself as pursuing  Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 10; Hes. Th. 9; for a discussion, Semenzato 2017, 299.  Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 22 f.  Hes. Th. 27 f. The bibliography on the passage is large, and cannot be discussed here in detail, cf. e. g. Semenzato 2017, 84˗88; Pucci 2009, 42 f.; Tsagalis 2009, 133 f.; Ledbetter 2003, 44˗48.  Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 28˗30; Semenzato 2017, 304˗308; Palmer 2009, 89˗93, 176˗180 (on ἀλήθεια, δόξαι/δοκεῦντα).  Parm. EGP V.2, D 7 (= D/K 28 B 6); for more passages see Trépanier 2004, 153.  For identifications, see Semenzato 2017, 301 f.; Palmer 2009, 58 f.

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the path of the ‘knowing man’.¹⁸ But although Parmenides does not reveal her name, her anonymity is still telling. Functionally, it is the Muse, without being called ‘Muse’. Through her namelessness, Parmenides avoids any mythical connotations and thus places his divine instructor outside, and above, the world of human ‘fantasies’, i. e. just where he needs his divine ‘source of knowledge’ to be.

Callimachus’ Aetia At the beginning of Callimachus’ Aetia, after the criticism of the vicious Telchines, Apollo Lycius famously addresses the poetic ego in an allegorical mode, to the effect that he must ‘keep his Muse slim’.¹⁹ Meanwhile, the choice of Apollo as Callimachus’ adviser is hardly incidental: first, from Homer onward, the god inspires primarily seers (not poets!), thus indicating Callimachus’ claim to poetic ‘divination’; second, the god is Mousagetēs, i. e. superior to the Muses (in some versions, he is their father); and third, he is the patron deity of Callimachus’ hometown Cyrene, as the poet himself proudly emphasizes in the Hymn to the god.²⁰ As soon as Apollo in his obscure shape of Lycius ²¹ has given the poet this poetological advice, the Muses appear to him ˗this time explicitly in a dream˗ telling ‘him in answer to his question the Aetia about the ancient heroes and blessed gods’.²² Books 1˗2 of the Aetia then represent a fictional dialogue of the poet with the Muses on Mt Helicon within the framework of a dream. Again, in this ‘didactic’ section, epiphanies are not attested (of course, this section is very fragmentary) despite scarce references to oracles and signs.²³ Didactic poetry poses as teaching ‘facts’. It thus mediates between malleable epic fiction and inalterable didactic ‘truth’. Strangely, divine communication is extremely restricted in this genre, which in form and language is so closely

 Parm. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) 3, where the reading is highly contentious, cf. Semanzato 2017, 296 f.; Palmer 2009, 376˗378, for the ‘knowing man’ as initiated into a mystic religion, see also Semenzato 2017, 293 f.  Call. Aet. fr. 1.21˗24, 29 Harder.  Call. Hym. Apol. (2) 65˗68 with Stephens, S.A. 2015, 18 f.; for the passage, also Hunter/Fuhrer 2002, 155 f. with n. 32.  The attempts to elicit the meaning of Lycius here are numerous, cf. Harder 2012, II, 57˗60.  Call. Aet. T6.7 f. Harder, cf. fr. 2d Harder; for a reconstruction of the poet’s dialogue with the Muses, see Harder 2012, I, 8˗11.  Oracles: Call. fr. 43.74˗77 Harder; 75.20˗38 Harder; Signs: Call. Aet. fr. 43.59˗65 Harder.

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linked to epic poetry and the narrative Homeric Hymns. Epiphanic communication is relegated to dreams on the margins of the relevant poems (primarily at the beginning), i. e. outside the actual ‘didactic’ part. Furthermore, in Parmenides and Callimachus it seems to owe this position to Hesiod’s proem of the Theogony, i. e. Hesiod’s successors draw on a poetic tradition/convention rather than on personal experience. Nothing in didactic poetry suggests ‘epiphany˗ mindedness’, although we may credit Hesiod at least with some degree of real ‘dream˗mindedness’.

Sappho’s Lyric To my knowledge, only one lyric poet employs systematically epiphanic representations, namely Sappho. This fact alone suggests that epiphanies are not a typical feature of lyric. Given that a conventional element of lyric poetry is the emplotment of the lyric ego, this omission is relevant to the question of the reality of epiphanic experiences. Does Sappho offer proof of a particular ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of Greek women? As will be shown presently, her epiphanic representations are most likely meant to be read as allegorical fiction. On the surface, Aphrodite rules supreme in Sappho’s poetry. More pertinently, the goddess is represented almost always in an epiphanic mode. Despite obvious differences in the structure, theme, and approach of surviving Sapphic poems, ‘the conception of Aphrodite, which binds almost all the poems, is quite consistent’.¹ It is likely that the Alexandrian edition of Sappho’s poems began with the famous cletic hymn to the love˗goddess,² which is still the only fully preserved Sapphic poem.³ Such a programmatic opening could be paralleled with the Hymn to Apollo in the corresponding edition of Alcaeus.⁴ In Sappho’s cletic hymn, the poet calls upon the deity for help from a distance.⁵ This is the conventional hear˗from˗a˗distance theme, which is said by Menander Rhetor to be a typical feature of Sappho and other lyric poets.⁶ In order to be persuasive, the lyric ego recalls prior epiphanies of the goddess, when the love˗goddess used to leave Zeus’ house on a golden chariot drawn by fast sparrows⁷ and when, on her arrival, she would smile with her immortal face and ask the lyric ego what drove her ‘frenzied mind’ (μαινόλᾳ θύμῳ) to invoke her ‘again’ (δηὖτε, twice).⁸ By way of climax, at this point, the poem switches to direct divine speech in a prophetic and intimate mode: ‘Whom am I to persuade this time

 Lidov 2016, 107; cf. Schlesier 2016, 369˗376 for Aphrodite in Sappho.  Sappho 1 Voigt; for its position in the collection, e. g. Campbell 1982, 55 n. 1.  For a detailed and philologically profound analysis of the poem and its notion of epiphany, Schlesier 2011a.  This, at any rate, is claimed by Schol. A Heph. Poem. 3 Consbruch (p. 169).  Sappho 1.6 f. Voigt.  Men.Rh. 333.8˗10, 334.25˗32; cf. Sappho frs. 2, 17 Voigt = Furley/Bremer 2001, I, 159˗166; II, 113˗117 (= no. 4.1, 2).  Sappho 1.7˗12 Voigt.  Sappho 1.13˗18 Voigt; for δηὖτε, Page 1955, 12 f. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-006

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to lead you back to her love? Who, Sappho, wrongs you?’.⁹ The poem ends with another invocation of Aphrodite.¹⁰ Here as elsewhere, the intimacy of the lyric ego with Aphrodite stands out. Such intimacy is alluded to by the fact that the lyric ego has invoked Aphrodite repeatedly in the past, and apparently always successfully. In the poem, a simple request of the poet makes the goddess appear. The tone is reverential but self˗ confident; the lyric ego is anxious about the presence of its mortal lover, not the goddess. The lyric ego’s confidence is not based on persuasion, but on its apparently natural affiliation with the goddess of love, which is acknowledged by the goddess’ ‘smile’.¹¹ A ‘smile’ (in marked contradistinction to ‘laughter’) is a general marker of ‘superiority, conciliation or affection’ in epic poetry, and so also in the present passage.¹² ‘Smiling’ is a specific property of Aphrodite, who is generally philom(m)eidēs in poetry.¹³ Likewise, Athena and Calypso smile affectionately at Odysseus in the Odyssey. ¹⁴ In addition to the initial cletic hymn to Aphrodite, the love goddess is remarkably prominent in other Sapphic poems too. She is addressed by the lyric ego in the recently found fragment of the ‘Cypris Song’ and elsewhere; she herself addresses the poetess occasionally.¹⁵ The lyric ego may direct a prayer to the ‘daughters of Nereus’, but still conclude the poem with a reference to Aphrodite (in a very lacunose context, unfortunately).¹⁶ In what must have been a poem of unusual intimacy even for Sappho’s standards, the lyric ego brings Aphrodite into a bridal room on a chariot driven by the Charites and accompanied by the Erotes. The poem most likely pays particular attention to Aphrodite’s sensual appearance and her coiffure, and to the physical beauty of the Erotes, all this, of course, extremely fitting to a marital context.¹⁷ Finally, there is evidence of Aphrodite appearing to the lyric ego in a dream.¹⁸ It suggests that other passages, in which Aphrodite communicates with the lyric ego, originally belonged to a (now lost) dream context.

 Sappho 1.18˗20 Voigt.  Sappho 1.25˗28 Voigt.  Sappho 1.14 Voigt, with Page 1955, 15 f.  Levine 1982/1983, 100˗104, quotation p. 102.  Il. 3.424 etc. with Platt 2011, 4 f. with n. 12.  Od. 5.180 (Calypso smiling at Odysseus), 13.287 (Athena smiling at Odysseus).  NSappho ‘Cypris Song’; NSaphho fr. 5.18; 15.9; Sappho frs. 2, 133, 159 Voigt.  NSappho fr. 5; reconstruction e. g. by Lidov 2016, 68˗78.  Sappho fr. 194 Voigt.  Sappho fr. 134 Voigt, cf. fr. 63 Voigt.

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In view of Sappho’s pronounced representation of her poetic ego, it is important to remind oneself that this ego is part and parcel of her poetic fiction and cannot automatically be construed as reflecting the convictions of the poetess.¹⁹ Even if we accept that a ‘monodic’ (against a ‘choral’) performance within a sympotic context is by far the most likely setting,²⁰ various reasons caution us against an identification of the lyric ego with Sappho and thus to consider the epiphanies to be real experiences. First, Sappho restricts her epiphanic descriptions to Aphrodite alone. No other deities appear in an epiphanic mode. Second, Aphrodite is the goddess of love and thus suspiciously close to Sappho’s main poetic concern, namely female erotic passion. Third, Sappho’s version of Aphrodite is remarkably un˗epic and unmythological. Her power is not defined by former deeds but by her immediate and intimate erotic impact on the hic et nunc of the lyric ego. Fourth, no other protagonist of Sappho’s poetry shares the epiphanic experiences with Sappho while the goddess is visible. Fifth, Sappho is the only case of extant lyric poetry in which the lyric ego is represented as having so extensive epiphanic experiences. Taken together, these five concerns suggest that we should refrain from taking Sappho’s lyric ego as a lifeworld character. It is mere fiction, and the epiphanic representations are thus motivated by the special allegorical potential of Aphrodite as the goddess of love. Sappho’s Aphrodite does not prove or even suggest a particular ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of the Greeks.

 Stehle 2016, 268, cf. also p. 267: ‘… the first˗person voice in the “personal” poems is a creation of the poet’.  Bowie, E. 2016, 148˗157.

Drama Extant Greek drama conventionally divides into three genres, namely tragedy, comedy, and satyr play. The generic position of satyr play remains particularly contentious. Satyr play develops together with tragedy and is characterised primarily by the debased characters and a light˗hearted comic mood.¹ Forming the last part of a tragic trilogy and being composed exclusively by tragic poets, it is linked to the performance of tragedy, while its plots, protagonists, and low/simple style often resemble comedy (although it omits politics and the tοpsy˗turvy cosmos of many comedies).² Even its characteristic element, staged satyrs, is also found sometimes in Old Comedy, as in Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros, ‘the most sustained engagement with satyr play in surviving comedy’, but possibly also in other comedians who compose plays entitled Satyroi. ³ Despite their apparent mutual independence both genres communicate with tragedy and through tragedy with each other, comedy more than satyr play.⁴ In what follows, I will concentrate on tragedy and comedy because of their fuller documentation as well as their greater long˗term impact, which reaches far beyond Greek literature. Tragedy and comedy share a similar performative mode (masks, aulos, scenic performances, choruses, etc.), with the same variety of meters including the same principal metrical schemes of speech passages. In the classical period, both tragedies and comedies are performed during the Great and Rural Dionysia as well as the Lenaea. Due to the similarity of occasion and performative mode, they encounter similar problems of representation, which they solve in similar ways. Even in terms of contents, a clear distinction is impossible: tragedy draws virtually always on mythical themes, but ‘lifeworld’ tragedies are attested or extant (most notably Aeschylus’ Persae), while Old and New Comedy comprise both mythical and lifeworld scenarios. It has been persuasively suggested that

 Mastronarde 1999/2000, 34 f., esp. 34: ‘The difference is not so much in the story˗patterns as in the status of the dramatis personae (for there is a relaxation or violation of decorum when the satyrs and Silenus are introduced on stage and when other monstrous beings are seen rather than described in messenger speeches) and in the light˗hearted attitude toward heroic values and toward human interactions with divinity’.  FOC I, xl˗xlii.  For its satyric elements, see Bakola 2010, 82˗102 (quotation p. 102); for playwrights of Old Comedy writing plays with the title Satyroi, cf. Bakola 2010, 102˗104; Bakola 2005, 58 with n. 56.  Dobrov 2007, 259˗261. Ibid. 261˗265 he claims that the ‘hauling’ scene in Ar. Pax 426˗526 is actually inspired by Sophocles’ Pandora or Sphyrokopoi and states that the boundary between satyr play and comedy is the ‘polis’ (ibid. 264). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-007

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even in the period of tragedy’s clearest polarity vis˗a˗vis comedy (approx. 440˗415 BCE according to Taplin), ‘tragedy’s relation to heroic myth ensured that there was also room for stories of achievement, foundation, restoration, rescue, and happy recognition’.⁵ It is clear that even before Euripides, not all tragedies end ‘tragically’, i. e. with the death or suffering of the fated protagonist.⁶ Even a tragedian as early as Aeschylus shares characteristic dramaturgic features with Aristophanes.⁷ Furthermore, while Old Comedy openly ridicules ˗or refers to˗ specific tragedies (cf. e. g. Aristophanes’ Ranae) we also find comic elements in tragedy, and here especially in Euripides.⁸ Apart from such general similarities, tragedy and comedy never cease to influence each other in a rather osmotic process. In the fourth century BCE tragedy ‘stagnated’⁹ or, better, it is drawn into new directions: first, it loses its ritual connection to Dionysus and with it the chorus; second, it starts looking backwards to the great tragedians of the fifth century BCE, especially Euripides, who are now increasingly re˗performed (since 387/386 BCE reperformances are an official part of the Great Dionysia);¹⁰ third, it is assimilated to a much mitigated form of comedy.¹¹ For us, Euripides is the reference point of this assimilatory process. Storey, for instance, remarks that the happy endings and themes of recognition and reunions of Euripidean romantic tragedy (i. e. those pieces without a disastrous end for the protagonist) ‘become the heart and soul of Menander’s comedy’.¹² Euripides plays an pivotal role in Menander’s work.¹³ The final step of mutual generic permeation is hinted at in Plautus’ Amphitryo: Hermes characterizes the upcoming story as a ‘tragicomoedia’.¹⁴ While it remains unclear whether Hermes refers to ‘tragic’ models or simply ‘tragic’ properties of the plot such as ‘kings and gods’,¹⁵ it is clear that by the Hellenistic period, tragedy and comedy are at times (almost) fully assimilated.

 Mastronarde 1999/2000, 28; Taplin 1986, 165.  Cf. Mastronarde 1999/2000, 30˗33.  Taplin 1986, 165.  Taplin 1986, 165 f.  Taplin 1986, 174.  IG II2 2318.201˗209; Scullion 2002, 112 f.; Seidensticker 1995, 183.  Konstan 2014.  FOC I, xxxii.  Miles 2014, 75 with more references.  Plaut. Amph. 50˗61.  While we know that the Amphitryo˗theme is popular already among fifth˗century tragedians, details are fuzzy, Christenson 2000, 47 f. Even in the case of the best known of such plays, Euripides’ Alcmene, we cannot be sure whether any gods appear on stage, let alone Zeus, Eur. frs. 87b˗104. It is certain that it contained a thunderstorm at the end, just as in Plau-

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Tragedy is a relatively homogeneous genre, an impression that is not only indebted to the fact that fully extant tragedies exist only over the comparatively short period between the end of the Persian invasion and that of the Peloponnesian War. After all, unlike comedy, tragedy is not subdivided chronologically by ancient literary critics. By contrast, the distinction between Old and New Comedy has been the subject of extensive scholarly debate since Plutarch’s Comparison of Aristophanes and Menander, and most likely earlier.¹⁶ Some scholars argue for a gradual transformation from Old to New Comedy of the entire genre, while others see a transformation of styles within a relatively stable generic frame. Two kinds of influences may ˗together or separately˗ have contributed to their different appearances, namely changing political conditions and/or intergeneric influences/aesthetic considerations. With regard to political conditions, already the ancients argue that Old Comedy is characterized by political satire because democratic conditions allow for freedom of speech, while New Comedy, flourishing under autocratic kings, cannot be equally political without serious consequences for the playwright.¹⁷ However, while the political circumstances may explain the demise of the parrhēsia of Old Comedy, they are hardly sufficient to explain the changes in epiphanic representations. These changes are not due to politics, but to the loss of all ritual bonds of drama, as is evidenced by the demise of the chorus, in combination with a strong reinforcement of the ‘non˗ritual’, ‘spectacular’ elements of the comic play. While it is indisputable that tragedy and comedy converge generically in the fourth century BCE, it remains equally incontestable that in the fifth century BCE we are left ‘with two genres which are in essence fundamentally different’.¹⁸

tus’ Amphitryo, cf. Plaut. Rud. 83˗87 (referring to the end of Euripides’ Alcmene). All things considered, one cannot exclude an influence on Plautus of Euripides’ Alcmene or a similar play, so e. g. Schmidt 2003; Stärk 1982. Much more likely, however, in view of Plautus’ normal habit, is that the Roman playwright is influenced by (a) comic model(s). In that case, two plays, Plato’s Nyx Makra and Rhintho’s Amphitryo, are the most likely candidates, cf. Pl. Com. frs. 89˗94; Rhintho Test. 1 A (= CGF p. 218). In the case of the former, the topic of the prolongation of the night to extend Zeus’ dalliance with Alcmene is prominent in the first half of the Plautan play (Sosia’s first appearance is during the night, cf. Plaut. Amph. 149, 164 f., and Zeus prolongs the night until he has satisfied his needs: vv. 112˗114, 271˗284, 546˗550. In the latter passage, he ‘orders’ Night to give way to Day, cf. Bowie, A.M. 2010, 145 f.). For the play as a ‘tragicomoedia,’ see Schmidt 2003, 96˗99; Bond 1999.  Cf. Plut. Mor. 853 A˗854D, cf. Russell/Winterbottom 1972, 531 f.; given his disdain for aischrologia, Plutarch’s rejection of Aristophanes is predictable; for a discussion, see Van der Stockt 1992, 155˗161.  Platonius in FOC I, 6˗11.  Taplin 1986, 173.

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Long before Aristotle (who takes the distinction for granted), tragedy and comedy are classified by the Greeks as different genres which emerge from different social loci (as indicated by their names). In fact, on the traditional scholarly view, comedies are added only later to the public performances of tragedies (allegedly in 487 BCE). Besides, playwrights of one genre never cross over to the other (although Socrates argues ‘that the same man might be capable of writing both comedy and tragedy’).¹⁹ In the same vein, funny Old˗Comedy˗compounds created by a combination of names of a tragedian and a comedian such as Cratinus’ euripidaristophanizōn and Choeriloecphantides would be senseless without generic distinctions.²⁰ No less a comedian than Aristophanes takes the distinction of tragedy and comedy for granted. His dealings with tragedy imply ethical and stylistic ‘high quality’ standards of tragedy, as in his Ranae. Paratragedy does not differ in this respect.²¹ There are many constituent differences between tragedy and Old Comedy, which are concerned with different relations of the dramatis personae to their audiences, to the poetic ego, the scenic decoration, disguise, and parody.²² One of the most obvious elements is a distance in style and reception: tragedy employs a high(er) style in order to spellbind its audience, Old Comedy employs a low(er) style in order to amuse or provoke outright laughter and thus break the dramatic spell.²³ This stylistic distinction is overcome with the demise of the aischrologia of Old Comedy in the fourth century BCE and its redirection towards hyponoia, as noted already by Aristotle.²⁴ Tragedy also represents ‘history’ differently. Tragedy deals with what might be reasonably called ‘versions’ of pivotal moments of the Greek past, as the Athenian audience construes it within the framework of intentional reality, reaching from the primeval age of the pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus to the most recent history of the victory over the Persians in Aeschylus’ Persae. By contrast, the setting of many Old Comedy plays is patently ‘unhistorical’, fictional, or even utopian, built on a ‘grand idea’, and fully incongruous with the lifeworld experience of the audience.

 Pl. Smp. 223D; cf. Konstan 2014, 28 f.; Taplin 1986, 163 with n. 1.  Cratin. frs. 342, 502.  Bakola 2010, 118˗122 (with extensive bibliography); a good general survey of comic parodies of tragic themes is also found in Bowie, A.M.2000, 322˗324.  Taplin 1986.  For the distinction see Mastronarde 1999/2000, 28 f.  Arist. EN 1128a 22˗24.

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Introducing the Plot Tragedy Ancient playwrights exploit the omniscience of gods, whose dramaturgic potential is explicitly acknowledged by Aristotle,²⁵ in prologue epiphanies of both tragedy and comedy. The only tragedian to systematically employ prologue epiphanies, however, is Euripides. In terms of contents, his prologue gods summarize the events leading up to the emplotted argument and their relation to it. Often, they also predict the key events of the subsequent plot. In Euripides’ Hippolytus, Aphrodite introduces herself in a typically grand manner: ‘Great and famous, among mortals and in heaven alike, I am called the goddess of Cyprus’ (vv. 1 f.). She rehearses the relevant mythical past events (vv. 9˗40) and explicitly locates the scene in ‘the land of Troizen’, where Theseus is exiled for a year (vv. 24˗37). But Aphrodite even goes a step further than a mortal character could do. Apart from connecting the up˗coming events with the relevant mythical past, she forecasts/summarizes the actual plot of which she is the driving, albeit only off˗stage, force: so she frankly admits that it is she who engineers Phaedra’s false accusation of rape by Hippolytus.²⁶ As in all Euripidean prologue epiphanies, Aphrodite here almost certainly appears on high and alone on the stage.²⁷ As in all such epiphanies, she disappears before the actual play begins. By contrast, mortal prologue characters do not normally leave the stage, but engage in dialogues with other characters (as in Euripides’ Andromache, Heraclidae, Helena, Orestes, Medea, Electra, Supplices).²⁸ In the Hippolytus, Aphrodite does not appear again, not even in the corresponding epilogue epiphany, which is then spoken by Aphrodite’s divine ‘rival,’ Artemis (vv. 1283˗1439). This does not mean that the love goddess disappears. Rather, as often in New Comedy, the prologue deity monitors and engineers the events from behind the scene. Aphrodite is quite explicit about her ultimate objective: ‘… for his sins against me I shall this day punish Hippolytus’ (v. 21). Her imminent presence is important in view of the expression ‘I shall reveal a matter to Theseus’ (v. 42). Somewhat pedantically, scholars have argued that Aphrodite does not reveal anything to Theseus. Though literally true, this interpretation ignores the immanent agency of the goddess throughout the play.  Arist. Poet. 1454b 2˗6.  Eur. Hipp. 42˗48.  Cf. Mastronarde 1990, 273˗278; esp. 275.  Two exceptions are the (late) Phoenissae (produced ca. 410) and Iphigenia in Tauris (produced 406).

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Phaedra’s love and hence, after her rejection, her unrestrained jealousy and bitterness are Aphrodite’s work.²⁹ Similar announcements of the unfolding plot are typical of Euripidean prologue epiphanies: in the Ion, Hermes informs the audience about Apollo’s (= Zeus) plan concerning the future vicissitudes of Ion (although scholars have wondered why it is not Apollo himself who introduces the drama);³⁰ in the Hecuba, the ghost of Polydorus forebodes accurately the end of the play with two dead,³¹ as does Apollo in the Alcestis, who informs Death that he will not get his way and that the heroine will eventually return to the upper world with the help of Heracles.³² In the Troades, Athena and Poseidon coordinate their punitive actions against the Greek fleet with disastrous consequences, as the audience knows.³³ Prologue epiphanies are characteristic only of Euripides. Sophocles’ staging of Athena at the beginning of the Ajax (vv. 1˗133) is a prologue epiphany only in so far as the goddess offers the necessary introductory information. It is un˗Euripidean in that 1. the goddess is fully emplotted, i. e. communicates in the form of a dialogue first with Odysseus, and then with Ajax, 2. the scene takes up characteristic features of partial visibility/invisibility of epic gods, which are normally irrelevant to Euripides.³⁴

 For similar cases of alleged suggestio falsi in prologue epiphanies, cf. Hamilton 1974.  Eur. Ion 67˗73; Lefkowitz 2016, 102 f.; Kindt 2016, 65 f.  Eur. Hec. 35˗50.  Eur. Alc. 64˗71; Lefkowitz 2016, 99˗102.  Eur. Tro. 78˗97.  For instance, although both Odysseus and Athena are in plain sight for the audience on stage, the protagonist (Odysseus) does not see the goddess, but recognizes her voice, cf. Soph. Aj. 14˗17; for a discussion of the crucial term ἄποπτος, see Pucci 1994, 18˗20. In a similar vein, there is no sign in the text that the frenzied ‘altered state’ of Ajax (Athena’s second interlocutor) would permit him to see the goddess (pace Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 483; Mastronarde 1990, 275). Just like Odysseus, Ajax is allowed to recognize the goddess solely from her voice. Most likely, Sophocles’ Athena is staged on high, Pucci 1994, 22 f. with n. 16; Mastronarde 1990, 275, 278, 282 f. A good parallel is the second book of the Iliad, where Odysseus recognizes Athena apparently from her voice, while the poet has informed his audience some thirty lines earlier about the prehistory of the encounter, including, of course, the name of the goddess, Il. 2.155˗182.

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Comedy Not only Euripides, but also comic playwrights exploit systematically the omniscience of gods for dramaturgic ends, namely as prologue deities who introduce the plot as neutral, omniscient third˗person narrators. In fact, this dramaturgic technique is attested sporadically in Old Comedy, while it becomes normal practice in Menander and his contemporaries. Given that Euripides seems to be the only tragedian to employ prologue epiphanies systematically, it stands to reason that he adopts this dramaturgic device from Old Comedy rather than inspires it. New Comedy then follows both Old Comedy and Euripidean tragedy in the systematic employment of this dramaturgic device. For obvious reasons, a prologue epiphany is an attractive dramaturgic device, because ˗including even mythological comedy˗ comic plots are normally largely indebted to the fantasy or a ‘grand idea’ of the playwright. By contrast, tragic plots virtually always follow a general story line of well˗known myths. Antiphanes, among the most eminent representatives of Middle Comedy, insinuates just as much about a basic difference between tragedy and comedy:³⁵ while the tragic audience would only need the names of one or two protagonists or the imaginary location in order to preconfigure the up˗coming events on stage, the comic audience faces a plot that is in principle unpredictable apart from the mandatory happy end. This holds true of both mythological and non-mythological comedies alike. As far as our limited evidence goes, prologue epiphanies of Old Comedy were quite common, although we scarcely learn more about their exact nature. More specifically, we do not know to what extent the prologue gods of Old Comedy remain immanently present throughout the play, as they do in New Comedy. The first candidate on record is Cratinus. Apart from one merely conjectural appearance of Zeus in a prologue of the Nemesis,³⁶ a prologue epiphany of Hermes in the Dionysalexandros (produced 430/429 BCE?) is most likely. The mutilated initial part of the hypothesis reads as follows: ‘… Hermes leaves, while they say some things to the spectators about the poets. They joke and make fun of Dionysus when he appears’ (vv. 5˗12). The question here is how much text stood before the beginning of the papyrus. It is a qualified guess ˗and an appropriate starting point for the plot˗ that Hermes conveys Zeus’ message to Diony Antiphanes fr. 189, cf. Bierl 2002, 13˗21.  Cratin. fr. 114, cf. 118 (= cf. FOC I.324˗327): ‘Therefore you must become a bird’. This line is most likely addressed to Zeus by another deity (Hermes? Aphrodite?) as the general plotline described in Hygin. Astron. 2.8 suggests. The scene must then belong to the beginning of the play, with Zeus on stage.

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salexander to judge the beauty contest between the three goddesses.³⁷ In the manner of prologue epiphanies, he would leave the scene after communicating Zeus’ decision. The words of the hypothesis of the Dionysalexandros ‘while they say some things to the spectators about the poets’ (vv. 8 f.) may suggest that Hermes breaks the dramatic illusion. This is what certainly happens in the extant prologue epiphany of the Kourotrophos in Plato’s Phaon. The deity turns directly to the audience asking for an advance payment consisting of various foodstuffs to be made to herself and minor deities representing sexual desire (?).³⁸ To our collection of examples from mythological comedy we may add an anonymous papyrus with an epiphany of Rhea (the Dios Gonai by the fourth century BCE comedian Philiscus as a source is a qualified guess). The prologue is marked by numerous comic anachronisms: Rhea quotes Sophocles and refers to Apollo’s oracle.³⁹ We also have comic prologue epiphanies of non˗mythological ‘lifeworld’ plots. Cratinus’ Pytine begins with personified Comedy parodying the aged playwright himself.⁴⁰ Pherecrates’ Cheiron begins with a dialogue between Music and Justice.⁴¹ In Aristophanes’ second Thesmophoriazousai, the strange goddess Calligeneia, allegedly connected to Demeter (if this is not a qualified guess by the scholiast), speaks the prologue.⁴² New Comedy cultivates the dramaturgic device of prologue epiphanies. The best extant example is Menander’s Dyskolos, which begins with a prologue epiphany of Pan, offering an introduction to the situation at hand.⁴³ Then Pan slips into his sanctuary, which is part of the scenic decoration, presumably marked by his statue.⁴⁴ Even after his departure, Pan remains present and monitors/controls the action. The characters still refer to him as ‘this Pan’ (v. 311), when passing the nymphaion (located directly next to the entrance of Cnemon’s house, cf. vv. 444 f.); Sicon, the cook, greets Pan (vv. 401 f.); as does the enam-

 Cratin., hyp. Dionysal. (= cf. FOC I.284˗291); cf. Bakola 2010, 99˗101; Bakola 2005, 56 f. (who considers Dionysus a prologue god, or suggests a dialogue between Dionysus and Hermes).  Pl. Com. fr. 188 (= FOC III.176˗179). Such an address of the audience is well attested for mortal speakers, as in Cratin. fr. 171.1˗28 (chorus) (= FOC I.348˗357). Cf. also Adesp. fr. 1104 (PCG VIII.422 = FOC III.400˗403), which breaks the illusion and may belong to Cratinus’ Seriphioi (so FOC I. p. 377); Eup. fr. 392 (= FOC II.256 f.); Ar. Ra. 1˗4, V. 54˗75, Pax 263˗267, 276˗279, Nu. 575 f. Cf. in general Storey in FOC I, xxxvi˗xxxviii.  Anon. fr. 215 CGF (= FOC III.394˗397).  Cratin. fr. 193 (= FOC I.366 f.); Bakola 275˗285.  Pherecr. fr. 155 (= FOC II.498˗501); Dobrov/Urios˗Aparisi 1995.  Ar. fr. 331 (= Henderson 2007, 269).  Men. Dys. 1˗49, with Zagagi 1995, 156˗168.  Men. Dys. 1˗4, with Gomme/Sandbach 1973, 134; for the actual place, see Handley 1965, 24 f.

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ored Sostratus slightly later (vv. 570˗573). Furthermore, in vv. 400˗619 the audience witnesses an elaborate sacrifice to Pan with several references to the god as a background to the main (erotic) plot. Most importantly, Pan’s presence is alluded to by the self˗fulfilling epiphany dream of Sostratus’ mother: in the dream, Pan enchains Sostratus, handing him agricultural implements and ordering him to dig the neighbor’s (i. e. Cnemon’s, who is the father of the beloved girl) land, just as it actually happens.⁴⁵ Functionally, this dream is not exhortative, as epiphany dreams normally are. Nor is it anticipatory. After all, we are not told whether Sostratus’ mother dreams it before or after the events which it describes. Characteristically, it is dreamt by a dramaturgic proxy, not by the character to whom it applies. We may label it ‘decorative’, because in functional terms it does not differ from Pan’s statue or shrine as part of the scenic decoration: its ultimate function is to alert the audience to the ubiquitous, but immanent, presence and control of Pan. This immanent presence would be further highlighted if the chorus was indeed made up ˗after a slight correction of the transmitted text˗ of Pan worshippers.⁴⁶ Some more prologue epiphanies are securely attested in Menander. Almost all are divine personifications, staged in the delayed mode, i. e., preceded by a short prologue scene with mortal protagonists. To begin with Tyche in the Aspis, her immanent presence throughout the play has been persuasively suggested by others;⁴⁷ similar cases could be made for Agnoia in the Perikeiromene,⁴⁸ and Boetheia in the Synaristosai (whose contents we may approximately reconstruct through Plautus’ Cistellaria).⁴⁹ It stands to reason that Heros in the Menandrian play of the same name is staged in exactly the same manner, i. e., in a ‘delayed’ prologue epiphany, although in this case we do not possess the actual text as yet and must base ourselves on the preserved list of characters (Heros is mentioned immediately after two protagonists).⁵⁰ Other more doubtful cases include the Encheiridion (prologue deity: ‘the god of Corycus [Pamphylia]’), the Sikyonios (prologue deity: Persephone?), the god Elenchos of an unknown play⁵¹ and some more conjectural cases.⁵² One should add the prologue epipha-

 Men. Dys. 407˗418.  Men. Dys. 230˗232 with Gomme/Sandbach 1973 ad 230 (conjecturing πανιστάς against the transmitted παιανιστάς).  Men. Asp. 97˗148; Zagagi 1995, 143˗149; Konet 1976.  Men. Perik. 121˗181; Zagagi 1995, 149˗156.  Plaut. Cist. 149˗202, where the goddess appears as Auxilium; for the Greek identification, see Ludwig 1970, 53 f., generally Mazzoli 2004.  Cf. Sandbach’s OCT edition pp. 131˗141.  Men. fr. 507.

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ny of Plautus’ Aulularia, although in this case the Menandrian authorship of Plautus’ model remains a qualified guess: the Lar appears here as a typical prologue deity offering side˗information without human interaction. Being the guardian spirit of Euclio’s house, he is inseparably tied to the house, which in turn forms part of the stage as in Menander’s Dyskolos. ⁵³ In other words, although the Lar enters the house after his prologue and remains invisible, he is perceived by the audience as being physically present and policing the action staged in front of his residence. Another, independent, dramaturgic facet of the prologue epiphanies is pointed out by Hunter, namely the curious relation between ‘recognition plays’ and the necessity of a divine prologue to avoid confusion of the audience. For instance, a disguised Mercury introduces Plautus’ Amphitryo, the only extant mythological comedy, in an unusually long prologue epiphany.⁵⁴ The information Mercury offers (Alcmene’s double pregnancy, Zeus’ courting of Alcmene, etc.) can be known only to a god, who goes even so far as to point out the important differences of the costumes of the protagonists of the play.⁵⁵ This is a classic ‘recognition play’ which necessitates a divine introduction, here followed by an ˗exceptional˗ second divine prologue in order to clarify the events for the audience.⁵⁶ Menander’s contemporary playwrights employ prologue epiphanies too, and mostly for the same reasons, namely immanence and clarification. In Diphilus’ homonymous play, Arcturus, the personified star, for instance, introduces the previous events.⁵⁷ The star appears as immanently present and monitoring human behavior: ‘by night I am shining in heaven and among the gods, by day I walk among mortals’.⁵⁸ We even learn that it is he, Arcturus, who has intervened by sending a storm and thus initiated the up˗coming plot.⁵⁹ In an unspecified comedy by Philemon, Air appears in close parallel to Diphilus’ Arcturus. He also claims general awareness of the events.⁶⁰ Following Plautus, Philemon’s Thesauros features a prologue epiphany of Luxuria/Tryphe and Inopia/Penia,

        

For a list see Miles 2014, 78. Plaut. Aul. 1˗3. Plaut. Amph. 1˗152. Hunter 1985, 28 f.; taken up e. g. by Miles 2014, 78; cf. Plaut. Amph. 142˗152. Plaut. Amph. 464˗498. Plaut. Rud. 1˗82, esp. 32 f. Plaut. Rud. 6 f. Plaut. Rud. 68˗71. Philem. fr. 95.

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with a different dramaturgic emphasis, namely as humorous allegories.⁶¹ The epiphany is remarkably short and offers the pre˗history of the play only in the broadest outlines. Instead, it elaborates on the composition of the play (including the author and title of the underlying Greek model).⁶² It is not only in New Comedy that we find epiphanic gods, whose immanent presence is alluded to by scenic decoration, after the divine characters themselves leave the stage. Against contrary scholarly views,⁶³ I submit that, in principle, the dramaturgic device of implying the immanent presence of a deity through scenic decoration is anticipated by Old Comedy. In Aristophanes’ Plutus, Wealth enters Cremylus’ house, from whence he dispenses his boons in the rest of the play. Here, especially the second messenger speech delivered by the slave with a detailed description of the new riches is telling.⁶⁴ Wealth thus remains immanently present, though physically absent from the stage. Barrenechea argues persuasively that Cremylus’ house actually takes on the role of a sanctuary, not unlike the shrine of Pan in Menander’s Dyskolos or Euclio’s house, the seat of the Lar, in Plautus’ Aulularia. ⁶⁵ It should however be stressed that in their technique of introducing an immanent deity by a prologue epiphany, Menander and his peers may still have been influenced by Euripides rather than directly by Old Comedy.⁶⁶

Cast of Prologue Deities in Tragedy and Comedy When it comes to the identity of the prologue deities in the plays just mentioned, we must distinguish mythological from non˗mythological ‘lifeworld’ plots. Mythological plots in tragedy (Euripides) and comedy choose conventional gods of the Greek pantheon whose relation to the up˗coming events may reach from invisible monitoring and engineering (Aphrodite in Euripides’ Hippolytus) to full emplotment throughout the play (Hermes in the underlying Greek

 Plaut. Trin. 1˗22.  Plaut. Trin. 18˗21.  Pace e. g. Bowie, A.M. 2012, 369, who claims that in Old Comedy ‘there is no sense of powers offstage which are in control of the onstage characters. The significant action happens on stage’.  Ar. Pl. 802˗822.  Barrenechea 2018, 107˗136.  Cf. e. g. Miles 2014, 83: ‘In Menandrian comedy, the power of the gods is not illustrated through evoking their role in myth, instead it is through their direct involvement and impact on human affairs in the play. In constructing his dramas, Menander … chooses to integrate gods and divine forces … by adapting Euripidean˗style divine prologues’.

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sources of Plautus’ Amphitryo). Even Zeus may have spoken a prologue epiphany in Cratinus’ Nemesis. Untypically, personified Death/Thanatos appears as a prologue epiphany in Euripides’ Alcestis. By contrast, non˗mythological ‘lifeworld’ plots are normally introduced by divine personifications. For instance, already in Cratinus’ Pytine, the prologue is spoken by Comedy, wife of the self˗parodying comedian in the play. The Cheiron of Pherecrates (which, despite its title, seems to refer to contemporary circumstances of the poet) is introduced by a dialogue of Music and Justice. Aristophanes’ second Thesmophoriazousai open with the mysterious Calligeneia (‘Giving good birth?’), about whom the scholiast of the (first) Thesmophoriazousai (on v. 298) has nothing else to say than that she is ‘associated with Demeter’.⁶⁷ The same dramaturgic convention continues in New Comedy. With the exception of Pan in Menander’s Dyskolοs and perhaps the Sikyonios (Persephone?), the bulk of prologue gods of non˗mythological plays are personifications: in Menander, we find Tyche (Fate), Agnoia (Ignorance), Boetheia (Help), Heros in the homonymous play, perhaps the Lar (the guardian spirit of the house) in the (Menandrian?) model of Plautus’ Aulularia; in Diphilus, Arcturus (the personified star); in Philemon, Air as well as Luxuria/Τryphe and Inopia/Penia. All these prologue gods are decidedly un˗Olympian; virtually all are divine personifications of properties somehow relevant to the plot of the plays, which they ‘monitor’ in one way or another. They are mere dramaturgy, sometimes characterizing properties of the protagonists rather than ‘meaningful’ supernatural powers: Thus, for instance, Agnoia = Ignorance is strangely abreast of the situation at hand.⁶⁸ One may call them ‘rhetorical’ personifications. The large number of these personifications, their functional restriction to the relevant prologues, and the absence of relevant cults (except for Tyche) prove their exclusively dramaturgic character. They also suggest that their Olympian counterparts in the mythological tragic and comic plays serve the same, again exclusively dramaturgic, ends.

 Ar. fr. 331 (a) and (b) (= Henderson 2007, 268 f.).  Men. Perik. 121˗171. Miles 2014, 81: ‘… at least in the case of Agnoia it is clear that she has the same powers of knowing the future and influencing human affairs as the divine prologue speeches of Tyche and Pan’.

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Concluding the Plot Epilogue Epiphanies in Tragedy: Solving an Impasse Epiphanic representations at the end of tragic plays normally serve two objectives, namely to pull the strings together in explaining the divine forces behind the previous events of the plot and their impact on the ‘historical’ future, not seldom with a nod towards Athens. I shall begin with a few examples in which the aspect of ‘solving an impasse’ is dominant, before turning to epilogue epiphanies that are primarily ‘prophetic’ in one way or another. Aristotle offers the example of Medea’s escape through the sky on Helios’ chariot in Euripides’ Medea as a typical epilogue epiphany on high that solves an impasse of the preceding plot.⁶⁹ At the end of the play, when Medea has already killed Creon, Creon’s daughter Glauce and her own children, the question is what will happen to Medea, whose only protector, Jason, has by now turned into her fiercest enemy craving revenge. One dramaturgic alternative would have been to make Jason kill Medea, but the common version of the myth determines that she has to reach Athens, because there she is destined to live with Aegeus. Hence, Medea’s murder is no option, Medea must be saved. To solve the impasse, Medea suddenly appears on Helios’ (her grandfather’s) chariot together with the corpses of her two children on high. She announces that she will bury them in the sanctuary of Hera Acraea and then fly to Athens. Here, in Athens, Aegeus, who had suddenly arrived from Delphi in the middle of the play, will protect her (characteristically, the Aegeus scene is reproached by Aristotle for the lack of motivation, but it prepares the audience for Medea’s flight to Athens at the end of the play).⁷⁰ Aristotle could have chosen other examples. Virtually all epilogue epiphanies in Euripides pull together the strings and solve an impasse. One may single out Castor and Pollux at the end of Euripides’ Helena. The final impasse is already anticipated in Helen’s prologue speech, where Helen’s love of Menelaus and Menelaus’ rights as Helen’s husband appear in conflict with the approaches of Helen’s new suitor, the Egyptian king Theoclymenus. At the end, just when Theoclymenus is ready to kill his sister Theonoe, who knows about Menelaus’ arrival and in his eyes has betrayed him, the twin gods intervene and inform the king that the entire set up had been fated (πεπρωμένον), including Helen’s

 Eur. Med. 1317˗1414.  Eur. Med. 663˗758; cf. Arist. Poet. 1461b 19˗21 with Mastronarde 2010, 200 f.; Mastronarde 2002a, 38˗40; Mastronarde 2002b, 281˗283 (on vv. 663˗823).

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sojourn in Egypt, which they could have prevented had they not been ‘overruled by fate and the other gods, who decided that these things should be thus’. The twins promise Menelaus and Helen a safe journey back to Sparta, and preannounce Helen’s deification after her death, because ‘Zeus wishes it so’, and Menelaus’ posthumous retirement to the Island of the Blest. Being Helen’s brothers, the Dioscuri are a most natural choice. In principle, the impasse is ultimately solved by Zeus’ will. Theoclymenus complies without further ado.⁷¹ The best example of the employment of epiphanic representations to solve an impasse is found in Sophocles, namely Heracles’ epiphany at the end of the Philoctetes. ⁷² Unlike Euripides, however, Sophocles is not at all fond of this device, which he employs only here in his extant plays, apart from some uncertain cases in his fragments (most importantly the Aias Lokros).⁷³ In Sophocles’ Philoctetes, the plot has virtually reached a total impasse before the apparition of Heracles: Neoptolemus has made an honest attempt to persuade Philoctetes to return with him to Troy to win the war (heeding a prophecy by Helenus, according to which Philoctetes has to follow voluntarily).⁷⁴ The embittered Philoctetes turns him down. At this juncture, the deified Heracles intervenes in plain sight and announces to Philoctetes⁷⁵ Zeus’ plans (βουλεύματα) with all desirable clarity.⁷⁶ He commands Philoctetes to follow Neoptolemus, thus gaining for himself heroic reinstatement and a cure for his foot. Sophocles employs the epiphany to bring the play back on track and eventually to a triumphant closure. The choice of Heracles as the intervening deity is due to the fact that it is he whose bow Philoctetes is required to bring to Troy.⁷⁷ Nevertheless, like the Dioscuri in Euripides’ Helena, he is a proxy for Zeus’s will and of divine status, as is most certainly also reflected by his mise˗en˗scène high above the other protagonists.⁷⁸

 Eur. Hel. 1642˗1687, quotations vv. 1658˗1661, 1669.  Soph. Phil. 1409˗1444.  Soph. fr. **10c (= Lloyd˗Jones 1996, 14 f.), which gives lines spoken by Athena from the Aias Lokros. These may have stood at the end of the play, but other positions are possible. For the Peleus and Athamas, see Mastronarde 2010, 181 and Mastronarde 1999/2000, 32.  On the voluntary nature of Philoctetes’ return as a Sophoclean feature, see Pucci 1994, 32 n. 32.  Philoctetes sees and hears him, Soph. Phil. 1411 f.  Soph. Phil. 1415.  Soph. Phil. 1426 f.  Mastronarde 1990, 271 n. 68, 283; Pucci 1994, 34 f.; some scholars transpose all the characters to the skene top, Mastronarde 1990, 284 f., but I cannot see a cogent need of ˗or point in˗ such an extravagant staging, which would automatically place Heracles on the same level as Philoctetes. I am not persuaded by Pucci that in the Philoctetes, Sophocles is looking back on

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Epilogue Epiphanies in Tragedy: Prophecy In the Euripidean play, Medea’s departure on the chariot of Helios is not only employed as an exit strategy from a dramatic impasse, but also to foretell what she is going to do next, namely her escape to Athens as well as the burial of her children in the sanctuary of Hera Acraea. Furthermore, she announces that she will found ‘a solemn festival and holy rites for all times to come in payment for this unholy murder’. Euripides here establishes a relation to Athens as well as to Corinthian local myth and cult.⁷⁹ These two aspects will be briefly analysed in more detail: 1. Athens: Vase paintings from ca. 500 BCE at the earliest show Medea in connection with the Theseus˗Aegeus myth/Athens. Whether Euripides, the elusive Neophron (author of another Medea) or another playwright is the first to stage such a link between the Jason˗ and Theseus˗ cycles, need not be answered here.⁸⁰ Tragic poets show a natural fondness for the Athens˗connection, which may be expressed dramaturgically in various ways. In this context, Athenian patriotism and a desire for ‘rectifying’ Athenian ‘local’ history seem sometimes to override dramaturgically more natural choices. Admittedly, Athena in Euripides’ Supplices and the fragmentary Erechtheus is strongly linked to the plot, which centers on Athens, and is thus seen by Lefkowitz as demonstrating Euripides’ particular and self˗evident concern with his city.⁸¹ But in the epilogue epiphany

Homeric epiphanies, i. e., that we have a ‘generic switch’ between the remainder of the play and the epiphany at its end, pace Pucci 1994, 36˗44. First, there is no literary device comparable to a deus ex machina in Homer, nor is there any need for it, because the Homeric plot is the unfolding of Zeus’ will, so that the action never reaches a real impasse. Second, the Philoctetes (just like the Ajax) is a play about the ambiguity and relativity of heroism rather than about heroism itself: Odysseus, the great and cunning hero of the Iliad, first manages to turn the honest but naïve hero Neoptolemus into a liar despite his qualms (Soph. Phil. 86˗134) while he himself fully misunderstands Helenus’ prophecy, which requires Philoctetes’ voluntary return to Troy (Soph. Phil. 1054˗1062). In the end, he utterly fails. Meanwhile, the sick and otherwise completely unheroic Philoctetes, a peripheral figure in Homer and the epic cycle, is ultimately instated to heroic glory as the foremost bowman of the Greeks by the will of Zeus. In a word, one great hero (Odysseus) schemes in vain, the other (Neoptolemus) is cajoled into hypocrisy, while the anti-hero (Philoctetes) wins the day.  Eur. Med. 1378˗1388. Even Scullion, otherwise so critical of the historical dimension of Euripidean epilogue aetiologies, accepts the ‘historicity’ of the underlying facts in this case, although he regards the aetion itself as ‘irony’, cf. Scullion 1999/2000, 224.  Mastronarde 2002b, 53˗57. Euripides’ Aegeus deals with Medea in Athens (cf. Collard/Cropp 2008, I, 3˗11). Its chronological relation to the Medea is unclear, as is the vexed question of the dating of Neophron’s Medea (cf. Mastronarde 2002b, 57˗64).  Lefkowitz 2016, 77˗88.

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in the Iphigenia Taurica, one would expect the appearance of Artemis, rather than Euripides’ choice of Athena: after all, for the entire play Iphigenia is the priestess of the former goddess, guarding her cult image in Tauris, and only at the end of the play does she transfer the cult image to Athens/Brauron (one wonders: with Artemis’ approval?).⁸² Athena even replaces Apollo in the epilogue epiphany of the Ion (allegedly she is ‘sent’ by him),⁸³ although it is the Delphic god who engineers the entire plot, according to Hermes’ initial announcement.⁸⁴ It is illuminating to compare these epilogue epiphanies of Athena with the one Euripidean prologue epiphany of Athena that has come down to us. In the prologue of the Troades, Athena features as a mere informant of the plot next to Poseidon, without any connection to the city of Athens or its cults whatsoever.⁸⁵ This very different dramatic emplotment of an epiphanic Athena highlights the very different functions of prologue and epilogue epiphanies. 2. Relation to local myth and cult: Medea’s aetiology of the cult of her children reflects a general Euripidean technique of linking the plot of the play with what the audience senses as its own collective ‘history’ through the predictions or instructions of epilogue deities. A few examples will suffice: Thetis at the end of the Andromache predicts (on the authority of Zeus) the burial of Neoptolemus at Delphi, Andromache’s further destiny in the land of the Molossians, and the deification of Peleus.⁸⁶ Artemis predicts Hippolytus’ cult in Troizen.⁸⁷ Most notably, at the end of the Iphigenia in Tauris, Athena predicts the future of both the stolen statue of Artemis, which will be transferred to Athens in order to establish the cult of Artemis Tauropolus, and of Iphigenia, who will serve as a priestess of Artemis Brauronia until her death. A number of details of the Brauronian cult, as well as a reference to the voting regulations of the Areopagus, complement the prophetic/aetiological epilogue of the goddess.⁸⁸ A large part of the fragmentarily preserved epilogue epiphany of Athena at the end of the Erechtheus ⁸⁹ is a fully˗fledged aetiology of a number of Athenian cults, such as those of Erechtheus, Poseidon, and the Hyacinthids, as well as of the priesthood of Athena Polias (= her first priestess, Praxithea, who is a protagonist of the play). One could heap up the evidence to show that this very common Euripidean dramaturgic de-

       

For Athena in Eur. IT, see Lefkowitz 2016, 89˗97. Eur. Ion 1556˗1559. Eur. Ion 67˗75, for the difficult words of Apollo at vv. 69˗71, see Neitzel 1988. Eur. Tro. 1˗97; Lefkowitz 2016, 9˗15. Eur. Andr. 1231˗1272, for Zeus v. 1269. Eur. Hipp. 1423˗1430. Eur. IT 1438˗1467. Eur. fr. 370.55˗115 (= Collard/Cropp 2008, I, 394˗401).

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vice intends to bridge aetiologically the spatio˗temporal distance between the myth represented on stage and the audience’s ‘historical’ lifeworld.⁹⁰ However, which ‘lifeworld’ exactly? Scullion argues that Euripides invents not only cult aetia for merely literary reasons (sometimes with an ironical slant), but also many cults.⁹¹ Such hypercriticism ignores plays such as Euripides’ Erechtheus, whose epilogue epiphany of Athena is largely extant and has been a trump card of the ritualists ever since Sourvinou˗Inwood’s opening pages to her Tragedy and Athenian Religion: ⁹² in this play, the cults of the Erechtheïds (= Hyacinthids), of Poseidon Erechtheus, as well as those of eminent priestly families such as the Eteoboutads and the Eleusinian Eumolpids are aetiologized. Even more, by doing so, Athena ‘explains’ mythologically the peculiar cult agglomeration in the Erechtheum on the Acropolis, which may have been under construction at exactly the same time as the production of the Erechtheus. Sourvinou˗Inwood is right when she says about the play: ‘For the fact that here the world of the tragedy penetrated the world of the audience is very difficult to doubt. This tragedy was portraying events that (in the audience’s perceptions) had happened in their own past, very near the place in which they had happened, and it is showing them shaping the present as it is now, so that what happened on the stage was de facto part of the audience’s present’.⁹³ The problem is that the Erechtheus is somehow exceptional, in that it features a major and well˗known Athenian cult place, and as such is comparable only to the Areopagus and the sanctuary of the Venerable Ones in Aeschylus’ Eumenides. By contrast, many aetiologized cults in Euripidean epilogue epiphanies are of minor importance, and our information is often restricted to Euripides

 At the end of the Supplices, Athena orders the establishment of a friendly alliance between Athens and Thebes and Argos to be inscribed on a bronze cauldron in Delphi (aetiology?) (Supp. 1183˗1212), and she gives Theseus and the Theban Epigoni instructions/predictions (Supp. 1183˗1226). The same goddess prophesies at the end of the Ion Ion’s rule over Athens and that of his descendants over Ionia, as well as the birth of Dorus and Achaeus, eponymic heroes of the Dorians and Achaeans respectively (Ion 1569˗1594). In the Helena, the deified Castor predicts the future vicissitudes of his sister Helen and her husband Menelaus (Eur. Hel. 1643˗1679); the same god announces Orestes’ future vicissitudes after his matricide (Eur. El. 1254˗1291) and most notably Orestes’ standing trial on the Areopagus. Besides, he offers topographical aetiologies (e. g., Orestes as eponymous hero of the Arcadian Orestheion) and describes Clytemnestra’s burial by Menelaus and Helen. A similar prediction is made by Apollo concerning the future of Orestes, Pylades, Hermione, Neoptolemus, Helen and Menelaus at the end of Euripides’ Orestes (vv. 1625˗1665), cf. also Papadimitropoulos 2011.  Scullion 1999/2020.  Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 25˗30.  Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 29.

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himself and later authors such as Strabo or Pausanias, who heavily rely on the playwright. Most importantly ˗and here I agree with Scullion˗ historical accuracy is not the point anyway, but the construal of a ‘historical’ continuity between the myth of the plot and the audience’s lifeworld.⁹⁴ It stands to reason that in general, Euripides is as ‘flexible’ with his references to cults and local realia as he is with earlier mythical versions of the events he stages.

Epilogue Epiphanies in Comedy Most telling is the divine embassy of the last 200 lines of Aristophanes’ Aves, as well as the last 100 lines of the Equites. In the Aves, the gods negotiate on stage level the abolishment of the human blockade that bars them from their earthly sacrifices.⁹⁵ The human leader Peisetaerus, advised by Prometheus, ultimately persuades the delegation to hand over Zeus’ scepter/cosmic rule and to permit him to marry the steward of Zeus’ thunderbolt, Basileia (‘kingship’). In other words, the human gets his way against the gods.⁹⁶ In the Equites, Demos appears miraculously on stage at the end of the play, rejuvenated by the Sausage Seller, the new ‘ruler’. Having been decrepit and subject to the whims of his slave Paphlagon/Cleon so far, the new Demos is saluted by the chorus like a new god: ‘Hail, king of the Greeks’ (v. 1333). Demos is rueful of his previous dire state: ‘I am ashamed of my former mistakes’ (v. 1354) and promises improvement in the future. In a classic inversion of tragic dramaturgy, in which the mortal protagonist is saved or reinstated by the epiphanic deity, it is an epiphanic Demos that is saved and reinstated by the mortal/sausage seller.⁹⁷ Parody of epilogue epiphanies, but not in the form of an epilogue epiphany, is found in Socrates’ epiphany in Aristophanes’ Nubes as a quasi˗divine helper.⁹⁸ The ‘divine’ philosopher enters the scene in a basket on high and engages in a

 Scullion 1999/2000, 233: ‘What matters to us, twenty˗four hundred years on, is what was surely the essential thing then too: not, for example, whether or not Eurystheus had a non˗sacrificial heroic cult in Attica, but whether enmity could be transformed into humane sympathy, and ultimately into a strength that would save the city’.  Ar. Av. 1565˗1693.  Cf. Anderson/Dix 2007, who rather daringly connect it with the Prometheus Vinctus and the Herodotean Phye episode (Hdt. 1.60) identifying Peisetaerus with Peisistratos (an old suggestion, cf. bibliography ibid. 324 n. 16). For the personification of Basileia and the relevant archaeological evidence also Wagener 2020, 65˗80.  Kleinknecht 1939.  Ar. Nu. 217˗274; for the personified Clouds including the archaeological evidence, see Wagener 2020, 83˗97; Given 2009, 117 f. for such quasi˗divine helpers in Aristophanes.

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dialogue with Stepsiades whom he addresses in the words: ‘Why do you summon me, creature of a day?’⁹⁹ He claims to teach the true nature of the (cloud˗)gods.¹⁰⁰ This scene parodies Euripidean epilogue epiphanies in that the ‘god’ is summoned and pretends to solve the impasse which Strepsiades has run into. However, the very position of Socrates’ ‘epilogue’ epiphany in the middle of the play suggests to the audience that the epiphany will not bring closure, but rather create an impasse which is solved only by burning down Socrates’ phrontistērion! Euripides’ usual crane is turned into a basket, the solemn epiphanic god is turned into a human buffoon. As in Euripidean epilogue epiphanies, the god engages in a dialogue with the mortal concerned. In a very similar vein, a fragmentary commentary on papyrus informs us that Strattis in the Phoinissai makes Dionysus complain about being trapped on high for some time: ‘I am Dionysus, involved with thyrsuses, aulos players and revelries (?); here I am trapped by the wickedness of others, hanging like a fig upon a branch’.¹⁰¹ Like Aristophanes in the Nubes, Strattis seems to parody Euripides’ epilogue epiphanies. As for New Comedy, Plautus’ Amphitryo (or better its Greek model[s]) ends with an epilogue epiphany of Zeus, prepared for by a thunderbolt that is actually presented on the stage in the preceding section.¹⁰² While Zeus appears in disguise throughout the play (as Amphitryo), in the epilogue he reintroduces himself by name (‘for I am Jupiter’),¹⁰³ suggesting that he appears as a deus ex machina, undisguised and on high.¹⁰⁴ The function of this epiphany is twofold, to explain and announce to the stage characters the course of past and future events, and to solve Amphitryo’s ignorance of the true state of affairs without jeopardizing a happy end. Characteristically, Zeus on high addresses the true Amphitryo: ‘I will make known to you future and past alike, and better by far than they, moreover, for I am Jupiter’ (vv. 1133 f.). This passage may be modelled on epilogue epiphanies such as that of Euripides’ Bacchae. Here too, the epiphanic god (Dionysus) is disguised for the entire play until we reach the epilogue epiphany, in which he appears undisguised and on high for the first time (un-

 Ar. Nu. 223.  Ar. Nu. 250 f.  Strattis fr. 46, cf. fr. 4 (= FOC III, 232 f., 258 f., 400˗403).  The thunderbolt is staged after v. 1052, because this explains Amphitryo’s response in vv. 1053˗1076.  Plaut. Amph. 1134.  Christenson 2000, 17 and on vv. 1131˗1143.

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fortunately, a large section of the text of the Bacchae has fallen out at this point).¹⁰⁵

Reversal Epiphanies At least two important forms of emplotment of epiphanies are entirely ignored by Aristotle’s considerate analysis, namely engineering the reversal (peripeteia) of the plot towards the tragic denouement and forming constituent elements of entire plays and not only specific scenes. Here I will deal with reversal epiphanies, which are characteristically placed in the middle of the play; in the next chapter, I shall discuss the fully emplotted epiphanic deities. A clear case of a reversal epiphany is the staging of Lyssa/Rage and Iris in Euripides’ Hercules Furens, which is anticipated and possibly inspired by a similar staging of Lyssa in Aeschylus’ fragmentary Xantriai. ¹⁰⁶ Like ordinary prologue deities in Euripides, the goddesses do not communicate with mortals on stage, although their arrival is noticed by the chorus of Theban elders.¹⁰⁷ Neither deity solves an impasse here or fulfills an aetiological function; prophecy is reduced to a minimum (Lyssa announces what she intends to do). In fact, Lyssa’s raison d’être is to explain dramaturgically Heracles’ sudden madness that leads to his tragic demise. For up to now in the play, i. e. until Heracles has killed Lycus in the preceding scene, he is in full command of his senses. It is only after Lyssa has entered the house that the second, truly ‘tragic’, section unfolds, which is guided by Heracles’ rage, with the killing of his children and wife. In particular, the epiphany of the personified Lyssa/Rage initiates the drastic reversal of the plot, i. e. the sudden transformation of Heracles from a benefactor and hero to the deluded murderer. Iris appears here as a proxy of Hera’s will, monitoring Lyssa’s action. Another reversal epiphany is found in the pseudo˗Euripidean Rhesus. ¹⁰⁸ Inspired by Iliad 10 among other sources, the play represents Odysseus and Diomedes who have set out on a night mission with one task only, namely, to kill

 Eur. Ba. 1330˗1350, with the gap before v. 1330.  Eur. HF 822˗873; for the Xantriai see Aesch. fr. 169 with Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 470 f. For Lyssa as ‘combat fury’ in tragedy and elsewhere, see Ustinova 2018, 4 with 31 f. n. 27, 217˗224.  Eur. HF 815˗820.  [Eur.] Rhes. 595˗674. As it stands, the Rhesus begins with the chorus, which is unusual. It may have originally been preceded by a prologue, and perhaps a prologue epiphany, as suggested by the verses quoted in the second hypothesis in the manuscripts, cf. Fries 2014, 64 f., who, however, on p. 116, denies that there was such a prologue.

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Hector. But they find his campsite deserted. They are deliberating about killing Aeneas or Paris instead,¹⁰⁹ when the epiphanic Athena intervenes and informs them that Hector is not destined to die at their hands. Instead, she directs them to the Thracian king Rhesus, who has recently arrived and is camping close by. The goddess argues that the Trojans would become invincible if Rhesus’ horses drank from the Scamander, according to the version which seems to form the matrix of the plot of the Rhesus (which might have begun originally with a prologue epiphany).¹¹⁰ Carrying out Athena’s advice, Odysseus and Diomedes kill Rhesus and his companions and steal his horses and chariot. At the end, Rhesus is buried by his mother, the Muse, who appears in a conventional epilogue epiphany (vv. 906˗982). Unlike Lyssa in Euripides’ Hercules Furens, the Athena of the Rhesus shares with Euripidean epilogue epiphanies direct verbal interaction with stage characters (Odysseus/Diomedes/Alexander), presumably with the disguised goddess staged on high¹¹¹ in order to visibly mark her divinity for the audience. We may conjecture a reversal epiphany in the case of the flying Perseus somewhere in the middle of Euripides’ Andromeda, which serves to solve a patent impasse: Perseus on a crane hovers through the air and rescues the heroine who is chained to a rock and about to be devoured by a sea monster as a sacrifice to Poseidon. Aristophanes exploits the comic potential of this pseudo˗epiphany in his Thesmophoriazousai. ¹¹² Comedy too has reversal epiphanies, the most obvious of which is the appearance of Wealth on the stage after his healing through incubation by Asclepius. Although Wealth is fully emplotted from the beginning of the play, at this point he appears rejuvenated with new divine powers, and himself announces the reversal: ‘I feel shame at my own misadventures, realizing the kind of people I used to associate with unawares, while in complete ignorance I shunned those who deserved my company … But I intend to reverse (ἀναστρέψας) that situation completely …’.¹¹³

 [Eur.] Rhes. 565˗594.  Schol. Il. 10.435; Fries 2014, 11˗14, 349˗351.  Fries 2014, 347 f.; Mastronarde 1990, 274 f., 284 (no. 17).  Eur. frs. 124 f., for the hypothesis of the play, cf. Collard/Cropp 2008, I, 124˗129, 138 f.; cf. Ar. Th. 1008˗1132, esp. 1008˗1014, 1098˗1102.  Ar. Pl. 774˗781; Barrenechea 2018, 118˗121.

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Fully Emplotted Epiphanies Aristotle also fails to consider the possibility of epiphanic gods as constituent elements of the plot (regardless of whether they also introduce or conclude the plot).¹¹⁴ Unlike gods that are emplotted only in specific scenes, fully emplotted epiphanic gods appear ˗at least in the central part˗ not on high, but on stage level, face to face with the human protagonists. Virtually all major gods may form constituent elements of the plot in tragedy and comedy. Pertinent examples are Apollo and Athena alongside the Venerable Ones in Aeschylus’ Eumenides; or Prometheus and Hermes in the pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus; or Hermes and Zeus in the (hypothetic) Greek version(s) of Plautus’ Amphitryo, or personifications such as Wealth and War in Aristophanes’ Plutus and Pax respectively. I will postpone a discussion of the representation of Dionysus in Euripides’ Bacchae to the next chapter, because this tragedy must be dealt within the context of the dramatic Dionysus in general.

Tragedy Aeschylus’ Eumenides concludes the Oresteia with the atonement and divine acquittal of Orestes on the Athenian Areopagus. Three individual or collective deities are fully emplotted and staged in the play. On the one side, there are Apollo and Athena as the representatives of Delphic/Olympian and Athenian justice respectively. They are the ‘new’ gods (νεώτεροι θεοί) who ˗according to their opponents˗ arbitrarily enforce their own ‘neoteric’ laws.¹¹⁵ On the other side, there are the Erinyes, Orestes’ accusers, the ancien régime, belonging to the first generation of gods (they are genealogized as the children of Night).¹¹⁶ They defend Clytemnestra’s cause, but are ultimately forced to accept the new regime of Olympian justice. Consequently, under the guidance of Athena, they transform into the Venerable Ones (Semnai) with the establishment of their cult.¹¹⁷ Theodicy is at the very core of the Eumenides. The dilemma is set out in the initial dialogue between the Erinyes/Venerable Ones and Apollo: being firmly convinced that the younger gods ‘exercise total power, beyond what justice al-

   

For this distinction e. g. Wildberg 1999/2000, 245 f. Aesch. Eum. 162 f., 778 f., 808 f. Aesch. Eum. 322, 416, 745 al. Cf. Henrichs 1994, 39˗46 for the cult realia.

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lows,’¹¹⁸ the Erinyes/Venerable Ones blame Apollo for encouraging matricide and then protecting the perpetrator, Orestes; while Apollo points to Clytemnestra’s murder of Agamemnon, justifying Orestes’ deed.¹¹⁹ It is important that ‘justice’ (δίκη) is represented here, not as a condition between individual human players, but as a power constellation between different gods: after all, the outcome of the play, i. e. the acquittal of Orestes, is hardly obvious or predictable in itself. And there is no reason to doubt the honesty of the Erinyes/Venerable Ones, when they say: ‘we believe we practice straight justice’.¹²⁰ Nevertheless, they ‘have to keep their hands off the immortals’.¹²¹ And it is repeatedly stressed on all sides that ultimately it was Apollo’s own oracular pronouncement that encouraged Orestes to commit matricide.¹²² Apollo speaks in the name of Zeus,¹²³ and therefore knows before the trial: ‘I am going to be victorious’.¹²⁴ But the central point of the play is not legalistic but the fact that justice is what the Olympians in the shape of Apollo (as a proxy of Zeus) and Athena (as an exponent of her city) say it is. But the Eumenides is not only about the definition of divine justice, but also about relevant human institutions of guaranteeing that such ‘justice’ is served. First, the Pythia introduces Delphi with its hoary genealogy.¹²⁵ Second, there is the aetiology of the foundation of the Athenian Areopagus as the court of justice for homicides by Athena. It is this court that judges Orestes’ case, and its last vote is characteristically reserved to Athena. Finally and centrally, Apollo and Athena establish the cult of the Venerable Ones (itself aetiologized as an institution founded by Athena on the occasion of Orestes’ trial).¹²⁶ This aetiology, which permeates the play from the initial description of the outward appearance of the Erinyes by the Pythia¹²⁷ to the final procession of the (now) Venerable Ones to their new cult place,¹²⁸ is based on 1. an identification of the Venerable Ones with the Homeric Erinyes (‘curse’ ≈ ἀρά)¹²⁹ by turning them from enemies into

           

Aesch. Eum. 163. Aesch. Eum. 198˗234. Aesch. Eum. 312. Aesch. Eum. 350. Aesch. Eum. 198˗205, 465, 594˗596. Aesch. Eum. 614˗621. Aesch. Eum. 721 f. Aesch. Eum. 1˗33. Aesch. Eum. 470˗489, 681˗710. Aesch. Eum. 46˗59. Aesch. Eum. 1021˗1047; cf. 804˗807, 851˗857. Zerhoch 2015, 256˗258.

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supporters of Athens under Athena’s benevolent influence;¹³⁰ 2. the creation of a new iconography of the Erinyes/Venerable Ones, which is destined to leave a decisive imprint on future representations of the Erinyes in both literature and art.¹³¹ The pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus shares with Aeschylus’ Eumenides the full emplotment of divine characters and the focus on one particular theme, namely Zeus’ justice. In this case, the defendant is himself a god, namely Prometheus, who is punished for previously supporting and defending mankind, most notably as a bringer of fire and culture. The central theme is announced early on, when Force introduces the first scene with the words: ‘For such an offence (ἁμαρτία) he must assuredly pay his penalty to the gods, to teach him that he must accept the autocracy (τυραννίς) of Zeus and abandon his human˗loving ways’.¹³² In Hephaestus’ words: ‘Though a god, you did not tremble before the anger of the gods, and you gave honors (τιμαί) to mortals beyond what is right (πέρα δίκης); in punishment for which you will keep watch on this rock …’.¹³³ As in the Eumenides, Zeus and the generation of Olympians appear as ‘new’ rulers with a new kind of justice.¹³⁴ Prometheus, by contrast, as well as his supporter Oceanus and his daughters, is here represented as being one generation older than Zeus (he is a Titan, son of Uranus and Gaia, who is identified with Themis).¹³⁵ Like the Erinyes, he belongs to the ancien régime. While Prometheus features as a sympathetic character and protector of mankind, Zeus is an oriental tyrant: The personified and staged Force (Κράτος) and Violence (Βία) are hypostases of Zeus and dramaturgic surrogates. They form part and parcel of the concept of the Promethean Zeus, whose rule is an ‘autocracy’ (τυραννίς, v. 10), for which he is accountable to no one¹³⁶ (while he sits, remote as usual, on the ‘almighty throne,’ παγκρατεῖς ἕδρας).¹³⁷ Also, Io’s wanderings in the shape of a cow form a mark of Zeus’ tyranny.¹³⁸ Furthermore, by brutally punishing Prometheus, Zeus betrays his principal adviser in his fight for the succession to Cronus.¹³⁹

         

Cf. e. g. Aesch. Eum. 916˗926, with Zerhoch 2015, 234˗237. Paus. 1.28.6 f.; Zerhoch 2015, 224˗230; Geisser 2002, 391˗398. [Aesch.] PV 8˗11. [Aesch.] PV 29˗31. [Aesch.] PV 96 f., 149˗151, 310, 402˗405, 955 f. [Aesch.] PV 209 f. [Aesch.] PV 324; cf. v. 50. [Aesch.] PV 389. [Aesch.] PV 734˗737. [Aesch.] PV 196˗241.

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While the justice of Zeus is brutal, Zeus himself will lose his power and suffer a fate similar to that of Prometheus. For Necessity (᾿Aνάγκη) and Destiny (Πεπρωμένη) are more powerful than Zeus himself, whose rule will come to an end, as Prometheus prophecies repeatedly.¹⁴⁰ The Prometheus Vinctus is thus primarily a dramatic diatribe about the transitory and ultimately elusive concept of theodicy. Prometheus’ cruel punishment shows that divine ‘justice’ and divine ‘power’ are independent of each other. The play represents theodicy from the divine viewpoint, in that Prometheus is judged by the successor generation of gods, as this generation will be judged by its own successors. Despite its similarities to Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the Prometheus Vinctus differs from the bulk of the remaining extant tragedies on at least four accounts, namely 1. it is staged in a merely fantastic, deliberately un˗Greek world (the Scythian marshes) in the primeval stage of Greek ‘history’; 2. Zeus, though not himself staged, appears in the form of two hypostatic personifications, namely Force (Κράτος) and Violence (Βία); 3. virtually all protagonists with the exception of the side˗character Io are gods; 4. given that the protagonist, Prometheus, himself possesses extensive prophetic skills (which he never tires of displaying), the Prometheus Vinctus is not even tragic in the sense of other tragedies, in which the will of Zeus reveals itself gradually to the unknowing or deluded protagonist. By contrast, in an untragic manner, Prometheus is fully aware of his coming doom: ‘I did the wrong thing intentionally’.¹⁴¹All four elements may be the reason why Aristotle, in an unfortunately mutilated passage, identifies (our?) Prometheus˗play together with Hades˗plays (which are equally situated outside the ordinary human geographical boundaries) as a special dramatic category.¹⁴²

Comedy Fully emplotted gods as constituent elements of tragic plots operate within a fixed cosmic frame, which is deliberately inverted by comedy in one way or another. For instance, comic seers always get it wrong, where tragic seers never fail; sign dreams ˗at least in Old Comedy˗ are always gibberish, while in tragedy they are meaningful and anticipatory. If we look at the numerous fully emplotted comic gods, certain categories of inversions are particularly popular.

 [Aesch.] PV 515˗525, 756, 761˗777, 908˗940.  [Aesch.] PV 266.  Arist. Poet. 1456a 2 f.

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1. Spatial inversions: Pride of place belongs to spatial inversions. Here, Aristophanes seems to be more daring than his comic peers. The Aves, for instance, is for the most part staged in a fantastic sky city between heaven and earth (Νεφελοκοκκυγία = ‘Cloudcuckooland’),¹⁴³ and the Ranae unfolds completely in the Underworld.¹⁴⁴ The major part of the Pax plays in heaven in front of Zeus’ residence.¹⁴⁵ By contrast, Greek tragedy is staged on earth. Humans may become semi˗divine, but only as ghosts after their death. One may compare, for example, the appearances of the ghosts of Darius, Clytemnestra or Polydorus in Aeschylus (Persae, Eumenides) and Euripides (Hecuba). Such a posthumous deification is parodied by Aristophanes when a corpse is staged in an epiphanic mode in Aristophanes’ Ranae.¹⁴⁶ 2. Zeus challenged: Inversions in Old Comedy amount to a parody of Zeus’ world order at large. For instance, the thoroughly sympathetic and blind Wealth remarks in the homonymous Aristophanic play: ‘Zeus did this to me because he resents (φθονῶν) mankind. You see, when I was a boy, I vowed that I’d only visit the houses of just, wise, and decent people, so Zeus made me blind, to keep me from recognizing any of them. That’s how much he resents (φθονεῖ) good people’.¹⁴⁷ The underlying notion of Zeus is well expressed by Barrenechea: ‘Aristophanes is our first surviving testimony to tie the capriciousness of the personification of blind Wealth specifically to Zeus, but this Zeus is not the divinity who dispenses goods and evils indiscriminately to men: on the contrary, he deliberately keeps his divine reward away from those who most deserve it’.¹⁴⁸ Wealth himself is exculpated, all blame falls on Zeus’ φθόνος, a clearly questionable property of the alleged omnipotent guarantor of divine order.¹⁴⁹ Meanwhile, it remains doubtful to what extent Wealth is identified with ˗or juxtaposed to˗ Zeus at the end of the play before his ‘cult’ is established in the Athenian treasure house, namely the opisthodromos of the Parthenon, through a staged procession.¹⁵⁰ In Aristophanes’ Pax, it is War who has thrown Eirene/Peace into a

 Ar. Av. 819 etc. For the scenic representation of the city, Bowie, A.M. 2012, 360 f.  For the scenic representation of the Underworld, see Bowie, A.M. 2012, 361 f.  So explicitly Ar. Pax 177˗179, for the scenic representation of heaven here, Bowie, A.M. 2012, 367 f.  Ar. Ra. 170˗177.  Ar. Pl. 87˗92. For Zeus’ role here, cf. Given 2009, 112 f.  Barrenechea 2018, 31.  Barrenechea 2018, 32˗34.  Ar. Pl. 1188˗1195 with Barrenechea 2018, 153˗159.

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deep cavern,¹⁵¹ but it is Zeus who has forbidden to dig her up,¹⁵² although Hermes is then bribed into tolerating Peace’s release.¹⁵³ Critics have argued that here the blame falls on mankind, who prefer War to Peace.¹⁵⁴ But such an interpretation would question Zeus’ omnipotence. It would also ignore the fact that the initiative to restore Peace is taken by a human, Trygaeus, and that Zeus’ prohibition is not overcome by human repentance, but by bribery of Hermes (and apparently against the will of Zeus). New Comedy then abandons the criticism of Zeus’ world order, which ˗as in earlier tragedy˗ is taken for granted and unchangeable. No piece of New Comedy seems to be particularly concerned with this order, which is a self˗evident fact even in Plautus’ Amphitryo, where it is never questioned and is confirmed through the epilogue epiphany of Zeus. 3. Divine selfishness: Epiphanic gods in comedy are selfish to the extreme, especially when their sacrifices are concerned. In Aristophanes’ Aves, the leader of the birds, Peisetaerus, is informed by Prometheus that the gods are starving because humans have stopped offering sacrifices.¹⁵⁵ Because of the subsequent food shortage, the barbarian/Triballian gods are on the verge of attacking Zeus, unless he allows the opening of the emporia and the import of offals.¹⁵⁶ Then there are Aristophanes’ afore˗mentioned Wealth and Peace: When Wealth is cured by Asclepius and has taken over power from Poverty, Zeus sends Hermes, because under Wealth’s rule humans are unwilling to offer sacrifices.¹⁵⁷ Hermes is interested only in his own sacrifices/food, and even proposes to move to Cremylus’ house and to offer his ‘services’ in all his areas of expertise.¹⁵⁸ As for the Peace, it is only when the hero Trygaeus threatens Hermes that the Olympians will have to concede their sacrifices to the Moon and the Sun, if the barbarians conquer Greece, that Hermes agrees to tolerate the release of Peace from the cave in which War has hidden her, with the approval of Zeus.¹⁵⁹ Heracles as a

        

Ar. Pax 204˗233; Barrenechea 2018, 28˗34. Ar. Pax 371 f. Cf. Given 2009, 114. Barrenechea 2018, 32. Ar. Av. 1494˗1552. Ar. Av. 1515˗1524, cf. 186. Ar. Pl. 1112˗1116. Ar. Pl. 1118˗1170. Ar. Pax 204˗233, 371 f., 403˗728.

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gluttonous bastard˗son of Zeus is a cherished topic of all comedy, not least in Aristophanes.¹⁶⁰

Cast of Fully Emplotted Divine Personifications in Comedy Like scenically emplotted personifications in comic prologues, fully emplotted divine personifications in comedy are restricted to those plays that are derived from the lifeworld of the audience, not mythical plots. The utopian potential of such plots as well as the allegorical potential of the personifications of abstract nouns is thereby exploited. The allegorical slant of personified deities in Old Comedy manifests itself in a number of features, namely 1. their restriction to lifeworld scenarios; 2. the fact that their properties and competences are tantamount to their meaning only (i. e. they do not develop a personality beyond the meaning of the appellatives, from which they are derived); 3. their normal lack of a (locally bound) cult; 4. the fact that they appear in semantically complementary pairs (e. g. Wealth/Poverty, Peace/War, Better Argument/Worse argument). Next to such personified pairs, we also find a deliberate, virtually unlimited multiplication of personifications, to ridicule the very process of ‘inventing new gods’. Most instructive is here the case of Socrates in the Nubes: the philosopher claims that the only real deities are Clouds (which appear as the chorus), and that they are driven not by Zeus but by the new god Dinos (≈ whirl/wine vessel);¹⁶¹ accordingly, Socrates systematically invokes Clouds (while Dinos is not mentioned again).¹⁶² But Clouds are not the only gods in Socrates’ new pantheon. Chaos and Tongue and a discussion of Better Argument against Worse Argument occur in the same play.¹⁶³ They are invoked alongside Air and Aither.¹⁶⁴ Elsewhere, Socrates acknowledges only the trinity Chaos, Clouds and Tongue,¹⁶⁵ and then again he turns to Respiration, Chaos and Air.¹⁶⁶ To complete the confusion, Clouds themselves address the traditional gods Zeus, Poseidon and He-

 Ar. Av. 1583˗1590, 1641˗1673, Ra. 504˗507; for more Heraclean satire, see Nu. 1050˗1054, V. 1030, and the detailed chapter on Heracles in comedy and satyr drama in Casolari 2003, 249˗296 (including the hero’s gluttony).  Ar. Nu. 314˗424, esp. 380 f. (Dinos), 1470 f. with Kanavou 2011, 77.  Ar. Nu. 252, 297, 316˗318, 365 al.  Ar. Nu. 424, 879˗1114.  Ar. Nu. 263˗274.  Ar. Nu. 423 f.  Ar. Nu. 627.

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lios.¹⁶⁷ It is important that Socrates does not simply swap traditional gods for another set of ‘new’ gods (say, Clouds), but that the Socratic pantheon is enriched and modified deliberately at random: ¹⁶⁸ ultimately, in Socrates’ pantheon, so the message, everything or everyone can be raised to divinity. This is also the central point of the Pax, where the goddess appears as a cult statue, not as a living character, a fact which led to caustic comments by other comedians such as Eupolis and Plato already in antiquity.¹⁶⁹ Some dramatic personifications enjoy real worship. For Peace, such a ‘cult’ is attested in Athens in the first decades of the fourth century BCE; the goddess has her own iconography and is acknowledged as such in poetry, not least in plays by Euripides and Aristophanes.¹⁷⁰ Virtually all personifications of abstract notions such as Wealth and Poverty have at least the potential of divinization from a cult point of view.¹⁷¹ They are ideal candidates in those patterned narratives that are variously known as ‘transfer tales’, anodos tales, cult foundation tales, or ˗as Barrenechea labels them˗ ‘new god tales’, i. e. aetiological tales about the establishment of the cult of a new god, normally with an epiphany at the beginning.¹⁷² Despite their religious potential, however, deified personifications in comedy do not serve to aetiologize rituals or provoke piety, but to create laughter and distance. They are indebted to the play’s agenda and the plausibility of the plot, not to lifeworld realia. Cults there may be, but these are normally as irrelevant to the representation of the epiphanic personifications in their specific dramatic contexts as are real cults to epiphanic representations in drama of other Olympians. Dramatic gods are always patterned and some of these patterns should have become apparent by now: they are dramatis personae and not much more.

Dionysus: Deus Praesentissimus In what follows, I will investigate Dionysus’ position as an epiphanic god in Greek drama. Following the initial definition of epiphany, I will focus on those

 Ar. Nu. 563˗574.  Cf. e. g. Wagener 2020, 84: ‘Die Vorstellung der Götter scheint dabei allerdings keinem klaren Schema zu folgen’. However, she refrains from drawing any conclusions therefrom.  Eup. fr. 62; Pl. Com. fr. 86; cf. Wagener 2020, 148 f.; Miles 2011, 124 f.  Wagener 2020, 164˗174; Stafford 2000, 173˗197; for drama ibid. 184˗189.  Barrenechea 2018, 20 f., 36 f.  Barrenechea 2018, 137˗161; for the archaeological representations of ‘anodos’ scenes, cf. also Wagener 2020, 170.

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dramatic sections in which the god is visible on stage to the audience. I will argue that these appearances are both generically bound/patterned and emphatically not tied to Dionysiac ritual. Unlike many scholars in the field,¹⁷³ I will give no precedence to tragedy as reflecting reality. Rather, I hold that tragedy and comedy alike (and as far as it can be reconstructed, the satyr play too) offer representations that equally distort such reality beyond recognition. I will back up these findings with a discussion of the corresponding representation of Zeus, who is conspicuous by his absence in extant drama, again not for ritual or cult reasons, but because he is modelled on the Zeus of the epic tradition, hence for reasons of poetic and dramaturgic convention.

The Punishing Dionysus of Tragedy Apart from very elusive evidence about Dionysiac birth tragedies,¹⁷⁴ a specific form of Dionysiac theodicy, namely the punishment of unbelievers by a group of Dionysiac devotees is virtually the only role in which a fully emplotted Dionysus regularly appears on the tragic stage. The first (archaeological) evidence for such punishment of unbelievers is found on red˗figured vases from the last decade of the sixth century BCE onwards that depict the killing of Pentheus.¹⁷⁵ The first playwright on record to elaborate on the topic is Aeschylus in his tetralogy Lykourgeia as well as in his Theban tetralogy (here, most likely the Semele may have dealt with Dionysus’ birth, while the Xantriai and/or the Pentheus operate with a plot similar to that of Euripides’ Bacchae).¹⁷⁶ Apart from tragedy, other sources connect Dionysus with the punishment of numerous theomachoi over

 Cf. e.g. Bierl 2013, 368: ‘Yet the entire dramatic ensemble, the tragic trilogy with the following satyr play and the latecomer comedy, whose introduction creates a kind of compensation for the earlier tendencies of gravity and seriousness, has to be seen as a unity which comprehends the two sides of the god’.  So presumably in Aeschylus’ Semele (Sommerstein 2005, 224˗227) and some even more dubious plays under the title of Semele vel. sim., e. g. Carcinus II, Diogenes, and Spintharus, cf. TrGF I ad locc. These are the tragic pendants to a clearly defined group of comic pieces, categorized by Nesselrath as the comic θεῶν γοναί plays (see below p. 115).  For (early) vase depictions of Pentheus’ murder, cf. Weaver 2009.  For Aeschylus’ Lykourgeia Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 462 f., 465. Another Lykourgeia is attested by Polyphrasmon (F 1). Some minor playwrights such as Cleophon (T 1), Iophon (T 1), Lycophron (T 3), Thespis (T 1) or Xenocles (F 1) are reported to have written tragedies entitled either Bakchai or Pentheus; a Dionysos is attested by Chaeremon (frs. 4˗7), a Kadmos perhaps by Euripides (TrGF V.1, p. 475 with Collard/Cropp 2008, 491). For the minor playwrights see TrGF I ad locc.

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the ages.¹⁷⁷ However, the only full witness of this deeply characteristic tragic pattern of Dionysiac theodicy is Euripides’ Bacchae. Like Aeschylus’ Eumenides and the pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus, Euripides’ Bacchae deals primarily with theodicy, through its very specific brand of Dionysiac vindictiveness and reassertion. The play focuses on Dionysus’ claim on divine worship, and Pentheus’ refusal to offer it, not out of a general impiety, but through blindness and ignorance of the divine nature of Dionysus, who carefully conceals his divinity from the king. The quintessential ontological – and apologetic – message of the tragedy is well expressed by the chorus: ‘Dionysus is inferior to no other god’.¹⁷⁸ The situation is adequately introduced in the prologue when the disguised Dionysus says: This man [scil. Pentheus] is denying what belongs to me by divine right (θεομαχεῖ τὰ κατ’ ἐμέ v. 45). He forcibly deprives me of libations and does not mention me in prayer. Therefore, I will show him and all the Thebans that I am a god. … That is why I have adopted a mortal form and changed my appearance to that of man.¹⁷⁹

The corollary key term for the concept of theodicy is here the concept of ‘resisting a god’ (θεομαχεῖν, v. 45). Wildberg thought that this term is construed here as ‘the exact opposition’ to ‘service to the god’ (ὑπηρεσία).¹⁸⁰ However, such service does not protect Hippolytus from Aphrodite’s wrath in the homonymous Euripidean play,¹⁸¹ while ‘resisting a god’ by no means necessarily leads to the hero’s catastrophe, as various Homeric battle encounters of mortals and gods prove: Diomedes in Iliad 5 attacks both Aphrodite and Apollo but remains unharmed, protected as he is by Athena. The decisive point is not whether one ‘resists’ or ‘serves’ a god, but the unfathomable will of Zeus. In Euripides’ Bacchae, the Theban king is doomed from the beginning, because, as Dionysus himself states after appearing in his full divine shape at the very end, ‘long ago Zeus my father ordained this’ (v. 1349). It is Zeus, the guarantor of all justice, who here destroys the renitent denier, as he authorizes destruction of the ‘servant’ of Artemis in the Hippolytus. ¹⁸² Denier or servant, justice or injustice, all the same, there is no pun Gödde 2011, 101˗103.  Eur. Ba. 777.  Eur. Ba. 45˗48, 53 f.  Wildberg 2002, 150 about Pentheus: ‘Im Verlaufe des Stücks entwickelt er sich zu einem militanten θεομάχος, dem genauen Gegenteil eines ὑπηρέτης’.  Wildberg 2002, 128˗135 discusses the Hippolytus; p. 131, he states that Hippolytus’ ‘one˗sided’ hyperesia is a tragic mistake.  Eur. Hipp. 1329˗1334.

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ishment without Zeus’ consent, nor is there any reward of ‘divine service’ (ὑπηρεσία) without it.

Dionysus Reasserting His Divinity and Possible Origins of the God In a word, Euripides’ Bacchae exemplifies the only topic/theme in which a fully emplotted Dionysus appears on the tragic stage (apart from his ˗elusive˗ birth tragedies), namely in his role of punishing unbelievers and reasserting his divinity. Such a Dionysus appears also in the second Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (7), which merges typical features of the Homeric Hymns with the reassertion theme of tragic Dionysus and can therefore be hardly older than the fifth century BCE.¹⁸³ Given that together with the Bacchae it forms the first textual evidence for the tragic Dionysiac pattern, let us have a brief look at it. The Hymn is not locally fixed, and there is no explicit connection to any cult (the Hymn does not pose as a cult hymn). We learn that the sailors, whom Dionysus (disguised as a ‘young man’) awaits on a peninsula (without any apparent motivation) are Tyrrhenian pirates,¹⁸⁴ i. e., barbarians from the Greek periphery. When the god’s bonds fall off mysteriously,¹⁸⁵ only the helmsman realizes the youth’s true divine nature, although he cannot identify the god (he thinks of Zeus, Apollo or Poseidon).¹⁸⁶ Theriomorph transformations, typical of the self˗assertive Dionysus, are mentioned: at the end the god turns into a bear and a lion (the exact nature of his transformation is not clear). He kills the captain, drives the crew overboard, and turns them into dolphins, but spares the helmsman for his piety.¹⁸⁷ The piece adapts the pattern of tragic Dionysus to the hymnic genre. Why? Apparently, because this is the only kind of aretalogy that is acceptable to the Dionysus of the fifth century BCE. In fact, only one popular Dionysiac myth is attested earlier, but one that is inconsequential to drama, namely the ‘return

 Generally, it has been dated from the archaic to the Hellenistic period, cf. Herrero de Jáuregui 2013, 239 and Jaillard 2011, 133 n. 2, who considers any attempt at chronology ‘speculative’.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 7 f.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 13˗15.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 19˗21.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 44˗57. Some scholars have considered this passage an aetiology of the Dionysian chorus, with the steersman as the ‘chorus˗leader’, cf. Bierl 217, 247˗250. If so, the sailors represent the conventional ‘un˗believers’, turned into fervent followers of the god (for fondness for music of Dolphins, cf. Eur. El. 435 f., Ar. Ra. 1317 al.), just like the sisters of Semele in Euripides’ Bacchae.

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of Hephaestus’.¹⁸⁸ Its ˗basically un˗epiphanic˗ theme forms the contents of the first ˗heavily mutilated˗ Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (1), which may be dated, according to West, perhaps as early as the seventh century BCE.¹⁸⁹ Herodotus considers Dionysus a ‘young’ god alongside Heracles and Pan (all three being severely reduced or absent in Homer, at least in their capacity as ‘gods’).¹⁹⁰ His mortal mother Semele suggests an early heroic rather than divine status. Such an early heroic status seems to be taken for granted in his Iliadic birth episode, in which his birth is placed next to that of Heracles, Perseus, Minos etc. as well as in the Iliadic Lycurgus episode.¹⁹¹ Hesiod already acknowledges his divine status, not without hinting at the curiosity that his mother is mortal. In his divine˗heroic pedigree he resembles Heracles, with whom he often forms a pair in early poetry and inscriptions.¹⁹² Heroic rather than divine properties are also his passionability and potential mortality.¹⁹³ A ‘hero’ Dionysus is perhaps attested in a contentious reading from an Elean hymn that some scholars consider to be among the oldest specimens of Greek poetry.¹⁹⁴ All in all, various details suggest his earlier status as a hero, most likely Silenus˗ or Satyr˗like, who is turned into a full˗blown god only after the completion of the Iliad and Odyssey, perhaps at the end of the seventh century BCE.¹⁹⁵ This assumption would explain why, starting as a hero without any heroic record, he must compensate for the lack of mythical achievements by his own ‘recent’ (= non˗mythical) deeds, which are couched not in the form of myth but of miracles (θαύματα). These ‘recent’ achievements constitute his entire aretalogy. They may be compared to the late˗classical Epidaurian healing inscriptions that form a makeshift aretalogy of Asclepius, who again has no or little credentials in archaic Greek myth. As to the aretalogical aspect, I am not the first to suggest that Dionysus’ achievements in the Bacchae very much resemble the pars epica of hymnic poetry.¹⁹⁶

        

Seaford 2006, 30˗32. West 2003, 7. Hdt. 2.145; Hartog 1988, 77˗80. Il. 6.132˗137 (Lycurgus passage); 14.323˗325 (birth passage). E. g. Il. 14.323˗325; IG XII 8.356 (Thasus, late 6th century BCE). For his passionability and mortality, cf. Gödde 2011, 95˗98. Plut. Qaest. Graec. 299 A˗B; Paus. 5.16.6 with Schlesier 2002, 164 f. Pace Gödde 2011, 93 f.; Schlesier 2002. For hymnic elements in the Bacchae see Damen/Richards 2012.

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Dionysus’ Miracles and His Outward Appearance in Drama A closer look shows that Dionysus’ miracles are often miraculous events in the god’s presence rather than miraculous actions. His power is primarily immanent, his agency only implied. ‘Full of miracles (θαύματα) has this man arrived in Thebes’.¹⁹⁷ Under his spell, the Theban women on Mt Cithaeron ‘do strange things that outstrip miracles’.¹⁹⁸ The god allows Pentheus’ servants to tie him up, while the bonds of the incarcerated Bacchants fall off by themselves, and their prison doors open automatically;¹⁹⁹ Dionysian thaumaturgy culminates in the palace miracles:²⁰⁰ an earthquake,²⁰¹ accompanied by a fire at Semele’s tomb;²⁰² he, the (disguised) god, reports how the delusional Pentheus ties up a bull and then fights an apparition (φάσμα) in the courtyard of his palace (believing both to be Dionysus);²⁰³ but also the long messenger account of raving bacchants on Mt Cithaeron,²⁰⁴ Pentheus’ own madness,²⁰⁵ Dionysus’ tree miracles,²⁰⁶ and the sparagmos of the king at the hands of Agave, his mother, and the other maenads.²⁰⁷ In the Bacchae, Dionysus’ immanent divine powers are channeled to the natural environment, which reacts variously by an altered state of consciousness (‘madness’), by uttering mysterious sounds, most notably the notorious exclamations εὖαι, εὐοῖ or their derivates, or the performance of miracles, which may include atrocities such as the laceration of Pentheus by his kin. Affecting his environment in a very distinct way, Dionysus’ epiphanic presence is repeatedly called upon by the chorus both in tragedy and comedy. The chorus thus vaguely evokes the god’s presence despite his invisibility on stage.²⁰⁸ While there is substantial comic evidence for Dionysus appearing as an ‘anti˗hero’ in terms of physical disguise (e. g. as Heracles in Aristophanes’ Ranae),

 Eur. Ba. 449 f.  Eur. Ba. 667.  Eur. Ba. 443˗450.  Eur. Ba. 576˗656.  Eur. Ba. 576˗95; with Petridou 2015, 103 f., who calls it an ‘amorphous’ epiphany.  Eur. Ba. 596˗603.  Eur. Ba. 616˗637, 920˗922, with Petridou 2015, 97.  Eur. Ba. 677˗774.  Eur. Ba. 918˗1152.  Eur. Ba. 1163˗1074.  Eur. Ba. 1114˗1152.  Cf. Eur. Ba. 64˗166 (with Bierl 2013a, 215˗221); Soph. Ant. 1115˗1152 and Ar. Th. 985˗1000; with Bierl 2013, passim. On p. 4 he calls this phenomenon a ‘performative transference to the natural environment’.

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in tragedy our only firm evidence for his changing outfit comes from Euripides’ Bacchae. In the archaeological record, the god normally wears an ‘ankle˗length chiton that covers his body completely, on top of which a himation or a deerskin or leopard skin may be draped. Even when he wears a shorter chiton his loins remain hidden’. His appearance is untypical for male gods, anachronistic and determinedly effeminate, not only in comedy but also in tragedy.²⁰⁹ Two forms of disguise of the epiphanic gods may be distinguished, signifying different levels of ‘estrangement’ from the human sphere, namely anthropomorph or theriomorph appearances. Both are found in the Bacchae. Already in v. 4 the god states: ‘I have exchanged my divine form for a mortal one … ’. It is impossible to guess what changes of his normal outfit this statement implies, one feature may be the fact that his mask is ˗exceptionally?˗ smiling.²¹⁰ Later on, he appears in various theriomorph shapes such as as a dragon/snake, lion, or bull.²¹¹ In his epilogue epiphany, certainly spoken on high, he may or may not have changed costume or mask.²¹² Such disguises tie in with the appearance of the god outside the tragic genre, e. g. as a lion and bear in his Homeric Hymn (7). ²¹³ Unlike other gods, Dionysus transforms his environment physically, including his opponents. In the Bacchae, all other characters apart from Pentheus are ‘disguised’/dressed as devotees of Dionysus, starting with the comic travesty of Tiresias, Cadmus, and the maenadic outfit of Agave and her sisters, and culminating in the male Pentheus disguised as a maenad.²¹⁴ In the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus (7) the hostile seamen are turned into dolphins.

Epiphanic Dionysus of Tragedy as Compared to Homeric Epiphanic Gods Epiphanic Dionysus in tragedy, as far as we can reconstruct him, stands in opposition to the other Olympians, although he is linked with the latter through his descent from Zeus, a fact which is mantra˗like ˗and almost apologetically˗ stressed in Euripides’ Bacchae. ²¹⁵ Characteristically, unlike virtually all major

 Jameson 2014, 63˗70; quotation p. 67. Already in Aeschylus’ Edonoi, he is described as a ‘tiny woman’ (γύννις, fr. 61); then in Eur. Ba. 353, he is called by Pentheus θηλύμορφος.  Eur. Ba. 439, 1021 with Dodds 1960, ad locc.  Eur. Ba. 616˗619, 920˗922, 1017˗1019; cf. 100, 1017˗1019.  Foley 1980, 131 with n. 141.  Hom. Hym. Dion. (7) 44˗54.  Cf. Foley 1980, 126˗133.  Cf. e. g. Eur. Ba. 1 f., 27, 84, 1341 f., 1349. For parody: Ar. Ra. 631.

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Olympians in early myth, he has no mortal favorites and virtually no female lovers apart from Ariadne.²¹⁶ To the extent that some opponents (Lycurgus, Pentheus) are royals, he subverts royalty. For instance, in the Bacchae he is represented as a ‘democratic’ and civic god because ‘equally both to the rich and to the lowly he has given the painless joy of wine’; his rites (ὄργια, τελεταί) unite both males and females. These rites are explicitly and emphatically brought from abroad, from the barbarians.²¹⁷ Hence, unavoidably, the epiphanic Dionysus in the Bacchae is the god of un˗Greekness. In a sense, he is construed as the anti˗type of the panhellenic epiphanic Olympians of epic poetry and tragedy. However, featuring him as subversive and in opposition to other gods and their royal followers does not make Dionysus a quintessential freedom fighter of the democratic polis. He struggles for the recognition of his own divine status, not for any political regime and not against his divine peers. In the relevant Homeric Hymn (7), Dionysus punishes pirates but spares the helmsman because of the latter’s piety towards him. In Aeschylus’ Bassarides, his infelicitous opponent is Orpheus, primarily a bard and seer by profession, who after his return from the Underworld prefers Helios/Apollo to Dionysus and is punished through sparagmos by the Thracian maenads.²¹⁸ In fact, Dionysus’ opponents belong to both genders and diverse strata of society, though primarily of course the higher echelons.²¹⁹ While it is correct to stress his subversive potential, nothing makes him a founder or promoter of the democratic polis, or any other political regime for that matter. While epiphanic Dionysus in tragedy is thus represented differently from other epiphanic gods, these differences are best viewed as a consequence of his absence in early myth rather than as a reflection of his revolutionary, anti˗royal proclivity.²²⁰ Last not least, as rarely noticed by tragedy˗oriented scholars, the exceptional degree of Dionysiac parody in Old Comedy forestalls a close reading of the tragic Dionysus as the civic god par excellence of the Greek/Athenian polis.

 Jameson 2014, 70˗74; for the archaic evidence on vases of Ariadne and Dionysus, cf. Isler˗Kerenyi 2007, 121˗124; for Ariadne Hes. Th. 947˗949.  Eur. Ba. 13˗22, 482.  Aesch. frs. 23 f. (= Sommerstein 2008, 18˗23).  Cf. Gödde 2011, 101˗103.  Cf. the arguments offered by Friedrich 2000, 139˗141.

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Comic Patterns The fact that, in tragedy, epiphanic Dionysus is constantly busy with reasserting his divinity by punishing his deniers stands in marked contrast to his multifarious fully emplotted epiphanies in Old Comedy. The range of comic contexts is virtually unlimited. On Bowie’s counting, Dionysus is the most prominent god in Old Comedy with at least 16 plays in which he featured.²²¹ Unspectacular ˗given his connection with wine˗ are those cases in which Dionysus is staged at a drinking carousal,²²² and those in which he poses as an expert in different brands of wine.²²³ Nor is his staging in his ‘birth comedy’,²²⁴ or ˗anachronistically˗ in a ‘birth comedy’ of Cronus,²²⁵ particularly startling. Such comedies belong to the larger and clearly identifiable group of what Nesselrath calls the θεῶν γοναί plays,²²⁶ which is not restricted to comedy: Dionysus’ birth is presumably also dealt with e. g. in Aeschylus’ Semele. ²²⁷ Even more interesting is the possibility that the fourth˗century comedian Anaxandrides in his Lykourgos may have dealt with the typically tragic topic, namely the punishment of an unbeliever. Unfortunately, we only have the title and one elusive fragment of the work.²²⁸ But his comic parody goes further, so much so that we find a specific sub˗genre of plays with a fully emplotted epiphanic Dionysus, namely ‘Dionysus as an anti˗hero’ (Sommerstein’s expression).²²⁹ In such plays, a fully emplotted Dionysus encounters the most unheroic situations in a most unheroic manner. Apart from the inherent absurdity of all such plots, it is important that the ‘Dionysus as an anti˗hero’ of comedy is construed as the docile simpleton who willingly subjects to tyranny and human fate, i. e. as the reversal of his omnipotent,

 Bowie, A.M. 2000, 320.  Ameipsias fr. 4.  Hermippus fr. 77.  Polyzelus fr. 6 f.  Phrynichus fr. 10.  The first writer of such θεῶν γοναί plays, i. e. birth plays of the gods, on record is Hermippus, who belongs to the fifth century BCE, Nesselrath 1995, 12 f. However, it is in the first half of the fourth century BCE that the specific branch of mythological comedy flourishes. Nesselrath singles out birth plays of Aphrodite, Dionysus, Pan, Zeus, Hermes and Athena, often referring to similarities with Lucian’s Dialogi Deorum, Nesselrath 1995, 3˗9. He identifies such plays as the ‘most homogeneous group within the multi˗faceted field of mythological comedy’, and locates their source in didactic poetry, hymns and folktales, but explicitly not in tragedy, Nesselrath 1995, 9 f.  For such Semele plays see above p. 108 n. 174.  Anaxandrides fr. 28.  Storey 2003, 251 f.; Sommerstein 1996, 11.

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spiteful, subversive tragic pendant. In the mock heroic Dionysalexandros by Cratinus, the god appears as a coward and crook in the disguise of Paris (judging among the three goddesses who offer themselves to the shepherd); in the non˗mythological lifeworld piece Taxiarchoi by Eupolis, Dionysus enrolls in the navy, only to be taught by a rough quartermaster, the Athenian general Formion, the hardships of the sailor’s profession, their peculiar dressing, food and jargon.²³⁰ To the same group of ‘Dionysus as an anti˗hero’ comedies belong the Dionsysos Asketes by Aristomenes²³¹ and the Aristophanic Dionysos Nauagos. ²³² Add to these a number of comedies whose plots are more elusive, including two plays under the title Bacchae, one by Diocles²³³ and the other by Lysippus,²³⁴ which may parody the tragic standard theme of a Dionysus reasserting his divine position (the contents are extremely obscure, however). Our best test case is Aristophanes’ Ranae, which also stands for another feature of the unheroic Dionysus in comic contexts, namely his disguise. In the Ranae, Dionysus descends to the Underworld disguised as Heracles; out of fear, he exchanges his Heraclean costume with that of his servant Sosias, changes back into Heracles, and once again back into Sosias, with the result that Aeacus cannot tell apart god from servant and has to consult Persephone (vv. 464˗673).²³⁵ In a similar vein, in Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros, Dionysus appears disguised first as Paris then as a ram. Dionysus’ disguise is ultimately blown in both plays. The humbled and ludicrous Dionysus of comedy inverts and undermines the omnipotent, apologetic, and constantly self˗assertive Dionysus of tragedy. Especially in his capacity as an ‘anti˗hero,’ the god is deprived of all divine credentials and turned into a laughing˗stock. No other god has his comic potential.

Tragic and Comic Dionysuses and Their Generic ‘Eigenleben’ The two different Dionysuses of tragedy and comedy must be viewed in the larger context of the appearance of the god in Greek religion in general, where he is ˗according to the communis opinio˗ the god of polar oppositions and extremes. But is he? Dionysus would, indeed, deserve such a title if he displayed a proclivity for oppositions in the same context or on the same occasions or ˗for the sake

     

FOC II, 208˗221. FOC I, 132 f. Henderson 2007, 239. FOC I, 444 f. FOC II, 323˗335. Cf. Habash 2002.

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of our topic˗ within the same genre. However, his polarity seems to be largely the result of scholarly disregard for generic distinctions. As I have tried to show, both the tragic Dionysus seeking for divine recognition and punishing unbelievers, and the comic Dionysus, the ‘anti˗hero’, are dramaturgically patterned and repeat themselves time and again, always however along the lines of the respective genre. We may construe a polarity only if we choose to ignore generic boundaries. The two Dionysuses are comparable to the dramatic character of the ‘seer’, who is always right in tragedy and always nonsensical in comedy. I trust that this would not lead any interpreter to go so far as to call the mantis a human being of ‘polar oppositions’. How realistic then is this polarity as exemplified by Euripides’ Bacchae, a ‘monumental epiphany of the god’?²³⁶ Modern scholarship since W. F. Otto at the latest has almost unanimously looked for ˗and found˗ the Dionysus of the Bacchae as a dynamic element of Greek religion and cult. However, inscriptions tell a different story. Here, Dionysus appears in contexts very similar to that of other gods.²³⁷ But this Dionysus has conspicuously little to do with the god of the literary traditions.²³⁸ Albert Henrichs, himself a prominent defender of the ritual elements of Greek tragedy, is the first and only scholar to my mind who points to the almost total absence of epigraphically attested epiphanies of Dionysus – otherwise allegedly deus praesentissimus or θεὸς ἐπιφανέστατος.²³⁹ Such patent inconsistency is, however, explainable if we leave the Dionysus, his miracles, the ecstasy he provokes, the spiteful rage against his opponents, and the cruel punishment he inflicts on them ˗in short, the tragic god as he appears in Euripides and most likely Aeschylus˗ where he belongs, namely to the ‘Eigenleben’ of Greek fiction in general and the Athenian tragic theatre in particular. To support this view, it would suffice to point to the evidence of comedy (to my knowledge, no scholar has ever considered taking the ‘anti-hero’ of comedy as realistic). In addition, one may also compare certain features of the actual cult of Dionysus with the representation of the god in Greek tragedy. To begin with Dionysus’ most characteristic companions, the maenads: Rapp’s distinction between the ecstatic maenads of art (and literature/tragedy) and the much more sober

 Wildberg 2002, 149.  Guettel Cole 2011, 275 f.  Guettel Cole 2011, 264: ‘There is a tremendous variety in the local stories about this god, and there were many ways to worship him. Nevertheless, the traditional themes of Dionysiac literature seem absent from his rituals as reported in inscriptions’.  Ov. Met. 3.658 f., IG XII 3.420. Cf. Henrichs 2011, 113, referring to one exception, namely I.Magn. 215 (see below p. 185).

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maenads of history is still fundamentally valid: despite a hoary ˗poetic˗ tradition which links Dionysus and his companions to madness or frenzy since Homer, as well as sixth˗century vase paintings of ecstatic maenads, the later inscriptional evidence strongly suggests at most a reenactment of such ecstasy, a process in which Euripides’ representation may have played a catalytic role. Nor are sparagmos and ōmophagia conceivable ˗or attested˗ in a historical Greek cult context.²⁴⁰ Or one may point to Dionysus’ alleged descent from Lydia, a literary truism (e. g. Eur. Ba. 462˗464), which nevertheless is historically wrong, if we want to believe the Homeric and Mycenaean evidence. The former connects the god with the Thracian king Lycurgus, the latter with Crete and the western Peloponnese.²⁴¹ In a word, the epiphanic god from Lydia and his ecstatic female followers of tragedy, who tear apart or even devour their hapless victims, are products of (specifically male?) artistic imagination, which from the sphere of art enter the sphere of reality up to an ˗admittedly˗ undefinable point. In their artificiality and genre˗boundedness, Dionysus’ epiphanies are not essentially different from other epiphanic gods on stage, including the notorious absentee Zeus, whose omission again is genre˗ and not cult˗related, as I will demonstrate presently. In order to reassure those who might suspect me of an unfashionable and anachronistic sympathy for a one˗sided ‘literary approach,’ I hasten to add that I do not intend to question historical connections with Dionysiac cult of Greek drama per se.²⁴² But I hold that the religious link manifests itself differently in different textual sections of drama. As I have argued in the introduction to this book, the litmus test of a living rituality in Greek drama is the chorus. As the importance of the chorus declines from the beginning of the fourth century BCE on, Greek drama emancipates itself from its cult origins: from partial ritual, it turns into mere spectacle.²⁴³ Aristotle already in his Poetica comments on the

 Rapp 1872. For the ‘ecstatic’ state of historical maenads, see Ustinova 2018, 174˗187 (with a good survey of the material, who thinks [p. 190 f.] that the representation of Euripides’ Bacchae is by and large ‘historical’); Caballero 2013; Fernández 2013; Versnel 2011a, 44˗46 answering Osborne 1999, who himself responds to Versnel 1990, 131˗155; Henrichs 1978 is still important, for instance p. 144: ‘The Greeks understood maenadism as a reenactment of myth and thus as basically mimetic, or commemorative’. Diod. 4.3.2 f., the principal text for historical maenadism in the Hellenistic period, is best discussed by Henrichs 1978, 144˗147. For the mania of Dionysus and his followers until the classical period, see Ustinova 2018, 169˗216; Schlesier 2011b.  Cf. e. g. Burkert 2011, 15 f.  For such a hypercritical approach esp. Scullion 2002.  Bierl 2011 and Bierl 2009, for instance, insists on the importance of cult and ritual, but his – mostly persuasive – evidence is virtually completely drawn from –or connected to – choral passages.

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chorus only from a dramaturgic point of view, regardless of any ritual ties.²⁴⁴ For him, tragedy is plain poetry and nothing more.²⁴⁵ Some passages from Plato and other early fourth˗century BCE authors suggest the same loosening and ultimately cutting of religious/ritual ties.²⁴⁶ By ca. 350 BCE, tragedy has become a mere spectacle. More important for the topic of this book than the development of the dramatic chorus in general is the fact that emplotted epiphanic gods in Greek drama are dramaturgically part of the non˗choral sections: they do not dance in the orchestra or chant choral odes;²⁴⁷ they act and speak just like other emplotted mortal characters; their independence from the chorus allows them still to be staged when the chorus is long dead, i. e. in New Comedy. In a word, epiphanic gods of Greek drama always belong to the dramatic ‘spectacle’ rather than to ritual, Homeric gods speaking in a different meter as it were.²⁴⁸ While I thus follow Scullion’s argument that emplotted dramatic gods in general, and Dionysus in particular, are merely dramatic characters, I accept ˗pace Scullion˗ that the function and origin of the dancing and chanting chorus has to be looked for in the Dionysiac cult.²⁴⁹ I also contend that it is the relatively early loss of all cult connections that allows Attic tragedy to be exported outside Athens and to be performed so successfully at different places on different occasions. Here I am referring not only to the restaging of famous plays from the fourth century BCE onwards in various parts and on various occasions all over the ancient Mediterranean world, but already to the fifth century BCE. Finkelberg, for instance, argues persuasively that the ritual settings and audiences of the City Dionysia, the Rural Dionysia and the Lenaea, during which dramatic poetry is staged, are in fact profoundly different festive occasions. Furthermore, we hear that Aeschylus and Euripides tour the ancient world from Sicily to Macedonia in order to produce dramatic art, hardly within the same ritual environment.²⁵⁰ In a word, from the fifth century BCE, Athenian tragedy ˗or comedy for that matter˗ does

 Arist. Poet. 1456a 25˗28.  Cf. Scullion 2002, 110: ‘For him [sc. Aristotle], tragedy is a species of poetry, not of ritual, and its principal congener is epic, not cultic hymns’.  Finkelberg 2006, 20˗24; cf. Scullion 2002, 126˗131.  Apparent exceptions are the Wealths of Cratinus’ Ploutoi, and the Clouds in Aristophanes’ Nubes, not incidentally two comic personifications. The same holds true of the satyrs in satyr plays and some comedies.  Mikalson 1991, 65: ‘The conception of divine˗human relationships is Homeric and the product of the literary, not religious tradition’.  Scullion 2002, passim, esp. 118˗125 for the chorus, where he turns ˗unconvincingly˗ against such scholars as Henrichs and Bierl who argue for the relation of the chorus to Dionysiac ritual.  Finkelberg 2006, 17˗20; Scullion 2002, 112˗114.

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not need a specific ritual setting in order to enchant mass audiences, a fact that explains its unbroken popularity even today.

Zeus: Deus Absentissimus The independence from cult of the staging of gods in theatre can be demonstrated by the inversion of Dionysus’ frequent stereotype appearances, namely Zeus’ well˗known absence from the Attic stage. The argument, which I intend to present in more detail in the section below, runs as follows: most tragedians are extremely reluctant to represent an epiphanic Zeus on stage (although we do not need to assume that there was a dramatic ‘law’ prohibiting such staged epiphanies). To a lesser extent this holds true of comic poets too. Instead, in much of comedy and virtually all extant tragedy Zeus communicates through reported signs (thunderbolt, eagle), his messenger Hermes, or his proxy Apollo. I will argue that Zeus’ absence from the stage is incompatible with his profound, ritual importance and general ‘presence’ in Athens. By contrast, it can be plausibly explained by generic conventions of archaic poetry. Unlike Dionysus, whose pre˗dramatic existence is elusive, Zeus offers us the unique opportunity to derive his dramatic omission from archaic Greek poetry at large. The important consequence of these considerations will be that both the strong epiphanic presence of Dionysus and the absence of Zeus in Greek drama are due to generically bound representational patterns, not to specific religious or ritual concepts of the Athenian lifeworld. Greek Drama is notoriously reluctant to represent Zeus on stage, despite the importance of Zeus’ justice/will as the bracketing legitimizing power of all divine action, however cruel.²⁵¹ Zeus is not staged in extant Aeschylus, although he may have appeared in the Psychostasia, of which ancient lexicographers preserve no more than three words. Given the title and the description of its contents in Plutarch and the Homeric scholia, the contents of this play may have shown at least three Aeschylean anomalies: 1. Zeus staged, 2. a plot centering on divine, not human, actors, with Thetis and Eos quarreling over the destiny of their sons Achilles and Memnon respectively, and Zeus’ ultimate verdict, and 3. a divine prologue (Zeus?).²⁵² Zeus’ (near?˗)absence from the Aeschylean stage is particularly noteworthy. More than any other archaic or classical poet, Aeschylus con Cf. Wildberg 2002, 126 f.  Aesch. frs. 279˗280a; Sommerstein 2008, 274 f.; Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 463 f.; she also considers a staging of Zeus a possibility in the Ixion (ibid. 466) and the Niobe (ibid. 467˗469), but this is even more conjectural; cf. also West 2000, 345˗347.

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strues Zeus as an all˗permeating divine entity that holds the world together as it stands, a veritable all˗god.²⁵³ Aeschylus’ ‘diocentrism’ is a literary construct with its primary point of reference Hesiod’s Zeus of justice and Xenophanes’ ‘One’.²⁵⁴ Most conspicuous is the absence of Zeus from the stage in the pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus Vinctus: Prometheus is here the one character who does not leave the stage at all (bound as he is to a rock), while Zeus is the one supreme divine power virtually referred to on every page of the text, but nevertheless absent from the stage throughout the play. At the beginning, he is somehow replaced by the appearance on stage of the two tyrannic emanations of his powers, namely Force (Κράτος) and Violence (Βία). There is no firm proof that Zeus is staged in any of Sophocles’ tragic plays, not even in the fragments.²⁵⁵ Once, in the Trachiniae, Zeus is reported as communicating with his son Heracles, but one wonders whether this is just shorthand for a communication via the oracle at Dodona, which appears explicitly in this particular play as an oracular source.²⁵⁶ Furthermore, Zeus may be the anonymous god addressing Oedipus shortly before the latter meets his mysterious end,²⁵⁷ but other solutions such as Hermes or Athena are possible and – given the fact that Oedipus is explicitly not killed by a thunderbolt a few lines later –²⁵⁸ more likely here. Possibly, Zeus may have been staged in the satyr play Inachos, but such a mise˗en˗scène, as well as the ascription of the play to Sophocles or even its identification as a satyr play, is not uncontested.²⁵⁹ With the possible exception of the lost Alcmene, Zeus is physically absent from the Euripidean stage too.²⁶⁰ This is highly surprising, given that in Euripides’ work ‘…the highest Olympian is mentioned incomparably more often than any other god, and this holds true of the deus ex machina scenes in particular’.²⁶¹ Zeus’ words may be quoted verbatim by the chorus in the Helena,²⁶² but only in a

 Aesch. Ag. 160˗175, with Kiefner 1965, 108˗134.  Mikalson 1991, 210˗213.  For Zeus in Sophocles, Mikalson 2012, 434˗437; for epiphanies in Sophoclean plays, including the fragments, see Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 482˗489.  Soph. Trach. 1159˗1161; for Dodonian oracles, see Soph. Trach. 161˗172, 1164˗1173.  Soph. OC 1623˗1630.  Soph. OC 1657˗1662.  Cf. Krumeich/Pechstein/Seidensticker 1999, 338 f., 342; West, S. 1984, esp. 293 f. A Zenos Gonai is mentioned among the works of the completely obscure Timositheus (TrGF I, p. 324 f.).  Eur. frs. 87b˗104 (= Collard/Cropp 2008, I, 100˗113). The staging of Zeus in the Alcmene was postulated by West, S. 1984, 294 f. and taken up, for instance, by Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 471 f. and 502 n. 30.  Wildberg 2002, 126 f. for the importance of Zeus in Euripides, quotation from p. 126.  Eur. Hel. 1341˗1345.

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mythical account of the distant past that is basically unconnected with the dramatic world on stage. At any rate, they do not suggest any descent of Zeus to the human lifeworld. On Bowie’s counting, Zeus plays an important ˗though not necessarily epiphanic˗ role in at least 14 plays of Old Comedy. The father of the gods thus comes second only to Dionysus, who features in at least 16 such plays.²⁶³ When Zeus is staged in comedy, his representation follows a very similar pattern: he appears exclusively in mythical plots as a lover/genitor, either in disguise (when encountering mortals) or without (when encountering gods). In many cases, I am not clear about the exact mode of realizing the ‘disguise,’ however. For instance, in Cratinus’ Nemesis, Zeus in the shape of a swan fathers Helen;²⁶⁴ in Sannyrio’s Danae, he begets Perseus after adopting the form of a golden rain shower;²⁶⁵ in Alcaeus’ Ganymedes, he abducts his beloved boy in the shape of an eagle;²⁶⁶ only in Hermippus’ Athenas Gonai and in Polyzelus’ Mouson Gonai, may Zeus have appeared undisguised, and an erotic context is unlikely.²⁶⁷ Philemon, apparently in a prologue epiphany, stages Air who claims that he could ‘also be called Zeus’ due to his omnipresence.²⁶⁸ Zeus’ role in Plato’s Zeus Kakoumenos is totally unclear,²⁶⁹ and in a few other suggested plays it is unlikely.²⁷⁰ The only extant Greek play in which an epiphanic Zeus is fully emplotted is the hypothetic source(s) of Plautus’ Amphitryo. Nevertheless, an apologetic remark in the prologue by Mercurius suggests that Jupiter’s appearance is anything but conventional: Jupiter himself will take part in this comedy. What? Surprised? As if it is actually a new scenario, the transformation of this Jupiter into an actor! Just last year, when the actors on this very stage called upon Jupiter, he came and helped out.²⁷¹

This passage apparently points to an appearance of Zeus on a previous occasion ‘last year’. Nevertheless, it also suggests that a staged Zeus is atypical. The avoidance of an epiphanic Zeus in Greek tragedy seems to be ridiculed already by Ar-

        

Bowie, A.M. 2000, 320. FOC I, 320˗329. FOC III, 220˗223. FOC I, 44˗47. FOC II, 282˗285, esp. fr. 2; III, 210˗213. Philem. fr. 95.4 f. FOC III, 108˗113. Dunbar 1995, 13 with n. 16. Plaut. Amph. 89˗94.

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istophanes, when Zeus is said to be ‘preening among the clouds’,²⁷² or (with a clearly ironic pseudo˗epic slant) ‘dwelling in aether’.²⁷³ Despite the absence of the god on stage, comedians such as Aristophanes relish in fulminations against Zeus to an extent that make pious inhibitions more than unlikely.²⁷⁴ Three alternative dramaturgic devices to represent the communication between Zeus and mankind predominate: 1. Sending a sign (διοσημίαι): Typical signs of Zeus are the eagle and the thunderbolt. Dramaturgically, eagles can only be reported by eyewitnesses, but thunderbolts may even be staged. For instance, the chorus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon famously reports the sign of two eagles that represent Agamemnon and Menelaus.²⁷⁵ The Persian queen in Aeschylus’ Persae reports that she saw an eagle on its way to Apollo’s altar being chased ˗and eventually tortured˗ by a swooping hawk, a much weaker bird than an eagle.²⁷⁶ As for the thunderbolt, Plautus (based on a Greek model) stages a thunderbolt shortly before the triumphant epilogue epiphany of Jupiter in his Amphitryo.²⁷⁷ In a typical comic inversion, Peisetaerus in Aristophanes’ Aves marries the steward of Zeus’ thunderbolt, Basileia (‘kingship’).²⁷⁸

 Ar. Av. 726˗728.  Ar. Th. 272.  E. g. Zeus is held responsible for Wealth’s blindness, with the result that Wealth follows the just and the unjust alike, Ar. Pl. 87˗92, 119˗146. Meanwhile, he himself is said to be poor because he crowns the winners of the Olympic Games with laurel, not with gold, Ar. Pl. 581˗586. In the Pax, he is blamed for destroying Greece, Ar. Pax 177˗209. In the Ranae, he is said to be the god of floggings of slaves, Ar. Ra. 756. In the Aves, his Libyan oracle (Zeus Ammon) is to be replaced by birds, Ar. Av. 619 f. In fact, in the same play we reach the point that ‘Zeus is finished’, because human sacrifice no longer reaches the gods, Ar. Av. 1514. The most relentless attack against the traditional Zeus is Socrates’ teaching in the Nubes: rain comes from clouds, not (as Strepsiades thinks) from ‘Zeus pissing through a sieve’, Ar. Nu. 367˗374. Consequently, Strepsiades himself denies Zeus’ existence, Ar. Nu. 818˗831, 1240 f., but the tables are turned, when his son Pheidippides takes up his argument and himself denies the existence of Zeus (thus justifying the beating of his father), while Strepsiades repents of abandoning belief in Zeus and the traditional gods, Ar. Nu. 1467˗1480. On the other hand, the Clouds themselves pray to Zeus, Poseidon and Helios, Ar. Nu. 563˗574. The whole scenario is rather grotesque, and I remain unconvinced that Strepsiades’ change of mind at the end of the play is actually an Aristophanic statement to the effect that one should better stay with the old traditional gods. Festivals of Zeus are ridiculed, such as the Diasia (Nu. 408˗411) and the Dipolieia (Nu. 984 f.), and prayer to him is satirized at V. 323˗333.  Aesch. Ag. 111˗137.  Aesch. Pers. 205˗210.  The thunder is staged after Plaut. Amph. 1052, because this explains Amphitryo’s response at w. 1053˗1076; cf. also Soph. OC 1657˗1662.  Basileia is also represented on a pyxis of the Meidias Painter around the same time, cf. Wagener 2020, 65˗80.

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2. Hermes: Only in the Iliad do we find Iris as Zeus’ spokesman. In the Odyssey and in Greek drama, Zeus’ mouthpiece is Hermes.²⁷⁹ In the Prometheus Vinctus, the god is sent to inquire about the liaison that will bring about Zeus’ downfall.²⁸⁰ In the prologue of Euripides’ Ion, Hermes informs the audience about Apollo’s plan concerning the future vicissitudes of Ion (although scholars have wondered why it is not Apollo himself who introduces the drama).²⁸¹ Also in comedy, epiphanic Hermes normally appears as a proxy for epiphanic Zeus. Already in Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros, we find Hermes as a prologue deity in this function. In Aristophanes’ Pax, epiphanic Hermes again forms the liaison between the (absent) Zeus and his human visitor, Trygaeus, when the latter arrives on his dung beetle on Mt Olympus in order to question Zeus in person about the rule of War in Greece. Trygaeus learns that Zeus and the other gods had ‘moved away yesterday’²⁸² because the Greeks always choose War over Peace. A fully emplotted Hermes (disguised as Amphitryo’s slave Sosia) appears next to a fully emplotted Zeus (disguised as Amphitryo) in Plautus’ Amphitryo. Hermes clearly adopts the role of the clever servant guiding his rather simple˗minded divine master (thus for example also in Aristophanes’ Ranae, where Xanthias accompanies his master Dionysus into the Underworld). His role as engineering the events is also made apparent by the ˗exceptional˗ second prologue of the Plautan play.²⁸³ 3. Delphi: Apollo renders Zeus’ words in the shape of Loxias = ‘the Oblique’: ‘Loxias is the spokesman of his father Zeus’ (Διὸς προφήτης δ’ ἐστὶν Λοξίας πατρός).²⁸⁴ On Bowden’s counting, in fourteen extant plays of the three great tragedians, the Delphic oracle is consulted thirty˗four times.²⁸⁵ Is Zeus’ absence from the stage due to absence from cult or ritual? As for the archaeological evidence, a faint tendency of ‘empty˗space˗aniconism’, i. e. the temple worship of Zeus without a cult image, has been noticed. The most notorious example is the worship of Zeus at Olympia in the archaic period, apparently without a cult image, before Phidias created one. Empty thrones of Zeus are attested from elsewhere, although their numbers are very limited and the context

 For the relation of Iris and Hermes in the Iliad and Odyssey see Pisano 2017, 115 – 133, who argues (esp. p. 125) for a functional/dramaturgic distinction.  [Aesch.] PV 944˗1093, esp. 947˗952.  Eur. Ion 67˗73; Lefkowitz 2016, 102 f.; Kindt 2016, 65 f.; for the difficult words of Apollo at vv. 69˗71 see Neitzel 1988.  Ar. Pax 196 f.  Plaut. Amph. 464˗498.  Aesch. Eum. 19.  Bowden 2005, 46˗48, 160˗167.

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provincial.²⁸⁶ While these scattered cases may be linked to local conceptualizations of the Indo˗European sky˗god, they are irrelevant to Zeus of Attica and Athens. Here, Zeus has a fully˗fledged iconography on vases and in sculpture virtually from the beginning of figurative art and certainly in the classical period. Suffice it to remind the reader of the (now largely destroyed) representation of the birth of Athena on the east pediment of the Parthenon with Zeus as its central figure, or his representation in the frieze on the eastern end of the inner chamber; various cults of Zeus are attested, for instance that of Zeus Polieus on the Acropolis. This cult may go back to Mycenaean times. Pausanias mentions a cult statue and altar of Zeus Polieus.²⁸⁷ The site most likely forms the center of Zeus’ Dipolieia˗festival, about which we are relatively well informed by later sources (Aristophanes ridicules the archaic festival at Ar. Nub. 984 f.).²⁸⁸ Besides, Zeus Soter has his own festival, connected with a procession to his shrine in the Piraeus and characteristically called the Diisoteria.²⁸⁹ Apart from festivals, Attic Zeus shares ritual features with the other gods: most importantly, he is subject to the same pluralization process which is so paradoxical and still typical of Greek polytheism (in marked opposition to the unifying panhellenic/‘literary’ traditions). So Zeus appears with 6 different epithets in a fourth˗century BCE rural calendar from the Attic townlet of Erchia, together with Apollo, the most ‘differentiated’ god in this calendar context.²⁹⁰ Most notable in Attica is Zeus Meilichius, a popular chthonic deity with its own Attic festival, the Diasia.²⁹¹ Despite its distinct, un˗jovial functions and sphere of competences, Zeus Meilichius cannot (always) be separated from other forms of Zeus.²⁹² Such a plurality of a single deity is not restricted to Zeus; Dionysus, for instance, is equally ‘pluralized’ in Attica and elsewhere.²⁹³ In a word, far from being iconographically or ritually distinct, Attic and Athenian Zeus behaves like other members of the pantheon, including Dionysus. His absence from the Attic stage is therefore not religiously/ritually motivated. His absence from the stage is a poetic convention that begins with Greek epic and hymnic poetry and is then adopted by the dramatic arts. In Homer, except

 Platt 2011, 101˗105.  Paus. 1.24.4.  Parker 2005, 187˗191; Simon 1983, 9˗12.  Parker 2005, 466 f.  Versnel 2011, 61 f., esp. n. 144.  Parker 2005, 466, cf. 74; Simon 1983, 12˗16.  Versnel 2011, 63 f.  Henrichs 2013, 558˗562 (although he fails to distinguish between Dionysuses of cult contexts and Dionysuses of ‘literary’ or ‘theological’ traditions).

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for Zeus, all major gods are potentially epiphanic, i. e. they can appear physically to mortals. Already an ancient scholiast of the Iliad points out that, in marked contrast to his fellow Olympians, Zeus never descends from the sky or changes appearance in Homer.²⁹⁴ This is even more striking if we consider that Zeus is the driving force of all or most of the divine action in the Iliad and the Odyssey. ²⁹⁵ The supreme god prefers to stay on Mt Olympus, and watch the other gods participate in human action: ‘As for myself, I will remain seated in a cleft of Olympus, from which I will see and enjoy myself. But you others go so that you approach Trojans and Achaeans, and assist either of them according to the will of each of you’.²⁹⁶ Even when he moves to Mt Ida in order to be closer to the battlefield of Troy,²⁹⁷ Zeus never participates in the fighting himself. Nor does he reveal himself to mortals in any form. Once, Minos is casually called ‘communicating (ὀαριστής) with Zeus every nine years (ἐννέωρος, or: when he was nine years old?)’. It remains debatable whether this implies Zeus’ descent to Minos’ palace, Minos’ ascent to the cave of Zeus on Mt Ida (as Plato thought), dream visions, or other forms of communication (the strange ἐννέωρος points to a cultic/aetiological context of this information).²⁹⁸ It looks like an isolated part of local lore of the Homeric protagonists: for them, the story is already an irretrievable past.²⁹⁹ In epic from Homer to Nonnus, Zeus remains determinedly distant from the human lifeworld, with the exception of ˗normally short references to˗ his notorious dalliances with mortal women in later epics.³⁰⁰

 Schol. Il. 13.18b.  Cf. e. g. Marks 2016.  Il. 20.22˗25.  Il. 8.41˗52.  Od. 19.178 f., with Russo in Russo/Fernández˗Galiano/Heubeck 1992, 85.  At Il. 15.693˗695 we read: ‘… and when Hector rushed straightforward and turned directly against the dark˗prowed ship, Zeus pushed him from behind with very great hand (χειρὶ μάλα μεγάλῃ), and together with him spurred the army’. It is hard to see how this passage can be interpreted otherwise than allegorically. Pi. P. 1.48 too can use the expression ‘with the palms of the gods’ (θεῶν παλάμαις) in the sense of ‘with divine help’. Near Eastern parallels to the ‘hand of God’ are common, cf. Janko 1992, 304; Gross 1970, esp. 367; H. Schlier, ‘δάκτυλος’, in: G. Kittel (ed.), Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament. vol. 2 (Stuttgart 1935), 21 with many parallels.  For Apollonius, cf. Clauss 2016, 145 f.; see also Moschus’ second˗century BCE epyllion Europe (representing the heroine’s abduction by Zeus); in Quintus Smyrnaeus, Zeus is notoriously distant from the human lifeworld and sometimes even from Mt Olympus, cf. e. g. Quint. Smyrn. 12.160 f., 189 f. In Nonnus, Zeus descends on earth only when courting mortals: A seaman observes Zeus in the shape of a bull abducting Europe and offers a long speech of consternation, Non. 1.90˗124. When Zeus sets down Europe at Dicte in Crete, he takes on the shape of a young man, running around the bewildered girl, Non. 1.321˗323, 345˗351. Zeus in the shape of an eagle

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I am unaware of any full˗blown epiphanic representations of Zeus in archaic Greek poetry, i. e. until the end of the Persian Wars. Tellingly, the Homeric Hymns are as reluctant as is Homer to represent an epiphanic Zeus. It has been observed that direct speech of Zeus is virtually non˗existent in the Homeric Hymns. ³⁰¹ Even if this be mere chance, the representation of Zeus in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2) is a striking case to corroborate my argument: in order not to descend to mortals in person, Zeus employs numerous gods to transmit his message: First, he sends Iris.³⁰² When she fails to convince Demeter to return to Mt Olympus, he sends all the other gods. When these come back empty˗handed, he dispatches Hermes to Hades to restore Persephone from the Underworld for two˗thirds of the year.³⁰³ When reconciliation with Demeter is at hand, Zeus has to send Rhea to ensure Demeter’s return.³⁰⁴ Rhea, as a messenger here, is exceptional because in her capacity as Zeus’ mother, she stands above Zeus’ own children: after all, Homeric Zeus normally charges only his children or minor gods with errands, apparently because it would be demeaning for the earlier generation of Olympians such as Zeus’ brothers Poseidon and Hades, or his spouse Hera, to be sent according to the Homeric hierarchy of honor (τιμή). Most importantly, at no point of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2) does the highest god consider descending himself. No tragedian is more diocentric than Aeschylus. Famously, in his Heliades, an Aeschylean character states: ‘Zeus is the aether, Zeus is earth, Zeus is heaven – yes Zeus is everything, and whatever there may be beyond that’.³⁰⁵ Such an Aeschylean Zeus is depersonalized, he stands for a principle or a metaphor and, as such, is as irrepresentable as he is unnameable. I agree with Seaford and others that his abstract nature in Aeschylus goes beyond the Homeric Zeus, of whom it forms an extreme philosophical version.³⁰⁶ Other tragedians stand either closer

abducts Aeacus from Aegina to fight with the Indians and as such is ˗explicitly˗ visible, Non. 24.77˗82, 119˗122. Ζeus approaches Semele at night, taking different shapes, all characteristic of Dionysus, before he addresses her revealing his true identity, Non. 7.319˗367. Apart from these passages, Nonnus’ Zeus does not descend from heaven, with one exception, namely his visit to the wedding of Cadmus, Non. 5.119 f.  Faulkner 2016, 34 f.; Faulkner 2015; for Zeus’ importance for the theology of the Hymns, also Strauss Clay 2011, 242 f.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 314˗324.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 314˗389.  Hom. Hym. Dem. (2) 441˗469; Rhea is not the normal messenger of Zeus’ orders, and she is sent here in her capacity as mother to both Zeus and Demeter and thus a natural mediator, Richardson 1974, 295 f.  Aesch. fr. 70 (= Sommerstein 2008, 72 f.).  Seaford 2010, 181 f.

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to Homer or closer to Aeschylus. Fortunately, for the purpose of this chapter, we do not need to enter the long˗standing discussion of how Homeric the tragic gods actually are: the important point is that even in his most human (Homeric) form, Zeus stays away from the lifeworld of mortals in Greek drama.

Dreams in Drama Classical drama (tragedy, Old Comedy) favors sign dreams. It exploits their anticipatory function and ambiguous wording for dramaturgic ends: sign dreams of tragedy forebode existential matters in a riddled mode and eventually come true, those of Old Comedy deal with trivialities, are normally verbal gibberish, and their veracity is strikingly irrelevant to the vicissitudes of the protagonists. In either genre, the prophetic message is commonly misinterpreted by at least one party, with the result of human disaster in the case of tragedy, and laughter in the case of Old Comedy. In dramaturgic terms, in tragedy, sign dreams resemble Delphic oracles. While the consultation of Delphi is restricted to men, divinatory dreams may also be directed to women.³⁰⁷ Such gender˗related considerations are dramaturgically exploited, as exemplified by the pseudo˗Aeschylean Prometheus: Io is addressed at night by an anonymous voice that encourages her to seek union with Zeus. She informs her father, Inachus, about the vision. After he consults Dodona and Delphi, Inachus is forced to expel her at Zeus’ command.³⁰⁸ Had Io been male, she would no doubt have turned to Delphi herself, and the nocturnal voice would have been dramaturgically redundant. The exception to the rule that only women receive divinatory dreams in tragedy is, tellingly, a dream in the anonymous and idiosyncratic Rhesus, and it is no coincidence that this dream is directly influenced by a passage from the Iliad (in which all dreams are received by males).³⁰⁹ I shall briefly survey the emplotment of sign˗dreams in extant tragedy and Aristophanes to demonstrate the anticipatory function, the restriction to female recipients, the contents, and dramaturgic objectives. I will show that just like epiphanies, dreams in drama are represented in accordance with strict dramaturgic patterns.  For the remarkable gender distribution, see already Messer 1918, 8, 27 f., 51, 65; Hundt 1935, 42 n. 7.  [Aesch.] PV 645˗672, cf. in general Walde 2001, 95˗103.  [Eur.] Rhes. 780˗788 with Il. 10.496 f.; for the dating, Fries 2014, 22˗28; for the dream in the Rhesus, cf. Fries 2014, 406 esp. n. 280.

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Tragedy In Aeschylus’ earliest extant work, the Persae, the Persian queen reports two incidents foretelling the Persian disaster: a sign dream and an animal portent.³¹⁰ In the previous night, Atossa sees in her sleep two quarrelling women, a Persian and a Dorian. The two are restrained by Xerxes, who tries to yoke them under his chariot. The Persian succumbs, but the Greek smashes the yoke, so that Xerxes falls while Darius stands by and pities his son.³¹¹ With the benefit of hindsight, Aeschylus’ audience easily decodes the anticipatory dream, but the queen’s interlocutors, i. e. the chorus consisting of Persian elders of the King’s council, are not as clear˗sighted (for their ignorance they are later reproached by the queen).³¹² Aeschylus’ Choephori begins with a reference by the chorus to Clytemnestra’s nightmares, the divinatory nature of which is immediately recognized, although we have to wait for some five hundred lines in order to learn about their contents: here, it is the chorus again (not Clytemnestra herself!) that reports what Clytemnestra had seen, namely herself giving birth to and suckling a snake.³¹³ The dream is the reason for the libations of the libation˗bearers at Agamemnon’s tomb, which in turn forms the background scenery for the encounter of Electra with her brother. Orestes, filled with joy, immediately recognizes himself in the snake.³¹⁴ Most notably, Aeschylus does not invent this dream; it seems to be an integral part of the story. Already in Stesichorus’ Oresteia, Clytemnestra receives a sign dream with a similar imagery (although with a different meaning: the snake stands for the dead Agamemnon).³¹⁵ The motif of Clytemnestra’s sign dream reemerges in Sophocles’ Electra. ³¹⁶ Only two divinatory dreams occur in Euripides’ extant oeuvre, one in the undated, but presumably earlier, Hecuba, the other in the Iphigenia in Tauris, staged in 413/412 BCE.³¹⁷ Like his two famous fellow tragedians, Euripides has only female protagonists receive divinatory dreams, which are anticipatory and con-

 For dreams in Aeschylus, see Harris 2009, 144 f.; Walde 2001, 73˗125.  Aesch. Pers. 176˗199.  Aesch. Pers. 518˗520.  Aesch. Cho. 32˗41, 523˗539, 928 f.  Aesch. Cho. 540˗550.  Stes. fr. 180 Finglass, with Davis/Finglass 2014, 503˗505; Walde 2001, 134˗144.  Soph. El. 417˗423.  Hecabe’s dream: Eur. Hec. 68˗76, 87˗91, 93˗95; Iphigenia’s dream: Eur. IT 42˗60, cf. 148˗151, 347˗350, 569˗571.

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cerned with existential issues.³¹⁸ Their most striking feature, however, is dramaturgy: the two dreams appear within the first one hundred lines. It stands to reason that these two divinatory dreams dramaturgically replace Euripides’ grander prologue epiphanies. As for their contents, it has been plausibly argued that the ghost of Polydorus at the beginning of the Hecuba is meant to represent (part of?) the nocturnal apparition to Hecabe that follows.³¹⁹ According to the textus receptus, the other part is a sign dream, in which Polyxene (and Polydorus) takes on the role of a fawn killed by Achilles (and Polymestor respectively), who appears as a wolf. Some scholars such as Wilamowitz and Diggle deleted the relevant verses in order to reduce Hecabe’s dream to the previous appearance of Polydorus on stage, but the deletion is grounded on esthetics, not on language, meter or inconsistencies of contents.³²⁰ At any rate, such a staged dream/apparition at the beginning of a play would not be unique: Euripides may have employed a similar technique in his lost Alexandros,³²¹ and so may Sophocles in the apparition of the dead Achilles at the beginning of the fragmentary Polyxene. ³²² In the Iphigenia in Tauris, we find the female protagonist (Iphigenia) interpreting her (sign) dream (to the effect that Orestes is dead), only to be proved wrong in the course of the plot.³²³ This dream (also) replaces the messenger account, which would be somewhat unconvincing in our context, because Iphigenia resides at the fringes of the Greek world. Accordingly, it serves as an exposition to the tragic plot. Furthermore, this is the first time that the dream ego is actually dislocated from the dreaming ego.³²⁴ This fact too can be explained by the messenger function: Iphigenia has to predict to herself what is about to happen, because of the absence of a competent or plausible tragic interlocutor in the outer periphery of the Greek ecumene. Two dream passages related to Euripides’ oeuvre, although not part of it stricto sensu, must be added. The first is Aristophanes’ extensive quotation from Euripides in the Ranae, which preserves the gender conventions of tragedy,

 The gender conventions of divinatory dreams in drama are also observed at Eur. Or. 618, if we follow the reading of the manuscripts (although the emendation of ὄνειρα to ὄνειδος is more likely). In this case, Electra is said to have instigated her brother to matricide by reporting her dreams (?) to him.  Polydorus: Eur. Hec. 1˗59; Hecabe’s dream: Eur. Hec. 68˗76, 87˗91, 93˗95.  Walde 2001, 148 f.  Eur. Alex., test. III.4˗7, with Walde 2001, 228˗230.  Soph. fr. 523.  Eur. IT 42˗60, cf. 148˗151, 347˗350, 569˗571.  Walde 2001, 168.

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albeit in a comic context (the recipient is a woman).³²⁵ The other, a sign dream in the pseudo˗Euripidean Rhesus, is a true maverick. Here a male, and even more surprisingly, a non˗royal anonymous character appears as the recipient of a sign dream in a plot that is drawn from the Iliad, a flagrant violation of both epic and tragic conventions at the same time: for epic, and especially the Iliad, features only protagonists of heroic status as recipients of epiphany dreams, while extant tragedy has no other male recipient of any dream. Furthermore, in a completely un˗Euripidean fashion, this dream is placed towards the end of the play, and its contents are recounted in untypical detail.³²⁶

Aristophanes Aristophanes parodies incubation rituals (for which the Plutus is actually a central historical source),³²⁷ and divinatory dreams. He inverts the tragic gender constellation: all his divinatory (and anxiety) dreams occur to male protagonists, with one very telling exception: the Ranae feature a Euripidean sign dream whose recipient is female, but then again, this is explicitly Euripidean tragedy, albeit comically parodied.³²⁸ Besides, dreams in Old Comedy preannounce trivialities, and their veracity is inconsequential to the plot, but funny. To begin with Cleon, already a target of Thucydides’ unbridled scorn, Aristophanes ridicules him ˗and the credulity of the Demos˗ for justifying his dare˗devil campaign against the Spartans on the island of Sphacteria a year earlier, through dreams in the Equites (staged in 424 BCE).³²⁹ A pair of sign dreams, sent by Sabazius, sets the scene for the Vespae. In the two dreams, animal portents with clear Homeric undertones frighten the two male recipients.³³⁰ In order to deconstruct fully the epic illusion, at the end of the passage, the first dreamer, a slave, compliments his fellow dreamer, another slave, for interpreting their dreams so con-

 See the following section.  [Eur.] Rhes. 780˗789.  Ar. Pl. 653˗747, with Renberg 2017, 184 f. esp. n. 167, 238˗269 (for a discussion of the ritual details of the passage); Harris 2009, 151 n. 166; cf. Ar. V. 121˗123, with Renberg 2017, 208 esp. n. 223.  Ar. Ra. 1331˗1340 (Aeschylus quoting Euripides); for the gender of the (anonymous) recipient of the communication, see ibid. 1346˗1351.  Ar. Eq. 809.  Ar. V. 8˗53.

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vincingly. This is clearly a caustic punch against professional dream interpreters, but also against the general ambiguity of divinatory dreams.³³¹ Another pair of divinatory dreams is found in the Equites, where during their oracular competition, Paphlagon and the sausage seller report to each other their epiphany dreams featuring Athena. The passage satirizes not only credulity, but also the tabloid mentality of the corrupt Athenian voter: in both dreams, Athena caters for/bribes the Athenian Demos.³³² Furthermore, this passage reproduces oracular language molded into the typical hexameters. In terms of contents, it thus ridicules Athena, and in terms of form, Delphic Apollo. To restate the main points of this longest section of the book and fill in some blanks: in both tragedy and comedy, epiphanies and dreams are represented in accordance with numerous clearly distinguishable dramaturgic patterns. Epiphanic gods appear primarily at the beginning and end of the plot. More rarely, epiphanic gods appear in the middle or are fully emplotted over many scenes. The playwright thereby exploits the gods’ most obvious properties, namely omniscience and omnipotence, for dramaturgic ends. In both tragedy and comedy, prologue epiphanies introduce or prepare the plot, while epilogue epiphanies solve an impasse of the plot and/or announce future events, either aetiologically as in tragedy, or humorously as in comedy (for example, the delegation of the gods at the end of Aristophanes’ Aves is diplomatically ‘defeated’ by the terms of Peisetaerus). Intermediate epiphanies in tragedy may serve to introduce a moment of reversal. Full emplotment of Olympian deities in tragedy is attested to stage dilemmas of theodicy, while in comedy it parodies such dilemmas and the competence of the gods to solve them, sometimes in Old Comedy with a political slant. For instance, according to the final remark of the hypothesis of Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros the play attacks Pericles’ role as a monger of the Peloponnesian War, identifying Pericles with Dionysalexander. One wonders whether such a connection with Pericles is actually made explicit in a (hypothetic) epilogue epiphany spoken by Dionysus.³³³ Euripides is the first playwright to systematically explore the dramaturgic potential of epiphanic representations, including divine personifications (e. g. Lyssa in Hercules Furens). As such, his work forms the culmination of tragic epiphanies as well as an inspiration for the prologue epiphanies of New Comedy.

 Ar. V. 52 f.  Ar. Eq. 1090˗1095.  Cf. Bianchi 2016, 206; Storey 2006, 116-119; Casolari 2003, 98-109; for more cases of mythical comedies involving a political agenda, see Bowie, A.M. 2000, 324˗327.

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Unlike the dancing and singing chorus that ties both tragedy and comedy to the Dionysiac ritual, the walking and speaking epiphanic gods form part and parcel of the theatrical ‘spectacle’. As such, they survive the chorus’ ultimate decline, a process of ‘secularization’ of drama, which is completed in ca. 350 BCE (i. e. with Aristotle’s Poetica). Sourvinou˗Inwood’s evolutionary concept from a direct mode in Aeschylus to a distanced mode in Euripides³³⁴ must be rejected, because it is based on a single Aeschylean tragedy (the Eumenides) and fails to take into account Euripides’ last tragedy, the Bacchae. Most importantly, however, it ignores the entire branch of Old Comedy, where prologue and epilogue epiphanies are attested from Cratinus at the latest. Specific deities are represented not at random or according to ritual requirements, but following generic conventions. Except for Zeus, all Homeric Olympians can be staged in all positions of the plots. Some allowances must be made, however. There is a clear tendency for Athena to appear at the end of Euripidean plots, apparently to promote the link between the previous dramatic action and the city of Athens. Besides, Athena (in her capacity as Athena Polias) tends to be exempted from comic fulminations in Old Comedy.³³⁵ Such a tendency is indirectly supported by another tendency of Old Comedy, namely to avoid local Athenian myth as a subject of its parody.³³⁶ Still, in Aristophanic dreams limited criticism of Athena Polias is admissible.³³⁷ And oracles in general are not beyond criticism in Aristophanes.³³⁸ With the exception of Pan in Menander’s Dyskolos, ‘lifeworld’ plays are generally introduced by divine (cultless) personifications in both Old and New Comedy, while mythological plays of either group are regularly introduced by major Olympians.

 Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003, 489: ‘… there seems to have been, in the course of the fifth century, at least as far as the three major tragedians are concerned, a shift within the tragic genre, a development in the parameters of selections of (at the very least) the preferred choices: from the representation … of a heroic age, which stresses the mortals’ intercourse with the gods, to a heroic world nearer the audience’s lived reality’.  Cf. Revermann 2006, 30f.; Anderson 1995, 1 f. with older bibliography.  Bowie, A.M. 2000, 321.  Cf. Ar. Eq. 1090˗1095.  In Aristophanes’ Equites, the sausage˗seller (as the climax of a series of wretched rulers, and worthy successor of Paphlagon, the hide˗seller), is announced to the audience by an oracle. Demos’ slave had stolen this text from Paphlagon’s collection of oracles, given either by Bacis or Delphic Apollo while Paphlagon lies drunk, Ar. Eq. 109˗148, 193˗222 (attributed to Bacis at 123 f., but to Apollo at 220, cf. ibid. 177). Later in the same play, three more nonsensical oracles by Apollo (and their equally nonsensical interpretations by the protagonists) are quoted directly in hexameters, and clearly in a satirizing mood, Ar. Eq. 1015˗1020, 1030˗1034, 1037˗1040, 1067 f.

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The fact that epiphanic representations in Greek drama are indebted to dramaturgic conventions rather than cult or ‘religion’ is well demonstrated by the test cases of Dionysus and Zeus. Dionysus, allegedly the most ‘present’ of all gods in drama is still not present at random. Apart from a few birth˗plays, from Aeschylus on, tragic plots featuring Dionysus are concerned with a single topic, namely the reassertion of the divinity of the god and the chastisement of unbelievers, while comedy indulges in representing ‘Dionysus the anti˗hero’ in an unlimited variety of themes. Both forms of Dionysus are motivated by ˗and tied to˗ specific generic conventions. Also Zeus’ (relative) absence from both the tragic and comic stage is due to dramaturgic conventions, inspired by epic, but there is a development. The Homeric Zeus may be personally absent from the human lifeworld. Nevertheless, he is fully anthropomorphic, and monitors the events from afar. But since Hesiod (and various pre˗Socratic philosophers such as Xenophanes), Zeus often turns into a philosophical principle of ‘divine order’ and looses his utterly ‘human’ properties of epic. In particular, the diocentric Aeschylus adopts this philosophical/theological version of Zeus, which discourages full humanization of the god, and hence an epiphanic representation on stage. Since representations of epiphanic gods in drama are tied to dramaturgical considerations and the ingenuity of the author, they cannot plausibly be taken to reflect real gods. There is nothing to support the view that the gods of tragedy represent Greek reality, any more than those of comedy or satyr play for that matter, as is claimed, or implied, by scholars such as Lefkowitz or Sourvinou˗Inwood.³³⁹ Rather, all epiphanic representations in drama are kaleidoscopically broken through generic prisms, with the result of extreme distortions. A common denominator can be construed only at the price of extreme reduction and decontextualization. This, by the way, is true not only of the gods of drama, but also of those of ritual/religion. The example of Zeus Basileus next to the chthonic Zeus Meilichius suggests that gods with diametrically opposed spheres of competences may still occasionally be interchangeable or at least compatible.³⁴⁰ In a word, we cannot construct a common functional denominator out of incompatible functional properties of dramatic gods. Euripidean prologue epiphanies form an external dramaturgic device (in marked opposition to Athena at the beginning of Sophocles’ Ajax) and are thus somehow external to the plot. Here, a soliloquizing deity is staged on high above an empty stage. This external mode suits Old and New Comedy

 Lefkowitz 2016; Sourvinou˗Inwood 2003.  Versnel 2011, 62 f.

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alike, simply because the god is dramaturgically detached from temporal or local restrictions of the plot. Epilogue epiphanies serve fundamentally different dramaturgic ends, they are normally staged on high (on a crane vel sim.) and interact with the human protagonists below by solving impasses through appropriate commands, explanations, and offering an outlook onto the historical future. However, this future is normally unrelated to the vicissitudes of the epilogue deities themselves; the latter may know the future due to their omniscience, but they do not participate in it. In fact, their primary function is to link the plot to the audience’s historical lifeworld. So once again, their role is merely dramatic, though different from that of the prologue epiphanies. The only instances in which epiphanic deities shape human history are cult aetiologies. While the extent or even existence of such aetiologies of real cults in Euripidean epilogue epiphanies has been doubted,³⁴¹ Aeschylus’ Eumenides with its aetiologies of 1. Apollo’s guardianship of the Delphic oracle, 2. the institution of the Athenian Areopagus, and 3. the Athenian cult of the Venerable Ones shows the aetiological potential of epiphanic deities (here, Athena and Apollo) at its best. Add to such aetiological plays Euripides’ Erechtheus,³⁴² and here especially the epilogue epiphany of Athena, in which cults such as those of Erechtheus, Poseidon, and his daughters (the Hyacinthids), as well as the priesthood of Athena Polias (including its first incumbent: Praxithea), are aetiologized. Tragedies such as the Eumenides, which largely aetiologize local cults or institutions, are a separate category from those centering on the gods themselves and with little relation to a specific, local cult, such as Euripides’ Bacchae. Dramatic representations are temporary and elusive conditions. But their temporality is rarely stressed. No less a scholar than Oliver Taplin pointed out: ‘it is my own experience as a spectator that on the whole, when it works well for me, Greek tragedy binds a spell; that my ‘knowledge’ that I am watching a play is temporarily [my italics] charmed away. … Moreover this spell˗binding is quite fragile; it can be dispelled in all sorts of ways, and it can be difficult to restore’.³⁴³ Others, such as Dr Johnson quoted by Taplin, would not even grant that the ‘“knowledge” that I am watching a play is temporarily charmed away’, but insist that the audience is always fully aware of their status as an external spectator who distinguishes the fiction of the play from his own reality. Another prominent critic, Donald Mastronarde, remarked: ‘The gods of drama are presented in a festival context that is clearly demarcated from routine life, a festival

 Scullion 1999/2000.  Eur. fr. 370.55˗115 (= Collard/Cropp 2008, I, 394˗401).  Taplin 1986, 164.

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in which we must also remember the juxtaposition of tragedy, satyr play, and comedy, each with its somewhat different depictions of divine action and character. The audience of the Dionysia was clearly expected to entertain a multiplicity of worldviews within the festival, and there was no straightforward correspondence between what they saw and the way they carried on their lives once the festival was over’.³⁴⁴ In a word, epiphanic representations in drama do not represent deities as construed by the Athenians in general, but as a response by the playwright to the expectations of the audience on a very specific occasion. On this occasion, the representations of gods through the tragic prism are followed by very different representations of the same gods through the satyrical and comic prisms. Each generically bound version suspends or complements its predecessor. Ultimately, the audience is left with the sense of various versions of staged gods, and it would presumably not care much about ‘consistency’ so long as the versions remain generically separated and, hence, ‘plausible’. In a word, there is nothing to suggest that the conceptualization of, say, epiphanic gods in tragedy, satyr play and comedy has much currency outside the performative occasion for which it is represented. Athenian theatre ˗like all representations˗ is first of all about instantaneous plausibility, not a longer lasting ‘general’ lifeworld reality, let alone a universal Greek ‘culture’.

 Mastronarde 2002a, 21.

Historiography Aristotle writes in his Poetica: ‘The difference between a historian and a poet is not that one writes in prose and the other in verse … The real difference is this, that one tells what happened and the other what might happen’.¹ Most modern scholars are more sceptical than the Stagirite about the possibility of a clear˗cut distinction. For instance, one might argue that any emplotment of historical data, be it in historiography or in fictional poetry, presupposes a preconfiguration of the underlying conceptual field. Both the historian and the poet first select (i. e. also exclude!) and then arrange data of what they perceive as relevant, for the purpose of representation. The following chapters will deal with three cognate genres, namely historiography, historical biography and periegesis. In other words, these chapters will deal with genres that look at past reality from the perspectives of historical events, historical characters and historical space respectively. I call them genres and thus stress the differences, but their common elements are so many that they could also be taken as different perspectives of a single historical genre. Or even better, one could take the latter two (which are represented by only one author each, namely Plutarch and Pausanias) as derivates from the historiographical mainstream. At any rate, whether genres or perspectives, I hold that autobiography is a separate genre because here it is not the observed object that is represented differently by a third˗person ‘neutral’ narrator, but the observing subject, namely the emotionally involved first˗person narrator. In terms of selectivity, the three ‘historical’ genres waver between two modes, which we may call the anecdotal and the critical mode. Herodotus, himself normally preferring the anecdotal mode, states programmatically that his task is to ‘record what people say (λέγειν τὰ λεγόμενα); but I am by no means bound to believe it – and this may be taken to apply to this book as a whole’.² Of course, this statement would not mean that Herodotus mentions all the versions that reach him. And yet, certain areas relevant to this book such as epiphanic interventions in waking or in dreams are much better attested in his work than in other historians, and this fact may best be explained by his proclivity for inclusion rather than exclusion. In general, historians with a penchant for local anecdotes are ˗to the extent that their texts reflect more accurately unfiltered local lore˗ more characteristic of the contemporary ‘lifeworld’ versions of local reality. They compile rather than  Arist. Poet. 1451a 38˗1451b 5.  Hdt. 7.152. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-008

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sift their anecdotic material: such anecdotes may represent all three forms of reality as defined in the introduction. The anecdotal mode does not normally care to distinguish these modes. The rhetorical markers of the anecdotal mode are buffer phrases such as ‘it is said,’ etc. Next to the anecdotal mode there is the critical mode. In his attempt to eliminate ‘the implausible’ (μυθῶδες) from his account, Thucydides becomes its first and most important theoretician.³ I hasten to add that by ‘critical’ I do not mean more than what Veyne calls ‘the doctrine of present things’, i. e. the critic’s empirical lifeworld experience, whose parameters are projected into the past.⁴ Its results may still be ‘unhistorical’ from a modern point of view (such as Thucydides’ reconstruction of Greek pre˗history). In fact, ancient historians’ sifting of the material does not guarantee reliable historical information: sometimes even critical historians retain the chaff and discard the wheat. No less a writer than Thucydides takes the Trojan War or the Cretan king Minos for historical truth. For our purpose, it is important to stress that the critical perspective generally rejects the notion of lifeworld epiphanies or divinatory dreams, although not a few of its adherents ˗especially Thucydides and Polybius˗ are fascinated by the psychological impact on the masses made by oracles (Thucydides) and dreams (Polybius). The critical mode is marked by the authoritative third˗person voice and an unqualified matter˗of˗fact account. Needless to say, the anecdotal and critical modes are not mutually exclusive. Despite markedly different emphases in individual authors, there is no historian who does not apply both.

Pre˗Imperial Period: Epiphanies Anecdotal Mode One Herodotean account of a visible epiphany stands out. Philippides, an Athenian envoy, encounters Pan face˗to˗face on Mt Parthenium on an errand to Sparta shortly before the battle at Marathon. In the Herodotean passage, the god complains that the Athenians do not pay him the proper attention, although he has repeatedly shown Athens his favor and intends to do so in the future. ‘The Athenians believed this account and … founded a temple of Pan at the

 Th. 1.21.1.  Veyne 1988, 14.

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foot of the Acropolis, honored him with sacrifices and appeased him with a torch procession’.⁵ Cult aetiologies are the stock in trade of ‘intentional reality’ as defined in the introduction. After all, they bind the adherents of a cult together by offering them consistent narrative versions of events crucial for their collective coherence. As usual, when reporting events in the anecdotal mode, Herodotus employs the indirect speech. Exceptionally, Herodotus here deals in detail with the identity of his source, e. g. by giving the name and hometown of Philippides and the occasion of the encounter (instead of the much more common ‘it is said’, etc.). All the more surprisingly, he fails to offer a physical description of the god, although Philippides must have identified Pan through his outward appearance, and his report is unlikely to have left out such an important detail. However, Herodotus restricts his representation to Pan’s message only. This strategy of omitting characteristic features of the deity (physical size, beauty, smell, etc.) is un˗Homeric, a fact which speaks against a generic crossover from epic poetry here.⁶ Did the god appear in his usual form as half˗human half˗goat? Petridou points to the ambiguity of the verb peripiptein and argues for an auditory experience (‘auditory epiphany’). Others have read the scene differently, some by excluding or qualifying the visual element.⁷ By contrast, Pausanias finds the explanation of a vision of Pan most natural, perhaps because, in his mind, only visual verification would allow Philippides to make an immediate and certain identification.⁸ At any rate, the important point is that Herodotus is silent about the modalities of the epiphany and concerned with the divine message alone. Apparently, he is intrigued by the coincidence of the foundation of the cult and Pan’s alleged participation in the battle at Marathon, which is already attested in an epigram composed by Simonides some decades before Herodotus (Herodotus himself ignores his participation in the battle).⁹ Herodotus’ own scepticism about the Pan episode is still unmistakable in the following sentence: ‘The Athe-

 Hdt. 6.105.  Pace Hornblower 2001, 146: ‘Generic crossover can be a very arresting device, and we should reckon with the possibility that Herodotus’ Pan may be just such a deliberate and daring crossover, a real epic feature in a real historian’; also p. 147: ‘… the epiphany of Pan, which is not quite like others in his work and much more like what poets do’. Despite my disagreement, it should be noted that Hornblower is one of the very few scholars I know of who consider generic criteria in discussing the representation of the Herodotean Pan epiphany.  Petridou 2015, 14 f. with more interpretations.  Paus. 1.28.4, 8.54.6.  Sider 2020, 71˗73 (fr. 4); cf. Paus. 1.28.4.

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nians believed these things to be true’. Thucydides would have omitted the story. Herodotus leaves it to the reader to judge. Who invented the story? Most likely the priests of the cult of Pan themselves circulated it. Here, it is tempting to repeat Graf’s suggestion that Herodotus may have taken his information from the preamble of the relevant inscription, namely the Athenian decree for the foundation of the cult, presumably erected in the sanctuary of Pan.¹⁰ As we will see below, it is in inscriptions that such aetiologies of intentional history are normally commemorated, relating as they do primarily to the local community. Herodotus’ Pan epiphany complies with Petridou’s epiphanic schema. In fact, it is this passage that is called into service by her to explain this schema. As argued by Petridou, we have here the crisis of the Persian invasion in 490, the authorization of Philippides to act as the god’s agent, the resolution by the Greek victory at Marathon, and the commemoration of the divine encounter by the foundation of a cult of Pan. All this together forms a text book aetiology of the Athenian cult of Pan.¹¹ But at the same time it forms an exception. Herodotus himself never records epiphanies as an eyewitness. What he witnesses or learns from other witnesses, are signs suggesting divine intervention. Even these are normally flanked by typical markers of the anecdotal mode, namely indirect speech and explicit mention of the source or another caveat.¹² For instance, the historian calls the absence of Persian corpses in the sanctuary of Demeter at Plataea a ‘miracle’ (θῶμα), which in his view marks Demeter’s revenge for the destruction of the Eleusinian sanctuary.¹³ Besides, when the Persians attack Delphi, they are turned back by divine force: ‘When the barbarians were close and on their way could already see the temple, at this moment the prophet, whose name was Aceratus, saw that before the temple lay sacred arms which had been carried from the inner sanctum whose transferal was sacrilege’. This sign (τέρας) as well as other ‘miracles’ (θώματα) such as thunderbolts, landslides, a triumphant cry, all witnessed close to the sanctuary of Athena Pronaea,

 Graf 2004, 115.  Petridou 2015, 19 f.  Indirect speech shows a (neutral or less neutral) distancing from the reported events; for the possibility that ‘intrusive oblique infinitives’ point the reader to a more nuanced distancing, see Cooper 1974, to whom Harrison 2000, 248˗250 responds. In the case of divine communication, we find oratio obliqua and oratio recta mixed in the same paragraph, for instance at Hdt. 6.61. This passage shows that oratio obliqua is a stylistic means for the sake of variety and does not tell us anything about the personal stance of the author towards the recorded event, unless he marks it otherwise; cf. also Fowler 2010, 324˗326.  Hdt. 9.65.

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indicate the intervention of Apollo (and Athena?).¹⁴ Or take another passage: relying on local Potidaean sources (with whom he wholeheartedly agrees), Herodotus reports how Poseidon sends a flood that drowns part of Artabazus’ troops, because some Persians have desecrated the temple and image of the god in the suburb of the city.¹⁵ Ptah/Hephaestus defends his temple in Memphis against the Assyrian onslaught under Sennacherib by sending field mice to destroy the equipment of the invaders.¹⁶ Finally, during the battle of Plataea, Pausanias prays in the direction of the temple of Hera, and is promptly rewarded with victory.¹⁷ Patently, these passages, to which one could add more, do not fit Petridou’s schema, apart from the obvious crisis situation in which they are represented for dramatic reasons. In fact, considering their contexts, we may be certain that these passages are not intended to be aetiologies at all, so no one expects them to contain elements of authorization and commemoration. Even more, they are epiphanies only in the inclusive sense of the word. In none of them are the gods represented as being visible to Herodotus’ himself or to the witnesses he relies on. They are narrative devices, whose origin in local lore is revealed by the fact that all are connected with specific local shrines. Some sources, such as Aceratus, the Delphic prophet, or the Potidaeans are even spelled out. These eponymous witnesses as recorded by the historian are as close as we come to ordinary Greek ‘culture’. In a word, it appears from Herodotus himself (and will later be confirmed in my discussion of Thucydides) that the traditional gods would not normally manifest themselves in human shape among mankind, even at the moment of utmost crisis. While the great Olympians in Herodotus intervene sometimes in the form of miraculous events, local heroes normally intervene through material proxies such as statues, bones vel sim., and like the Olympians, not visibly in person.¹⁸ Some of these accounts are conspicuously peripheral in terms of geography and chronology.¹⁹ I could find only one passage that may conceal an aetiological ac-

 Hdt. 8.37.  Hdt. 8.129.  Hdt. 2.141.  Hdt. 9.61 f.  Hdt. 8.64, 84 with Petridou 2015, 118 f., for a comparison with the relevant Plutarchan passage, Plut. Them. 15.2; Hdt. 1.67 f. (Orestes), 5.75 (Tyndarids), 5.79˗81 (Aeacids) with Bowie, A.M. 2007, 151; 5.83 (Damia and Auxesia).  Herodotus reports the Babylonian, Theban and Pataran accounts, according to which priestesses were shut up in their temples over night and then visited by the god in flesh and blood, Hdt. 1.181 f. And the Egyptian Perseus appears only to the people of Egyptian Chemmis, where he has a shrine and games dedicated to him, not to anyone else, Hdt. 2.91. Hdt. 6.117 speaks of the appearance of a superhuman (divine?) hoplite, striking the Athenian Epizelus blind; Herodotus

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count including visibility and possibly commemoration through local shrines in the manner of the Pan episode, namely the Delphic story of the epiphany of Phylacus and Autonous warding off the Persian aggressors.²⁰ But even if we add the contentious case of the foundation of a cult of the Northwind = Boreas (a maverick in epiphanic terms),²¹ we can state with fair certainty that Herodotus, the most ‘epiphany˗minded’ of all extant historians, does not regularly comply with Petridou’s epiphanic schema.

Epiphanization and Herodotus’ Phye Episode A locus classicus in the discussion of epiphanic representations is the Herodotean Phye anecdote.²² Phye, an impressive beauty, is dressed up as the warrior goddess Athena and then driven into Athens next to Peisistratus with heralds stepping in front of their chariot shouting: ‘O Athenians, welcome with joy Peisistratus, whom Athena herself honors more than all mortals and brings back to her own city’. Herodotus expresses his surprise that the Athenians, in his view more sober and critical observers than other Greeks (let alone the barbarians), should fall for such a silly ruse. But they do.²³ What did the participants see? Most modern scholars have connected the passage with ritual processions, thereby sometimes identifying Peisistratus’

relates how Triton appears in person to Jason at the Tritonian Lake in Libya and asks for the Delphic tripod, which Jason had intended to dedicate at Delphi. Triton receives the tripod and prophesies the foundation of a hundred cities, should a descendant of the Argonauts recover the tripod, Hdt. 4.179 (an old story, cf. Pi. P. 4.20˗37, A.R. 4.1547˗1553). Hdt. 6.127 mentions Euphorion, who is said to have offered a lodging to the Dioscuri; cf. Linforth 1928, 211˗213. In a similar vein, Herodotus reports the Athenians’ claim that the Corinthians had abandoned the battle at Salamis and were brought back to the battlefield only after the Greek victory, by an epiphany of a divine boat and mysterious sailors at the temple of Athena Sciras. The Corinthians deny the story, and so do the other Greeks who participate in the battle, Hdt. 8.94. The Athenian version is, of course, an anti˗Corinthian polemic and may well belong to the set of propaganda myths circulating during the Peloponnesian War, because Corinth had sided with Sparta against the Athenians.  Hdt. 8.38 f.  According to Hdt. 7.189, Boreas helps the Athenians at Artemisium and receives a sanctuary after an oracular injunction. But the personification of the ‘Northwind’ cannot be considered an ‘epiphanic’ deity like the other Olympians. All that we learn of his intervention is that he ‘helps’ the Athenians, which does not necessarily suggest an epiphany or communication at all.  Hdt. 1.60; the story is also, and partly independently, reported by Arist. Ath. 14.4 and elsewhere, cf. Pritchett III, 20 f.  Hdt. 1.60.

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role with that of other divine figures (e. g. Heracles). Various festivals/processions have been called into service as paradigms for the staged ‘epiphany’, last not least by Petridou.²⁴ The theatricality of Herodotus’ Phye anecdote puts it in the ambit of religious role˗play which ˗despite frequent claims to the opposite˗ is not as well attested in Greek religion as many scholars want to believe. Normally, these scholars quote Pausanias alongside non˗Greek comparative evidence (a link which makes the passage especially attractive to anthropologically minded readers).²⁵ I am not arguing against such parallels, but against the relevance of the passage to Greek ‘epiphany-mindedness’. Rather, the Phye passage describes an epiphanization, i. e. a momentary sentiment among the by˗standers not much different from the temporary and fragile ‘spell’ that drama exerts on the audience.²⁶ What I am arguing is that the emergence of such epiphanizations is not predictable and not automatically attached to any ritual or festival. It may occur as a collective experience, as does mass hysteria during mass events today, and when it does, it is as intensive as it is volatile. Nothing suggests that every time the cult statue of the deity is moved in or out of its sanctuary the participants would perceive the moving statue as an epiphany. Exceptionally, no doubt, they would do so for a moment. To call it a ‘cult epiphany’ is misleading because there is only an indirect nexus between the ‘cult’ and the ‘epiphany’, namely collective experience.²⁷ More accurate is Versnel’s ‘situational belief’ = ‘Augenblicksglaube’ fashioned as a correlate to Usener’s ‘situational gods’ = ‘Augenblicksgötter’.²⁸ The viewpoint of his protagonists aside, what did Herodotus himself see? He calls the entire scenario ‘exceedingly foolish’, i. e. he sees fiction, nothing but a disguised woman. Such rare outright condemnation of the behavior of his fellow Athenians is based on a number of Herodotean tenets: 1. gods do not appear at midday to all the citizens alike; 2. gods do not ‘appoint’ political leaders, nor would such political leaders ever claim that a divine sanction is needed for their appointment; 3. gods offer long˗term benefactions, while any informed reader would know the sequel to Peisistratus’ reinstatement, notably the murder of his first son and heir Hipparchus in 514 BCE, and the banishment of his second son Hippias in 510 BCE by Cleisthenes. As it stands, the text is a fleeting an-

 See Petridou 2015, 147˗168.  Cf. Paus. 7.18.12 (Artemis Laphria), 9.22.1 (Hermes in Tanagra) with Koch Piettre 2018, 192 n. 15, pointing to ‘plenty of ethnographic evidence from other cultures’; Burkert 2004, 14˗19.  Taplin 1986, 164.  Cf. Petridou 2015, 272˗311; cf. Pax’s ‘cult epiphany’, so in Pax 1962, cols. 840˗842; Pax 1955, 27˗29.  Versnel 2011, 480.

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ecdote invented ˗and recorded by Herodotus˗ to explain an otherwise unexplainable fact, namely why people would so willingly accept Peisistratus’ return. More ‘critical’ historians such as Thucydides or Polybius, but even Xenophon, would hardly report the story at all, given its lack of plausibility and narrative motivation.

Epiphanization and Divine Images In a seminal article, entitled ‘The Real and the Imaginary,’ Richard Gordon argues that the deity and its image are virtually inseparable, though not identical: first of all, Greek often refers to images only with the actual name of the deity, and statues can be partially ‘humanized’ = show human expressions, but only ‘partially’: ‘Living’ is broken down into its denotations: breath, sight, feelings, movement, skin˗sheen, facial expression. So far as one or two of these denotations may be taken as ‘sufficient’ evidence of ‘life’, the images live. But the whole inventory is never present, and the attempt to pass into the realm of the impermissible always fails²⁹ … people believed simultaneously that statues were gods and that they were not.³⁰

For Versnel, following Gordon, a partially epiphanic perception of divine statues belongs to the observer’s ‘strategies of illusions’.³¹ Versnel argues that an observer is willing to sacrifice full compatibility with the human lifeworld experience in exchange for momentary experience of superhuman presence. A partial compatibility (such as physical resemblance) is enough for the pious observer to perceive the statue as potentially ‘alive’. Only certain properties are momentarily relevant for the identification of the artefact with the god itself, and we should not ‘totalize comparisons’.³² Even more recently, Jan Bremmer concludes that ‘in the archaic period the Greeks did not yet conceptualize the difference between a divinity and its statue’. Bremmer points to a locus classicus, namely the Homeric cult image of Pallas Athene that ‘tosses back her head in refusal’. According to Bremmer, a distinction between cult image and deity is made only from the end of the sixth century BCE onwards, in tandem with more ‘distant’ gods and philosophical criticism.³³ Finally, Petridou offers more or less the full analysis in an     

Gordon 1979, 10. Gordon 1979, 16. Versnel 2011, 478˗480; cf. Gordon 1979, esp. 9, 25 f. Versnel 2011, 469. Il. 6.311; Bremmer 2013.

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entire chapter on cult images under the heading effigies epiphany.³⁴ She expresses the status quaestionis: ‘… for the Greeks, cult statues were inanimate artefacts, but given certain sufficient and essential ritual conditions, they could be perceived as deus manifestus ac praesens’. ³⁵ Three forms of relation between divine image and deity could be theoretically posited, namely identity, representation, and agency. Identity means that the cult image ‘is’ the deity, ‘representation’ means that it ‘stands for it’, ‘agency’ that it has ontologically nothing to do with it, but may still be used as an instrument of divine communication. I do not know of any evidence for identity, while there is evidence for the latter two forms. Representation: Divine images serve as representations of the deity in those cases in which the images are not defined by a single, consistent iconography. This is the case with ‘multi˗iconism’, i. e. when more than one ‘divine’ image is venerated in the same temple, such as the two ‘Dionysuses’ in the temple near the Athenian theatre of Dionysus or the two ‘Heras’ in the Argive Heraeum.³⁶ Besides, venerated statuettes may also replicate the ‘official’ temple image in the cella.³⁷ Conversely, there is aniconism:³⁸ aniconic images are thereby not necessarily a matter of antiquarianism or misguided conservatism, but an (exceptional) alternative iconographic form of cult objects with ritual properties that are mostly indistinguishable from those of figural images.³⁹ For instance, the unwrought stone that is venerated by the Thespians under the name of Eros displays all the ritual properties of other figural cult images. It would, however, be a far stretch to consider the stone an epiphany rather than a ‘proxy’ of the deity.⁴⁰ At any rate, on general grounds it is unlikely that any Greek ˗not even a local Thespian˗ would have described the appearance of the god ˗even potentially˗ as that of a coarse stone if asked, nor would he have been able to identify it as Eros, if confronted with such a stone out of context. Finally, there is the occasional ‘empty˗space˗aniconism’ of Zeus, i. e. the temple worship of Zeus without a cult image. Such was the worship of Zeus at Olympia in the archaic period, namely, without a cult image, before Phidias manufactured one. A few ‘empty

 Petridou 2015, 49˗64.  Petridou 2015, 61.  Paus. 1.20.3, 2.17.4˗6; for more such cases cf. Platt 2011, 83˗85.  Gladigow 1985/1986, 118 f.  Cf. Pisano 2019; Gaifman 2012; Platt 2011, 100˗105.  Gordon 1979, 12: ‘Pausanias’ stress upon the fact that the forms of honor paid were the same in each case makes it clear that the two modes, the aniconic and iconic, were not conceived in opposition to each other’.  Paus. 9.27.1; Gaifman 2012, esp. 11 f.

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thrones’ of Zeus are attested from provincial, archaeological or literary contexts.⁴¹ Agency: Even as material objects, cult images are subject to the will of the deity which may make them its agent, i. e. communicate with humans through signs that involve it. For instance, when a flame leaps up from the cult statue of Hera in the Argive Heraeum, the Spartan king Cleomenes (the only witness) interprets the scene to mean that he should stop his campaign: ‘For (he said) had the flame come out of the head of the image, he would have taken the city from head to foot; but its coming from the breast signified that he had done as much as the god wanted to happen’.⁴² Unlike lifeworld epiphanies, this ‘sign’ requires Cleomenes’ ‘sign˗mindedness’ in order to be recognized as such and be interpreted ‘properly’. It therefore should be categorized as a ‘sign,’ not an ‘epiphany’.

Critical Mode Thucydides displays a profound interest in oracular responses and divine signs, primarily in order to illuminate the ‘oracle˗’ and ‘sign˗mindedness’ of his protagonists and the importance of oracles and divine signs as motivating human responses.⁴³ Hence, his complete omission of epiphanies is surprising. Obviously,

 Pisano 2019, 107 f.; Platt 2011, 101– 105.  Hdt. 6.82.  The relation of Thucydides to oracles is contentious; cf. e. g. Trampedach 2015, 260˗267; Bowden 2005, 73˗77; Jordan 1986, esp. 126; Marinatos 1981a; Marinatos 1981b, 47˗55, with Dover’s response, Dover 1988. My own point of view is that Thucydides is exclusively interested in the psychological impact which oracles and signs leave on his protagonists. For example, the Athenians admonish the Melians in a desperate situation not to rely on ‘divination, oracles, and the like, which, with the hopes they inspire, bring men to ruin’ (Th. 5.103.2). In a word, veracity is not Thucydides’ point (they may be true or not). Rather, his concern is observing how and why such messages are ‘(mis)understood’. Thucydides’ fascination with the psychology of oracular communication is apparent from the fact that, contrary to what one would expect from a ‘rationalist’, he refers to Delphic responses more often than Xenophon (albeit less often than Herodotus). For a comparison between Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon in this regard, see Crahay 1956, 18˗20. In his representation of oracles, Thucydides is closer to Xenophon than to Herodotus, see Dover 1988, 66 f. Thucydides’ interest in the impact of ‘signs’ on the human soul is demonstrated by his detailed description of the plague ˗Pericles includes it among the δαιμόνια of humanity, Th. 2.64.2˗ and the psychological effect it has on those affected, Th. 2.47˗50. Thucydides elsewhere invokes scientific reasoning to illustrate the sign˗mindedness of the protagonists. To take just one example, when the Spartans abandon their campaign in the Peloponnese in 426/425 after earthquakes

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he could have referred to epiphanies or divinatory dreams for the same reasons, namely, to demonstrate the ‘epiphany˗’and ‘dream˗mindedness’ of his protagonists and the impact of epiphanies or dreams on human behavior. For in terms of historical veracity, there is nothing to suggest that in Thucydides’ own mind oracles or signs are more ‘real’ than epiphanies or divinatory dreams. Still, despite his obvious interest in the psychology of the masses concerning divine communication he completely omits epiphanies and dreams. The important conclusion is that on Thucydides’ reading, unlike oracles and signs, epiphanies and dreams have no impact on his protagonists’ behavior. In his view, they belong to the ‘implausible’ (μυθῶδες),⁴⁴ they are fiction and (largely) understood by his protagonists as such. In his historical attitude, Xenophon is Thucydidean, without however the profound interest in psychology that characterizes his great predecessor. In his historical oeuvre, Xenophon remains faithful to his categorical denial of the existence of lifeworld epiphanies made in the Memorabilia,⁴⁵ while the gods’ presence is guaranteed only by ‘augury, oracles, coincidences (σύμβολα) and sacrifices’, and the (Socratic) ‘daimonion’.⁴⁶ Hence, (visible) epiphanies and epiphanic dreams are practically absent from Xenophon’s historical lifeworld. Polybius sifts, selects and rationalizes his sources and reinterprets epiphanies along the lines of his Tyche theology. A good example is his description of the Greek victory over the Gauls at Delphi in 279/278.⁴⁷ According to Polybius, the message to be learned from the ‘unpredictable element’ of those events (τὸ παράδοξον τῶν τότε γενομένων) is the fact that it is worth fighting to the end for one’s home.⁴⁸ No mention of personal divine intervention. If we compare his representation with parallel versions, in the Callmachean Hymn to Delos (4), Apollo himself predicts the attack on Delphi of the Gauls and their defeat there in 279/278 BCE. The wording and the aretalogical context show that the god in Callimachus claims the defeat of the Gauls as his own achievement.⁴⁹ In addition, inscriptions bear witness to a version of the god’s intervention al-

and the subsequent flooding of the land, Thucydides offers his own scientific explanation, (correctly) connecting the earthquakes with the inundations, Th. 3.89.4. It is important that, for Thucydides’ argument to work, it is not enough to reject the Spartan scruples as irrational; he must offer an alternative explanation to unmask the psychology of the Spartan reaction.  Th. 1.21.1.  X. Mem. 4.3.13.  X. Mem. 1.1.2 f.  Plb. 1.6.5, 2.20.6, 2.35.7, 4.46.1, 9.35.1.  Plb. 2.35.7 f.  Call. Hym. Del. (4) 178˗190.

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ready shortly after the event, and close in time to Callimachus’ Hymn. ⁵⁰ Finally, post˗Polybian sources, especially Pausanias, record a direct intervention by the god.⁵¹ Given the wide dispersion and the chronology of the sources, therefore, Polybius cannot but have known a version of Apollo’s direct intervention to protect his sanctuary. Nevertheless, he chooses to ignore it, or more accurately, he replaces the Apollo of the vulgate version with the ‘unpredictable element’ (τὸ παράδοξον).

Imperial Period: Epiphanies In the following centuries, epiphanies are scarcely represented in historiography, and virtually never in the form of Petridou’s quadripartite epiphanic schema, apart from the fact that they are regularly triggered by crisis situations. They are virtually always expressed in the anecdotal mode as quotations of what ‘other people said’. To begin with a short selection from Diodorus (or better, his sources): according to the legendary accounts of the Hyperboreans, ‘it is said’ (λέγεται) that Apollo appears every nineteen years around the vernal equinox on their island.⁵² According to some, Hermaphroditus ‘is a god and appears at certain times to man’, while according to others he is able to foretell the future.⁵³ Boeotians, Thracians and Greeks in general are said to ‘have established sacrifices every other year, and believe that at that time the god [= Dionysus] reveals himself to human beings (poieisthai … tas epiphaneias)’. The Greek implies that Dionysus would not normally appear during the rest of the year.⁵⁴ Finally, according to Diodorus, Cretan sources report that Demeter, Aphrodite, Apollo and Artemis among other deities originate in Crete and are then ‘naturalized’ by the local populations in whose places they ‘appear’, often for longer (διὰ τὴν ἐπιφάνειαν καὶ τὴν ἐπιπλέον ἐπιδημίαν).⁵⁵ One could add further evidence

 Syll. 3 398 (transl. in Bagnall/Derow 2004, 34 f.; Austin 2006, 129 f.).  Diod. 22.9.1; Paus. 1.4.4, 8.10.9, 10.3.4, 10.7.1, 10.8.3, 10.23.1; Iust. Epit. Pomp. Trog. 24.7 f. The ultimate literary source of the Pausanian version was perhaps Hieronymus of Cardia, Hornblower 1981, 73 f.; Habicht 1979, 89 n. 9.  Diod. 2.47.1,6.  Diod. 4.6.5.  Diod. 4.3.2.  Diod. 5.77.5 f.

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for such accounts, whose common characteristic is their chronological and often geographical displacement from Diodorus’ (or his sources’) lifeworld.⁵⁶ Epiphanic representations in Diodorus are not restricted to the ‘mythical period’, although in the historical period they seem to be scarcer. At the battle of the Sagra (ca. 540 BCE), the Dioscuri are said to accompany the Locrian army from Sparta. They are then sighted in a battle against Croton, and thus ensure victory;⁵⁷ the Delphians’ salvation from the Persian onslaught in 480 is called by Diodorus epiphaneia, although the god does not so much appear in person as betrays his presence through signs (thunderstorm, lightning and landslides).⁵⁸ Rarely does Diodorus ˗or his sources˗ censure the credibility of epiphanic accounts. When, during the siege of Tyre, a citizen claims to have seen Apollo and to have heard him announcing his departure from the city, the people accuse the Tyrian of siding with Alexander by discouraging resistance and at the same time bind the god’s cult statue in order to prevent its escape!⁵⁹ The wording suggests that Diodorus is sceptical about such credulity (δεισιδαιμονία). Diodorus also seems to sympathize with Brennus, who ridicules the anthropomorphic representations in wood and stone of Greek gods.⁶⁰ Besides this, the historian ridicules Eunus, a slave turned king during the first Servile War in Diodorus’ home, Sicily (135˗132 BCE). Eunus claims to experience epiphanies and divinatory dreams, and he fakes spitting fire when prophesying in a trance.⁶¹ But Diodorus’ criticism, if it is his, is directed primarily against the personality of Eunus, not the special access to the divine which he claims to possess. Extant Greek historians after Diodorus represent epiphanies, though very rarely and then with the typical stylistic caveat. At this point, we must always reckon with a potential influence from the Roman annalists and their prodigy lists. Appian, for instance, reports how Isis ‘is seen’ by the soldiers (ἔδοξε) help-

 When Orpheus during the voyage of the Argo prays to the gods of Samothrace, the Cabiri in the form of two stars fall over the heads of the Dioscuri (who are here members of the Argonauts). This is why later ages saw in the appearance of the constellation of Gemini an epiphany of the Cabiri/Dioscuri, Diod. 4.43.2; cf. 6.6.1. The Cabiri are said to appear to and help their initiates on invocation. Jason, the Dioscuri, Heracles, and Orpheus are all initiates and unconditionally successful in all their campaigns ‘due to the epiphanies of the Cabiri’, Diod. 5.49.5 f. Apollo establishes the cult of Hemithea in the Chersonesus. She receives her name from Apollo’s epiphany to mankind, Diod. 5.62.4; according to ‘myth’ (mythologousi), Dionysus ‘appeared’ to Ariadne on Naxus, Diod. 4.61.5.  Diod. Epit. 8.32; cf. Cic. De Nat. Deor. 2.2.6; Str. 6.1.10; Iust. Epit. Pomp. Trog. 20.2.10˗3.9.  Diod. 11.14.4 with Hdt. 8.36˗39; Petridou 2015, 102 f.  Diod. 17.41.5˗8.  Diod. 22.9.4.  Diod. 34/35.2.5 f. = Posid. BNJ 87 F 108 H [Dowden 2013].

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ing the Rhodians to defend their city against the siege engines, when Mithridates VI invests Rhodes in 88 BCE (and is forced to withdraw after the divine intervention). There is little doubt that this is a local, Rhodian tradition, perhaps connected with a specific cult of Isis on the spot and thus with an aetiological slant.⁶² One may also cite Herodian’s rationalizing comment on an epiphany report during the siege of Aquileia by Maximinus: ‘I am not sure whether the god really appeared to some of the men or whether it was their imagination. They were anxious to avoid the disgrace of being unable to resist a crowd of townsfolk that was numerically smaller and wanted it to appear as if they had been defeated by gods and not men. The unusualness of the incident makes anything credible’.⁶³ The only extant Greek historian of the imperial period to consider epiphanic representations more than anecdotal is Cassius Dio. Yet, his lifeworld epiphanies, if they are not rather dreams, require corroboration by other divine signs to be credible. Hence, Dio’s epiphanies are accompanied by sign clusters/prodigy lists that are typical of Roman annalists. For instance, in Dio, Tyche appears to the reluctant Galba (in a dream?) asking him to accept the throne of Rome. Dio compiles more signs to increase the plausibility of this account: ‘At about the same time, also, ships full of weapons came to anchor off the coast of Spain on their own. And a mule brought forth young, an event which, as had been foretold, was to be a sign to him of the supreme power etc. (other signs follow)’.⁶⁴ In a similar vein, Dio describes how Drusus abandons his crossing attempts of the Elbe in 9 BCE due to the epiphany of an unnamed deity (presumably Tyche again), who warns Drusus not to proceed: ‘Your are not destined to look upon all these lands. But depart! For the end of both your labors and your life is imminent’. Dio not only comments on the plausibility of the epiphany; once again, he bolsters it with other signs in order to increase its credibility: ‘It is indeed marvelous that such a voice should have come to any man from the god (παρὰ … τοῦ δαιμονίου), yet I cannot discredit the tale: for Drusus immediately departed, and as he was returning hastily, died on the way of some disease before reaching the Rhine. And I find confirmation of the story in these incidents: wolves were prowling around the camp and howling just before his death; two youths were seen riding through the camp; a sound as of crying women was heard; and there were shooting stars in the sky’.⁶⁵

   

App. Mit. 27. Hdn. 8.3.8 f. D.C. 64.1.2. D.C. 55.1.3˗5.

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Dreams Unlike accounts of lifeworld epiphanies, divinatory dreams in historiography are attested in most historians on a regular basis, and they are generally reported in the critical mode, namely in the authoritative third˗person narrative voice as matter˗of˗fact accounts. While some may argue that this is stylistic simplification in order to avoid a cumbersome ‘is said to have appeared to him / her in a dream’ vel sim., the ex˗iussu˗inscriptions (for which see below) and other evidence demonstrate that there is no reason not to take the historians at their word. Herodotus has both epiphany and sign dreams, which follow the usual pattern, in that epiphany dreams are exhortative and sign dreams anticipatory. Evidently, the most momentous cluster of epiphany dreams in Herodotus is found immediately prior to the beginning of the Persian campaign.⁶⁶ Xerxes, who has initially rejected Artabanus’ warnings against the war with Greece, is finally persuaded to abandon the fatal plan. However, in the following two nights a ‘tall and handsome’ dream figure addresses Xerxes, admonishing him not to back off from his initial decision. Even more startlingly, Artabanus, whom Xerxes in his confusion asks to act as proxy on the throne for one night, has a similar vision. Hence, Xerxes is convinced that the gods force his hand. He revises his decision and prepares for war with the Greeks against his own better judgment. This entire scene is buttressed with a metaphorical sign dream, deceivingly foretelling Xerxes’ rule over the entire world, in the following chapter.⁶⁷ The impressive cluster of a total of three epiphanies and one sign dream ˗it has long been recognized that these could be easily omitted without any impact on the flow of the main plot˗⁶⁸ at this central juncture of the narrative leaves no doubt about Herodotus’ dramatic intentions.⁶⁹ The dreams represent the first Persian campaign and the subsequent disaster of the King as divinely willed and sanctioned. The god deludes Xerxes, just as he attempts to deceive other characters by dreams in authors other than Herodotus. This deception in Herodotus is hardly an end in itself: it serves to reestablish divine order through

 Hdt. 7.12˗19, 47; Pritchett III, 96˗98.  Hdt. 7.19.  Aly 1921, 168.  Frisch 1968, 11: ‘… der Höhepunkt der herodoteischen Traumgeschichten’; Van Lieshout 1970, 243: ‘In my opinion the whole opening of the Graeco˗Persian drama is conceived in the Graeco˗ tragic manner’.

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the destruction of the impious Persians. Elsewhere in Herodotus too, gods delude mortals for the sake of divine justice.⁷⁰ Generally, Herodotean epiphany dreams are less ambiguous than sign dreams, although the recipients may nevertheless fail to interpret them correctly. Disaster always follows suit.⁷¹ Only once, the epiphanic deity of such a dream is identified (Hephaestus).⁷² Normally, though, the Herodotean dream figure is not explicitly marked as a divine character. Rather, the speaker in these dreams is an anonymous ‘man’ standing over the dreamer’s head,⁷³ twice characterized as ‘tall and handsome’,⁷⁴ or an anonymous human ‘messenger’.⁷⁵ This avoidance of further specification ties in with Herodotus’ reluctance to commit himself to the exact form of divine appearances in the human lifeworld. A remarkable epiphany dream is Hipparchus’ vision in the night prior to his murder: a male dream figure appears to the tyrant, quoting two enigmatic hexameter lines.⁷⁶ The highly riddled wording imitates conventional oracular pronouncements, so that this passage combines two very common, functionally equivalent forms of divine communication, namely divinatory dream and oracle. Frisch collects three more cases in which a divinatory dream is combined with an oracle.⁷⁷ This kind of double determination serves to underline the enormity of the event that is about to happen. The Hipparchus˗episode is exceptional in that recipients of epiphany dreams ˗just like those of sign dreams˗ are mostly non˗Greek royals or their proxies such as the Median Astyages, the Persians Cyrus, Cambyses, Xerxes, Otanes, and Dates; the Lydian Croesus, the Scythian Scycles, the Ethiopian Sa-

 Cf. Harrison 2000, 136 n. 52. In a very similar manner, the Cumaeans are asked by the Didymaean oracle of Apollo to extradite a suppliant who is under their protection. When Aristodicus, a Cumaean noble, points out the impiety of such an action (the god was supposed to protect his suppliants), the god replies: ‘Yes, I order it (i.e. the extradition) so that you vanish more quickly through your impiety, in order for you not to come in the future to the oracle and inquire about the extradition of suppliants’ (Hdt. 1.159). Lastly, when the Spartan Glaucus consults Delphi about whether he should commit perjury and steal money entrusted to him, he is encouraged to do so by the god, because the very consultation in such a matter is tantamount to an irremediable impiety that is to be atoned for by the extinction of Glaucus’ house (Hdt. 6.86).  Hdt. 2.139, 2.141, 3.64 f., 5.56.  Hdt. 2.141.  Hdt. 2.139.  Hdt. 5.56, 7.12.  Hdt. 3.64 f.  Hdt. 5.55 f., 62.  Frisch 1968, 62˗64.

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bacus, and the Egyptian Sethus.⁷⁸ Greek recipients are ˗apart from Hipparchus˗ his brother Hippias (sign dream).⁷⁹ It therefore stands to reason that Herodotus employs divinatory dreams in order to motivate actions by leading individuals in non˗Greek historical contexts, about which he and his audience are less well informed (in marked contrast to Greek contexts).⁸⁰ Xenophon, who is otherwise Thucydidean in his avoidance of epiphany accounts, represents some dreams. His only epiphany dream is located outside Greek culture, geography, and chronology, namely Cyrus’ fictive nocturnal vision at the very end of the Cyropaedia. Here, the imminent death and divinization of the king is announced by an anonymous dream figure, an epiphany dream that serves dramatic ends, and that is granted to an idealized ruler of the past to underline his ‘heroic’, even ‘Homeric’ status.⁸¹ Like Polybius, Xenophon is aware of the impact that dreams may have on human behavior.⁸² Besides, he accepts the traditional idea that the human soul, when liberated from the body in sleep, gains divinatory powers.⁸³ But in marked contrast to Herodotus, nowhere in his Historia Graeca does he draw on dreams in order to explain the behavior or decisions of his protagonists. It is only in the Anabasis, his most personal (and apologetic) piece, that he mentions (sign) dreams twice as a means of divine intervention, but ˗tellingly˗ these are his dreams, and their interpretation is equally his. ⁸⁴ So the problem of verification does not exist, at least for him. But even if we grant the ‘historicity’ of these Xenophontic dreams, we may seriously doubt whether they actually influence his decisions during the campaign, as the author wants us to believe: Xenophon may ‘remember’ them at the right moment for other reasons, e. g., as an

 Epiphany dreams: Sabacus (anonymous deity) at Hdt. 2.139, 152 (cf. Diod. 1.65); Sethus (Hephaestus) at Hdt. 2.141. Sign dreams: Astyages at Hdt. 1.107 f., 120 f.; Cyrus at Hdt. 1.209 f.; Cambyses at Hdt. 3.30, 64 f.; Xerxes at Hdt. 7.12˗19, 8.57 (unspecified); Otanes (sign dream?) at Hdt. 3.149; Datis (unspecified dream) at Hdt. 6.118; Croesus (sign dream?) at Hdt. 1.34˗45; Scyles at Hdt. 4.79 f.  Hdt. 6.107; cf. Hollmann 2011, 88˗90.  So Hollmann 2011, 75 f.  X. Cyr. 8.7.2; cf. Smp. 4.33. At X. An. 7.8.1 Xenophon may be referring to tablets (πινάκια) on which dream accounts and their interpretations are inscribed. Unfortunately, the text is corrupt and correction contentious. For the reading of the manuscripts, Lendle 1995, 477 f.; for the implication of the reading πινάκιον, see Van Lieshout 1980, 173˗175.  X. Smp. 4.33.  X. Cyr. 8.7.21.  X. An. 3.1.11˗14, with 4.3.8 f., 6.1.22.

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encouragement to the soldiers in the field, or as an apologetic vignette for his readers.⁸⁵ Unlike epiphanies, divinatory dreams remain stock in trade for most historians of the Hellenistic and Roman periods alike. A typical representative of this group is Timaeus of Tauromenium, whose love of ‘dreams’ arouses Polybius’ scorn.⁸⁶ In fact, we possess a long paraphrase of a divinatory dream from Timaeus’ work: an anonymous woman from Himera (or according to another reading, a ‘priestess’) sees herself in a dream ascending to heaven, where she encounters Zeus on his throne and at his feet a man in chains. When the woman asks about his identity, the guard informs here that he is the ‘the scourge of Sicily and Italy’. Later, the woman recognizes Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse, in the man of her dream, when she is confronted with him in reality, and is killed by Dionysius after three months. Although the section is transmitted only indirectly, there is little doubt that Timaeus represents the story in the critical mode and with an anticipatory function, apparently to denote the predestined ascent of Dionysius.⁸⁷ The imperial historians likewise represent divinatory dreams on a regular basis.⁸⁸ To single out just one characteristic account of an epiphany dream from a Roman context, Dionysius Halicarnassus reports an epiphany dream, versions of which are also found in Plutarch, Livy, Macrobius and others: the old farmer Titus Latin(i)us, a well˗to˗do plebeian, informs the senate that he was approached by Zeus in epiphany dreams to deliver a message to the senate; that only after the third nocturnal epiphany, the death of his son and cruel pains inflicted on himself by the god, he decided to approach the senate and deliver the message. In it, the god declares the earlier performance of the Ludi Romani to be invalid because of an impious punishment of a slave on the day of these public games. Jupiter gives the command to repeat the games. After communicating the message, the farmer is healed of his pain.⁸⁹ The roots of this anecdote lie deep in local Roman traditions and ‘intentional history’. The account is tuned to the key figure, Titus Latin(i)us. In Dionysius, Livy and Plutarch, the date is 491 BCE. However, in the original version, preserved in Macrobius, Titus Latin(i)us appears as Titus Annius, while the date

 Harris 2009, 156 f.  Plb. 12.24.5; Weber 1999, 29 n. 94.  BNJ 566 F 29 [Champion 2010], with good discussion in Baron 2013, 126˗129; for older bibliography, Weber 1999, 9 n. 30.  Cf. in general Weber 2000.  Dion. Hal. AR 7.68.3˗7.69; Liv. 2.36; Plut. Cor. 24.

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is 279 BCE instead of 491 BCE.⁹⁰ The point of the dream account is to honour both the family of the Annii and their ancestor. Otherwise, it would remain unclear why Jupiter does not communicate directly with a member of the senate or even one of the consuls. At the same time, the story serves as an aetion for the extension of the Ludi Romani by one day, as becomes clear from Macrobius. Like Thucydides, Polybius is outspoken about both his disbelief in dreams as a means of divine communication⁹¹ and ˗unlike Thucydides˗ about their considerable psychological impact on the masses. He thus transfers Thucydides’ interest in psychology from oracles and signs (which he largely ignores) to divinatory dreams (which are ignored by Thucydides). Most revealing is the following dream account: Scipio claims in front of his mother that he had two dream visions foretelling his and his brother’s aedileship. When the two brothers are elected, ‘all who had heard of the dreams believed that Publius spoke with the gods not only in his sleep, but still more in reality and by day’. But Polybius immediately cuts short these rumors when he continues: Now, it was not a matter of a dream at all, but as he was kind and generous and agreeable in his address he reckoned on his popularity with the people. Therefore, by cleverly adapting his action to the actual sentiment of the people and of his mother he not only achieved his objective but was believed to have acted under a sort of divine inspiration. For those who are incapable of taking an accurate view of opportunities, causes and dispositions … attribute to the gods and to Fortune the causes of what is accomplished by shrewdness and with calculation and foresight.⁹²

Slightly later, Scipio employs a similar ruse when he makes a dream figure of Neptune the inspirational force of his plans, and scores high marks from Polybius for manipulating his credulous soldiers into action.⁹³ To summarize this chapter, when Greek historians represent lifeworld epiphanies, they do so almost exclusively in the anecdotal mode, i. e. marked rhetorically by a distancing formula such as ‘it is said’, etc. Petridou’s quadripartite epiph-

 Macr. Sat. 1.11.3˗5; cf. Ogilvie 1965, 327.  He launches attacks against the veracity of divinatory dreams and the credulity of those who base their decision on them. He labels all such dream accounts lies and juxtaposes them to the truth of reality (although he acknowledges the existence of anxiety dreams), Plb. 1.4.8, 12.26c.2. Anxiety dreams: Plb. 5.108.5, 18.15.12 f. To let dreams guide one’s thinking is tantamount to delusion. The ‘dreamer’ is ‘daimonized/possessed’, Plb. 12.12b.1; cf. 18.46.7. One should not squander one’s time on him, Plb. 33.21.  Plb. 10.4.5˗10.5.8, cf. 10.2.8˗13.  Plb. 10.11.7 f.

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anic schema (crisis, authorization/legitimation, resolution, and commemoration) is fully applicable only to very few aetiological epiphanies, which occur rarely in Greek historiography (most notably the Herodotean Pan episode, Hdt. 6.105), while they are common in Pausanias’ Periegesis and in inscriptions (see below). Apart from these scarce passages, epiphanies in historiography, when they occur, are deliberately marginalized in that they are located at the periphery of the world of the author geographically and/or chronologically, involve minor local (non˗Olympian) deities and are tied to the vicinity of a specific shrine, whose attendants may often be the source of the actual epiphanic account in the first place. At a closer look, virtually no Greek historian on record offers an epiphany account in the critical mode without qualifications and buffer phrases such as ‘it is said’. By contrast, divinatory dreams are found not only in the more anecdotal Herodotus, but also in authors preferring the critical mode, such as Xenophon (with his own personal agenda in the Anabasis), Arrian or Appian. But Herodotus shows a unique fondness for such dream accounts, very often in order to explain the actions of non-Greeks, where the lack of other relevant historical information does not allow the Halicarnassian to motivate unexpected actions of his protagonists by any stimulant other than divine intervention. Unlike his epiphany accounts, his dreams ˗as dreams in general in historiography˗ are represented in the authoritative third˗person voice (= critical mode) and thus look much more ‘objective’ and ‘real’ than his epiphanies. Only the most critical historians deny the existence of divinatory dreams entirely: Thucydides completely ignores dreams, while Polybius is fascinated by their psychological impact on the masses (clearly implying that there is such an impact) without himself crediting them with much veracity.

Historical Biography ‘Biography is more subject matter than form, and the “genre” easily slips out of the scholarly grip,’ according to a prominent critic of the ancient biography.¹ Historical biographies, as I will call Plutarch’s biographies,² are, in a sense, a sub˗ genre of historiography, which focuses on the life and character of a single historical (at least in the mind of the biographer) individual rather than the historical sequence of developments with various agents.³ Plutarch himself distinguishes between historical episodes that inform both historiography and biography, and episodes characterizing the personality of a protagonist such as jokes and anecdotes, which concern only the biographer.⁴ The aim of biography is the reconstruction of a specific historically plausible character for paradigmatic ends, or to quote De Temmerman: ‘the task of narrators in most biographies is not to construct a character (as in fiction), but to reconstruct a historical (and/or more or less legendary) person, thereby constructing a particular version of this person’.⁵ Plutarch’s Lives are generically closest to historiography (after all, most of Plutarch’s sources are historians), while many earlier apparent ‘biographies’ such as Isocrates’ Euagoras and Xenophon’s Agesilaus and Cyropaedia should better be categorized as aretalogies and generically linked to encomiastic genres in the broadest sense.⁶ One criterion for distinguishing such encomia from ‘biographies’ is the fact that encomiastic literature in general ignores all the flaws and scandalous features of their protagonists, although the two text groups may represent the same person and even similar facts. Since Pindar, encomiastic literature is largely indifferent to epiphanies or divinatory dreams of the laudandus, while it may represent either form of divine communication in mythical/Homeric contexts.⁷ Plutarch’s Lives are equally reluctant to  Hägg 2012, 3.  Biography has numerous subgenres with different emphases, Hägg 2012 distinguishes inter alia political, philosophical and ethical biographies (the latter denoting principally Plutarch’s Lives).  Hägg 2012, 277˗281.  Plut. Alex. 1.2 with Hägg 2012, 268˗277, who in a balanced discussion warns us not to read Plutarch here as ‘drawing a sharp line between history and biography’ (p. 268). Hägg 2012, 272 also comments on Plut. Alex. 1.2: ‘So “history” here is no opposite to biography, but rather the substance that makes up the Lives.’  De Temmerman 2016, 11 f.  But some Plutarchan Lives are also ‘encomiastic’, cf. Hägg 2012, 276 f.  Pi. P. 4.34– 39, O. 13.66 – 72, fr. 52 i (= Pae. 8a) 17– 25. Sometimes, Pindaric gods appear in human disguise, again just as in Homer, cf. Pi. N. 10.15 f. (Zeus as Amphitryo), fr. 52 f (= Pae. 6) 80 (Apollo as Paris). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-009

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represent epiphanies, but divinatory dreams are among the most frequent stylistic devices for representing the ‘characters’ of his biographees.

Epiphanies In his ‘mythical’ Lives, Plutarch rarely reports epiphanies, and when he does so, he accompanies them normally with some critical remarks. Thus, the tales of Numa’s capture of two daimons, Picus and Faunus, and his encounter with Jupiter on the Aventine Hill (a foundation myth of the cult of Jupiter Elicius, in which Jupiter is represented by hearsay as giving the order himself!) is labeled as ‘surpassing all absurdity (ἀτοπία)’, and: ‘these fabulous and ridiculous tales (τὰ μυθώδη καὶ γελοῖα) display the attitude of the humans towards the divine, (an attitude) which custom/convention (ἐθισμός) have forced upon them’.⁸ Similarly, Romulus is reported by a sworn eyewitness to have introduced himself as Quirinus, the new ‘propitious deity’ (εὐμενὴς δαίμων) of Rome. When commenting on this story, Plutarch tries to explain why people are so credulous: ‘These things seemed to the Romans worthy of belief, because of the character of the informant, and because of the oath which he had taken; moreover, some daimonic power, similar to inspiration, occupied their minds, because no one contradicted Proculus, but all suppressed their suspicion and criticism and prayed to Quirinus and called him a god’.⁹ The story is a typical aetiology, in that it serves to justify a modification of the existing status quo of the cult of Quirinus, and of Romulus by extension. Representations of more recent epiphanies are scarcer in Plutarch, and they are normally presented with a pinch of salt. Plutarch reports that in 83 BCE, Sulla, when he prepares in Dyrrhachium for his passage to Italy, captures a Satyr ‘such as sculptors and painters portray’ in a sacred precinct of the Nymphs in Apollonia close to Dyrrhachium. Sulla tries to communicate with the Satyr ‘through many interpreters’ (in what language?), but the latter just produces a sound somewhere between neighing and bleating.¹⁰ The anecdotal/comic character of this episode is suggested by the kind of deity (a ‘satyr’), the ironic ‘as they say,’ and finally by the explicit ultimate failure to establish communication between the mortal and the semi˗god. The source is perhaps Sulla’s memoirs, in  Plut. Num. 15. The tale is well attested in the early first century BCE (Val. Ant. FRHist 25 F 8), and in Augustan poetry (Ov. Fast. 3.291˗346).  Plut. Rom. 28.1˗3, Num. 2.3; cf. Dion. Hal. AR 2.63.3 f.; Liv. 1.16.5˗8; Ov. Fast. 2.499˗512, cf. Cic. Res Publ. 2.10.20 f., with Brenk 1987, 338 f.  Plut. Sull. 27.2.

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which the dictator reveals himself as being somewhat obsessed with the idea of a daimonion determining his destiny.¹¹ But the motif is more widespread. Herodotus, among other sources (e. g. vase paintings), records a similar capture of Silenus in a place in Macedonia called the Garden of Midas (incidentally, the city of Dyrrhachium of the Plutarchan text is situated in the Roman province of Macedonia).¹² Accordingly, the superstitious Sulla himself may or may not believe in this encounter with a satyr, following Herodotean precedence. Plutarch, on his part, not only disbelieves it, but also ridicules the episode through its literary connotations: Sulla in the position of Midas capturing Silenus. Another epiphanic representation (of Artemis) is recorded in Plutarch’s Aratus. Here the citizens of Pellene mistake an unnamed mortal woman, ‘daughter of Epigethes’, for the goddess. The scene is a classic epiphanization similar to the Herodotean Phye story discussed in the previous chapter. Besides this, I wonder whether this is not a pun, given that Epigethes would literally mean ‘the one who laughs at something’. The passage is followed by a classic example of ‘intentional history,’ namely the account of the Pellenians about how their cult image of the goddess dumbfounded the enemies. Of course, Aratus’ own journals have nothing of that sort, as Plutarch observes with caustic punctiliousness.¹³ Like Herodotus, Plutarch mentions battle epiphanies, and like his predecessor, always from hearsay, i. e. in the anecdotal mode. Even more than Herodotus, he is careful not to commit himself (to put it mildly). Thus, ‘many Athenians thought they saw’ an apparition (φάσμα) of Theseus participating in the battle of Marathon and thus give him heroic status.¹⁴ Surprisingly, according to Plutarch, Theseus is not heroized because of this epiphany, but because of an oracular response that demands the translation of his bones from Scyrus, a deed eventually accomplished by Cimon. It is his new burial place in the center of Athens that serves as the focus of the new hero cult.¹⁵ One may also mention the participation of the Aeacids during the battle of Salamis, which appears, in Plutarch’s wording, as an arbitrary conjecture by some fanciful observers: for the only thing ‘they thought to have seen’ are ‘apparitions and shapes (φάσματα καὶ εἴδωλα) of armed men coming from Aegina’.¹⁶ And ‘some’ witness the Dio-

 Brenk 1977, 220 f. n. 6.  Hdt. 8.138; versions of the story are known two generations after Plutarch, e. g. to Paus. 1.4.5 and Maxim. Tyr. 5.1. They testify to its popularity.  Plut. Arat. 32.1˗3.  Plut. Thes. 35.5.  Plut. Thes. 36, cf. Cim. 8.3˗6.  Plut. Them. 15.1, cf. Hdt. 8.64 f.

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scuri accompanying Lysander’s ship on its way to the battle of Aegospotami in 405 BCΕ, although Plutarch hastens to cast doubt on this information too.¹⁷ Finally, an epiphanic passage with a clear aetiological slant, and thus coinciding with Petridou’s epiphanic schema, is the famous appearance of the Dioscuri in Rome after the battle at Lake Regillus (ca. 500 BCE). Plutarch refers to the story twice, with the usual rhetorical buffers (λέγεται, λέγουσι).¹⁸ The passage explains 1. the location of the temple on the Forum Romanum next to the spring where the divine brothers appeared, 2. the fact that in the Roman calendar, July 15th (marked by a procession of horsemen) is consecrated to the Dioscuri, 3. the etymology of the cognomen Ahenobarbus (a branch of the gens Domitia) = as ‘bronze beard’. Plutarch’s source is most likely Dionysius of Halicarnassus.¹⁹ Livy, here as elsewhere sceptical when it comes to epiphanies, omits the scene in the relevant section.

Epiphanic Daimons Two epiphany accounts in Plutarch’s Lives are of particular interest. They are found in the pair Dion – Brutus, two characters who share many features, not least their loose Platonic allegiance.²⁰ Both texts represent pre˗mortem apparitions to the protagonists, who are awake, foreboding their violent deaths. Plutarch himself construes these two epiphanies as parallel accounts and argues for veracity because the two stories are reported by the protagonists themselves to ˗so Plutarch claims˗ reliable sources and because Dion’s and Brutus’ philosophical training would forestall deception by superstition.²¹ As for the Dion episode, when relaxing in the afternoon shades the biographee witnesses a female figure of superhuman size in the shape of a tragic Erinys sweeping his home with a broom. No verbal message is necessary. The reader understands, when Plutarch reports that Dion’s son dies a few days later, followed by his own murder.²²

 Plut. Lys. 12.1.  Plut. Cor. 3.4, Aem. 25.1 f.  Dion. Hal. AR 6.13 with Versnel 1987, 47 suggesting that these were no epiphanies in their tangible form, but rather an ‘image in the mind, fancy’. This would contradict Plut. Aem. 25.1 f., where the Dioscuri ‘touch’ the beard of a bystander.  For their Platonism, see Dillon 2008, esp. 352, 363.  Plut. Dio 2, 55, Brut. 36 f., Caes. 69.2, 5˗8 with the extensive and excellent discussion in Moles 2017, 314˗327 (excursus on chapter 36 f.); FitzGibbon 2008, 455˗459.  Plut. Dio 55.

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As for Brutus, shortly before the battle of Philippi, Brutus’ daimon visits Brutus at night, announcing his impending death. According to Moles, the source of the story (which is also referred to by Appian)²³ is Asinius Pollio, a likely suggestion, given Pollio’s long acknowledged significance as a major source of Plutarch’s Roman Lives. ²⁴ Plutarch makes much of the fact that Brutus ˗just like Dion˗ is awake (being plagued by insomnia, as Plutarch stresses, adopting the topos of the ‘good’ general).²⁵ Thus, despite its patent similarities to dream apparitions, the passage must be grouped as an epiphany account. The Brutus story occurs in the Lives of both Brutus and Caesar. In the Brutus, this section is followed by a discussion of the protagonist, with Cassius offering what Plutarch calls an ‘Epicurean’ interpretation of such visions.²⁶ Since this explanation is not Epicurean (nor anything else) stricto sensu, ‘Epicurean’ may here be Cassius’ very particular brand of ‘contemporary’ Epicureanism. Otherwise, it may simply be meant to be derogatory = ‘Epicurean gibberish’. Last but not least, the solution may be found in a flawed manuscript tradition.²⁷ In his Caesar, Plutarch mentions the apparition of Brutus’ daimon at the very end of the Life (when he writes about the consequences of his murder for his assassins), this time in contradistinction to Caesar’s ‘great’ daimon, the guarantor of Caesar’s lifetime successes and his posthumous avenger. Implicitly, Plutarch thus pitches Caesar’s ‘great’ daimon against the living Brutus, who is then informed by his own ‘evil’ daimon of his imminent death.²⁸ This absurd situation can only be explained by the assumption that Brutus’ ‘daimon’ appears here with unusual semantic license, perhaps as the personification of the ‘bad conscience’ of Caesar’s assassin, while Caesar’s daimon is employed ˗again very freely˗ as an equivalent to Erinys (which brings us back to the Dion passage). In marked contrast to the employment of ‘daimon’ in the Moralia, the ‘daimon’

 App. BC 4.17.134.  Cf. Moles 2017 ad Brut. 36.1˗7; Pelling 2002, 12 f.; id. 1979, 84 f.  Cf. Moles 2017 ad Brut. 36.2.  Cf. Moles 2017 ad Brut. 37.2˗6 for Cassius’ epicureanism.  Brenk (followed by Pelling) proposes retaining the reading of the manuscripts (ὑμέτερος) against Xylander’s generally adopted conjecture (ἡμέτερος) at Plut. Brut. 37.1, but this textual change does not really solve the problem, because Cassius’ alleged ‘Epicurean’ interpretation cannot really be attributed to any philosophical school with certainty (Moles, for instance, defends the conventional reading and identifies Cassius’ ‘Epicureanism’ with a form of scepticism ultimately reflecting Plutarch’s own views, while he defends a ‘Zoroastrian’ basis for the distinction of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ daimons), cf. Moles 2017 ad Brut. 37.2˗6 and his excursus on the two chapters 36˗37.  Plut. Brut. 36 f., Caes. 69.2, 5˗8, with Moles 2017 ad Brut. 37.2˗6; Pelling 2011, 498 f.; Pelling 2010, 326; Brenk 1998.

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in these passages appears exceptionally anthropomorphic and on a par with epiphanic deities of epic poetry.

Dreams Plutarch’s Lives are unique among Greek sources in the variety of their dream representations and have accordingly been the subject of extensive study.²⁹ Plutarch employs the representation of dreams to shed light on the character of his protagonists. One feature of Plutarchan dreams stands out. Anthropomorphic gods ˗so conspicuous by their absence in the lifeworld of Plutarch’s biographees˗ regularly appear in dreams. In fact, it is only in dream passages that gods are represented as communicating agents in their own right, and here they are conspicuously frequent.³⁰ Not only that, their message is sometimes given in direct speech in order to increase the impression of immediacy: thus, Zeus addresses Caesar³¹ and Numa,³² Persephone speaks to the town˗secretary of Cyzicus,³³ etc. Brenk argues for a cultural difference between Greece and Rome, in that in Roman contexts dream appearances of gods are generally scarcer according to the Greek and Roman sources.³⁴ Others hold that dream representations increase in number in the Late Republican Lives. ³⁵ Dream accounts of his protagonists may be interpreted in two ways, namely in relation to the plot and in relation to the actual character of the dreamer. With regard to the plot, epiphany dreams are ˗as usual˗ normally exhortative, sign dreams, anticipatory. With regard to character qualifications, dreams ˗especially anxiety dreams˗ give the biographer an opportunity to say what his protagonists ‘experience’, they are often a statement about their thinking, most notably their ‘dream˗mindedness’, and about the innermost motivation for their actions. Functionally, they often add an element of anxiety/psychology to the conventional exhortative and anticipatory functions of dream representations. Brenk succinctly notes that Plutarch’s ‘primary concern was the dramatic, the creation

 Pelling 2010; Brenk 1977, 214˗135; Brenk 1975.  E. g. Plut. Cam. 6.1 [cult statue of Veian Iuno], Rom. 2.5 [Hestia], Cic. 44.2˗4 [Zeus], Cor. 24.2 [Zeus], Arist. 11.2˗8 [Zeus], Luc. 10 [Persephone, Athena], Luc. 12.1 f. [Aphrodite], Per. 13.8 [Athena], Lys. 20.5 [Zeus Ammon], Sull. 9.4 [Luna, with Brenk 1977, 223 f.], Tim. 8.1 [Demeter] al.  Plut. Cic. 44.3 f.  Plut. Num. 15.5.  Plut. Luc. 10.2 with Petridou 2015, 101; 128 f.; ead. 2015a, 332˗334.  Brenk 1975, 343.  Cf. Pelling 2010, 328 f.

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of mood, the revelation of character through dreams, for biographical purposes’.³⁶ Or ‘as always, he [scil. Plutarch] is interested in material which will illuminate the character of the hero, and for this reason the dreams are often expressive of the dreamer’s personality’.³⁷ As a comparison with Xenophon and Pausanias shows, his psychological ambitions make Plutarch keen to include dreams where better˗informed sources have none.³⁸ To summarize this chapter, Plutarch follows historiography in the scarcity of his epiphanic representations, which are virtually always reported from hearsay, i. e. in the anecdotal mode. In the very few cases (as in the case of the Dioscuri after the battle of Lake Regillus) in which the author seems to consider veracity, similar probability criteria to those of historiography set out above seem to apply, namely geographical and chronological marginality, non˗Olympians, vicinity to shrines, and cult aetiologies. Normally, the representation is undermined by critical remarks, irony or even sarcasm by the author. A special case in Plutarch are epiphanies of daimons of the protagonists such as those of Dion, Brutus or Caesar. The question of the exact nature of daimons as mediators between gods and humans (or better, human souls) is typically Platonic (thus first in the locus classicus of Plato’s Symposium, where Diotima declares that daimons are metaphysical beings that stand and mediate between gods and humans).³⁹ In his capacity as a middle Platonist, Plutarch deals with the question of communicating daimons intensively in his Pythian Dialogues. By contrast, Plutarch is fond of divinatory dreams. His many epiphany dreams feature all the major Olympian gods, including Zeus. He is often fonder of such accounts than his sources, which may ignore them (at least in those cases in which we can establish the sources with some certainty). Such ‘dream’˗mindedness as a characteristic feature of the Lives is barely supported by the non˗biographical section of Plutarch’s work, where dreams are very rarely

 Brenk 1975, 338.  Brenk 1977, 234.  While, in Plutarch, a dream apparition admonishes Agesilaus to sacrifice his daughter (then replaced by a hind) (Plut. Ages. 6.4˗6; cf. Plut. Pel. 21.3), neither Xenophon nor Pausanias refers to a dream, although they mention the sacrifice (X. Hell. 3.4.3 f., cf. ibid. 7.1.34; Pausanias 3.9.3 f.). According to Plutarch, before the battle of Leuctra Pelopidas, the Theban general, is asked in a dream to sacrifice a ‘fair˗haired virgin’ (eventually replaced by a filly), while in Xenophon’s extensive account of the battle of Leuctra as well as in Pelopidas’ later reference to the event before the Persian king, according to Xenophon, the dream is omitted (Plut. Pel. 21.3˗22.2, cf. X. Hell. 6.4.1˗15, 7.1.35 with Trampedach 2015, 354˗356).  Pl. Smp. 202E˗203A.

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and inconsistently discussed.⁴⁰ This one˗sided distribution suggests that representations of epiphany dreams in the Lives are directly related to the specific character˗centred perspective of his biographies. The high frequency of epiphany dreams among the divinatory dreams may be explained as follows: epiphany dreams can link a specific deity to a specific character, thus alluding to the favouritism of Homeric gods. To phrase it differently, the connection between Plutarch’s protagonists in their dreams with specific, normally ‘great’ Olympians goes some way towards a homericizing ‘heroization’ of his protagonists.

 In the presumably early De superstitione, the author jests at the superstitious person who suffers from horrible epiphanic apparitions (a product of his own mind) and is quick to consult religious experts in order to be purified by magic means, Plut. De superst. 165E˗166A. In a most likely later dialogue, Lamprias, Plutarch’s brother and presumably his mouthpiece, claims that dreams are a state in which the soul liberates itself from the body and thus becomes more susceptible to true prophecy ˗one may guess˗ through the mediation of daimons, Plut. De def. orac. 432C with Brenk 1987, 322.

Periegesis There are good reasons to take Pausanias’ Periegesis as a category of its own despite its apparent closeness to historiography.¹ For instance, unlike historians, Pausanias’ Periegesis is not primarily concerned with reconstructing series of events, but with ‘seeing’ and with the ‘external forms’ of the objects/buildings he encounters in the landscape. Its primary task is to describe visible objects, i. e. to describe what the topography ‘looks like’ (let us remind ourselves that a ‘visitor’ is first of all someone who goes to ‘see’ a place or person). Second, whenever he refers to ‘history’, Pausanias looks at the material from an almost exclusively anecdotal point of view (in fact, a restriction to the critical mode would have turned his voluminous travel book into not much more than a leaflet). His anecdotes normally reflect local traditions, i. e. the collective ‘memory’ of the community. Many of Pausanias’ epiphanic representations coincide structurally with Petridou’s epiphanic schema (crisis, authorization/legitimation, resolution, and commemoration), because in local lore, numerous monuments are said to commemorate divine interventions. In fact, Pausanias is by far the most important compiler of such intentional ‘(hi‐)stories’, not so much by choice or credulity, but as an unavoidable corollary to his passion for temples, cults etc. Such a passion implies an interest in religious ‘history’ or ‘traditions’, which in antiquity are exclusively transmitted and thereby monitored by local interest groups (namely, the authorities, the priests). He thus offers his material from the same perspective as relevant epigraphic genres that will be discussed below.² Beyond that, Pausanias is little interested in the landscape in its entirety. For instance, he is indifferent to its contemporary features, or physical beauty. Rather, his landscape is a selection of visible buildings and artefacts of the distant (=mainly archaic and classical) past which, in Pausanias, is tantamount to Greek ‘greatness’. By advertising such greatness, Pausanias is a representative of a nostalgic sentiment that is widespread in Roman Greece in the first and second centuries CE.

Epiphanies Pausanias’ ubiquitous epiphanic representations tie in with his larger narrative strategy: ‘… manifestations of divine agency within Pausanias’ text serve to con Cf. Hutton 2005, 241˗272.  For Pausanias and inscriptions see Habicht 1985, 64˗94. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-010

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struct a ‘cognitive map’ that imbues physical topography with sacred presence’.³ Pausanias does not hide the fact that the fountainhead of such ‘cognitive map’ is local traditions. For instance, according to the Aiginetans, the goddess Britomartis ‘appears’ regularly on the island,⁴ or the Eleans claim that Dionysus attends their festival, the Thyia.⁵ It is important to note that unlike most history˗minded writers, Pausanias does not restrict his epiphanic representations to the periphery of Greek culture and experience (Aegina being a case in point). Time and again, he assigns them to central Greek locations, in order to explain the erection of monuments or the establishment of cults at the relevant spots. In Pausanias, unlike in historiography and historical biography, we find epiphanies of the great Olympians in addition to minor deities and heroes.⁶ To single out just one example: on the occasion of a description of Poseidon’s intervention on behalf of the Mantineans in an unidentified battle against the Spartans, Pausanias justifies the credibility of the account as follows: ‘That gods are present at war and slaughter of men has been told by the poets who have dealt with the vicissitudes of the heroes at Troy, and among the Athenians it is recorded in song how gods sided with them at Marathon and at the battle of Salamis. Very plainly the host of the Gauls was destroyed at Delphi by the god, and manifestly by daimons’.⁷ The latter event, Apollo’s defense of his sanctuary against the Gauls in 279, looms par-

 Platt 2011, 218. Next to anthropomorphic representations of gods, Pausanias is intrigued by aniconic divine forms, Gaifman 2012, 47˗75.  Paus. 2.30.3.  Paus. 6.26.1.  Platt 2011, 218 with n. 17 [collection of passages]. For instance, Artemis intervenes on behalf of the Greeks against the Persians at Megara and is then worshipped as Artemis Soteira by the Megarians, Paus. 1.40.2 f. When Poseidon helps the Mantineans in an otherwise unattested battle against the Spartans in the mid˗third century BCE, he receives a trophy as an offering, Paus. 8.10.8. Sosipolis, a native Elean deity, is worshipped where he appears in the form of a snake at the foot of Mt Cronius in Olympia during a battle with the Arcadians, Paus. 6.20.4˗6. The tile that killed Pyrrhus in Argos in 272 is hurled by a woman, or according to the Argive version (which had a vested interest in saying so), by Demeter disguised as a woman. The latter version is a local aition for the existence of the temple of Demeter at the spot, although Pausanias admits that Hieronymus of Cardia offers a different story altogether, Paus. 1.13.8. Athena is said to have helped the Elateans in their fight against Taxilus, general of Mithridates and defeated by Sulla, and she therefore receives a bronze statue, Paus. 10.34.6. Pausanias records the presence of a huge figure, which after the consultation of Apollo, turns out to be a hero called Echetlaeus. The oracle commands the cult of the hero on the spot, Paus. 1.32.4 f., cf. 1.15.3. In a similar manner, the local hero Cychreus is worshipped at Salamis, after he appears to the Greek fleet at Salamis in 480 BCE and is identified as such by an oracle, Paus. 1.36.1.  Paus. 8.10.9.

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ticularly large in Pausanias, and brackets his whole oeuvre in the form of a ring composition.⁸ It is worth taking a closer look at Pausanias’ representations of the Galatian onslaught. When the Gauls reach Delphi, Apollo intervenes with thunderbolts and landslides – i. e. no epiphanies but signs pointing to a vague presence of the god;⁹ besides this, in Pausanias (in contrast to parallel versions), the ghosts of the heroes Hyperochus, Laodocus, Pyrrhus and (in some versions) Phylacus (who, according to Pausanias, defends the Delphians also against the Persians)¹⁰ participate in the fight. Pausanias mentions the story repeatedly and points out that the relevant portents of the Gaulish defeat are the ‘clearest signs we know of’.¹¹ There is much to be said about this epiphany account. First of all, the major source of the very detailed description is unmistakably local lore or a historian basing himself on such lore. On general grounds there can be little doubt that the ‘official version’ is circulated by the Delphic authorities/priests. Admittedly, praise of Apollo would be sufficient motivation to invent or manipulate such an epiphanic account (which is represented very differently in Polybius). But if so, why then record also minor epiphanic encounters with heroes such as Hyperochus, Laodocus and Pyrrhus? Rather, it stands to reason that all these ‘epiphanies’ (in the ‘inclusive’ sense) of Apollo as well as of his heroic ‘assistants’ serve to legitimize subsequent ritual ‘changes’ of the status quo: Pausanias himself tells us that ‘because of this help in battle (scil. against the Galatians) the Delphians sacrifice to Pyrrhus as to a hero, although they held even his tomb in dishonor, as being that of an enemy’.¹² Given that Hyperochus and Laodocus (who elsewhere appears as Amadocus) have no known connection with Delphi (according

 Paus. 1.4.4, 8.10.9, 10.3.4, 10.22.12˗10.23.10, for ring˗composition cf. Ameling 1996, 146 f.; for epiphany accounts connected to the event in general see Petridou 2015, 122˗125.  Petridou 2015, 101 f.  Paus. 10.8.7.  Paus. 10.23.1: ἀντεσήμαινε τὰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ ταχύ τε καὶ ὧν ἴσμεν φανερώτατα. The story is found in other authors, and an early version is in circulation almost immediately after the event (278 BCE), as the epigraphic evidence shows (Diod. 22.9.1; Iust. Epit. Pomp. Trog. 24.7 f.; Syll. 3 398 (transl. in Bagnall/Derow 2004, 34 f.; Austin 2006, 129 f.); for the underlying literary sources of Pausanias’ account, see Ameling 1996, 150˗155; Pirenne˗Delforge 2008, 30 n. 47. Two conceptual parallels exist of this story. One is Apollo’s defence of Delphi against the Persians in 480 BCE (Hdt. 8.36˗39), the other is the annihilation of the Phlegyans as a result of their attack on the sanctuary through the ‘thunderbolts and violent earthquakes’ of the god at the time of Philammon (Paus. 9.36.3; cf. 10.34.2).  Paus. 1.4.4.

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to Pausanias, they arrive for help against the Gauls from the Hyperboreans¹³), it stands to reason that their epiphany is transmitted by the locals in order to aetiologize their ˗otherwise unexplainable˗ cult in Delphi. As for Apollo, from inscriptions we know of the establishment of the Soteria, a festival established to commemorate the salvation of Delphi.¹⁴ In other words, the epiphany accounts, which Delphic authorities circulate and which Pausanias records, serve in various ways to explain changes of a cultic status quo on the spot. They are thus fully in line with other epigraphic evidence in which epiphany accounts serve to legitimize modifications of a previous cultic status quo, either by introducing new gods or by establishing new rituals for existing deities. One could easily heap up the evidence for such aetiological epiphanies, virtually all of which are restricted to signs of divine presence, not actual visibility.¹⁵ Sometimes, Pausanias weaves various local ‘stories’ into a master fabric of a panhellenic story. Here, the epiphanies of Demeter stand out. Inspired by various traditions and most importantly by the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), Pausanias’ Demeter walks the earth and encounters numerous mortals in search of her daughter. These encounters are monumentalized by some sign or marker or temple to Demeter in the Pausanian landscape. Pausanias creates an ‘itinerary’

 Paus. 1.4.4.  For the epigraphic evidence, see Platt 2011, 154˗157.  Phalces, son of Temenus, dedicates a temple to Hera outside the city of Sicyon because she had accompanied him on the road, Paus. 2.11.2; cf. 2.6.7. Pausanias mentions a sanctuary on Mt Parthenius, where the locals locate the famous encounter of Philippides with Pan, Paus. 1.28.4, 8.54.6 with Hdt. 6.105 f. Even the opposite, the omission of an appropriate welcome of a deity, is marked in the Pausanian landscape: Disguised as strangers, the Dioscuri return to their father’s house in Sparta, which in the meantime is occupied by a private citizen. When the latter declines to offer them the room of the daughter of the house, he finds images of the Dioscuri and a table with silphium in the chamber, while his daughter has disappeared, Paus. 3.16.3. Apollo and Artemis have a ‘private conversation’ with Scephrus, the son of the eponymous Tegeates, as part of the aetiology concerning the heroic worship of the hero in Tegea, Paus. 8.53.2 f. Itonian Athena appears to her priestess Iodama at night with a tunic in which a picture of the Medusa is worked, which turns the priestess to stone. This is the aetion for the daily invocation of Iodama at her altar in the Boeotian dialect, Paus. 9.34.1 f. Other mythical epiphanies: Athena disguised as Melas, the son of Ops, tries to stop Teuthis from his abandoning the Greeks on their journey to Troy. Teuthis in turn strikes the goddess with a spear in her thigh, and this scene is ˗after an oracular response˗ immortalized in a statue which Pausanias sees, Paus. 8.28.5. Heracles, in the shape of Timosthenes, priest of the Thasian Heracles, is said to have fathered the famous Olympian victor Theagenes, whose statue is displayed at Olympia and whose name is also connected with other miraculous Thasian tales, Paus. 6.11.2˗9. Zeus must approach a mortal, Cithaeron, to find a way to lure Hera back into reconciliation. The result is the erection of a statue of Hera called the ‘Bride’ in Plataea as well as a festival named Daidala, Paus. 9.3.1 f.

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of the goddess no different from Christian pilgrimage routes. For instance, between Eleusis and Athens there is a sanctuary of Demeter and her daughter at a place where Phytalus (a telling name meaning ‘place of generation’ vel sim.?) welcomes the goddess at home.¹⁶ Slightly later, Pausanias reports Demeter’s epiphany at the well between Eleusis and Megara, where Demeter rests in the shape of an old woman during the quest for her daughter, again following the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2). ¹⁷ In Sicyon, Demeter, disguised as an old woman, raises for Plemnaeus his son Orthopolis, because all his other children die as soon as they start to cry. In return, Plemnaeus dedicates a temple to her.¹⁸ Another temple ˗and festival˗ is dedicated to Mysian Demeter by Mysius, who prepares a feast for the goddess close to the modern city of Tricala.¹⁹ In Hermion, Chthonia founds a temple of Demeter Chthonia, after welcoming the goddess.²⁰ Another temple dedicated to the same goddess is found in Sparta, connected by some to Orpheus, while Pausanias considers it to be a branch of the Hermion temple.²¹ The encounter of Demeter and Prometheus, one of the Cabiri, and his son leads to the foundation of the sanctuary of the Cabirian Demeter and Core, in which a mystery cult is practiced.²² The story about her temple (as Erinys) on the bank of the Ladon in Arcadia is connected to Demeter’s encounter, not with a mortal, but with a god (Poseidon).²³ Pausanias’ fondness for details of the worship of Demeter is not a matter of chance: he himself is a passionate initiate of Eleusis:²⁴ ‘on nothing does heaven bestow more care than on the Eleusinian rites and the Olympic Games’.²⁵

Dreams Not only epiphanies, but also epiphany dreams, are strikingly common in Pausanias, and always attached to specific localities. As in the case of plain epiphanies, the intervention of visible gods is pressed into service to explain the

         

Paus. 1.37.2. Paus. 1.39.1 f. Paus. 2.5.8, 2.11.2. Paus. 2.18.3, 7.27.9 f. Paus. 2.35.4 f. Paus. 3.14.5. Paus. 9.25.5 f. Paus. 8.25.3˗10. Paus. 1.14.3, 1.37.4, 1.38.7. Paus. 5.10.1.

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changes in the phenomenology of the landscape. Take, for instance, the foundation of New Smyrna after an epiphany dream of Alexander the Great: while resting in the shade, the king is approached by two Nemeses, who ask him to found a city and transfer there the inhabitants of Old Smyrna. The Smyrnaeans consult the oracle in Clarus (Pausanias quotes an oracular response), and erect the city. The dream story is well invented and finds its way onto Roman coinage.²⁶ Sanctuaries are also built as the result of epiphany dreams, such as the sanctuary of Pan Lyterius on the acropolis of Troizen,²⁷ or the temple foundation of Phalysius: The poetess Anyte receives in a ‘day˗dream’ a tablet from Epidaurian Asclepius (a physical token = apport)²⁸ destined to be read by Phalysius, who is almost blind. He can read it, is healed from his blindness, and dedicates a private sanctuary to the god in the vicinity of Naupactus.²⁹ It is scarcely surprising that the iconography of new cult statues is influenced by epiphany dreams.³⁰ Many epiphany dreams can barely conceal their origin in local patriotism or priestly promotion: for instance, when he refers to Pindar’s tomb in Thebes, Pausanias cannot help reporting the gossip concerning Pindar’s dream encounter with Persephone: the goddess complains that she alone has never been praised by him with a hymn, and asks him to compose one. When Pindar dies soon afterwards without fulfilling her wish, he appears in a dream to an old woman, an experienced performer of his poetry, and recites a hymn in praise of Persephone which she records in writing after she wakes up.³¹ Or take this: when the Gauls attack Themisonium, dream epiphanies of Heracles, Apollo and Hermes reveal a cave to the magistrates in which the Themisonians seek refuge. Pausanias then gives details of the cave.³² No doubt, the three deities are worshipped in the cave, and it is the magistrates that vouch for the veracity of the dream, i. e. a clear instance of ‘intentional history’.³³

 Paus. 7.5.2; for the relevant representation on Roman coins, see Weber 1999, 32 f.; Harris 2009, 41 f. with pl. 6. Another case is the following: before the battle of Leuctra, the priest of Heracles in Messene sees Heracles Manticlus being invited by Zeus to Mt Ithome (thus foreboding the return of the Messenians after the battle), Paus. 4.26.3.  Paus. 2.32.5.  Harris 2009, 43 f.  Paus. 10.38.13.  Paus. 8.42.7 with literature on the passage quoted in Platt 2011, 270˗273, esp. 270 n. 70; Paus. 6.25.4 with Platt 2011, 268˗270. Platt 2011, 270 identifies Sosipolis here with Zeus, but the iconography and the context do not support this.  Paus. 9.23.3 f.  Paus. 10.32.5.  Some more epiphany dreams: Paus. 10.32.5, 10.33.11.

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Pausanias is deeply concerned with sanctuaries/shrines and cults attached to them. Such an interest entails a dilemma: neither is a subject of historical interest in antiquity. For virtually all sites, even those as distinguished as Delphi, the only pertinent available historical ‘data’ are local anecdotes, circulated, manipulated, and monitored by local interest groups and at the same time the backbone of local history and identity. Given his subject matter, Pausanias has no alternative to the anecdotal approach, in keeping with Herodotus’ maxim that one should represent all available traditions even if one does not believe them.³⁴ As for his own convictions, he claims to have passed through various stages when writing his work. He famously writes, after having completed most of it: ‘when I began to write my history, I was inclined to consider these legends as stupid; but on getting as far as Arcadia my view became more appreciative. This view is that in the days of old, those Greeks who were considered wise spoke their sayings not straight out but in riddles. Accordingly, the legends about Cronus I conjectured to be one sort of Greek wisdom’, on which Veyne ˗pregnant as always˗ comments: ‘this tardy confession shows in retrospect that Pausanias did not believe a word of the innumerable unlikely legends that he had calmly put forth in the preceding six hundred pages’.³⁵

 Hdt. 7.152.  Paus. 8.8.3; Veyne 1988, 11.

Autobiography Autobiography is defined here as a first˗person prose account of an epiphany, whereby the observer of the epiphany is identical with the narrative ego. Whether we consider the following texts as a generic unity or not, autobiographical representations of epiphanies bear their own distinct mark that distinguishes them clearly from the three historical genres dealt with in the previous chapters: they pose as uniquely intimate, key moments of god˗human relations from the viewpoint of the human subject. While Sappho’s poetry represents a fully epiphanic Aphrodite as a poetic device for allegorical ends (see above), autobiographies virtually always represent epiphany dreams in which primarily Asclepius appears to a mortal and affects his decisions. Such accounts are normally intended to represent the ‘real’ lifeworld experience of the recipient of the epiphany. It is important to note that virtually all epiphany accounts in the autobiographical genre refer to dream experiences. Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi are the most important texts within our autobiographical genre.¹ Being ‘defiantly unclassifiable, they (scil. the Hieroi Logoi) offer a literary instantiation of his (scil. Aristides’) relationship with the divine’.² Together with other shorter texts with a similar first˗person dream perspective, they ‘represent’ (apografein) allegedly true dream experiences, among other possible objectives of self˗stylization and self˗assertion.³ Explicit epiphany dreams are surprisingly rare in Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi, amounting to appoximately one˗tenth on a generous counting, according to Harris.⁴ Given Asclepius’ towering position in the Hieroi Logoi, the ‘Sitz im Leben’ of many of Aristides’ dreams at the Pergamene sanctuary, and the god’s position as the incubational deity par excellence in antiquity and in Aristides’ personal life in particular, the scarcity of explicit references to epiphany dreams in the Hieroi Logoi is remarkable indeed, especially given that the author talks about his god all the time. Where Asclepius is explicitly said to appear in person⁵ or disguised as another human,⁶ such explicitness gives weight to the relevant dream scenes. For instance, Aristides’ intervention by grasping the head of the god leads to the  For the Hieroi Logoi as autobiography, see Stephens, J. 2013, 29˗35; Israelowich 2012, 24˗26.  Downie 2013, 148; for ‘autobiography,’ see ibid. 27 f.  Aristid. 48.2 with Downie 2014, 106 f.; Downie 2013, 41˗45; cf. Israelowich 2012, 19˗24.  Harris 2009, 65; Stephens, J. 2013, 103 speaks of 13 in his analytic chart of dream images, but such exact numbers are misleading, because it is not always clear whether a god, who sends a dream, actually appears in it as an epiphanic figure.  Aristid. 49.46, 50.50.  Aristid. 47.58, 48.9. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-011

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deliverance of his beloved foster˗father from certain death.⁷ And the emergence of Asclepius in his own shape and simultaneously in the shape of his divine father Apollo Clarius and/or Apollo Callitecnus (whose temple lay next to the temple of Asclepius in Pergamon⁸) introduces what Behr calls ‘perhaps the most important dream revelation’. In it, the orator is promised the protection of Asclepius for 10 and that of Sarapis for 3 years, miraculously adding up to 17 years (sic!).⁹ Other gods appear in dreams in person: so Phoebus Apollo (?),¹⁰ Athena,¹¹ Isis,¹² Hermes,¹³ Telesphorus (a son of Asclepius),¹⁴ and Sarapis.¹⁵ Some gods, such as Zeus,¹⁶ Dionysus,¹⁷ Nemesis¹⁸ and the gods of the Underworld¹⁹ send messages through dreams while it is unclear whether they actually appear in them in person, although they most likely do (how else could Aristides identify the origin of the dream?). The appearance of statues of a deity in Aristides’ dreams is equivalent to the actual epiphany of the deity (or at least, this is what Artemidorus teaches in his contemporary dream book).²⁰ Mortals too appear in dreams, such as Rhosandrus, a philosopher who has won himself a reputation for piety.²¹ In the case of Athena’s dream epiphany, it has been pointed out that Aristides here imitates the epic and hymnic ‘appearance-and-sensation’ topos.²² But the epic parallel goes further: only Aristides is able to see the goddess in his dream, although he points her out to the people around him. This is then the kind of partial visibility found already in Homer, in which the deity reveals

 Aristid. 47.71; cf. Petridou 2016, 454˗457.  Aristid. 48.18; for Apollo in Aristides see Behr 1968, 152; for the archaeological evidence of Apollo Callitecnus see Riethmüller 2005, I, 343˗351.  Behr 1968, 70 f.  Aristid. 47.18.  Aristid. 48.41 f.  Aristid. 49.46.  Aristid. 50.40.  Aristid. 49.23, 51.22, 24.  Aristid. 49.46 f.  Aristid. 50.40 f.  Aristid. 50.39 f.  Aristid. 50.41.  Aristid. 49.47.  Artem. 2.35, 39; at Aristid. 48.41 f. Athena is likened to the Phidias statue, while the scene itself is reminiscent of Il. 1.197˗222, cf. Petridou 2018, 268 f.; for statues in dreams, e. g. Aristid. 47.11˗13, 49.13, 49.20˗22, 49.46 (statue?), 50.50; cf. Pirenne˗Delforge 2019, 156˗167; Renberg 2003, 240˗243 for apparitions of statues in ex˗iussu˗inscriptions.  Aristid. 50.19.  See above p. 55; Aristid. 48.41 f.; Petridou 2018, 268 f.; Petridou 2015, 177 f.; Platt 2011, 262 f.

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its appearance only to her favorite and not to bystanders. It is not by chance that the goddess in her address refers to the Odyssey and assigns to Aristides the roles of Odysseus and Telemachus at the same time. It is true that the element of epiphany in Aristides’ dreams remains surprisingly vague, because Aristides rarely speaks about actual visibility of the gods involved. In the rhetor’s view, it is the more universal concept of social interaction with the divine (θεία ὁμιλία) that renders him superior to his fellow patients: ‘once I heard the following tale, which pertained to oratory and divine communication (θεία ὁμιλία). He [scil. Asclepius] said that it was appropriate that my mind be changed from its present condition, and having been changed, associate with god, and by its association be superior to man’s estate, and that neither was remarkable, either by associating with god to be superior, or, being superior, to associate with god’.²³ The notion of divine interaction (θεία ὁμιλία) is well elucidated by Aristides himself when he speaks about one of his foster˗fathers shortly thereafter: ‘he was a very good man, and was most clearly interacting with the gods (ὁμιλῶν θεοῖς), and related from memory whole oracles from his dreams. They happened almost, one might say, on the same day’.²⁴ Behind this kind of homilia, all other features of Asclepius vanish. Thus, the external paraphernalia of Asclepius, his attributes, traditional spheres of competence, myths, cult, and cult apparatus (temples, festivals etc.) and even actual iconography are reduced to decor in the Hieroi Logoi. In other words, the comparatively few explicit references to visibility do not point to a merely acoustic contact with the god. Quite the opposite: in Aristides’ dreams, Asclepius is so abundantly visibly present everywhere and at any time that a reference to his physical appearance is both unnecessary (since it is taken for granted) and irrelevant. The rhetor not only sees the god in his dreams; he interacts physically with him like with a relative or friend, whose physical presence is taken for granted. It is highly probable that not all of Aristides’ dream accounts are based on visions received during incubations. In the case of those that are, one may wonder whether Renberg’s distinction between therapeutic and divinatory incubation may be applied: according to Renberg, in the former case the inquirer asks the god for a cure of specific ailment, while in the latter he expects a response to virtually any problem, not unlike an oracular response.²⁵ However, Renberg’s approach distinguishes two entities that are in principle inseparable: incubation is only a specific form of divination (by revealing or performing the

 Aristid. 50.52; cf. 18.116.  Aristid. 50.54.  Renberg 2017, 21˗30.

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therapy, it forebodes the future healing). At any rate, in the case of Aristides, it is impossible to keep the two categories apart, not only because Pergamene Asclepius determines all aspects of Aristides’ life (especially his career as a rhetor),²⁶ but also because it is impossible to distinguish incubation stricto sensu, as performed in the precincts of the sanctuary of the Pergamene god, from nocturnal visions received by Aristides outside the sanctuary. It is also highly questionable whether the location would have mattered to Aristides himself. Aristides represents himself as being chosen by Asclepius. He wholeheartedly accepts the god’s predictions and his suggested cures.²⁷ He never doubts the source of the message (Asclepius), its code (dreams) and the veracity of its contents (diagnosis, warnings, instructions etc.) as interpreted by himself. In fact, Aristides generally represents his connection to Asclepius as a unique bond. The god and the orator’s sub˗consciousness thus merge to such an extent that both elements cannot be really separated, and it is fair to speak with Behr of a ‘mystic union’²⁸ or with Downie of a ‘most dramatic assertion of divine communion’.²⁹ It is not by chance that Aristides receives from the god the name Theodorus (= ‘gift of god’), because ‘everything of mine was a gift of the god’.³⁰ In his self˗stylization as an Asclepian ‘mystic’, i. e. an adherent with a characteristically intimate personal relation to ‘his’ god,³¹ Aristides imitates Hesiod’s

 Most of his literary oeuvre is a result of divine inspiration: ‘… the god has revealed to us by means of study, lyric poetry, subjects for speeches, and in addition to this, the actual ideas and the style, like those who teach boys to write … I say that I am the actor (ὑποκριτής) of your (scil. Asclepius’) compositions’. Aristid. 42.11 f. Connections between his dreams and oratory are ubiquitous. In the Hieroi Logoi, he mentions orations that are in one way or another inspired or dictated by gods in dreams, e. g. Aristid. 47.42 with Behr 1968, 105; Aristid. 50.25, 50.29, 50.39˗41, 51.16; cf. 47.16. In a similar vein, with the exception of no. 39, Aristides explicitly refers to a dream as the starting point of his prose hymns 37-41, e. g. at Aristid. 37.1, 38.1 f., 40.22, 41.1. In fact, rhetoric is part of Aristides’ therapy, Rosenberger 2013, 164 f. Later on, Menander Rhetor actually labels an unspecified group of prose hymns by Aristides logoi manteutoi, ‘speeches commanded by prophecy’. This group may originally have been published separately and may have included at least those prose hymns whose composition, according to their own testimony, is encouraged by dreams, Men. Rh. 334.4.1˗4. with Russell/Wilson 1981, ad loc.; ‘the god’s sponsorship of Aristides’ oratory emerges as the central concern,’ according to Downie 2013, 14. Characteristically, the hymn/encomium to Dionysus begins with the words: ‘Let Asclepius [my italics] himself, who caused the dream to appear, guide us’, Aristid. 41.1; and it is Asclepius who asks the orator to offer his hymn/encomium to the city of Cyzicus, Aristid. 27.2.  Behr 1968, 158 n. 68.  Behr 1968, 158. Most characteristic of this union: Aristid. 48.31˗33 with Platt 2011, 263.  Downie 2013, 148.  Aristid. 50.53 f. with Petsalis˗Diomidis 2010, 132 f.  Cf. also Petridou 2016, 454 with n. 5.

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self˗fashioning as the ‘personal choice’ of the Muses. This is a play with literary traditions, not a statement of a real epiphanic experience. For instance, in his second proem of the Hieroi Logoi Aristides describes his ‘initiation’ to the cult of Asclepius in Hesiodic terms (and thereby reads Hesiod’s initiation in the proem of the Theogony as a dream account).³² In the relevant passages, both Hesiod and Aristides hint at their dire current circumstances (Hesiod: a poor shepherd/Aristides: ailing from an illness) before their calling; they meticulously give their audience the locality of their initiation (summit of Helicon/hot springs at Smyrna); they clearly recognize the divine source of their recently acquired ‘knowledge’ (Muses/Asclepius); both authors are apologetic, in that they explain on what their unique divine knowledge is based. Even more, in a manner typical of epic poets who ask the Muses for poetic advice, Aristides turns to Asclepius in the second Hieros Logos with a similar aporia.³³ Apparently, both Hesiod and Asclepius feel the need to justify the composition of two highly idiosyncratic works, for which there is no precedent in their day, the Theogony and the Hieroi Logoi respectively. As for Aristides’ religious sentiment expressed in the Hieroi Logoi, it has been argued that ‘Aristides’ aims were … not religious per se, but distinctly professional’ and ‘that Aristides uses his narrative of divine healing to substantiate his claim to professional status, and that stylistic innovation and experimentation is part of this claim’.³⁴ Others consider the Hieroi Logoi a rhetorical experiment, whose primary goal is to construct ‘a new social and intellectual elite model’ and ‘a highly individualized, but simultaneously public model of elite religious behavior’, i. e. the model of a sophist as theos anēr. ³⁵ Are the Hieroi Logoi an epideictic exercise? Given Aristides’ position as the first public orator of his day as well as a member of the landed aristocracy, there is no doubt that the Hieroi Logoi have a personal agenda of self˗promotion. In other words, it stands to reason that part of the Hieroi Logoi serves to reassert the rhetor’s position towards both his fellow adherents of Asclepius, competing orators and aristocratic peers. Does this mean that the dream experiences are inauthentic? Quite the opposite: a text like the Hieroi Logoi draws its argumentative vigor from similar epiphanic experiences by Aristides’ peers about whom we are relatively well informed. For instance, we possess other first˗person healing accounts in inscriptions from Epidaurus, Athens, Cretan Lebena and Pergamon, mostly from the Roman period    

Aristid. 48.1˗9. Aristid. 48.24; cf. 43.6. Downie 2013, 33 f., who also gives a survey of modern approaches on pp. 28˗35. Petsalis˗Diomidis 2009, passim, quotations: pp. 122, 150.

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and resembling those of Aristides. These accounts are composed by much less illustrious votaries and their context does not arouse suspicion about their pious intentions.³⁶ Besides, extant first˗person dream accounts in non˗epigraphic sources of the Hellenistic and Roman period are on record from various contexts (we may remember that dreams in Plutarch are an important literary device to represent historical ‘characters’!). For instance, we find in Egypt, already in the mid˗second century BCE, various individuals who, like Aelius Aristides, painstakingly document their dreams for later consultation with a dream˗expert or other private use, thirty˗five dream accounts in all.³⁷ Some of these individuals base their decisions on these visions, and precariously fail: ‘we have failed, being misled by the gods and trusting dreams’.³⁸ As for epiphanies of Asclepius, the author of a pseudo˗Hippocratic letter describes (in Hippocrates’ voice) an impressive and epic˗like dream epiphany of Asclepius, who is accompanied by an equally impressive epiphany of Truth (᾿Aλήθεια).³⁹ Better known is a fictitious letter, prefacing a treatise on healing plants and allegedly written by the famous late˗first˗century CE physician Thessalus. The pseudo˗autobiographical text records how, after various adventures, Thessalus encounters Asclepius with the help of an Egyptian priest/magician in what appears to be a waking epiphany. Asclepius teaches him which plants belong to which zodiac signs, what their effect is on the human body, and how the drugs are prepared.⁴⁰ Another first˗person account is the Aretalogy of Imuthes – Asclepius, found in a second˗century CE papyrus from Egypt. It describes how Asclepius appears to the narrator and his mother, in both oneiric and waking visions and thus cures them both on separate occasions.⁴¹ In a word, Aristides is not the only adherent of Asclepius who feels compelled to document his dream experiences. We can compare inscriptions, papyri and manuscripts from different parts of the ancient world and different periods

 Edelstein 1, no. 432 = IG IV2 1. 126 (Epidaurus, 2nd c. CE); Edelstein 1, no. 428 = IG II2 4514 (Athens, 2nd c. CE); Edelstein 1 nos. 439˗441 = I.Cret. I, xvii 17˗19 (Lebena, 1st c. BCE); Müller 1987 (Pergamon, 2nd c. CE).  Wilcken UPZ I, nos. 77˗81 with Bresciani 2006, 135˗146; Weber 1998, 29˗37; on p. 38 he speaks of these dream accounts as composed ‘almost in the form of a diary’. The Greek evidence is supplemented by substantial material from demotic ostraca, belonging to the first half of the second c. CE, which are similar in form and apparently in purpose, Ray 1976, 38˗73, 130˗136; for both the demotic and the Greek evidence, Ray 2001, 140˗152.  Wilcken UPZ I no. 70 recto, ll. 27˗30. Harris 2009, 169, whose translation I adopt; cf. also Weber 1998, 37.  Hp. Epist. 15 Smith; Petridou 2015, 193.  For a recent discussion, see Ní Mheallaigh 2014; for the Greek Festugière 1939.  Festugière I, 52˗54.

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(namely, Hellenistic and imperial). Virtually all these autobiographic representations involve epiphany dreams of one deity only, namely Asclepius. There is thus nothing to dispute Aristides’ general honesty about his religious sentiments in the Hieroi Logoi. Aristides should be taken seriously in the painstaking descriptions of his Asclepian vagaries.

Epigraphic Genres Greek inscriptions may aetiologize and thus legitimize the establishment, change, preservation or simply embellishment (e. g. through votive offerings) of a cult through earlier epiphanic intervention(s) of the deity involved. Many such inscriptions reflect explicitly or implicitly Petridou’s quadripartite epiphanic schema. Inscriptions with epiphanic representations can be divided by and large into those that are erected on the initiative of public authorities on behalf of the community and thus claim to reflect the collective memory; and those that are erected by the recipient of the epiphany on behalf of him/herself or his/her family and reflect an alleged personal experience. In both public and private contexts, the recipient of the epiphany is an individual rather than a group: in the former case, in his/her capacity as a public functionary, in the latter, as a private votary. In public inscriptions, lifeworld epiphanies may be distant in time (but still within the chronological framework of local ‘history’); private inscriptions always refer to contemporary epiphanic experiences, and therefore they refer to epiphany dreams almost without exception (sign dreams would hardly be specific enough to trigger subsequent pious actions such as dedicating a statue to a specific god, etc.). By promoting the piety of their votaries, both public and private inscriptions constitute a form of self˗representation. In public inscriptions, self˗ representation is directed towards the citizens of the city as well as other cities or the imperial administration, while private inscriptions address the fellow citizens of the votary alone. Public inscriptions thereby virtually always serve to create and monumentalize a collective memory of the community, and are thus first˗ hand material for the local historical discourse, which otherwise reaches us through the numerous epiphanic representations of Pausanias’ work, albeit only in second˗hand, selective and stylized literary accounts. Public and private epiphanic inscriptions are composed for specific occasions (namely, the moment a visitor passes by) and, more importantly, they often draw on a stereotype and diachronic set of formal conventions that allows them to convey their message with extreme brevity, as for instance in the ex˗iussu˗inscriptions. For our purpose, then, they fully qualify as textual genres even though they are almost always anonymous fabrications and their original (local) context may be particularly difficult to reconstruct.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-012

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Public Inscriptions The modification of the ritual status quo of a city is no minor issue. Not only does it lead to a redistribution of material resources and religious authority: it also entails a reconfiguration of the pantheon of the polis by promoting some gods and degrading others. Before the Hellenistic period, such modifications form a merely local concern subject to the approval of the citizen assembly alone. After the death of Alexander, such modifications are increasingly felt to be valid only if they are recognized by foreign authorities too, be these cities, kings, or emperors. Since it is ultimately based on the divine cosmic order, the ritual status quo of a city can in theory be modified only by divine order/approval.¹ Hence, it needs an alibi, ideally some sort of divine intervention, or more specifically, an epiphany. Such a modification of the ritual status quo is relatively well documented for the Hellenistic period in the case of various Artemis cults in Asia Minor, namely the cults of Artemis Cindyas in Carian Bargylia, Artemis Hyacinthotrophus in Cnidus, and most importantly, Artemis Leucophryene in Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander. In all three cases, it is an epiphany of the goddess that is invoked to justify modifications of the ritual status quo, the pantheons, and (in the case of Magnesia at least) relations to other cities.² In all three cases, the essence of this modification is neatly summarized by the phrase found in the epigraphic evidence of all three cults: to ‘increase the honors’ (συν(επ)αύξειν τὰς τιμάς vel sim.) of the deity.³ It has been suggested that these developments are not independent, and that the refashioning of Artemis Leucophryene in Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander at the end of the third/beginning of the second century BCE serves as a model for Bargylia and Cnidus,⁴ but this is unlikely, given the chronological distance of some one hundred and fifty years in the case of the Bargylia inscription, as well as the cultural separation of Doric Cnidus from Ionian Magnesia. Rather, the ritual changes in these three cities seem to express a widespread common ‘language’/koinē of ritual change in Hellenistic Asia Minor (and perhaps beyond). Virtually all the elements of this ‘language’ of ritual innovation can be paralleled both earlier and later.⁵ One of its constituent elements is epiphanies alongside epiphany dreams (or perhaps better, with a different emphasis, dream epiphanies).

    

For such ‘divine’ order, Pl. Lg. 738B˗C, cf. [Pl.] Epin. 985C˗D. Bargylia: I.Iasos 613; Cnidus: IG XII 4.166; in general: Paul 2013. Cf. Paul 2013, 248 f. Paul 2013, 253. Cf. Parker 2004, esp. 18˗22.

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Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander The dossier of the inscriptions concerning the establishment of games in honor of Artemis Leucophryene at Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander is a prime example of ‘intentional’ history, and has been investigated as such by Hans-Joachim Gehrke.⁶ We possess the foundation document that was erected in a stoa on the central market in 208/207 BCE or slightly later, together with the dossier of inscriptions referring to an epiphany of Artemis Leucophryene.⁷ This foundation document relates the official version of the foundation of Magnesia-on-theMaeander, as it circulates in the Hellenistic period (spun out of various earlier strands of the foundation myth): the Thessalian Magnesians had (for unknown reasons: the beginning of the inscription is mutilated) been sent to Crete by Delphic Apollo, where they stayed for eighty years, before the appearance of white ravens made them consult Delphi again. The god informs the Magnesians about both their destination in Asia Minor and their founder, the Lycian Leucippus. References to divine communication are ubiquitous: a divine sign (white ravens) ultimately triggers four Delphic responses, all quoted.⁸ The considerable space devoted to the direct quotations of the oracles shifts the emphasis of the inscription from information to legitimizing and self˗advertisement. To make the story even more plausible, the Magnesian authorities do not hesitate to invent ˗or at least display˗ another decree in addition to the foundation document, in which the Cretans pledge assistance to the Magnesians’ (pre˗historic!) expedition to Asia Minor.⁹ They even claim that the Magnesians are the first Greeks to colonize Asia Minor, if a second˗century CE Athenian inscription reflects the argument of the late˗third˗century BCE Magnesians.¹⁰ This ‘founding’ document locates Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander within the cosmic charter of Greek myth. It is carved in stone together with a famous epigraphic dossier, largely dating to 208/207 BCE or slightly later, that concerns the establishment of games in honor of Artemis Leucophryene, constituting an important change of the ritual order of the city. It thus serves to document the divinely ordained ritual status quo before the changes that are about to come. An inscription rehearsing the immediate pre˗history of the Magnesian games informs us that already in 221 BCE, the Magnesians had attempted to introduce

 Gehrke 2001.  For a convenient edition (with transl.) of the full dossier see Rigsby 1996, 179˗279.  I.Magn. 17 = BNJ 482 F 3 [Madreiter 2015] = Prinz 1979, 403 no. 92. For the development of the foundation story, see Prinz 1979, 111˗137, esp. 131˗134.  I.Magn. 20 = BNJ 482 F 4 [Madreiter 2015], cf. Chaniotis 1999, 61˗64 and 69 n. 4.  IG III2 1091 = OGIS 503; Gehrke 2001, 292 f. with n. 34.

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similar games. The inscription’s insistence on the exact dating of this first ‘failure’ has troubled scholars. Perhaps the Magnesians claim priority of their Leucophryeneia over the Milesian Didymeia that are established somewhat later,¹¹ or else they want to mark accurately and persuasively the exact date of the epiphany of Artemis that triggers the chain of events that follows: at any rate, we learn that this epiphany results in a consultation of Delphi and a favorable response by Apollo, who orders the establishment of the games and requests inviolability for the city in 221 BCE. Whether because of insufficient marketing or for other unverifiable reasons, this first attempt fails. After more than a decade, in 208/207 BCE, a second promotional ‘campaign’ with theōroi advertising the Magnesians’ benefactions to mankind and divine benevolence towards the city¹² is more successful: more than sixty extant inscriptional responses from cities across the entire Greek world (originally presumably more than one hundred) acknowledge the epiphany, the oracle, and the games, and endorse the inviolability of the city according to the stipulations of the Magnesian decree. This decree (unfortunately lost) had been sent to other cities by special ambassadors, accompanied by supporting material such as the foundation document of Magnesia (see above) and other credentials proving former benefactions of Magnesia to the target cities, family ties, etc.¹³ The Magnesians’ request for recognition is not just a diplomatic courtesy: some cities seem to decline Magnesia’s asylia, while others add further honors to those stipulated by the Magnesians.¹⁴ These texts reveal a four˗step process that differs substantially from Petridou’s schema (crisis, authorization/legitimation, resolution, and commemoration).¹⁵ It includes 1. sign/epiphany, 2. oracular consultation, 3. institutionalization, and 4. recognition by other cities. Already in the above˗mentioned Magnesian ‘foundation’ document, we find 1. sign/epiphany (two white ravens), 2. (repeated) oracular consultations, and 3. institutionalization = foundation of Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander under Leucippus. These texts are inscribed in a stoa of the central market of the city, a location as conducive as any to the divulgation of the collective polis memory, or, in Gehrke’s terms, ‘intentional history’.¹⁶ Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander, however, is not the only city with such a ‘historical wall’; Priene, for instance, and Aphrodi-

 Cf. Thonemann 2007.  Rigsby 1996, 181.  Chaniotis 1999 tries to reconstruct the decree; for the ambassadors, see Gehrke 2001, 290˗297.  Chaniotis 1999, 59 f.  Cf. the discussion at Petridou 2015, 330 f.  Platt 2011, 152 f.; for the legal practice and similar dossiers, cf. Chaniotis 1999.

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sias offer examples of similar epigraphic dossiers, clearly as a means of self˗definition and self˗promotion.¹⁷ But the Magnesians go a step further. If the customary dating is accurate, on the occasion of the institution of the new games they hire the famous architect Hermogenes to erect one of the greatest temples ever built in western Asia Minor.¹⁸ In connection with this temple, another inscription regulates the establishment of the Eisiteria, i. e. the festival of the transfer of the goddess’s cult statue to her new home. Again, the Eisiteria inscription is explicit about the reason for the establishment of the festival, as the petitioner Diagoras, son of Isogoras, states: divine inspiration and the manifestation of the deity to the entire citizen body of the city, as is evident from her benefactions.¹⁹ The festival of the Eisiteria, which concern only the citizens of the city and thus reshape the ritual status quo within the city, supplements the Leucophryeneia that modify the position of Magnesia as a major ritual center of Artemis on the international plane.²⁰ In either case, the administration seeks the authorization by divine intervention/epiphany. Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander offers a second unrelated epigraphic case of the modification of the conventional ritual order of the city through the construal of ‘intentional history’, which however follows the same pattern. Apparently, the founder of the city had failed to provide for a cult of Dionysus. To remedy this flaw, the god left a miraculous icon (with his picture?) in a plane tree (1. sign/ epiphany), as we learn from a Roman copy of a Hellenistic inscription, referring to events of the second quarter of the third century BCE. Predictably, Dionysus’ ‘epiphany’ leads to a dispatch of theōroi to Delphic Apollo, who advises the Magnesians to found a temple of the god, instate a priest, and transfer three Maenads from Thebes and introduce ‘orgies and noble laws and thiasuses of Bacchus’ in the city (2. consultation of Delphi which is quoted verbatim). This is duly done (3. institutionalization of the ritual).²¹ This, by the way, is the only epigraphic evidence for an ‘epiphany’ of Dionysus, allegedly the most ‘epiphanic’ god (see above on ‘drama’).²² From the viewpoint of a visibility of the god, it is not even an epiphany, but a sign. Official cults of the Hellenistic polis have a double nature: on the international plane, they become constants of a panhellenic polis discourse that devel-

     

Potter 1994, 117˗120. Platt 2011, 153 n. 97 and Gehrke 2001, 289 f. n. 13 f. for the (disputed) archaeological evidence. I.Magn. 100, esp. A 12 f., B 8 f.; Deshours 2011, 197˗208. Paul 2013, 242˗244. I.Magn. 215 a, esp. l. 28 f.; Graf 2004, 111 f.; Henrichs 1978, 123˗137. Henrichs 2011, 113, cf. Ov. Met. 3.658 f., IG XII 3.420 cf. above pp. 107– 120, esp. pp. 116 – 120.

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ops its own meta˗language.²³ On the local level, they serve as the backbone of local history and social coherence in contradistinction to the cults of other cities. To ensure general recognizability within the diplomatic meta˗language, the deities involved must be panhellenic. By contrast, on the local level, they must be locally specific to facilitate group identification. The result of such Janus˗status is a terminological double determination of the deities in question: as diplomatic, panhellenic entities, communicating gods have only one designation, i. e. their panhellenic name, while as part of the ritual discourse, they have one or more local epithet(s), indicating their ritual specifics, e. g., the Magnesian Artemis Leucophryene (in implicit contradistinction to, e. g., Artemis Ephesia). Depending on emphasis, different epithets of the same deity may be interpreted as forms of one and the same deity, if the panhellenic element prevails, or as separate deities, if the aspect of ritual specifics dominates. ²⁴

Lindus Another famous epigraphic witness, the so˗called Lindian Chronicle (commissioned in 99 BCE and set up on the Lindian acropolis), is a fine example of the employment of ‘epiphanic history’ by a local élite to bolster the authority of the local form of Athena Lindia in contradistinction to other Rhodian gods, especially Helios, who rivals Athena as the dominant city deity before the synoecism of 408 BCE.²⁵ Of the total of four columns, columns B and C constitute a historical inventory of the dedications allegedly made at the sanctuary, as well as historical sources mentioning such objects and the occasions on which they are dedicated. In fact, the compilers, namely Timachidas and the otherwise unkown Tharsagoras,²⁶ are keen to back up all the information by an explicit and specific quotation of their sources (almost exclusively local historians and antiquarians). They go so far as to minutely note differences in their sources, thus displaying a unique degree of ‘document˗mindedness’ that is exceptional

 Chaniotis 1999, 60 f. (‘Urkunden˗Koine’).  Versnel 2011, 60˗87, 517˗525; for epithets, see Parker 2017, 9˗17; Parker 2011, 66˗70; Parker 2003.  Cf. Pi. O. 7.39˗53, performed in 464 BCE, with Schol. Pi. O. 7.71a˗b D (I 216). For the cult of Helios, not attested before the late fifth century on Rhodes, see Matern 2002, 10˗12, but Pindar already suggests that the island is dedicated to Helios, who then orders the establishment of Athena’s cult.  Higbie 2003, 62 f., 262 f.; Chaniotis 1988, 56.

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on all accounts.²⁷ Already in the introduction/psephisma˗part, the crucial elements of the inscription are stressed: ‘since the sanctuary of Athena the Lindian, both the most archaic and the most venerable in existence, has been adorned with many beautiful offerings from the earliest times on account of the ‘visible presence’ (ἐπιφάνεια) of the goddess …’ (A 2˗4). Indeed, the inscription focuses 1. on the local form of Athena, i. e. as ‘the Lindia’, 2. on the age and significance of her worship, as demonstrated by the numerous offerings and their dedicants (in marked contrast to Helios, the new deity of the synoecism), 3. on the epiphanies/interventions of the goddess that implicitly accompany all dedications and are spelled out in the final section of the inscription. The dedications are recorded in chronological sequence, as the Lindians construe it, starting with mythological figures such as the eponymous hero Lindus, Cadmus, Minos, and others, followed by historical kings such as Amasis, Alexander, Ptolemy, Pyrrhus, Philip V, etc.²⁸ Heracles enjoys a peculiar prominence: he is the only hero who both makes and receives dedications (together with Athena), while two of his sons (Tlepolemus, Telephus) appear as independent dedicants.²⁹ Clearly, the Rhodians, who are of Dorian stock, do not waste an opportunity to promote the Dorian hero par excellence. By contrast, a noticeable omission from the list is the Danaids, who hold a central position in Rhodian local myth.³⁰ Whatever the criteria of inclusion, three topoi are called into service in order to enhance and corroborate the sanctuary’s authority: 1. its long/mythical history, 2. its wealth of dedications, 3. the fame of its dedicants. While columns B and C are concerned with dedications, in column D three dream epiphanies to local authorities (an archon and two priests) of the Lindian (not just any!) Athena are extant, the first and third as a means of military crisis˗management, the second reasserting Athena’s self˗determination against Apollonian intervention. The first episode is in fact formed by two epiphanies: the goddess appears in a dream to one of the city’s archons foretelling her second ‘epiphany’ (in the inclusive sense), i. e. a rainfall that would save the thirsting Greeks and lead to the withdrawal of the Persians.³¹ The raison d’être of this account of intentional history is to insert the Lindians among the ranks of the

 Higbie 2003, 188˗203.  For the individual mythical and historical dedicants see Higbie 2003, 163˗170; for the structure see also Chaniotis 1988, 55.  Heracles: B 23˗36, 109˗116 = §§ 5, 17, Tlepolemus: B 37˗41 = § 6, Telephus: B 48˗53 = § 8; with Higbie 2003, 210˗214, 247 f.  Higbie 2003, 165 f.  Petridou 2015, 100 f.

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Greek freedom fighters against the Persians.³² Our suspicions are aroused when the chronicle informs us that the objects dedicated on the occasion of the epiphany had been stored in the temple of Athena, but were destroyed in a fire in 392/ 391 BCE (D 35˗42).³³ Anticipating reservations, the compilers of the ‘chronicle’ are particularly thorough in adding a long list of historical ‘sources’ including alternative accounts, citing a total of nine authors (D 47˗59). The message is plain: Athena Lindia protects her own people against the threat to Hellenism and freedom, and destroys their enemies. The basic thread of events involving the third epiphany can be reconstructed, although the inscription breaks off at the end. During Demetrius’ siege of Rhodes in 305/304 BCE, Athena appears to her former priest Callicles and admonishes him to ask one of the counselors, Anaxipolis, to turn to the Egyptian king Ptolemy and request help against Demetrius. After repeated dream visions, Callicles obeys and informs the counselor, who in turn leads a delegation to Ptolemy. The result is, as we know for certain from other sources, Demetrius’ withdrawal, perhaps again accompanied by dedications by Ptolemy to the Lindian goddess.³⁴ The story does not offer any manifest aetiological elements and is tailored to the figure of Callicles. So Petridou is most likely right when she states that Callicles tries to compensate his loss of the priesthood by advertising his intimacy with the deity.³⁵ However, there is another, more ‘theological’ explanation. The Lindian account possesses a certain piquancy, because immediately after the unsuccessful siege of Rhodes, Demetrius turns to Athens, drives out Cassander’s troops, is worshipped by the Athenians as a god, and sets up camp together with his mistresses in the Parthenon with the approval of at least some Athenians, a fact that deeply scandalizes later authors. Our Lindian account ˗or rather, the sources behind our account˗ attempts to promote the authority and integrity of Athena Lindia and the Lindian citizenry who resist Demetrius, in comparison to Athena Parthenos and her Athenian followers, who are quick to sell their own ‘Athena’ to the highest bidder.³⁶ The first and third epiphanies in column D are siege epiphanies. As such, they are conventional in theme.³⁷ Meanwhile, the second epiphany (which be-

 C 65˗79, 85˗93 = §§ 32, 35, with Higbie 2003, 232˗235, 248 f.  Higbie 2003, 258 for the date.  D 94˗119, cf. C 110˗113 = § 39.  Petridou 2015a, 334˗338.  Plut. Demetr. 23.3˗24.1, 26.3 with Habicht 1970, 49 f.; for the historical sequence, see Billows 1990, 169 f., for Athena in Athens, see Plut. Demetr. 12.2˗4.  For ‘siege epiphanies’, Petridou 2015, 125˗141, for similar inscriptional evidence of such epiphanies, ibid. 130˗135.

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came the second epiphany on merely chronological grounds) is different and unusual. When the Lindians consider sending a delegation to Delphi for consultation after a suicide in the temple at some point in the fourth century BCE, the goddess appears to the priest in a dream and gives instructions on how to purify the temple.³⁸ The representation of the incident itself is strikingly vague and apparently irrelevant to the central message, namely, the fact that Athena denies Apollo’s claim to decide on the issue of purification in her own temple. The message is the Lindian goddess’s claim that in her own sanctuary she rules supreme, without interference by any other deity, not even Delphic Apollo. In fact, her authority is recognized by other oracular sites that ˗as the inscription is quick to point out˗ repeatedly order the erection of dedications at the sanctuary of Athena, thus acknowledging her autonomy and authority.³⁹ This ‘rejection’ of Delphic Apollo acquires a particular significance if we recall the importance of this Apollo in the typified four˗step˗process of inducing ritual changes (which I proposed above on p. 184 as an alternative to Petridou’s quadripartite schema). All in all, the Lindian Chronicle resembles an imaginary catalogue of an exhibition dedicated to Athena Lindia, labeled, and backed up by information drawn from local historical and antiquarian works. Divine intervention is insinuated in the case of most dedications and is made explicit at the end in the form of three dream epiphanies. The ‘entries’ in the catalogue are chronological, giving the impression of a chronicle of the goddess’s deeds (beyond that, the term ‘chronicle’ is patently inadequate).⁴⁰ Epiphanies as subjects of local history become a full˗fledged branch of historical ‘research’ in the Hellenistic period.⁴¹ Within a larger context, the inscription forms a peculiar document of self˗assertion, i. e., a testimony to the reaction of the Lindians to the advent of the Romans who increasingly infiltrate the island from the first half of the second century BCE. Constituting an antiquarian retrospective, the inscription reasserts the significance of Greekness and especially of a Greek deity, whose local myths are in danger of being forgotten or absorbed in the globalized world of the emerging Roman Empire. In this vein, it is no coincidence that the inscription lays emphasis on a particular emanation of Athena, i. e. Athena Lindia, as well as on her worshippers, the Lindians. Only very exceptionally is the cult epithet omitted

 Cf. Higbie 2003, 283˗287.  B 48˗53, C 97˗109, 115 f. = §§ 8, 37 f., 40. For the replacement of the Delphic Apollo with the Lycian Apollo at § 8, see Higbie 2003, 212 f.  Chaniotis 1988, 53 f.  Most importantly Syriscus: BNJ 807 T1 [Cuypers 2012] = Chaniotis 1988, 300 f. no. E 7, with Petridou 2015, 332 f.; Platt 2011, 148˗150, cf. 161˗169; Clarke 2008, 344 f.

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in the inscription,⁴² and even more rarely is it replaced by another such as πατρώια or πολιάς.⁴³ After all, while countless forms of Athena, including πατρώια or πολιάς, are scattered all over the Greek world, Athena Lindia is a category of her own in the panhellenic ritual discourse, and it is exactly this uniqueness, defined by the goddess’s local character, that is at stake here. This may also be the reason for the compilers’ reliance on local historians instead of other key authors who normally serve to bolster similar historical claims.⁴⁴ Meanwhile, a certain Xenocrates, otherwise a cipher in Greek historiography, is the most often quoted source of the inscription, offering apparently the backbone of its chronology as a whole.⁴⁵ The ‘Greekness’ of this Athena Lindia is further advertised by the fact that no dedication by a Roman is mentioned, although we know of Roman dedications from Lindus and the neighboring area during the same period (one must, however, allow for the possibility that Roman dedications were mentioned in the lost parts of the inscription).⁴⁶ Finally, the Lindians are not the only Greeks who, in the face of the advent of Rome, attempt to reconstruct and thus ‘save’ their local traditions by means of inscriptional temple inventories or epiphany accounts.⁴⁷ In a word, the contents and layout of the inscription are anything but random or unbiased; they are in fact deeply ‘intentional’. They form a fullblown assertion of the authority and independence of the local Athena, serving as a ritual focus of the community of worshippers that gather around her in the first century BCE and later. Offerings and epiphany accounts combine to the same end: to prove the individuality, diachronic presence, and power of the Lindian deity.

Stratonicea Nicole Belayche has offered a penetrating analysis of a Stratonicean epiphany account in stone. Her results largely coincide with mine.⁴⁸ The inscription introduces a new deity (or modified form of an old deity), namely Zeus Panamarus, into the Stratonicean pantheon. It focuses on one single event, the epiphany (again through ‘signs’) of the god during the siege of Stratonicea by the Parthians

      

For such cult epithets, see Parker 2017, 9˗17; Parker 2011, 66˗70; Parker 2003. Higbie 2003, 179 f., 185 f. Higbie 2003, 193 f. Higbie 2003, 73 f., cf. Xenagoras BNJ 240 [Higbie 2007]. Higbie 2003, 167 f. Higbie 2003, 258˗277. I.Stratonikeia 10; Belayche 2009.

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in 39 BCE, and, as such, is a prime example of the category of ‘siege’ epiphanies.⁴⁹ This epigraphic epiphany account is so far unique in being followed by a (now lost) public decree. ‘What is most remarkable about this text is that the pious narrative is embedded within a decree of the assembly (though the actual decision is lost): since the god gave aid in all these ways, therefore …’.⁵⁰ The Stratonicean inscription proves, if proof was needed, that epiphanies serve to legitimize religious innovation: it serves to aetiologize the advent of (Zeus) Panamarus to supplement and ultimately replace the age˗old Zeus Carius in the same extra˗urban sanctuary.⁵¹ There can be little doubt that the lost contents of the decree consisted in the ritual elevation of the ‘new’ Zeus through the establishing of a new festival, processions, vel sim. As Belayche has shown, the advent of Zeus Panamarus suggests a fundamental (political) re˗orientation of the Stratonicean Pantheon. The epiphanic account is of epic breadth, recapitulating numerous ‘epiphanic interventions’ with an unusual desire for detail: the deity intervenes with fire/ lightning, mist, storm, i. e., the classic proxies for the god of the heavens, Zeus (who, in an equally epic manner, does not appear in person).⁵² Further signs of the divine presence are the physical protection of the besieged (ll. 18˗22), barking dogs turning against the aggressors (l. 25), and the lamps in the temple that would not go out during the siege (l. 27). Just like Athena Lindia on Rhodes, Zeus with the cult epithet Panamarus represents an old local/Carian deity, who always retains a distinct indigenous element and is dependent on such Greek narratives to assert his place in the Greek pantheon.⁵³ Predictably, our inscription stresses that this is only one among many epiphanies of the god in the past (ll. 2˗5). According to a convincing reading, the god leads the aggressors to humbly acknowledge his superiority over the Parthian gods (ll. 13 f.).⁵⁴ The inscription is manufactured close to the actual events in 39 BCE,⁵⁵ and its addressee is not only the local citizenship, which may feel reassured by it about the powers of its god, but also external political players: ultimately, it suggests support by Zeus for the avengers of Caesar’s murderers: after all, the Parthian aggressors of Stratonicea are led by Quintus Labienus, the supporter of

      

Petridou 2015, 125˗141, also p. 124 for inscriptional evidence. Parker 2011, 11. Belayche 2009, 199˗205. Cf. Petridou 2015, 99 f., who speaks of an ‘amorphous’ epiphany. For the history of the sanctuary, see Van Bremen 2004; cf. Parker 2017, 230. For this interpretation see, e. g. Petridou 2015, 99 f. Dating: Roussel 1931, 91˗95.

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Cassius and Brutus.⁵⁶ By implication, it is thus Zeus Panamarus who takes revenge on the supporter of Caesar’s assassins.

Epidaurus As seen above, the Lindian Chronicle construes a ‘history’ of the Lindians and their prime deity, the Athena Lindia, as a response to Rhodian Helios and/or increasing Roman influence. A very similar attempt of creating an ‘aretalogy’ of a deity in contradistinction to competing cults of the same and other gods is found in the Epidaurian healing inscriptions. Like the Lindian chronicle, these inscriptions pose as being tied to votive offerings by grateful devotees of the benevolent deity. Again, local authorities edit/instrumentalize pre˗existing (?) texts for the creation of religious/intentional history. Among the various sites where epiphanic healing inscriptions (ἰάματα) are attested (Athens, Lebena, Rome), Epidaurus offers by far the oldest, most extensive and detailed material.⁵⁷ At least seventy healing accounts, the bulk of which either mention or imply epiphany dreams featuring Asclepius (or in some cases Apollo Maleatas, Asclepius’ predecessor on the site),⁵⁸ are still partially or wholly legible on a total of four stelae excavated by Kavvadias at the end of the nineteenth century. They are thought to be inscribed in their current form in the later fourth century BCE, due to the letter forms and other archaeological evidence.⁵⁹ They may be based on authentic votive inscriptions or ˗but only in some cases˗ votive reliefs whose ‘oral’ contents are then turned into written episodes by later compilers. Intermittent collections cannot be ruled out as a source of the extant version. LiDonnici believes that, whatever the dating of individual stories, these may not reach much ˗if at all˗ into the fifth century BCE and are thus a fairly recent development compared to the cult activity on the side.⁶⁰ Even if not formally autobiographical accounts, these inscriptions are born out

 D.C. 48.26.  Cf. LiDonnici 1995 = IV21.121 f. = Edelstein 1, nos. 423 f. = Chaniotis 1988, 19˗23 T 2; Lebena (2nd c. BCE): I.Cret. I, xvii. 8˗12 = Edelstein 1, no. 426 = Chaniotis 1988, 51˗52 T 12; Rome (2nd/3rd CE): IGUR 148 = Edelstein 1, no. 438 = Chaniotis 1988, 86 T 21.  Harris 2009, 39˗41; for Apollo Maleatas, e. g. Renberg 2017, 174 n. 122; Von Ehrenheim 2015, 167˗169; Riethmüller 2005, I, 150˗157; for Asclepius and Apollo as associates at Epidaurus, Von Ehrenheim 2015, 166˗176; for Apollo Maleatas on stele A of the miracle inscriptions, Von Ehrenheim 2015, 170; LiDonnici 1995, 84 n. 1.  LiDonnici 1995, 4, 17.  LiDonnici 1995, 50˗82.

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of the spirit of first˗person dream accounts of the type we find in Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi and have been dealt with above. To categorize these inscriptions, it is pertinent to begin with the arrangement of the individual episodes. Attempts have been made to detect an internal logic of the arrangement.⁶¹ In my view, such an enterprise is futile: there is nothing to connect the woman seeking offspring to the patient with a spearhead in his face, followed by another who comes to Epidaurus unsuccessfully, but is then cured from consumption by a snake in his home town, which leads to the foundation of a temple to Asclepius after consultation of Delphi.⁶² Rather, the sequence of the episodes is due, not to an internal logic or conceptual criteria, but to the arrangement of the votive offerings, whose dedicatory inscriptions informed the collection. Thus, one tale begins with the word: ‘cup ..’, followed by a story that leads to the dedication of a cup.⁶³ The word ‘cup’ may originally have served to distinguish a cup from another votive offering displayed next to it. The word makes sense only if the reader of the tag has in front of him the object labeled as ‘cup’. This, namely the location of the votive objects, would neatly explain the chaotic sequence of the individual tales. If we accept the scenario of an originally spatial arrangement of dedications and dedicatory inscriptions, one may consider the possibility that the votive offerings are actually displayed either according to their formal properties (size, kind etc.) or alternatively in chronological order, to create a ‘chronicle’ of Epidaurus’ healing successes through the creation of a ‘gallery’ of relevant dedications. Here, the similarities to the Lindian Chronicle would be all too obvious. At any rate, if this scenario is right, the Epidaurian healing inscriptions begin as episodes connected to private dedications, which are either attached in written form as dedicatory inscriptions, or written down, and collected and edited by the priests of Asclepius in order to create an ‘official’ aretalogical dossier of the ‘new’ god Asclepius before the end of the fourth century BCE.⁶⁴ Though not intended for this purpose in the first place, in their current redacted form they reflect the ‘history’ or ‘aretalogy’ of Asclepius at the spot.⁶⁵ Generically, then, we must categorize the Epidaurian iamata as private dedicatory inscriptions that are turned into a unified aretalogical ‘catalogue’ by the local authorities.

 LiDonnici 1995, 65˗69.  B 11˗13.  A 10.  Cf. Platt 2011, 147 f.  Numerous scholars have stressed the aretalogical character of the Epidaurian iamata, see Barrenechea 2018, 76 f. with bibliography.

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While dream epiphanies are Asclepius’ preferred means of communication, very rarely does he appear in ‘waking’ epiphanies, and only once in the Epidaurian inscriptions.⁶⁶ Evidence of the involvement of priests or physicians in the Epidaurian incubation ritual (e. g. as interpreters, advisers etc.) is unsurprisingly limited for promotional reasons: any form of human ‘intervention’ would undermine the aretalogical ends.⁶⁷ While the inscriptions mostly record healings performed after intervention by Asclepius in epiphany dreams in the sacred precinct, some exceptions to this rule show the basically heterogeneous provenience of the material: 1. a number of healings seem to be not directly connected to dreams;⁶⁸ 2. healing is not the only issue addressed: in one case, the god’s active support in a victory at the Nemean Games is the actual important information;⁶⁹ in other sections, the punishment of liars or perjurers who turn against the god⁷⁰ or mantic issues such as the recovery of a lost child or treasure are addressed.⁷¹ The latter instances bring the relevant texts into the orbit of oracular pronouncements, a fact which leads Renberg to distinguish between (conventional) therapeutic and (exceptional) divinatory incubations.⁷² It would be more adequate to say that the two modes go hand in hand in the mind of the compilers of the inscriptions: to prescribe a cure is essentially no different from prophesying the future under terms; 3. some recorded ‘miracles’ relate geographically to places beyond Epidaurus;⁷³ 4. sometimes it is not the god, but an animal that undertakes the cure. While snakes ˗being Asclepius’ attributes and companions˗ are scarcely surprising in these contexts, straying dogs are certainly remarkable, if only for reasons of hygiene and (religious) purity.⁷⁴ Normally, the dreamer himself can decipher his dream. Exceptionally, he needs to consult a professional.⁷⁵ A proxy can replace a consulting patient. Thus, the mother performs the incubation ritual in Epidaurus, while her ailing

 B 5; cf. Edelstein 2, 150 n. 23; Ar. Pl. 633˗744; Max. Tyr. Philosoph. 9.7; Aristid. 48.32 for the interplay of waking and oneiric phenomena, cf. Barrenechea 2016, 267.  Renberg 2017, 226˗229.  A 5, 10, 16, 20, 22; B 5, 6, 13, 23; C 1, 4.  B 9.  A 7, C 4.  B 4; C 2, with Herzog 1931, 112˗123.  Renberg 2017, 21˗30, cf. also ibid. 175 n. 123.  A 10 (‘near the 10 stadia stone’), B 3 (Troizen, with Renberg 2017, 124 n. 26), B 5 (Corni), B 13 (Halieis), C 4 (Tegea), C 5 (Troizen), C 22 (unspecified private bathroom).  A 17 (snake), A 19 (dog), B 6 (dog), C 1, C 2, C 15 (snake? mutilated); cf. Renberg 2017, 215 n. 239.  C 3.

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daughter stays in Sparta. When the mother returns, her daughter is cured.⁷⁶ The idea of a proxy is not foreign to incubation rituals elsewhere, where the priest or an acquaintance may take on the role of an incubant.⁷⁷ Most notably perhaps, Aelius Aristides sends his foster father Zosimus to Colophon/Clarus to consult the oracle on his behalf.⁷⁸ The most important conclusion from incubations by proxy, which are widespread in the ancient world both geographically and chronologically, is that their practitioners consider dream divination to be just as ‘objective’ as oracular forms of divination, provided that the divine message is transmitted accurately.⁷⁹ What is the point of the Epidaurian inscriptions? The inscriptions restate and redefine the concept of Asclepius’ divinity by representing his success story. Unlike the traditional Olympians, Asclepius is a new god, and therefore does not possess a developed mythology to back up his claims to authority and worship. His first appearances in myth are found in drama towards the end of the fifth century BCE.⁸⁰ Indeed, he is conceptually closer to a physician˗hero than to the Olympians, as is shown by the fact that ˗like heroes, but unlike fully˗fledged gods such as his companion and predecessor at the spot, Apollo Maleatas˗ he is scarcely ever specified by epithets before the Roman period (when he adopts some of Apollo’s epithets). I am not the first to suggest that in an attempt to compensate for the almost complete absence of Asclepius in Greek myth, the Epidaurian inscriptions aspire to fill this conceptual gap with epiphanic aretalogies (which are in fact the first such epiphanic aretalogies on record, and are functionally similar to the later Isis˗aretalogies);⁸¹ they thus attempt to elevate Asclepius’ status to the rank of an Olympian with a view to creating and tightening the solidarity of the worshippers of the new god Asclepius by creating a ‘collective’ memory of his divine deeds. Remarkably, no comparable iamata are attested from Attica, although it has been persuasively suggested that votive incubation reliefs serve the same aretalogical ends in a purely visual form.⁸² Furthermore, if proof was needed, Wealth’s incubation therapy in Aristophanes’ homonymous comedy shows that the concept and custom is well˗known ˗and parodied˗ in Athens already in the classical

      

B 1, with Von Ehrenheim 2015, 96 f. Von Ehrenheim 2015, 96 f.; Renberg 2003, 260˗262; Dillon, M. P. J. 1994, 249 f. Aristid. 49.12. For incubation by proxy, see extensively Renberg 2017, 613˗620. Allan 2004, 137 f. E. g. Barrenechea 2016, 256; Chaniotis 1988, 22 f. al. Barrenechea 2018, 78˗80; Barrenechea 2016, 269˗271.

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period.⁸³ In the long run, Asclepius’ ascent is crowned with astonishing success: in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica, Asclepius rules supreme.⁸⁴ In the slightly earlier Aristides, Asclepius has ascended to the top of the Olympian hierarchy by adopting various henotheistic features. The first such features are traceable already in the Epidaurian inscriptions.⁸⁵ Harris has doubted the historicity of the Epidaurian healing records by applying his own set of criteria of real dream accounts.⁸⁶ Judged by such criteria, Harris is right, but this insight misses the point, because the inscriptions are not intended as a historical record anyway, but as epigraphic ‘commercials’ to promote the new god. However, their lack of ‘historicity’ does not make them less valuable for our understanding of Greek mentality: Like modern commercials, they reveal the expectations of the customers as well as the situation on the healing market. In fact, the inscriptions themselves point to a highly competitive milieu. For instance, one inscription connects an Epidaurian incubation experience with the foundation of the cult of Asclepius at Halieis, another with the (already existing) sanctuary at Troizen.⁸⁷ There are other healing sanctuaries, most of them presumably Epidaurus’ own offshoots.⁸⁸ To corroborate Epidaurus’ claim to superiority, the inscriptions showcase the god’s success story and the sanctuary’s panhellenic recognition, given that its visitors hail from all over the Greek world.⁸⁹

Private Inscriptions Plato writes about the contemporary practice of the foundation of private cults after epiphanic experiences: ‘… And the terror they experience when they see apparitions (φάσματα) either in dreams or awake ˗because they remember many visions in exactly the same manner˗ drives them to seek remedy for each individually, with the result that on open spaces or any other spot where something like that happened to them they found the altars and shrines that fill every home and village’.⁹⁰ What are ‘apparitions’ (φάσματα)? Petridou in her chapter on phasma

       

Ar. Pl. 627˗759 with Barrenechea 2018, 69˗106; Barrenechea 2016, 261 f. Cf. Artem. 2.34. On all this extensively Versnel 2011, 400˗421. Harris 2009, 107 f. B 13 (Halieis), B 3 (Troizen), with Renberg 2017, 124 n. 26. Cf. Renberg 2017, 178˗182. Cf. Dillon, M. P. J. 1994, 243 f. Pl. Lg. 910 A.

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epiphanies points out that the word denotes anthropomorphic, teratomorphic or amorphic phenomena,⁹¹ and that the phenomenon is particularly frequent in martial contexts in historiography and biography.⁹² This should make us suspicious: after all, ancient historians and biographers could simply clarify the sense by saying ‘epiphanies’. It seems that by employing the word φάσμα, historicizing authors avoid committing themselves or even suggest that the ‘apparitions’ are de facto invented. With regard to dreams, Plato’s statement is clear and uncontentious. Time and again, epiphanic dreams are mentioned in the inscriptions as the driving force of dedications. It is their epiphanic (and markedly not sign) character that allows the dreamer to identify the divine source and thus show his gratitude to a particular deity through his dedication. In Renberg’s collection of the Greek and Latin inscriptions that are erected after some divine order, some 450 refer explicitly to dream commands (ex iussu = κατ’ ὄναρ/ὄνειρον etc. inscriptions). Although Versnel and Renberg argue that only in those cases in which a dream is explicitly mentioned can we be certain about the exact form of divine communication, this large number combined with the virtual absence of any reference to other forms of divine communication strongly suggests ˗although it does not prove˗ that all these inscriptions are provoked by epiphany dreams.⁹³ To support this view, let us here remember the conventional exhortative function of epiphany dreams. Epiphany dreams ˗unlike sign dreams˗ allow a recipient not only to identify the deity with certainty but also to respond ‘adequately’ (e.g. by erecting a dedication and relevant inscription) to the (clear) divine message. Both the language and the general set˗up of the inscriptions are notoriously simple and unambitious, a plain expression of gratitude to the god for his help, almost exclusively in prose. The process is entirely patterned.⁹⁴ Ex˗iussu˗inscriptions form a genre on a minimalistic level. Some longer inscriptions featuring epiphanic dreams illustrate this practice throughout the ages. To begin with, a metrical inscription from the city wall of Priene, dating to the second half of the fourth century BCE, informs us that Phi-

 Petridou 2015, 64˗71, esp. 67.  Petridou 2015, 64 f.: ‘In fact, ancient Greek historiography and biography are rife with epiphanies of gods and heroes that manifest themselves in war in the form of a phasma and assist the belligerent Greek city states’.  Versnel 1987, 48 f.; taken up by Renberg 2003, 17 f.  Exceptionally, on Renberg’s counting, among these 450 inscriptions, 13 are epigrams (which normally offer a more elaborate, and informative text), of which 5 record epiphany dreams, cf. Renberg 2010, 35, 42, also explaining the small ratio of metrical texts among the epigraphic dossier.

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lius of Cyrene has erected a statue in a niche of the city wall after three consecutive dream apparitions of Naulochus (a local hero), Demeter, and Core.⁹⁵ Or there is the inscription of Aristichus, who in the first half of the third century BCE offers a statue of himself to Apollo Ptoeus in Boeotia, after a nocturnal apparition of the god that is described in detail.⁹⁶ Add to these texts an inscription of one Artemidorus, a foreigner from Perge, who builds a sanctuary on Thera in the third century BCE and adds an altar to Homonoia (Harmony) ‘following a dream’ (κατ’ ἐνύπνιον).⁹⁷ It is towards the end of the third century BCE, as we learn from a famous second˗century BCE inscription from Delos, that Apollonius, the grandson of the homonymous founder of the Delian Sarapis cult, is instructed by Sarapis in a dream to abandon the hired room in which the cult has hitherto been performed, and to erect a temple.⁹⁸ Also the ‘testament of Epicrates’ (first century CE),⁹⁹ from an unknown Lydian city and now in the Museum of Manisa, regulates in detail the establishment of the hero cult of Diophantus by his father Epicrates, including a detailed description of the extensive land endowments of the new cult, administrative regulations of the fund and funerary provisions of the testator and his family. In order to justify his generosity, the pious father claims that he is induced not only by paternal love but by ‘dreams, signs and appearances of the hero who approached me often in clear shape (asking) that he receives estates for himself’.¹⁰⁰ The erection of relevant inscriptions is thereby first of all an act of piety, and only then of self˗display. Its symbolic importance increases, the greater the offering: for ex˗iussu˗dedications suggest modest financial means and piety on the part of the devotee, while they also signify benevolence on the part of the deity (so that it sends, often repeatedly, epiphanic dreams in the first place). Most of the afore˗mentioned inscriptions are certainly placed where they could be seen by many visitors, for instance, Philius’ statue is placed in a niche of the Prienian city wall directly next to one of the three city gates.¹⁰¹

 Renberg 2010, 43 f.; Blümel/Merkelbach/Rumscheid 2014, I, no. 195 (pp. 393 f.), with commentary.  Renberg 2010, 46 f.; SEG 53.454 (Acraephia).  IG XII 3 suppl. 1336; Harris 2009, 167; Renberg 2003, 412 (no. 171); Weber 1998, 27 f.  IG XI 4.1299, Engelmann 1975 (edition with commentary), cf. in general McLean 1996, 205˗213 (with translation of IG XI 4.1299); for the charge of the lawsuit, see also the discussion in Siard 1998, 477˗483.  Herrmann/Polatkan 1969, for the dating, 22 f.  Herrmann/Polatkan 1969, 10 ll. 32˗36.  Renberg 2010, 43 f.; Blümel/Merkelbach/Rumscheid 2014, I, no. 195 (pp. 393 f.), with commentary.

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Inscriptions documenting or implying epiphany dream experiences are ubiquitous in the ancient world. However, when it comes to the evidence of waking epiphanies in private inscriptions, the situation changes radically. Among the more than 600 Greek ex˗iussu˗inscriptions collected by Renberg 2003, only one refers explicitly to a waking vision (in contrast to dream ‘commands’).¹⁰² This second˗century CE text is exceptional on all accounts: 1. the findspot is the Forum Romanum; 2. the epiphanic god is Pan, who, as we learn from the text, has saved a certain Hyginus from ‘grave’ illness by approaching him and being present at all his sacrifices in person. Pan is not a normal healing god even in Greece, indeed, rather the opposite,¹⁰³ and he is generally not a common recipient of worship in Rome; 3. the text consists of three elaborate elegiac couplets couched in the epic ‘Kunstsprache’. According to Renberg, among the 450 relevant Greek inscriptions, only 13 are composed in elegiacs;¹⁰⁴ 4. apart from the epiphany and a ‘serious’ illness, we remain in the dark about the circumstances and the occasion. Perhaps the text is originally composed not in Rome and not for this purpose, but as a literary epigram by a Greek poet for a different context. Apart from this idiosyncratic piece from Rome, I could detect only one other private inscription which may refer to a waking experience, although other interpretations are conceivable: I am referring to a second˗century CE inscription from Didyma, in which Alexandra, priestess of Demeter, turns to Didymaean Apollo with the words: Good Fortune: Alexandra, priestess of Demeter Thesmophoros asks: Since from the time when she assumed the office of priestess never have the gods been so manifest through their appearances (ἐνφανεῖς δι’ ἐπιστάσεων), partly through maidens and women, partly through men and children, why is this and is it auspicious? The god replies: Immortals accompany mortals … and make known both the(ir) will and honor … (broken off)’.¹⁰⁵

I am taking the expression ἐνφανεῖς δι’ ἐπιστάσεων in the sense that Alexandra had waking epiphanies, while other scholars maintain that these are dream epiphanies, and others again argue that it is not Alexandra who had the visions, but the maidens and women.¹⁰⁶ The inscription belongs to the sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros, which lies a short distance outside Miletus.¹⁰⁷ The reader

 Renberg 2010, 48 f.  Cf. the Didymaean oracle quoted by Porphyry, according to which the mere sight of the god struck dead a group of woodcutters, Fontenrose 1988, no. 45 = Porph. 307F Smith.  Renberg 2010, 48 f.  Fontenrose 1988, no. 22 = I.Did. 496 A.  For the use of ἐπίστασις here, see Robert 11/12, 544 n. 5, on whom Petridou 2015a, 329 f.  I.Did. 496 A with Rehm’s commentary.

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is asked to believe that epiphanies can be triggered by the assumption of the office of a priest, whereby a god may appear in any human form in terms of gender and age, but (implicitly) not in his/her own shape. The question how exactly Alexandra identifies the deity behind the human disguise remains unanswered. The few extant words of the subsequent oracular response inform us about two general functions of these epiphanies in Apollo’s view, namely conveyance of the divine will and honor of the human recipient.¹⁰⁸ Robert and others take the inscription as evidence for a wide˗spread religious anxiety typical of the second and third centuries CE.¹⁰⁹ But if so, why are waking epiphanies virtually never mentioned in private inscriptions? Besides, by inscribing her epiphanic experience, the priestess primarily documents the ‘honor’ which the gods lavish upon her by granting her direct communication. To support this aspect of self˗representation, one may point to another oracular response, written on the same anta block in exactly the same epigraphic ductus but belonging to a different occasion, in which the oracular god praises the same priestess as someone ‘who appears to have sought the goal of a principled way of life and to have performed the rites of Eumolpus with secret devotional honor’.¹¹⁰ In a word, Alexandra does not miss an opportunity for self˗aggrandizement. One might even doubt that the epiphanies are connected to Alexandra in her capacity as a priestess of Demeter at all. For it is not only Demeter and/or Persephone that have appeared to Alexandra. Rather, the inscription speaks uncommittedly of ‘gods’. One would expect the text to be more specific, if only the two goddesses were meant. To summarize, official epiphanic representations in stone serve to legitimize a change or continuity of the status quo of the local pantheon. It is only Artemis Leucophryene in person that can establish a new festival and asylia for her sanctuary in Magnesia˗on˗the˗Maeander. Or take the epiphany accounts of Athena Lindia, which are primarily directed against an encroachment from Helios, official high˗god of the capital of Rhodes, and perhaps other gods that come with changing political conditions under Roman rule; finally, Zeus Panamarus’ ‘epiphany’ serves to highlight the power of this idiosyncratic Stratonicean form of Zeus, apparently intended to serve as the ‘argument’ in order to confer honors upon the god by public decree (and thus reinforce his ritual status quo). Last, but not least, Epidaurian Asclepius challenges such status quo on his arrival  Cf. Petridou 2015a, 325˗330, who speaks in this connection of theophilia, a ‘status˗elevating and agency˗enhancing mechanism’.  Robert, Hellenica 11/12, 543˗546.  Fontenrose 1988, no. 23 = I.Did. 496 B with Rehm’s commentary.

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to the Greek pantheon in the fifth century BCE. As a protagonist of his iamata he must compete with the other traditional gods whose myths/aretalogies bulk large since Homer. Besides this, as an Epidaurian he must compete with other local forms of Asclepius, virtually all of them derived from Epidaurus. Three textual genres focus on aetiological epiphanies, namely the narrative Homeric Hymns, Pausanias’ Periegesis and epigraphical representations of epiphanies. The first have numerous epiphanic representations but no dreams, Pausanias has both, while inscriptions have dreams or ˗as in the case of the Stratonicean Zeus˗ (weather˗) signs. This general distribution (with a few exceptions) is due to the fact that the events of the Homeric Hymns are set in the mythical period, Pausanias has both mythical and ‘historical’ stories, while with the exception of the Lindian Chronicle inscriptions are normally concerned with (near) contemporary history. Among private inscriptions I could identify only two exceptions out of hundreds of texts, both imperial (one from Rome, the other from Didyma), in which waking epiphanies are explicitly mentioned in inscriptions. Most likely, there are more. But their number will still be negligible in relation to the vast epigraphic dossier referring explicitly to dream epiphanies or signs. The Epidaurian iamata are most likely based on private dream accounts (oral or written) connected with votive offerings that are at some early stage displayed in the sanctuary’s precincts. Later, but before the end of the fourth century BCE, these private dream accounts are collected and edited by local officials of the sanctuary for a very different purpose, namely to construct an ‘aretalogy’ of their hitherto ‘mythless’ god Asclepius. However, this is a secondary employment of these texts, the bulk of which starts generically as dedicatory inscriptions, and thus does not contradict the general observation that epiphany dreams are the métier of private votive inscriptions which record individual dream experiences and the responses to them by the dreamer (e. g., votive offerings). In a word, epigraphic genres too reveal a wide˗spread conviction that gods do not appear in human shape (be it disguised or undisguised) in the human lifeworld, but (rarely) through signs (and then often called ‘epiphanies’) or most commonly through dreams. The evidence from official and private inscriptions for an ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of the Greeks is virtually non˗existent. What there is, is a ‘dream˗mindedness’. This result ties in with the results in the earlier ‘historical’ chapters of this book. Perhaps more surprisingly, it will also be confirmed by the next chapter on the erotic novel, whose fictional frame would allow for more ‘unrealistic’ or ‘epiphany˗friendly’ settings, but nevertheless still prefers divinatory dreams to epiphanies.

Erotic Novel In its generic ambiguity, the (erotic) novel shares a similar fate with other prose˗genres such as ancient (auto˗)biography, Pausanias’ Periegesis or Lucian’s satire: the ancients do not categorize fictional prose texts as an independent genre.¹ Also modern scholars are sometimes sceptical about the novel’s generic credentials. Whitmarsh remarks: ‘… “the novel” is impossible to define generically with any precision: in its most capacious sense it simply means an extended fictional story in prose’.² Slightly later, he recapitulates: ‘We simply cannot define novels in the way that we can tragedies or lyric poems, because they have no defining formal properties’. A few scholars have been equally sceptical, or even denied that the novel is a genre at all.³ Nevertheless, despite such disclaimers, most critics deal with the (erotic) novel alongside other genres. Whitmarsh himself defends the application of the term in his 2013 monograph and even earlier (2008), as the editor of the Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel, ‘so long as we use the concept flexibly’.⁴ In fact, if we restrict ourselves to the erotic novelists (Chariton, Xenophon Ephesius, Achilles Tatius, Longus, Heliodorus), whose works are conventionally dated from the first (Charitonas) to the third or perhaps fourth century CE (Heliodorus),⁵ the contents show numerous common features: these include the high descent of the two lovers, which is at some point concealed and then triumphantly revealed towards the end of the plot; the entirely Greek setting despite the fact that some scenes may play outside the Greek world; heterosexuality as a matter of course (this perhaps under the influence of Roman customs or law); the mandatory happy end; and the largely domestic setting of many scenes of the novel, which place it in the proximity of New Comedy.⁶ Besides, like New Comedy, the erotic novel poses as fiction without being entirely ‘fictitious’: for its fictional narrative is always emplotted in a largely realistic historical and topographic frame. In fact, it

 Whitmarsh 2018, 16 f.; Pinheiro 2014, 202 f.; Goldhill 2008, 190 f.  Whitmarsh 2018, xii.  Goldhill 2008, 200.  Whitmarsh 2013, 13 f.; Whitmarsh 2008, 4.  For their dating, cf. Pinheiro 2014, 205; Whitmarsh 2011, 261˗264.  Cf. Whitmarsh 2018, xi on the cultural perspectives of the novel: ‘This genre is typically associated in the scholarly literature with three cultural forces: the reassertion of traditional aristocratic, dynastic values (since the protagonists are almost always members of the leading families in the city); the expression of a Hellenic world view, which associates civilization exclusively with Greek speaking communities within the traditional, classical city˗state; and a normative heterosexuality, which puts marriage at the ideological heart of the city’. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-013

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often verges on pseudo˗history and adopts the plausibility criteria of critical history, shunning thereby representations of (visible) epiphanies but not of epiphany and sign dreams.⁷ A peculiar stylistic trait is the relatively frequent employment of human epiphanizations, in which a mortal is represented in an epiphanic mode as ‘god˗like’ as far as his or her appearance is concerned.

Epiphanies Had there ever been an ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ of the Greeks, the novel would be the place to look for it, thanks to its loose connection ˗though not slavish indebtedness˗ to the lifeworld reality. Instead, except for Longus, what we find are a few scattered epiphanic representations with the normal stylistic markers of self˗distancing that serve as quite inconsequential ad˗hoc devices to create mystification or humour. By contrast, epiphany and sign dreams are employed with remarkable consistency for clearly definable dramaturgic ends, both structurally and functionally. We can quickly survey the material of lifeworld epiphanies of other novelists before we look at Longus’ epiphanies in some depth. It should be stressed at the outset that the lifeworld epiphanies mentioned below are never represented as a ‘matter of fact’, but are ‘reported’ by a protagonist. As in the historical genres, epiphanies occur only in the anecdotal mode, i. e. from hearsay. Xenophon Ephesius has no epiphanies at all. Achilles Tatius employs an epiphany to reverse the flow of events, similar to reversal epiphanies in Greek drama: the first˗person narrator Cleitophon reports from hearsay that Artemis appears in battle (a typical battle epiphany) and leads the Byzantines to victory against the Thracians, all this in order to motivate the dispatchment of a religious embassy of Sostratus, the heroine’s father, from Byzantium to the main theatre of action, Ephesus.⁸ This epiphany may be compared to the reversal epiphanies of drama, where a deity interferes with the ‘natural’ flow of events in order to turn around the plot and bring closure. In Chariton, some locals believe they have seen Aphrodite in the fields around Miletus,⁹ and visitors testify to epiphanies at her (historical) Milesian shrine.¹⁰ But this is Aphrodite, the goddess

 For the link between the novel and historiography, cf. Whitmarsh 2018, 26 f.; Lefteratou 2018, 11 f.; Whitmarsh 2013, 23˗25.  Ach.Tat. 7.12, cf. 8.18; cf. Hägg 2002, 56.  Char. 1.14.  Char. 2.2, 3.6.

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of the guiding theme of the novel, namely, love, and besides this, no details are given. Furthermore, despite its exceptional length, I can locate only one epiphanic scene in Heliodorus’ romance, and this one is clearly written with a pinch of salt: Calasiris reports to Cnemon, the Athenian, how he is put in charge of Charicleia and Theagenes by Artemis and Apollo in their epiphany to him in Delphi. Calasiris is explicit about the fact that this is a waking epiphany, not a dream.¹¹ The naive Cnemon is fascinated with this epiphany report and asks to hear more. Calasiris refers him to Homer, saying that the gods are easily recognizable by their tokens, at least for the sages, who recognize gods even in disguise: ‘the gods and divinities (θεοὶ καὶ δαίμονες) visit us and depart from us, Cnemon, they seldom take the form of other creatures but frequently that of humans; this similitude has greater effect upon our imagination (τῷ ὁμοίῳ πλέον ἡμὰς εἰς τὴν φαντασίαν ὑπαγόμενοι)’.¹² Cnemon feels that he has just been initiated by Calasiris (the Egyptian) (με … μεμύηκας), and addresses him as ‘most divine’ (θειότατε).¹³ The scene is humoristic and does not suggest any particular ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ on the part either of the protagonists of the plot or the narrator. In Longus, Eros, the Nymphs and Pan rule supreme, and references to them bracket the plot in the form of a ring composition.¹⁴ The interventions of Eros, ‘who is clearly in control of the events of the novel’¹⁵ (similar to Pan in Menander’s Dyskolos), are frequent, most notably his epiphany to Philetas.¹⁶ Dramaturgically, Philetas ˗a name with strong literary associations¹⁷˗ is introduced at this point for the sole purpose of chattering about his midday encounter with Eros. Longus could have confronted the two lovers directly with an epiphanic Eros. Nevertheless, despite his ubiquitous presence, nowhere does Eros address Daphnis and Chloe directly. ¹⁸ To the two lovers, Eros remains an intrusive, mysterious, remote and unpredictable force in their controlled bucolic environment. Against earlier scholars who see here a religious dimension, I fully agree with Bowie, who argues that Eros in the novel is a mere dramaturgic device: ‘Eros’ function is not to receive cult but to act as a script˗writer for the plot …’.¹⁹ In this regard,

 Hel. 3.11˗13, esp. 3.12 (‘real vision and no mere dream’); for Calasiris’ characterization, e. g. Dowden 2015, esp. 9˗11; Billault 2015.  Hel. 3.13.  Hel. 3.14.  Cf. Long. Prol., 4.39.  Hunter 1983, 31.  Long. 2.4˗8 with Hägg 2002, 58 f.  For Philetas, Bowie, E. 2015, 74 f.  E. Bowie, private communication.  Bowie, E. 2019, 9.

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his function in the novel may be compared to his role in Apollonius Rhodius, where he initiates the ˗unlikely˗ liaison between Jason and Medeia with his characteristic cunning.²⁰ Pan in Longus does not appear in person. After the capture by the Methymnian sailors of Chloe, his presence is alluded to through signs such as light visions, deafening noise, miraculous growing of ivy on the horn of the cattle, howling sheep; Chloe miraculously appears crowned with a pine; the anchor is stuck; the oars break; dolphins attack and, to clinch the issue of divine intervention, a pipe (turned into a trumpet or cornet, i. e. battle instruments) sounds. Nevertheless, it is only when Pan appears to the captain in an epiphany dream, ordering the return of the cattle and Chloe’s release, that the reason for these miraculous events becomes clear.²¹ Such a catalogue of miracles is conspicuously similar to the lists in Roman historiography of portents that require atonement. Functionally, it is quite unrelated to series of miracles such as those in Euripides’ Bacchae, which replace the aretalogy of an otherwise virtually ‘mythless’ Dionysus. Aphrodite is strikingly absent from Longus’ account. She appears only twice, in unequivocally mythological references (the judgment of Paris/her liaison with Anchises).²² Her absence from Longus’ bucolic world is all the more striking if we compare other novelists, most of all Chariton, whose work is practically a homage to the love goddess. Although we can only guess at the reasons for this authorial choice, it may lie in ritual and mythological connotations. Aphrodite is an Olympian, Eros is not; Aphrodite is Homeric, Eros is not; Aphrodite has important cults all over Asia Minor, Eros has not. Besides this, perhaps, Eros is felt to be more ‘bucolic’ than Aphrodite, who may have been considered to be more ‘epic’ or ‘hymnic’ in virtue of her role in Homer and texts such as the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (5). Longus employs clear signs to indicate the presence of another god, without representing him in a directly epiphanic mode, namely Dionysus. While the god appears nowhere in person nor communicates for that matter, he is nevertheless present throughout the novel, and especially in book 4. For instance, his beautiful beardless appearance is mentioned,²³ as are festivals (both private and public),²⁴ and a shrine of Dionysus in Lamo’s garden is an important setting in the

 Apollonius’ Eros constitutes a playful combination of epiphany and allegory reminiscent of Sappho’s Aphrodite. Eros’ approach to Medea and the shot with his love˗arrow are described in detail, although he is said to be ‘invisible’ (ἄφαντος). A.R. 3.275˗298.  Long. 2.25˗29.  Long. 3.34, 4.17.  Long. 1.16.  Long. 2.2, 3.9˗11.

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fourth book, about which I shall have more to say below.²⁵ One should notice that thanks to his physical proximity, it is Dionysus who is in charge of the garden, not, as one might expect, the Nymphs or Pan: thus when Lampis destroys it, Lamon blames Dionysus (and not Pan or the Nymphs) for his ‘indifference’.²⁶ Dionysus’ indirect visibility goes further. The owner of Dionysus’ temple and surrounding garden is characteristically called Dionysophanes. Given his name, he may at times be interpreted as ‘epiphany of Dionysus’ (after all, his name may be interpreted as ‘who appears as Dionysus’) or at least as a priest of the god. At any rate, the writer plays on the ambiguity of the theophoric name.²⁷ The marked presence of Dionysus in the novel led Merkelbach to locate its ‘Sitz im Leben’ in the community of a Dionysiac mystery cult. Merkelbach’s ‘community’ has never gained much support, but his daring postulate conceals the fact that one central theme of all extant novels, namely erotic initiation, may evoke sentiments similar to those experienced by the adepts of mystery cults during or after their spiritual ‘rebirth’.²⁸

Dreams Dreams in the extant erotic novels serve clearly defined dramaturgic ends in two ways, structurally and functionally. Structurally, they often mark pivotal points of the plot. There is no better example than Longus: Daphnis and Chloe begins with two dreams of the bucolic foster˗fathers of the two protagonists, Dryas and Lamon, and ends with the dreams of their urban real fathers, namely Dionysophanes and Megacles. Apparently, all four dreams are sent by the Nymphs, who coordinate the plot no less than Eros.²⁹ There are other cases of dreams at strategic positions of the plot in Chariton³⁰ and Xenophon.³¹ As for function, epiphanic dreams in the novel are exhortative, i. e. they initiate an action, while sign dreams are anticipatory, i. e. predicting or foreshadowing an action.³² While this distinction is applicable ˗and has been applied in this

       

Long. 4.3, 8, 13, 25. For ‘epiphanic ecphrases,’ see pp. 212-214. Long. 4.8. Bowie, E. 2015, 72˗74; Hunter 1983, 38. Merkelbach 1962, 192˗224. Long. 1.7, 4.35. Zeitlin 2003, 75˗77. Bierl 2006, 83 (= 4.2). Whitmarsh 2011, 198˗204.

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book˗ to the bulk of dream accounts in various different genres, it is most manifest in the erotic novel, where it is maintained with almost absolute consistency.

Epiphany Dreams Chariton has three epiphany dreams, and all are exhortative: Aphrodite appears to Callirhoe in a dream, apparently summoning her to the temple.³³ Moreover, an image (εἰκών) of Chaireas appears at Callirhoe’s bedside and orders her to keep their son.³⁴ Finally, Artaxerxes claims to have had an epiphany dream in which the royal gods appeared to him and asked for sacrifices.³⁵ This is just a ruse in order to delay the departure of Callirhoe (with whom Artaxerxes is infatuated). Achilles Tatius employs epiphany dreams for exhortative ends, this time with Olympian gods as dream figures. At the beginning of the fourth book, in the exact middle of the work, Artemis appears to Leucippe in an epiphany dream, instructing her to remain chaste and assuring her of her salvation; simultaneously, Aphrodite appears to Cleitophon, again in a epiphany dream, asking for patience in order to ensure a happy end.³⁶ All epiphany dreams in Longus are exhortative too. First, the nymphs appear to Daphnis asking him not to lose courage and to show himself to his foster˗father and foster˗mother so that they know he is alive.³⁷ Then Pan appears to Bryaxis, the commander of the Methymnians, and asks for Chloe’s immediate release.³⁸ Lycaenium claims to have been instructed by the Nymphs to initiate Daphne into the art of love.³⁹ The Nymphs appear to Daphnis again and describe where to find a purse from the Methymnians’ stranded ship so that he can buy a present for Daphne.⁴⁰ They also emerge ˗together with Eros˗ in a dream to Dionysophanes, preparing for the ultimate recognition scene and wedding party.⁴¹

 By playful inversion, the latter takes the beautiful Callirhoe for an epiphany of the goddess of love herself, Char. 2.3.  Chariton (quoting two Homeric verses) explicitly moulds the passage on the apparition to Achilles of the ghost of Patroclus in the Iliad, with one notable difference: Patroclus is already dead at that point, see Char. 2.9 (cf. 2.11) with Il. 23.65˗107; Auger 1983, 47 f. For Homer in Chariton, see Tilg 2010, 141˗146.  Char. 6.2.  Ach.Tat. 4.1.  Long. 2.23.  Long. 2.26 f.  Long. 3.17.  Long. 3.27.  Long. 4.34.

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With one exception (Pan), it is virtually always the Nymphs in Longus that appear in dreams and thus ‘steer on’ the plot towards the happy end.

Sign Dreams Unlike epiphany dreams, whose contents ˗instructions uttered by the dream figure˗ are normally clear, sign dreams must first be interpreted to yield a message, and all interpretation of signs is notoriously fallible. In fact, it is often this potential fallibility that makes sign dreams attractive to many literary contexts. The basic assumption of all sign dreams in the Greek novel is expressed by one of Chariton’s characters: ‘what you dream is what will happen in reality (ὄναρ – ὕπαρ)’.⁴² As for their divine origin, Achilles Tatius is instructive: ‘The daimonion sometimes foreshadows the future to men in [scil. sign] dreams, not so that they take precautions not to suffer (for they cannot constrain fate, εἱμαρμένη), but that they accept their suffering more patiently’.⁴³ In principle, the veracity of sign dreams is a given, even if the correct interpretation is not immediately obvious. A marked exception to this rule may be Cleitophon’s sign dream at the beginning of Leucippe and Cleitophon, which seems to predict what will not come to pass in the long run, i. e. his marriage to his half˗sister Calligone.⁴⁴ In Chariton, sign dreams forebode the arrival of, or encounter with, a new character: Leonas, the steward of Dionysius, is informed by a dream that he will purchase Callirhoe for his master,⁴⁵ and Dionysius has a dream foreboding Callirhoe’s appearance in his life.⁴⁶ Shortly before her encounter with Chaireas, Callirhoe dreams of their wedding day.⁴⁷ More than other novelists, Chariton presupposes a substantial knowledge about dream interpretation on the part of both his protagonists and readers. This explains why Theron’s allegorical vision of ‘locked doors,’ which leads to the postponement of his voyage (and thus his encounter with Leonas) is apparently supposed not to cause further interpretative problems to either of them (while the modern reader needs to consult Artemidorus).⁴⁸ Normally, sign dreams can be easily deciphered by the protagonists

 Char. 5.5 (cf. 2.1 with the same antonomy), cf. Auger 1983; Saïd 1997, 368 f.  Ach.Tat. 1.3.  Ach.Tat. 1.3; Whitmarsh 2011, 201.  Char. 1.12.  Char. 2.1.  Char. 5.5.  Cf. Char. 1.12 with MacAlister 1996, 39˗41; Auger 1983, 42 n. 28; Artemidorus is hardly the ‘source’ of Chariton. Rather, both authors draw on common dream knowledge.

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and the reader, ancient and modern alike. This is not contradicted when Callirhoe sees Chaireas’ vicissitudes in her dreams twice and wrongly concludes each time that Chaireas is dead.⁴⁹ In either case, the dream is a faithful undisguised vision of the events (as the reader knows well), but Callirhoe is first of all misinformed,⁵⁰ then panic˗stricken and thus unable to accept the obvious/literal meaning. Xenophon employs three sign˗dreams, and ˗predictably˗ these are anticipatory.⁵¹ In all three dreams (silent) human˗shaped figures appear, who forebode developments of the plot, first an unidentified superhuman figure, appearing to Habrocomes, and pointing to Habrocomes’ and Anthia’s salvation from shipwreck and fire set by the dream figure;⁵² then Habrocomes’ father Lycomedes, who wears black and emerges before Habrocomes, suggesting his own death and Habrocomes’ release from prison and wanderings.⁵³ If we consider the extant text an abridged version of Xenophon’s original novel, it is conceivable that some of the ‘original’ three dream figures spoke to the dream recipient.⁵⁴ Such an address would also imply a change from the anticipatory to the exhortative mode. One dream passage remains unexplained. Anthia dreams of an unidentified rival. This rival looks strange at this point, because no such rival is mentioned in the remaining narrative. The latter dream may reflect Anthia’s general anxiety (= anxiety dream) or point to earlier, rather than subsequent, attempts of seduction by female admirers of Habrocomes, although no such adventures are on record in the extant version thereafter.⁵⁵ If, by contrast, we consider Xenophon’s extant work an abridgment, this dream may be a vestige of a fuller version of the text in which it was then followed by another erotic adventure of Habrocomes.

 Char. 3.7, 4.1.  In Phocas’ report at Char. 3.10 Chaireas’ death is (wrongly) implied.  For the three dreams in Xenophon see Oikonomou 2011; Bierl 2006, 82˗85 (= 4.1˗4.5); Plastira˗Valkanou 2001.  Xen. Eph. 1.12.  Xen. Eph. 2.8.  Cf. Bierl 2007a, 309 f.; Bierl 2006, 78 f. (= 2.4˗2.6), discussing the question and arguing against epitomization.  Xen. Eph. 5.8.

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Heliodorus’ Divinatory Dreams In his employment of dreams, as in many other features, Heliodorus is much more sophisticated and unpredictable. We find two epiphany dreams in Heliodorus, both of which present riddled messages of the type of oracular pronouncements. Heliodorus thus violates the convention according to which epiphany dreams are plainly exhortative, i. e. conveying a lucid divine command or advice. The gang chief Thyamis, who abducts the two lover˗protagonists Charicleia and Theagenes, has a dream in which Isis appears to him and announces enigmatically (but in prose): ‘Thyamis, this maiden I deliver to you, you shall have her and not have her; you shall do wrong and slay her and not slay her, but she shall not be slain’. Thyamis offers his own interpretation: ‘The words “you shall have her and not have her” he took to mean as a wife and no longer a virgin; “you shall slay her” he guessed was a reference to the wounds of defloration, from which Charicleia would not die’. In good Heliodorian manner, Thyamis is later forced to revise or supplement his interpretation several times.⁵⁶ The second instance is a set of two parallel epiphany dreams received by the two lovers, in each of which Calasiris addresses the dreamer, pronouncing two riddled elegiac lines (alluding to or parodying, rather than imitating, Delphic hexameters). The two protagonists then attempt to decode these in a rather long dream analysis. Again, the entire set˗up, including the obscurity of the two messages, reflects oracular pronouncements. Characteristically, the message is not immediately revealed: Theagenes’ first interpretation of the two dreams is that they predict doom rather than blessing, until he is corrected by Charicleia.⁵⁷ In their mystifying ambiguity and their narrative function, Heliodorus’ sign dreams violate ˗or improve upon˗ convention. Heliodorus’ sign dreams are so ambiguous that the dreamers can only guess at their meaning, and even Heliodorus’ readership needs at times the assistance of a competent interpreter: to illustrate this point, one may refer to Charicleia’s dream of a man who strikes out her right eye. After Charicleia’s attempts to make sense of the dream, Cnemon offers the correct interpretation: Charicleia’s father (= Calasiris) will die. In order to support this interpretation, Cnemon offers a full analysis of the equation ‘parent’ = ‘eye’, as it is found, presumably not entirely by chance, in Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. ⁵⁸ Less complex, at least for the reader, is the divinatory dream in which Charicleia’s flight from Delphi at the side of Theagenes is prean Hel. 1.18, 1.30 with MacAlister 1996, 78˗81; Winkler 1982, 117 f.; Bartsch 1989, 94˗99.  Hel. 8.11, cf. 8.16 with Bartsch 1989, 104 f.  Hel. 2.16 with Saïd 1997, 378 f.; MacAlister 1996, 36˗38; Bartsch 1989, 99 f.; Winkler 1982, 115˗117; cf. Artem. 1.26 f.

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nounced to her foster˗father Charicles: an eagle released from the hand of Pythian Apollo snatches his daughter and abducts her. This is misinterpreted by Calasiris, and while the reader is in the know, there does not seem to be any plausible way for the protagonists to guess the meaning.⁵⁹ Last but not least, just like her husband king Hydaspes,⁶⁰ queen Persinna is prepared for the arrival of her daughter Charicleia by a sign dream, without recognizing its true meaning. It is up to the reader to correct Persinna’s false interpretation with the benefit of hindsight.⁶¹

Epiphanic Ecphrases Three visual elements structure the work of the novelists, namely epiphanies, dreams, and epiphanic ecphrases.⁶² While ecphrases in the sense of detailed ‘descriptions of artefacts’ of the Greek novel have concerned literary critics for some time now,⁶³ it is not normally acknowledged that some ecphrases functionally take the position of epiphanies. The best example is Longus, who presses the potential of this narrative device to the extreme, when he claims that the entire novel is in fact an interpretation/ecphrasis of a painting.⁶⁴ Within this ‘ecphrasis’ at novel length, we find another ecphrasis, namely the description of the shrine of Dionysus in Lamo’s garden, an important setting in the fourth book.⁶⁵ In the shrine, there is a painting in which Dionysiac myths are depicted, all representing scenes of the god’s epiphanies. In terms of narrative technique, the pictorial representation of the divine owner of the rural temple replaces the cult statue of Dionysus, which Longus fails to mention. In dramatic terms, the murals have the advantage over a cult statue in connoting various relevant myths.⁶⁶ Longus is not the only novelist to allude to divine presence through ecphrases. For instance, Achilles Tatius employs the ecphrasis of a work of art as an oracular response more than once: after their shipwreck, Leucippe and Cleito-

 Hel. 4.14 f.; Bartsch 1989, 103 f.  Hel. 9.25 f.  Hel. 10.3 f. with MacAlister 1996, 81 f.; Bartsch 1989, 105˗107.  Cf. Zeitlin 2003, 73 (on Chariton): ‘There are three significant visual elements that structure the composition of the work. First epiphany and its corollary, uncanny apparition; second, sculptural representations, and third dream images of various sorts …’.  Cf. Holzmeister 2014.  Long. Prol.  Long. 4.3, 8, 13, 25; cf. Holzmeister 2014, 415.  Long. 4.3.

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phon are washed ashore at Pelusium, where they consult an oracle about their two companions, Clinias and Satyrus, whom they fear to be dead. The oracular deity is Zeus Casius, who (perhaps not by chance) is modelled on Apollo in appearance and apparently also in function (as an oracular deity). Achilles describes Zeus Casius as holding a pomegranate in his hand. This iconography can be archaeologically confirmed.⁶⁷ Furthermore, the writer points out that the ‘story (logos) of the pomegranate is mystic (mystikos)’. This cryptic statement has been interpreted by some scholars ˗following information offered by Artemidorus˗ as foreshadowing Leucippe’s capture by pirates and theatrical disembowelment.⁶⁸ Be that as it may, after consulting Zeus Casius, the two lovers do not receive a direct answer.⁶⁹ Instead, they walk to the back door of the temple where they observe two paintings by ˗the fictitious?˗ artist Euanthes, which are then described in unusual detail. The structure of the passage (and the lack of an answer by Zeus Casius) suggest that it is the encounter with the paintings that is meant to be the god’s response. Both paintings represent a similar theme: an agonizing protagonist in chains (Andromeda/Prometheus) is saved by heroic intervention (Perseus/Heracles). Although one should not press the parallels too far, it is fairly obvious that both paintings represent salvation from danger, and indeed, as we learn later on, Clinias and Satyrus have been saved from drowning.⁷⁰ Whether the ‘salvation’ of Leucippe and Cleitophon is also intended to be foreboded, may be questioned: after all, in the novel, the lovers always reunite in the end and the reader would hardly need such a hint at a mandatory, positive outcome. In either case, however, it is fair to call the description of the two paintings an anticipatory epiphanic ecphrasis.⁷¹ The second prophetic ecphrasis in Achilles is explicitly marked as such.⁷² When Leucippe is about to be kidnapped by Chaireas and his pirates in Pharus, both Cleitophon and Leucippe are warned by an ambiguous bird omen, one of two in Achilles.⁷³ Unable to make sense of it, Cleitophon calls upon Zeus to clar Ach.Tat. 3.6˗8; for the ecphrasis: Holzmeister 2014, 416; for the archaeology: Bonner 1946; M. Tiverios in: LIMC VIII.1 (1997), s.v. Zeus, 336 (no. 164). Anderson holds, somewhat daringly, that ‘Casius’ is cognate to the Hebrew ‘Caphtor’ = Cappadocian/promegranate, Anderson 1979, 516 f.  Anderson 1979, 517 f.; Bartsch 1989, 61 f.  Ach.Tat. 3.6.  Ach.Tat. 3.17, 5.8.  Cf. Laplace 2007, 132˗140.  Cf. Laplace 2007, 141˗146.  An eagle snatches the prenuptial sacrifice, and thus Cleitophon’s marriage to Calligone is suspended for a day, while Cleitophon’s father consults manteis and augurs to learn what to do now, Ach.Tat. 2.12.

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ify his message, and when he turns around, he sees a painting in a workshop ‘which alludes to something similar’, i. e. the story of Philomela’s rape by Tereus (again connected to birds). In response to the painting, the knowledgeable Menelaus points out that they should not continue their journey.⁷⁴ According to him, the painting denotes ‘unlawful love, shameless adultery, women’s woes’.⁷⁵ One does not need to stretch the evidence much further: the painting forebodes only the danger of a woman’s rape, physical mutilation/killing.⁷⁶ Ultimately, it is the theme of female suffering that unites Philomela and Leucippe.

Epiphanization of Mortals We encountered the notion of epiphanization already in the Herodotean Phyeepisode and in connection with divine images (see above pp. 142-144). The protagonists of the erotic novel often bear specific, normally occasion˗bound, epiphanic features. Chariton, for instance, is very fond of such epiphanization by assimilating his female protagonists to Aphrodite, Artemis or Athena and other mythical figures.⁷⁷ For instance, he begins his novel with a description of Callirhoe as follows: ‘… she was an idol (ἄγαλμα) of all Sicily. In fact, her beauty was not so much human as divine, not that of a Nereid or mountain nymph, but of Aphrodite herself’.⁷⁸ We note the climax from Nereid and nymph to Aphrodite and the restriction to one single property, namely, unearthly beauty. Next to Chariton, and perhaps influenced by him, Xenophon has such epiphanizations, most notably when he compares Anthia, his heroine, with a goddess at the beginning of his account,⁷⁹ but also later.⁸⁰ Achilles Tatius describes his female protagonist Leucippe in divine terms.⁸¹ In Longus, then, Chloe’s appearance is compared to that of the Nymphs. And it is not by chance that the Nymphs affect her vicissitudes throughout the novel.⁸²

 Ach.Tat. 5.3 f.  Ach.Tat. 5.4.  Ach.Tat. 5.5.  E. g. Char. 1.1, 1.14, 2.3, 3.2, 3.8 f., 4.1, 4.7, 5.9, 6.3, 8.6; cf. Petridou 2015, 46 f.; Cioffi 2013, 8˗13; Bierl 2007a, 292˗298; Dickie 2004, 165˗167; Hägg 2002, 51˗56.  Char. 1.1.  Xen. Eph. 1.1 f. with Petridou 2015, 46 f.; Chioffi 2013, 13˗16.  Xen. Eph. 1.12, 2.2.  Ach.Tat. 1.4 with Cioffi 2013, 25˗29.  Long. 1.24, 4.32 f.; cf. Cioffi 2013, 23 f. Pan is conceptually closer to Daphnis, and the Nymphs to Chloe. For instance, Daphnis swears by Pan, Long. 2.39; Pan’s dalliances with nymphs find a pendant in Daphnis’ ‘encounter’ with Lycaenium, cf. Long. 2.34 [Pan with Syrinx], 3.23 [Pan with

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More than any other novelist, Heliodorus employs the rhetorical device of epiphanization with deliberate dramaturgic intent. The novel begins with a text‐book epiphanization in which Charicleia appears as Artemis to the Egyptian bandits, god-like, with an ecphrasis of her statue-like, outward features reminiscent of Homeric epiphanies.⁸³ When the author returns to the events leading up to this impressive introitus, he repeats the epiphanization.⁸⁴ After all, the entire internecine killing of the bandits is due to Charicleia’s divine beauty. Furthermore, we have a double epiphanization during the Delphic procession, in which Theagenes among the Thessalian horsemen and Charicleia as the priestess of Artemis both appear in their full god˗likeness.⁸⁵ The connection between beauty and divinity goes back to times immemorial: ‘The genre of the erotic novel takes full rhetorical advantage of the popular notion that beauty itself may be taken as evidence for divinity’.⁸⁶ However, assimilation to divinity is not tantamount to divinity. For such comparisons remain expedient rhetorical devices to represent in mandatory brevity the superhuman beauty of the female (more rarely also the male) lover. To stress the rhetorical (against a potential ‘religious’) aspect, the tertium comparationis is one particular property only, namely (situational) beauty, rarely seconded by chastity. Physical strength, authority or high intellect are irrelevant. Unlike Sappho’s allegorical Aphrodite, epiphanized deities in the erotic novel are mere shorthand proxies for extensive descriptions of (female) beauty. The reaction they provoke is not awe or fear, as divine epiphanies do, but admiration and (male) desire. Like Homeric epithets denoting divine resemblance (θεοείκελος etc.), epiphanizations in the erotic novel are in most cases hardly more than ‘figures of speech’, i. e. shortEcho], 3.15˗17 [Daphnis with Lycaenium]. Daphnis impersonates Pan during a rustic dance (elsewhere, his appearance is compared to Apollo, shepherd of Laomedon), Long. 2.37, 4.14. By contrast, Chloe swears by the nymphs, Long. 2.39; she is protected by the goddesses when she is left in the cave at her birth and during her miraculous escape from the Methymnians, Long. 1.4, 2.20, 2.23 f., 2.30; she resembles the nymphs in appearance, Long. 1.24, 4.32 f.; cf. Cioffi 2013, 23 f.; she impersonates a nymph (Syrinx) in the afore˗mentioned dance, with Pan˗Daphnis as her partner, Long. 2.37. This is not to deny that Daphnis is linked to the nymphs as well. The nymphs are attendants of Pan, and his relation to the latter thus implies a bond to the former. Besides this, earlier Greek literature ties Daphnis (and numerous other herdsmen) to the nymphs, Larson 2001, 79˗81. My point is that 1. Chloe is not tied to Pan directly (he is her conceptual adversary, whose infidelity she is well aware of) but only via Daphnis, and 2. that Daphnis ˗and never Chloe!˗ is addressed by the Nymphs (though only in a dream), Long. 2.23, 30. It is thus clear that the two lovers are not exactly equal in terms of divine favour and communication.  Hel. 1.2, with Cioffi 2013, 16˗19.  Hel. 5.28˗32, esp. 5.31.  Hel. 3.3 f.  Zeitlin 2003, 78.

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hand descriptions for the appearance of physical beauty and its impact on an observer.

Homeric Imitations Nickau argues that Eros’ epiphany to Philetas in book 2 of Longus’ novel is modelled on a four˗step Homeric pattern: first, the deity appears but is not recognized, second, it changes the status of the recipient of the epiphany, third, it displays visible marks of its divinity, and fourth, it is recognized by the observer(s) after or during its departure.⁸⁷ Nickau detects these four steps not only in the Philetas episode, but also in Eros’ gradual self˗revelation to Daphnis and Chloe in general.⁸⁸ However, even if one accepts the four˗step scheme in the particular case of the epiphany of Eros of book 2, in general, epiphanies and epiphany dreams in the novel refer to Homer rather by being deliberately un˗Homeric. Chariton has many references to Homer.⁸⁹ Some, such as the comparison of Callirhoe with Helen,⁹⁰ are epiphanizations discussed above and, as such, unspectacular. As for epiphanies, Chariton’s reference to appearances of Aphrodite around her Milesian shrine⁹¹ is not only extremely short, but is also deliberately un˗Homeric in virtually everything, from the lack of epiphanic details to the failure to represent the impact on the observers. In fact, despite his frequent references to Homer, Chariton has no fully˗fledged epiphanic representations of the Homeric type. Sometimes, we may even suspect Homeric parody: thus, in her ‘Homeric’ dream Callirhoe sees an image (εἰκών) of Chaireas ordering her to keep their son: Chariton (quoting two Homeric verses) explicitly molds the passage on the apparition of the ghost of Patroclus to Achilles in the Iliad, with one notable difference: Patroclus is already dead at that point.⁹² Potential Homeric parody is not restricted to Chariton. For instance, in the context of Heliodorus’ unique lifeworld epiphany, Calasiris argues (quoting again two Homeric lines) that epiphanic gods betray their divinity through ‘the form of their feet’ when they leave.⁹³ Add to this that Calasiris’ Homer is not

      

Nickau 2002. Long. 1.7; Nickau 2002, 176˗178. For Homer in Chariton, see Zanetto 2014, 401 f.; Tilg 2010, 141˗146. Char. 2.6, 5.2. Char. 1.14, 2.2, 3.6. Char. 2.9 (cf. 2.11) with Il. 23.66 f.; Auger 1983, 47 f. Hel. 3.12; cf. Nickau 2002, 181 f.

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the ‘traditional’ Greek rhapsode from Asia Minor, but a native ‘Egyptian’ and hence a transmitter of Egyptian knowledge to the Greeks.⁹⁴ To sum up, the most common epiphanic experience of the characters of the erotic novel are divinatory dreams, which are employed for structural and dramaturgic ends: they appear at pivotal positions of the plot, normally at the beginning and end of narrative sections, and they follow a stable functional pattern: epiphany dreams are exhortative and convey a clear message, while sign dreams are anticipatory and riddled, at least for the protagonists. Heliodorus is the only novelist whose epiphany dreams follow his sign dreams in their enigmatic form. This leads the protagonists to wrong interpretations, which they must revise in the course of the plot. Some novelists, such as Chariton, expect their readers to be familiar with the art of dream˗interpretation that is exemplified by Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Apart from Longus, lifeworld epiphanies are represented exceptionally, marked as reports from hearsay, and normally for mere dramatic embellishment. Achilles Tatius employs a battle epiphany of Artemis as a dramaturgic device similar to the ‘reversal epiphanies’ of drama, i. e. to move all the protagonists to Ephesus and thus bring the play to the mandatory happy end. In Chariton and Heliodorus, epiphanic representations serve to parody Homer by juxtaposing the grandness of Homeric heroes who are granted the privilege of epiphanies, to the triviality and simplicity of the novel’s protagonists who are never really sure whether they actually see a god or not. Apart from Eros, who encounters Philetas in book 2 of Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe and not one of the two lovers, Pan and the Nymphs appear in Longus primarily indirectly. Pan’s presence is indicated through a series of signs reminiscent of Roman portents rather than of ‘miracles’ of the Euripidean Bacchae˗type. Finally, divine epiphanies of the novel are alluded to through two dramaturgic devices, namely the epiphanization of the two lovers, who are compared to the gods because of their exceptional appearance; and epiphanic ecphrases, i. e. artistic representations of gods which are described in detail. Epiphanization is found in all novelists and is, in fact, not restricted to the novel, although here it is particularly frequent. It is an economic stylistic device for describing utmost beauty. Epiphanic ecphrases go ultimately back to the Homeric description of Achilles’ shield in book 18 of the Iliad (vv. 478˗608), which could profitably be analysed in epiphanic terms.

 Zanetto 2014, 406˗409; for Homer the ‘Egyptian,’ cf. Hel. 3.12˗14.

Medical and Philosophical Treatises on Dreams Unlike all other genres dealt with so far, medical and philosophical treatises ideally deal with humans not as individuals and protagonists of specific plots, but as a species. Thereby, ancient ‘medicine’ and ‘philosophy’ cannot be distinguished by any stable criteria.¹ Empedocles’ followers expect their master to be competent in both: ‘Some of them desire prophecies, others ask to hear a medical advice for all kinds of illnesses, tortured for a long time by terrible ’.² From a merely generic point of view, medical and philosophical treatises share a similar argumentative structure, focusing not on the chronological sequence, but on categorical properties. Their speculative mode often makes it impossible to distinguish them clearly from theoretical writings on mantic. Graf aptly remarks: ‘What separates the seer and the physician is not rationality but cosmology’.³ The Hippocratic author of De Victu IV (on dreams, late fifth or early fourth century BCE),⁴ begins on a rather traditional note: in its waking state, the soul coordinates its activities with the needs of the waking body, while in sleep/ dreams it continues its activities (especially visions) unimpaired by any bodily restraints.⁵ The treatise then divides dream experiences into those that coincide with waking lifeworld experiences and foretell health, and those that violate such experiences and signify illness according to the extent and nature of the divergencies from the lifeworld.⁶ A remarkable criterion for such prognostics is celestial and astronomical anomalies, as ‘seen’ by the dreamer in his sleep (this, incidentally, is the first Greek evidence for a connection between human destiny and the stars). The treatise devotes a long section to this dream˗astrology. Characteristically, ‘to see the sun, moon, heavens, and stars clear and bright, each in the proper order, is good as it suggests physical health in all its signs … but if there be a contrast between the dream and reality, it indicates a physical illness, a violent contrast a violent illness, a slighter contrast a lighter illness’.⁷ Whether or not we link the behaviour of specific celestial bodies with parts of the human body by connecting the macro˗world of the astral uni Harris 2009, 234; Lloyd 2002, esp. 44˗49.  Emp. EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 31 B 112) 10˗12.  Graf 1995, 39.  Harris 2009, 243˗250; Van Lieshout 1980, 185˗190; Van der Eijk 2005, 198 f., for the relation with Aristotle.  Hp. Vict. 4.86.  Hp. Vict. 4.88.  Hp. Vict. 4.89. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-014

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verse to the micro˗world of the human body,⁸ it is clear that the author is trying to establish objective criteria to measure the veracity of divinatory dreams. It is hardly by chance that he looks for such criteria in the one area of the human lifeworld in which events are predictable, namely the movements of celestial bodies. In a much less ingenious mode, the author of De Victu IV continues by identifying other ‘themes’ of the dreams with specific diseases in a manner typical of oneiric handbooks such as Artemidorus’ Oneirocritica. Two such ‘diagnoses’ from De Victu IV run as follows: ‘Springs and cisterns indicate some trouble of the bladder’.⁹ ‘Crossing rivers, enemy men˗at˗arms and strange monsters indicate disease or raving’.¹⁰ In each case, the text recommends medication, diets, and exercises to prevent the imminent illnesses, including prayers to gods and heroes to reinforce the cure¹¹ (such prayers for the therapeutic process are mentioned in the Hippocratic corpus only here).¹² The author of De victu IV considers the relation between dreams and future health issues of the dreamer to be his main medical contribution to the field of dream divination, for which professional dream interpreters are otherwise responsible.¹³ More clearly than most Hippocratics, our author stands midway between the seer and medical practitioner, and thus is a primary representative of that branch of ancient knowledge that has been labelled ‘rationalistic’ or ‘naturalistic’ religiosity.¹⁴ Plato represents dreams as a source of inspiration for Socrates’ way of life.¹⁵ In the Crito, Socrates claims that an anonymous dream figure (Fate?) has appeared to him and predicted the precise day of his execution.¹⁶ This passage is the first representation of an epiphany dream that occurs to a non˗royal addressee.¹⁷ This fact alone should make us suspicious of Socrates’ sincerity. Socratic irony would be a fitting alternative explanation. In a similar (ironic?) vein, Plato’s Socrates attributes his composition of a verse˗version of Aesop and a hymn to Apollo to a dream commanding him to ‘cultivate the arts’.¹⁸ Again, the dream message forestalls further scrutinizing by the interlocutor, but despite Socrates’ statement that the dream has ‘haunted him often in his past life’, we have not  Cf. Jouanna 1998.  Hp. Vict. 4.90.  Hp. Vict. 4.93.  Hp. Vict. 4.86˗93, e. g. ibid. 87, 89 f.; cf. Jouanna 1999, 194 f.; Oberhelman 1993, 128˗133.  Jouanna 1999, 194.  Hp. Vict. 4.87.  Van der Ejk 2005, 46; cf. Martin 2004, 46˗50.  Pl. Ap. 33C.  Pl. Cri. 44 A˗B; Van Lieshout 1980, 106 f.  Harris 2009, 25.  Pl. Phaedo 60E˗61B, cf. Van Lieshout 1980, 107 f.

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heard of this dream before, although Plato’s Socrates has plenty of opportunities to refer to it in other dialogues. A better explanation of this phrase is to consider that the ‘repetition’ of dream apparitions as a mark of particular divine interest is a literary topos.¹⁹ It is hardly coincidence that the more ‘historically’ and less ‘philosophically’ minded Xenophon fails to show any interest in the representation of Socratic dreams. Heraclides Ponticus, Plato’s student, does not have scruples about crediting dreams with predictive powers: he writes an entire work in which he records divinatory dreams: for instance, he discusses Homer giving instructions to Alexander in a dream,²⁰ a pre˗birth sign dream of the mother of the Sicilian ruler Phalaris (or, according to another version, Dionysius I) announcing her son’s tyranny,²¹ or the incubation of the North African Nasamonians at the tombs of their ancestors (?).²² Dreams affect numerous decisions of Galen’s life and work, including his ‘conversion’ to Asclepius.²³ He does not sense any incompatibility between the dream as a divinely ordained guideline to the cure and reason based on empirical knowledge. However, he distinguishes between various sources of dreams, only one of which is divine and leads to divinatory insights. But since the soul in sleep does not form dream images simply on the basis of the dispositions of the body, but also out of our habitual day˗time actions, while other originate in thoughts we have had , and in yet others, finally, the soul predicts future events ˗for this too is demonstrated by the lifeworld experience [πεῖρα]˗ the discernment (διάγνωσις) of dreams that emanate from the body is difficult … since we concede that some dreams are prophetic, it is not easy to say how these dreams are to be distinguished from those which originate in the body.²⁴

While Galen does not offer a specific theory of divinatory dreams, such a theory is supplied by Artemidorus. Artemidorus, the compiler of the Oneirocritica, the only extant dream book of antiquity, essentially follows the same empiricist method as Galen: ‘Artemidorus is no doctor, of course, but his views on what constitutes a suitable approach to determining the outcomes of dreams resem-

 However, the recurrence of such dreams is almost a topos, cf. Harris 2009, 42 n. 89.  Heraclid.Pont. fr. 108 Schütrumpf.  Heraclid.Pont. fr. 117a, b Schütrumpf.  Heraclid.Pont. fr. 118 Schütrumpf.  Gal. De curandi ratione per venae sectionem 23 (= 11.315 Kühn); Harris 2009, 209˗212; 271˗273; Oberhelman 1993, 139˗144; id. 1987, 50 f.; for Galen’s religious attitude, see Martin 2004, 109˗124; Frede 2003.  Gal. De dignotione ex insomniis 4 (= 6.833 Kühn), transl. Harris.

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bles the empiricist approach to determining medical cures’.²⁵ Like Galen, Artemidorus makes his lifeworld experience (= πεῖρα) and personal observation the yardstick of singling out the significant mantic elements. For instance, in the preface he states: ‘I will go into battle, using as weapon my experience [πεῖρα] and οbservation [μαρτυρία] of actual outcomes of dreams’.²⁶ Unlike the famous physician, though, Artemidorus is also concerned with a general theoretic model. His classificatory system is based on six ‘elements’ or ‘parameters’ (= στοιχεῖα) that define the divinatory force of the dream, namely the recipient’s nature, law, custom, occupation, the dream’s phraseology, and the occasion or circumstances under which it is received.²⁷ These parameters are correlated to the contents of the dream on the basis of the doctrine of similarities: in other words, similar dream elements indicate similar future conditions. If a deity appears in a dream, its identity is established on the grounds of similarities with Artemidorus’ lifeworld experience. This means that for Artemidorus, a dream figure is identified as Zeus when it resembles the god’s iconography of material art and literature (basically Homer). Human conjecture (ὑπόληψις) is part and parcel of this process, in which, characteristically, dream appearances of gods and divine statues are not distinguished.²⁸ The dream is analysed according to the above-mentioned parameters, and the similarity of these parameters also means similarity of certain aspects of the dream message. Astonishingly, Artemidorus claims repeatedly that he does not investigate the divine ‘origin’ of dreams, and once he states rather paradoxically: ‘one will quickly come to realize that dreams are productions of the soul and do not arise from any external entity’.²⁹ Some philosophers deal with divinatory dreams in a more theoretical and reflective manner. Plato, apart from Socrates’ mantic dreams, tries to explain the existence of (divinatory) dreams in his Timaeus. He postulates three subconscious conditions of divine communication: 1. dreaming, 2. delirium in the course of an illness, 3. (some other mode of susceptibility to) divine inspiration.³⁰ In the case of dreams, we find two mainly ‘biological’ explanations. In the first passage, dreaming is connected to vision. While vision is construed as a stream of internal light flowing through the pupils during day and offering vision due to its compatibility with sunlight, at night (= in sleep) this stream is in-

     

Harris˗McCoy 2012, 37. Artem. praef. 1. Artem. 1.3; Harris-McCoy 2012, 15 – 18. Cf. Pirenne-Delforge 2019, 156 – 167 for Artemidorus’ conceptualization of ‘gods’. Artem. 4.59, cf. 1.6; with Harris 2009, 274 f. Pl. Ti. 71E.

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terrupted and shut up within the body. Thus restricted to the body, the stream may now abate and thus offer a quiet sleep with short periods of dreams (βραχυόνειρος), or it may continue unabated and produce intensive nocturnal visions.³¹ Plato may be referring here to the production of anxiety dreams rather than divinatory dreams. In the second (quite obscure) Timaeus passage, the communication between the superior rational and the inferior emotional part (λογιστικόν/ἐπιθυμητικόν) is regulated by the liver, situated next to the seat of the emotional part, the stomach. The liver does so by its unique consistency, which reacts to impulses from the rational part in the head, and acts like a mirror or relay, producing images (εἴδωλα) that ‘frighten’ the emotional part of the soul. Although it is not explicitly stated, these images may be identified with visions received in a waking state or in sleep. If these images are mild and calm, the mantic susceptibility of the emotional part is increased as soon as it is released from the constraints of perception (i. e., in sleep, delirious illness, or divine mania).³² It should be pointed out that Plato, like Aristotle, accepts a limited mantic veracity of certain dream types. Aristotles’ short treatise De Divinatione in Somno, one of three treatises on sleep, is rightly labelled ‘without any doubt the most intelligent extant treatment of the subject in classical literature’.³³ Struck, building on Van der Eijk, has recently offered an exhaustive interpretation.³⁴ In a difficult passage, dreams are labelled ‘daimonic’ ‘… dreams couldn’t be god-sent, nor have they arisen for the sake of being a divine message, however they are demonic: for nature is demonic, but not divine’ [Struck’s translation].³⁵ Struck calls the question of the relation of daimon and divinatory dream ‘the central puzzle’ and dedicates almost seventy pages to it.³⁶ He is not the only scholar to be intrigued by Aristotle’s argument.³⁷ The bottom line of his analysis is that daimonic here denotes a ‘projection of divine power into the natural world’.³⁸ Or: ‘The human organism is ‘demonic’, that is …it is steered by a divine impulse toward actualizing potential

 Pl. Ti. 45B˗46 A; βραχυόνειρος: 45E; Van Lieshout 1980, 120 f.  Pl. Ti. 70D˗72B; quotation: 71 A; cf. Struck 2016, 82˗85; Van Lieshout 1980, 121˗126.  Van der Eijk 2005, 205.  Struck 2016, 91˗170; Van der Eijk 2005, 186˗205.  Arist. Div.Somn. 463b 12˗15.  Struck 2016, 102˗170; cf. also Harris 2009, 252˗261.  E. g. Harris 2009, 284: ‘The problem of predictive dreams Aristotle found so difficult that it led him into something very close to self˗contradiction’.  Struck 2016, 122.

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toward the good, beneath our self˗conscious awareness’.³⁹ The idea of separating the ‘divine’ from the ‘human’ element through the introduction of the ‘daimonic’ is ultimately Platonic, although Aristotle’s notion of the ‘divine’, and hence the conceptual compound of ‘divine/daimonic’, is entirely his own. Meanwhile, Aristotle turns explicitly against the eidōla˗theory of Democritus: the Stagirite argues that the human mind perceives movements that enter from outside, and as a consequence ‘creates’ visions (φαντάσματα) depending on its susceptibility to these movements, rather than ‘receiving’ images (εἴδωλα), as Democritus would have it.⁴⁰ Such criticism should not conceal the fact that he singles out Democritus among his (doubtless numerous) predecessors on dream theory, which suggests that the latter offers the best explanation so far available, at least in Aristotle’s mind.⁴¹ A number of Aristotle’s philosophic successors, who are otherwise largely sceptical about the possibility of divine communication, write extensively on dreams and dream divination.⁴² With regard to the relation of the Stoa to dreams, ‘it is fair to say that no other ancient philosophical school took the topic as seriously as they did’.⁴³ The Stoa distinguishes between divination by artificial knowledge (ars, e. g. haruspices, augurs and other religious experts) and by natural predisposition (natura).⁴⁴ The latter is traditionally divided into ecstatic (furor, including oracles) and oneiric (somnium) divine communication.⁴⁵ Chrysippus appears to have been the first to deal with dreams and oracles in independent treatises, and thus to give them precedence over all other forms of divine communication: his book on dreams was apparently an extensive collection of night visions including their (allegorical or literal) interpretation.⁴⁶ Chrysippus is here followed by Antipater,⁴⁷ and most notably by Posidonius, whose three arguments supporting the Stoic theory of dream divination are on record, viz. 1. the soul’s innate affiliation to the divine, 2. the presence of immortal ‘souls’ in the air (apparently

 Struck 2016, 163.  Arist. Div.Somn. 463b31˗464a 24, esp. 17˗20.  Harris 2009, 257 f.; Van der Eijk 2005, 201 f.  Theophrastus: Del Corno 1969, 68 f., 148 f.; Clearchus: frs. 5˗10 Wehrli, with Tsitsiridis 2013, 55˗84; Demetrius Phalereus: fr. 1 Fortenbaugh/Schütrumpf = Diog. Laert. 7.76, 86; Del Corno 1969, 59, 138 f.; Dicaearchus: frs. 30a˗31c Fortenbaugh/Schütrumpf; Del Corno 1969, 78˗80, 161˗163; Cratippus: Del Corno 1969, 76 f., 158˗160 with Pfeffer 1976, 61˗63.  Struck 2016, 173.  Cic. De Div. 1.11 f., 34 with Wardle 2006, 126 f.; Pfeffer 1976, 57˗59.  Cic. De Div. 1.4, 34.  Chrysippus SVF II, frs. 1196˗1206; Del Corno 1969, 52˗57, 135˗137.  Del Corno 1969, 75, 156 f.

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daimons) as carriers of truth, 3. direct communication with men of gods.⁴⁸ Posidonius is heavily influenced by Herophilus, the physician, who is often quoted for his anatomical acumen by Galen and who lives one or two generations after Aristotle.⁴⁹ Herophilus postulates three categories of dreams, namely predictive dreams that are god˗sent, ‘natural’ dreams that are produced by the soul without the help of an external agent (and in which the soul can prognosticate) and the rather obscure category of spontaneous ‘compound dreams’ (apparently without any predictive force). Herophilus’ tripartite taxonomy is a novelty with a remarkable impact not only on Posidonius, but also on other writers.⁵⁰ More than one book could be written about dreams as a ‘scientific’ field within the various medical and philosophical schools. I must leave such a discussion to the historians of medicine and ancient philosophy. For the question ‘what did ancient man see in reality when he was represented as seeing a god?’, these few remarks will suffice to show that divinatory dreams are discussed as part of the physical lifeworld of human beings from Empedocles right down to the imperial period and beyond. While various schools may explain the operating mode of divinatory dreams very differently, none apart from the Epicureans would downright reject the potential ‘divinatory force’ of dreams. Dreams are explicitly part of the human lifeworld experience (πεῖρα). By contrast, epiphanies do not become a subject of interest of philosophical treatises until Neoplatonism.

 Posidonius ap. Cic. Div. 1.64 = fr. 108 Kidd, with Kidd 1988, 428˗432 [comm. ad loc.].  For the (contentious) dating, Von Staden 1989, 43˗50.  Cf. Herophil. T 226 a˗d Von Staden, with the discussion in Von Staden 1989, 306˗310; pace Harris 2009, 265˗269, who downplays the impact of this passage on later writers.

Neoplatonic Treatises None of the four major philosophical schools before the third century CE seems to have systematically reflected on the possibility that gods appear on earth in physical form (i. e. outside dreams) and even less that such ‘epiphanic gods’ could convey ‘true’ knowledge.¹ Leaving aside the problem of daimons, which only rarely appear in visible form (so in Plutarch, see above) and have been competently dealt with by others,² it is only with Neoplatonism ˗and here especially with Iamblichus and his successors˗ that epiphanic experiences become central in ancient philosophers’ endeavors to acquire true philosophical knowledge. However, these Neoplatonic epiphanies differ from those represented by other genres in one important aspect: while in all the genres dealt with so far, epiphanic gods are primarily represented as ‘being seen’ without further details, within Neoplatonism the discourse about epiphanies is intrinsically bound up with the question of the soul, or better, with the question to what extent and in what form the soul can ‘perceive’ a postulated ‘divine light’. The perception of such ‘light’ differs from the afore˗mentioned forms, for instance, in that 1. it is not associated with arbitrary, unpredictable and capricious divine favor, but with properties and actions of the recipient of the epiphany, be these a specific way of life or specific ritual actions or both, 2. it happens in a state of mind between waking and dream. In our context, it is fair to speak of Neoplatonic treatises as a genre, because in their prosaic shape, their argumentative approach, their response to predecessors, and their self˗awareness they form a clearly identifiable representational unity in terms of both form and contents. A distinction of autonomous treatises and commentaries of Plato’s writings is of little significance from a generic point of view, because large sections of such commentaries take the form of independent treatises, while virtually all autonomous Neoplatonic treatises comment on ˗or refer to˗ selected texts of their immediate predecessors (e. g., Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis) or to those of Plato. This is not the place to follow up all the speculative ramifications of the Neoplatonic concept of ‘epiphany,’ which would mean writing about ontological orders, the nature of the soul etc. in a word, a  In fact, the only instance I could find in which a philosopher defends explicitly the notion of waking epiphanies are the various ‘historical’ epiphanies reported by the stoic Balbus in Cic. De Nat. Deor. 2.2.6, 2.66.166, which are then refuted by the Academic Cotta in the next book, De Nat. Dior. 3.5.11˗13. Cf. also Dion. Hal. AR 2.68 who speaks of the suspicions against ‘epiphanies’ by philosophers/Epicureans, but also mentions other ‘philosophers’ more ready to accept them as ‘real’.  Timotin 2012. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-015

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full history of (Neo)platonism. Rather, I will restrict my discussion to the two most important Neoplatonists, Plotinus and Iamblichus, during the period covered by this book, and to their concept of the ‘seeing/ascending soul’.

Plotinus It is commonly agreed that Neoplatonism begins with Plotinus. He summarizes the new concept of ‘epiphany’ as follows: the observer ‘… is lifted on high by a kind of swell and sees suddenly, not seeing how, but the vision fills his eyes with light and does not make him see something else by it, but the light itself is what he sees’.³ The seeing soul is a central notion in Plotinus.⁴ On the highest level of such visions, the one who sees and the object of seeing become one.⁵ According to Plotinus, the soul is corrupted by its contact with matter: ‘… the soul becomes ugly by mixture and dilution and inclination towards the body and matter’.⁶ Accordingly, the soul must first purify itself from matter and its polluting effects, in order to perceive the ‘light’. This can be achieved through different kinds of virtues (Plotinus mentions self˗control, courage, wisdom).⁷ The purified = liberated soul then separates itself from the body, ascends and assimilates itself to God.⁸ The assimilation to God of the philosopher has a long pedigree going back to Plato’s Theaetetus and adopted mutatis mutandis by polytheists and monotheists alike.⁹ Dodds credits Plotinus with the concept of a mystical union with the One, a notion that Plotinus may have found in Numenius and passed on to his successors, first of all to his pupil Porphyry.¹⁰ While, in Plotinus’ view, everyone is endowed with the potential of internal ‘visions’, normally only very few philosophers pursue a way of life that enables them to actually experience them.¹¹ These ‘exceedingly blessed spectators’ (a Platonic phrase), acquire

 Plot. 6.7.36.18˗22.  For the notion of seeing (of light) see e. g. Plot. 1.6.4.12˗22, 3.5.3.1˗19 (where Eros is etymologically linked to ὅρασις = ‘seeing’); 5.5.7, 5.8.11.33˗40; cf. Sleeman˗Pollet 1980, s.v. ὁρᾶν.  Plot. 6.9.10 f.  Plot. 1.6.5.48˗50.  Plot. 1.6.6.1˗11, 1.6.7.6 f.  Plot. 1.6.6.16˗21; cf. 1.2.6.3, 1.2.7.27˗31, 2.9.9.50 with Timotin 2012, 299.  O’Meara 2003, 31˗39 [polytheists], 161˗164 [Christians], for Plotinus, ibid. 37 f.  Dodds 1965, 79˗91; 93 f. Recently, it has been argued that this notion may derive from the Christian or Jewish milieu as reflected in the Nag Hammadi texts, cf. Marx˗Wolf 2016, 84 f. [with criticism of this view].  Plot. 1.6.8.25˗27, 6.5.12.28˗31.

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‘self˗knowledge’ (αὐτοεπιστήμη), which in Greek is ambiguous as to the subject and object of this knowledge (is it the self that knows or that is known?).¹² Mania and ecstasy are not conducive to ‘seeing,’ according to Plotinus. True, Plotinus acknowledges the possibility of ecstasy, when he says that the (lower) soul may be in or outside the body.¹³ But ˗with the notable exception of a celebrated passage in Enneads VI˗¹⁴ ecstasy obviates rather than fosters proper knowledge of the material world. One should not ‘be outside oneself,’ but rather ‘learn oneself’ in order to attain proper knowledge. Thus, ‘a child that is outside himself in madness (αὑτοῦ ἔξω ἐν μανίᾳ γεγενημένος), will not know his father. But he who has learnt to know himself will know from where he hails’.¹⁵ In fact, the mad and the ecstatic are on the same level as children, madmen, drug˗ and fantasy˗addicts or worse: animals.¹⁶ However, Plotinus allows for divine inspiration and obsession. ‘The inspired and the obsessed’ (ἐνθουσιῶντες καὶ κάτοχοι), ‘may know this much, that they have something greater within them, even if they do not know what, and from the ways in which they are moved and the things they say get a certain awareness of the god who moves them…’.¹⁷ Furthermore, the person who truly ‘sees’ acts like an inspired person (ἐνθουσιάσας), i. e. he falls into a contemplative trance, very calm and completely detached from the material world.¹⁸ It is divine inspiration (ἐνθουσιασμός/ἐπίπνοια) of this kind that facilitates the perception of ‘divine light’ and with it ‘divination’.¹⁹

Iamblichus Like Plotinus, Iamblichus seeks the acquisition of ‘divine knowledge’ through epiphanic contact with the divine or divine divination. Unlike Plotinus, who be-

 Plot. 5.8.4.39˗44 with Pl. Phaedo 111 A3. Spyridon Rangos in private communication disagrees: ‘αὐτοεπιστήμη is not self˗knowledge, i. e. knowledge of the personal self; it is rather the (Platonic) Form of Knowledge, Ideal Knowledge Itself, and therefore the Supreme Knowledge’.  Plot. 4.7.13.15 f.  Plot. 6.8.11.23 which, according to Dodd’s analysis of the word ekstasis, is the first employment of the word as reflecting a ‘mystical experience’ in Greek literature, and the only one in Plotinus, cf. Dodds 1965, 70˗72.  Plot. 6.9.7.30˗34.  Plot. 6.8.2.5˗9.  Plot. 5.3.14.8˗13.  Plot. 6.9.11.12˗16.  Plot. 3.1.3.13˗17.

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lieves that divine knowledge can be achieved by mere contemplation and a proper way of life that prepares the soul for the divine contact, Iamblichus holds that divine knowledge can be achieved only through relevant rituals, namely theurgy. The theurgist ‘inhales’ the divine light, which then purifies and illuminates the theurgist’s soul vehicle, which surrounds the soul.²⁰ In response to its illumination, the soul (in its vehicle) encounters the god and receives divine visions through its imaginative power, φανταστικὴ δύναμις, or, to quote Iamblichus himself: ‘This [scil. the power of evoking the light] somehow illuminates the aether˗ like and luminous vehicle surrounding the soul with divine light, from which vehicle the divine imaginations [φαντασίαι θεῖαι], set in motion by the gods’ will, take possession of the imaginative power [φανταστικὴν δύναμιν] in us’.²¹ ‘This light is one and the same in its entirety everywhere. It is present indivisibly to all things that are capable of participating in it and has filled everything with its perfect power …’.²² It is a gift from the gods: ‘…this light is from without and alone achieves all its effects serving the will and intelligence of the gods’.²³ It is through this light that the souls ascend: ‘It is through such will [i. e. the will of God], that the gods in their benevolence and graciousness unhesitatingly shed their light upon theurgists. They summon up their souls to themselves and orchestrate their union with them by accustoming them, even while still in the body, to detach themselves from their bodies and to turn themselves towards their eternal and intelligible first principle’.²⁴ However, higher and lower gods differ in the quality of the divine light they emanate: the gods’ light is purest and its reception presupposes complete purification of the soul, the archangels’ light is still pure, the angelic light separates the soul from matter, while the daimonic light draws the soul down, etc. (heroes, archons and souls follow with their relevant properties).²⁵ In fact, the experienced theurgist is able to identify the source of the light he receives: ‘the purity and stability of the image manifested in a vision one may assign as a whole to the superior classes, but what is exceedingly brilliant and remains fixed in itself, you may attribute to the gods; what is brilliant but appearing to be based in something else, attribute to the archangels; and that which is based undoubtedly

 Iamb. Myst. 3.31.178; Johnston 2019, 709˗712; Finamore 1985, 127˗131. For the Iamblichean soul vehicle in general, see Shaw 2012; Johnston 2004, 10˗15; Finamore 1985. All translations in this section are adopted (with modifications) from Clarke/Dillon/Hershbell 2004.  Iamb. Myst. 3.14.132; Agnosini 2016, 222˗226.  Iamb. Myst. 1.9.31 with Johnston 2019, 716˗718; Johnston 2004, 9 f.  Iamb. Myst. 3.14.134.  Iamb. Myst. 1.12.41 with Johnston 2002, 10 f.  Iamb. Myst. 2.4.77˗2.5.79; Finamore 1985, 50 f.

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on something else, ascribe to angels. Distinguish, on the other hand, everything which is carried this way and that, and is not fixed, but permeated by alien natures, which is to be assigned to all the inferior ranks of being’.²⁶ The soul unites with the deity in question by ‘ascending’ to the deity. It seems that this ‘ascent’ of the soul (like the corresponding ‘descent’ of a god) is a metaphor for the direct ‘contact’ with a metaphysical entity through the agency of divine light.²⁷ Up to what rank may the (theurgically) purified human soul potentially ‘ascend’ in Iamblichus? We learn that contact with the immaterial gods is the privilege of the few with a life˗long experience in theurgy.²⁸ But contact with the theurgic gods in a ‘hypercosmic mode’ is ‘extremely rare’ even for a theurgist.²⁹ Only a few souls may ‘traverse the heights in company with all the immaterial gods’.³⁰ The same soul may on occasion reach different heights of the ontological hierarchy: ‘sometimes we share in the god’s lowest power, sometimes in his mediate, and sometimes in his primary power’.³¹ In theory, at least, it may reach up to the highest echelons, where it can observe ‘the Good’ and is kept by the ‘demiurge’.³² Normally, the soul of the theurgist seems to ‘ascend’ to the angelic rank.³³ Theurgy/divine light is an indispensable precondition for ‘divine’ divination, according to Iamblichus. Iamblichus relates this divine divination to the conventional forms of ‘human’ divination (such as oracles, dreams, and observation of natural signs).³⁴ For instance, a distinction is made between the ‘divine’ and the ‘human’ kinds of dream divination. Proper divine dream divination is based on ‘god˗sent’ dreams (θεόπεμπτοι … ὄνειροι) ˗in contrast to non˗divinatory anxiety dreams˗³⁵ that exist in the form of a trance, a ‘state between sleep and wakefulness’. This state is characterized by a particular awareness of the soul. Such divine dream communication may occur through voices that the recipient hears between sleeping and wakening, or through an invisible, but palpable spirit

 Iamb. Myst. 2.5.79 f..  In some passages, the soul ‘ascends’, in others the god ‘descends’; Addey 2014, 221˗229 postulated a paradox. On the other hand, Finamore 1998, 158 n. 6 (with reference to Iamblichean dreams and esp. Iamb. Myst. 1.12.40) states categorically: ‘The gods do not descend, but they do send their “illumination” (ellampsis) to us’.  Iamb. Myst. 5.19.225 f., 5.22.230 f. with Shaw 1995, 151.  Iamb. Myst. 5.20.228.  Iamb. Myst. 3.15.219.  Iamb. Myst. 3.5.111.  Iamb. Myst. 10.5.291˗6.292.  Iamb. Myst. 2.2.69; 2.6.83 with Cremer 1969, 64 f.; cf. Or. Chal. fr. 138 Des Places.  For what follows, see Struck 2017, 81˗84.  Iamb. Myst. 3.1.102˗3.2.104; Struck 2017, 81 f.

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(πνεῦμα) encircling his body, a flash of light that blinds his eyes, or ˗the highest degree of illumination˗ a vision through both the eyes and the intellect.³⁶ The result of such trance˗like conditions is an increased awareness of the divine, ultimately leading to epiphanic visions: ‘and the other senses are awake and consciously aware of how the gods shine forth in the light, and with a clear understanding they both hear what they say, and know what they do … but dream˗sleep and possession of the eyes, a seizure like a blackout, a state between sleep and wakefulness, or presently a stirring or complete wakefulness, all of these are divine states preparing for reception of the gods. They are sent by the gods themselves, and such things precede it, a part of the divine epiphany (μέρος … τῆς θείας ἐπιφανείας)’.³⁷ Neoplatonism forms the inevitable climax of (or epilogue to) the philosophical discourse about divine ‘visions’. More than other philosophical approaches, it stresses the impact on the human soul of ‘divine light’ and the concomitant attainment of metaphysical knowledge. From Plotinus at the latest, the necessary properties of the soul and the preconditions for its perceptive powers become a matter of central concern. All Neoplatonic philosophers alike focus on the question of how to put the soul in the position to perceive ‘divine light’ and to ascend to higher ontological orders, although the answers differ from Neoplatonist to Neoplatonist: they run from meditation and a frugal way of life (Plotinus) to specific theurgic practices (Iamblichus and later Proclus). In fact, it is the search for authentic epiphanic/light experiences that leads the Neoplatonic philosophers to immerse themselves more deeply into speculations over the nature of the soul, its composition, provenience and means of transportation (‘soul vehicle’). ‘Seeing’ with the eyes becomes ‘perceiving’ with and through the soul.

 Iamb. Myst. 3.2.103˗3.3.108 with Addey 2014, 231˗236, 261˗264; Finamore 1998; Pfeffer 1976, 137˗142.  Iamb. Myst. 3.2.104 f.

Magical Recipes The Greek Magical Papyri (= Papyri Graecae Magicae = PGM), are a modern compilation of ritual recipes found in Egyptian papyri and collected and formed into a ‘corpus’ by Preisendanz, later supplemented by relevant demotic material by Betz (= Papyri Demoticae Magicae = PDM) and others.¹ Is it adequate to refer to them as a ‘genre’? Whatever their relation to ancient mageia,² they show formal similarities that allow us to conclude that they are ˗at least for the most part˗ composed on similar occasions for similar audiences by similar social groups, or, in the words of a modern scholar: ‘… it seems warranted to conclude that, by this period [scil. from the second century CE onwards], if not slightly earlier, Greco˗Egyptian ritual had established itself as a distinct type and that there was a general awareness of genre rules and standards with respect to the format and content of individual spells and formularies’.³ Given their similar formal characteristics, which include divine invocations, magical words and sounds, a similar performative occasion in front of similar audiences, cross˗references between texts, etc., we are justified in speaking of the PGM and PDM as a textual genre. The restriction of this book to Greek evidence of ‘visible gods’ means that we are concerned primarily with PGM recipes, and among these, with those texts that aim to facilitate epiphanic experiences. Common forms of magic epiphanies are lychnomancy/lecanomancy and oneiromancy. These appear frequently in conjunction with each other within a ritual sequence. The aim of lychnomancy/lecanomancy is to induce the deity to appear in person in the flame of a ‘magic’ lamp while the inquirer is awake, i. e. an epiphanic vision.⁴ Lecanomancy is a specific form of lychnomancy, in which the practitioner observes the ‘god’ on the surface of a water bowl (λεκάνη) standing by the lamp. These two divinatory methods stand in marked opposition to empyromancy, which is attested since classical times and consists of the observation and interpretation of flames without any epiphanies.⁵ I know

 For a survey of modern corpora, see Dieleman 2019, 286˗289.  In a recent ‘Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic,’ David Frankfurter pointed to the fact that the connection of these texts with ancient magic is not made by the texts themselves. He thus prefers to consider them ‘documents of specific historical subcultures … they are not documents of mageia’, Frankfurter 2019, 8 f.; cf. 24 f., 281, but also 33 n. 9 for the use of magos/mageia in PGM IV. Nevertheless, the index reveals that by far the most numerous source texts of Frankfurter’s ‘guide’ are found in PGM.  Dieleman 2019, 316.  For the archaeological evidence, see Zografou 2010, 279˗281.  Johnston 2010, 73. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-016

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of no evidence for the practice of empyromancy in PGM context. In fact, the whole point of the complex rituals connected to magic lamps seems to be the personal appearance of the deity. Moreover, since the normal objective of such rituals is a prophecy of some sort, it is hard to see how such prophecy could be offered authoritatively without a communication of the god with the inquirer in person. Lychnomancy/lecanomancy is based on the assumption that the deity appears in person in the flame or light. For instance, a spell using a child as a medium invokes the deity (or its proxy) in the flame: ‘he who gives light exceedingly, the companion of the flame, he is he whose mouth is the flame, … he who sits in the flame, who is in the midst of the flame… come into the midst of the flame’.⁶ Unfortunately, the exact nature of such light epiphanies is not spelled out: does the deity ‘enter’ the light from outside, or does the light ‘produce’ the epiphany? Is the light/lamp flame identical with the deity? What exactly is the state of mind of the medium/child? After all, we know of closing and reopening the eyes, which may suggest some sort of trance rather than full consciousness.⁷ In oneiromancy, the deity is induced to appear in a dream in one of its own forms, which may include the shape of its human representative, i. e. the priest(ess).⁸ At first glance, it may seem that such prophetic dreams simply replace the lamp or bowl of lychnomancy/lecanomancy with the medium of the dream. However, at a closer look, lychnomancy may often serve as a catalytic agent for the actual divinatory dream: for instance, in the last lines of a demotic spell, we read about the ritual preparation of a lamp. The spell ends on the following note: ‘If you put frankincense up in front of the lamp and you look at the lamp, you see the god near the lamp; you sleep on a reed mat … and he tells you the answer in a dream’.⁹ In a word, oneiromancy and lychnomancy/lecanomancy are here two steps of the same ritual sequence. In yet another spell, the lamp appears as an auxiliary means along with other objects to induce a dream prophecy.¹⁰ Gordon argues for the existence of a communicational hierarchy in PGM recipes of such experiences, in which autopsia (αὐτοψία)¹¹ stands at the top as the

 PDM XIV 490˗495 Betz.  Zografou 2010, 281˗284, esp. 283: ‘Lamp flames are considered consubstantial with the divine …’; Gordon 1997, 89˗92 for magic light and ‘seeing’.  Johnston 2010, 70 f.  PDM XIV 117˗149 Betz; cf. Johnston 2010, 72 f.  PGM V 379˗446 with Johnston 2010, 71 f.  PGM III 698 f.; IV 930, 951˗953; V 55; XIII 734 al.

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most direct form of communication, lecanomancy/lychnomancy in the middle,¹² and oneiromancy at the bottom of this hierarchy. He speaks of a ‘continuous sequence of revelatory possibilities from the dream to the personal direct vision’.¹³ However, the communicational purpose of autopsia is the authentication of the received message, and such an authentication is desirable for all divine messages alike. Against Gordon, it would be more natural to assume that autopsia always forms the ultimate goal, regardless of the mode chosen to achieve it. I submit that there is no communicational hierarchy, but only various modes of communication (lecanomancy/lychnomancy/oneiromancy) in order to achieve the ultimate goal of autopsia. Autopsia is facilitated by systasis (σύστασις), i. e. the encounter in spatio˗temporal terms of the inquiring human and an internal or external magical agent. The internal agent occurs under the name of ‘personal daimon,’ while the external agent seems rather consistently to be called paredros. The two should be distinguished, although I am not as certain as Pachoumi that they never coincide.¹⁴ The personal daimon is a philosophical concept ultimately going back to Socrates’ daimonion, and normally a ‘voice’ rather than a visible figure. Nevertheless, in Plutarch for instance, Brutus encounters his own personal daimon.¹⁵ Most revealing here is PGM VII 505˗528, called a σύστασις ἰδίου δαίμονος and analysed in depth by Pachoumi.¹⁶ By contrast, other recipes, such as PGM I 43˗194, serve to summon magical paredroi. ¹⁷ The term here applies to various ‘external’ deities that may appear under different names and in different shapes: ‘The term πάρεδρος is used to designate beings of diverse rank in the divine hierarchy. Some of them are powerful beings: these deserve the appellation θεός. Others are subordinate to deities: these πάρεδροι of lower rank may be termed ἄγγελοι or δαίμονες, but they are not called θεοί’.¹⁸ Normally, both the ‘personal

 Cf. Nielsson II, 530 f.  Gordon 1997, 83 f.  Pachoumi 2017, 11˗33 discusses the conjunction of the inquirer with his own personal daimon, which is clearly to be distinguished from the paredros, with whom she deals on pp. 35˗61. On p. 24 she remarks: ‘… the notion of πάρεδρος should not be confused with the concept of the personal daimon, which refers to an originally internal agency identified with a person’s self.’ Cf. p. 43: ‘The πάρεδρος is based on a different concept than that of the personal daimon or daimonion. The personal daimon conceptualises an essentially internal agent. The πάρεδρος on the other hand, is external and first established by the magician through a series of magical rituals and spells. Accordingly, the two terms should not be confused’.  Plut. Brut. 36 with the discussion above pp. 160–162.  Pachoumi 2017, 11˗20.  Pachoumi 2017, 35˗61; Scibilia 2002.  Ciraolo 1995, 284.

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daimons’ and the ‘assistants’ seem to have a human shape. Alternatively, the paredroi may adopt the form of material objects such as statuettes, mummies, skulls or metal lamellae.¹⁹

‘Mithras Liturgy’ A special case among the magical recipes, which is much closer to Neoplatonic concepts, is the so called ‘Mithras Liturgy’. It belongs to a rare group of papyri that is concerned, not with a specific crisis situation or lifeworld problem, but a general assimilation to and contact with the high god.²⁰ This text is the most extensive and detailed description of an epiphanic experience that has come down to us from antiquity, and for this reason alone deserves detailed attention. What clearly distinguishes it from the rest of the PGM recipes is its conceptual proximity to Neoplatonism and the Chaldaean Oracles. For instance, as is often the case in Neoplatonism, the soul of the performer is represented as ascending to the unnamed high god, who may or may not be Mithras (the answer to this question is irrelevant to our task, since we are not concerned with the worship of Mithras or any other specific god here).²¹ By contrast, in virtually all other magical recipes, the intention is to force the deity down by means of the magic ritual. Besides this, the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ refers to theurgic key concepts such as the ascent on a solar ray,²² or the term ‘immortalization’ (ἀπαθανατισμός) with which the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ presents itself in the papyrus. This word appears again in Proclus in the sense of ‘theurgic ascent’.²³ Apart from its Neoplatonic affiliation, the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ resembles conceptually the Chaldaean Oracles, the founding text of Neoplatonic theurgy, so much so that Johnston could use it to illuminate some obscure aspects of the ritualistic side of the Chaldaean Oracles. ²⁴ For instance, some of the epithets of Aion in the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ are similar to those which we find in the Chaldaean Oracles. ²⁵ Furthermore, the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ encounters the same representational dilemma as the Chaldaean Oracles, i. e. the attempt to cross two very different

 Scibilia 2002, 76˗79; Ciraolo 1995, passim.  Dieleman 2019, 299 f., cf. also the recipe for acquiring a personal divine ‘assistant’ for all kinds of uses, PGM I 43˗194.  Betz 2003, 182 f.  Lewy 2011, 209 f.; Edmonds 2000, 13˗16.  Proc. In Rep. I 152.10 f. Kroll, with Johnston 1997, 179 f.  Johnston 2004, 14 (on the perception of light); Johnston 1997, 183˗191.  Gordon 2005, 100.

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conceptual approaches, the representation of an ascending soul and magical instruction. It is therefore tempting to read both texts in juxtaposition, as conceptual cousins rather than twins, but still belonging to Dillon’s ‘Platonic Underworld’.²⁶ In what follows, I will restrict my discussion to that part of the text which describes the various epiphanic experiences of the soul on its ascent to the anonymous high god.²⁷ I will respond here primarily to the detailed commentaries by Betz, Merkelbach and Dieterich (the discoverer and name˗giver of the text). I will ignore Betz’s Stoicizing readings, because unlike Betz I hold that whatever Stoic elements there may be, these have reached the text through Neoplatonism.²⁸ The ‘Mithras Liturgy’ describes the ascending soul and its numerous encounters with the divine on its upward journey. After a petitionary prayer,²⁹ a breathing ritual is performed, by which the ascendant absorbs divine pneuma.³⁰ The pneuma here does not point to a divine presence but is transmitted from its divine source by the sun’s rays. It has close parallels in theurgic practice.³¹ The result of the breathing ritual is that the ascendant’s mind loses contact with the world around him. Meanwhile, he acquires another kind of perception, i. e. a vision of the divine world.³² As a first step of his ascent, he sees himself levitating in the air, ascending, but with a clear sight of the ‘divine constellation’ of the moment of the ritual performance (PGM IV 545 τῆς ὥρας θείαν θέσιν) and the ‘gods’ that ‘ascend to heaven and descend [from heaven to earth?]’. The text continues: ‘The course of the visible gods will appear through the disk of god, my father’.³³ What ‘visible gods’ and what ‘disk’? The ‘visible gods’ in this section are interpreted by Betz, Merkelbach, and Dieterich as ‘stars’ that determine the moment of the performance of the ritual, i. e. the day and hour. This would include the seven planets, but not only these.³⁴

 Dillon 1977, 384˗392.  PGM IV 485˗732.  Pace Betz 2003, 37: ‘The “Mithras Liturgy” occupies a precarious place between various ancient traditions. Clearly, its development took place in an Egyptian religious milieu under the influence of Hellenistic philosophy. That philosophy is Stoic, not Neoplatonic: the “Mithras Liturgy” originated in a milieu prior to Neoplatonism’. For the Stoa see ibid. 135, 156 f., 172, esp. 35: ‘the “Mithras Liturgy” does not show any evidence of Neoplatonic influence’.  PGM IV 485˗537.  PGM IV 437 f.  Cf. Or. Chal. frs. 124, 130 Des Places with Edmonds 2000, 15 f.; Johnston 1997, 181˗183.  PGM IV 539˗555.  PGM IV 545˗549.  Betz 2003, 142 with more Platonic passages; Merkelbach 1992, 163, 238; Dieterich 1923, 62, referring to Pl. Ti. 40D.

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I wish to discuss another solution: these gods are somehow restricted to the sphere between earth and the ‘disk’, i. e. in the position of mediators between earth and what is ‘above’. Identifying them with daimons would explain why they ‘ascend to heaven and descend [from heaven to earth?]’. The fact that daimons occur under the names of ‘gods’ would hardly be disturbing, because the whole text curiously omits explicit references to daimons anyway. And the fact that they are ‘seen’ may have Platonic parallels, in which the stars are described in a similar way,³⁵ but their visibility may also be due to their daimonic/material nature. If the disk is meant to be the ‘father’, the ‘disk’ can only denote Helios/the sun. This is how Betz, Edmonds, Merkelbach and Dieterich interpret the passage.³⁶ But what would be the point of mentioning Helios in the spheres, apart from the fact that the ascendant actually passes Helios later on in the text?³⁷ Do we have to separate the sun˗disk from Helios? It is true that in Mithraic contexts, Mithras Sol Invictus is distinguished from Sol.³⁸ Such a distinction is conceivable here too, but it is an uneconomical explanation, because our ‘disk’ is lower than ˗and separate from˗ both the anonymous deity and Helios. Rather, it is in a position in which we would normally expect the moon˗disk. In fact, the absence of an explicit reference to the moon has puzzled scholars.³⁹ If we want to consider the possibility that the disk here is actually the moon‐disk, we have to take the expression ‘disk of god, my father’ not as epexegetic (= the disk of god = my father), but as possessive: i. e. ‘the (moon˗)disk belonging to god, my father (=Helios)’. The latter interpretation would suggest that the moon˗disk is taken as a possession of Helios. At any rate, the reference to the moon˗disk here would remedy the strange omission of the moon in the ascension section of the ‘Mithras Liturgy’. The omission would be even weirder if we consider that the whole ritual can be performed at full moon once a month (which speaks against Edmond’s thesis that the moon is not mentioned in the ‘Liturgy’ at all, because of its ‘pessimistic’ influence’),⁴⁰ while the preparations for it start two weeks earlier, at the ‘seizure of the moon’, i. e. at the appearance of new moon.⁴¹ Last but not least, the wind˗‘pipe’ that hangs from the disk may equally well belong to the moon˗disk. For in the archaeological record of Mith-

      

Betz 2003, 142 n. 306. Betz 2003, 142; Edmonds 2000, 12 f.; Merkelbach 1992, 163, 237 f.; Dieterich 1923, 7, 62. Cf. PGM IV 628˗661. Edmonds 2003, 237; Edmonds 2000, 12 f. Edmonds 2003; Edmonds 2000, 20 f. PGM IV 796˗798 with Edmonds 2003. PGM IV 753, 787 with Edmonds 2003, 236.

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ras, the winds are often connected with both the sun and the moon.⁴² In a word, then, the ‘disk’ mentioned at PGM IV 548, 576, 579 f., 583 may well be the moon˗disk, not, as generally accepted, the sun˗disk. Subsequently, ‘the gods’ attack the ascendant in an attempt to obstruct its ascent, but they are forced back by a ritual formula, calming the ’gods’ down and making them take up their own affairs again.⁴³ Who are these gods? Betz, Merkelbach and Dieterich are certain that these are the planetary gods. Betz points to parallels in other Mediterranean cultures.⁴⁴ But why would planetary gods be restricted to this low sphere in the universe? And more importantly, how is it that the planetary gods appear unambiguously later on in a higher sphere?⁴⁵ One should note that they are not said to descend and attack, but only to attack, which would suggest that their natural habitat is exactly this lowest sphere. Again, it would seem to be a more economic interpretation to see in the aggressors the daimons of the sublunar sphere that attempt to tear the ascending soul back down to earth. There is comparative evidence for obstructing daimons of this kind in contemporary and later sources.⁴⁶ To quote a passage from Proclus: ‘in the holiest of the mysteries [= theurgic/mystic ascent of the soul] the visitation of the god is preceded by assaults and apparitions of certain terrestrial daimons (δαιμόνων χθονίων τινῶν ἐμβολαὶ προφαίνονται καὶ ὄψεις), confounding the initiates, pulling them away from pure goods and inviting them to matter’.⁴⁷ The ascendant of the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ wards off the gods with a prayer, a ‘symbol of the imperishable god’, and voces mysticae. The ‘symbol’ ˗considered by many editors to be a gloss˗ may well be used in its Chaldaean/Neoplatonic sense as σύνθημα,⁴⁸ although the word has also wider applications.⁴⁹ The ascendant now leaves behind the mysterious ‘gods’ and ‘angels’ (angels are mentioned only here in the ‘Mithras Liturgy’).⁵⁰ He approaches the moon from below, but is still in the sublunar sphere. He must appease a thunderbolt

 Dieterich 1923, 63. For the conduits (ὀχετοί) Johnston 1997, 183˗185 has pointed to similar ‘pipes’ in the Chaldaean Oracles.  PGM IV 556˗568.  Betz 2003, 146; Merkelbach 1992, 162, 238; Dieterich 1923, 64 f.  See below on PGM IV 585˗628, p. 240 with n. 57.  Johnston 1997, 180 f.  Proc. In Alc. I, 39.16˗40.2 Westerink.  Johnston 1997, 185˗189.  Betz 2003, 148 f.  PGM IV 571, but cf. the ‘archangel’ who transmits the text to the author according to PGM IV 483 f.

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through another magic incantation.⁵¹ This thunderbolt is perhaps sent by the pole˗lords who keep up the natural order of the world (which is infringed by the ascending soul). About these pole˗lords we learn more later on.⁵² The soul can now see the ‘disk’ in its full expansion, five˗pronged stars issuing from its disk, and the galaxy (= ‘the boundless cycle’).⁵³ According to Betz, Merkelbach und Dieterich this is again the sun, with ˗perhaps˗ shooting stars⁵⁴ but why would the sun be a.) situated so low, b.) mentioned again later explicitly as Helios,⁵⁵ c.) connected to nocturnal phenomena such as ‘shooting stars’? I submit that it is again the moon˗disk that now, on the ascendant’s departure from the sublunar world, appears in all its brightness in front of him. After closing his eyes, the ascendant enounces a petitionary prayer to Aion, who keeps the fiery bars of heaven closed with his spirit.⁵⁶ The ascendant has to repeat either the whole prayer or at least the voces mysticae (seven rows of vowels) seven times for the ‘seven immortal gods of the world’, i. e. the seven planetary gods. It is here (and not earlier) that we enter the sphere of the planetary gods, i. e. the supra˗lunar sphere. Only now are the bars of the moon unlocked.⁵⁷ It is significant that through the moon˗gate the ascendant enters a fundamentally different kind of space that is protected by ‘bars’ and presided over by Aion. In a word, by passing the moon˗gate, the ascendant leaves behind the sublunar world of daimons, winds, etc. A second thunderbolt frightens the ascendant (sent, as it seems, again by the pole˗lords). When the initiate opens his eyes, he sees the bars of the moon˗gates open and behind it the world of the (planetary) gods, to which the soul now ascends.⁵⁸ After the moon, the ascendant reaches Helios. The encounter with Helios is an unambiguous and clearly marked section. After recovering from the previous thunderbolt, the ascendant calls on Helios who subsequently turns his rays towards the ascendant and appears, youthful and wreathed. Helios is here represented as the gatekeeper of the high god, who, strangely enough, remains anonymous. Helios is asked to announce the mortal soul’s advent to this high god.⁵⁹ The ascendant introduces himself and declares the ultimate purpose of his as-

        

PGM IV 569˗577. PGM IV 678˗683. PGM IV 577˗585. Betz 2003, 153; Merkelbach 1992, 165, 239 f.; Dieterich 1923, 65. PGM IV 628˗661. PGM IV 588˗590, 594. PGM IV 585˗628. PGM IV 620˗628. PGM IV 628˗655.

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cent: the consultation of the high god and an oracular response.⁶⁰ He then sees Helios walking to the axis˗pole of the world.⁶¹ ‘Having said this, you will see gates opening’.⁶² Dieterich comments that these are ‘new gates’ (without further specifications).⁶³ But why should Helios have two gates? Merkelbach ignores the problem, and Betz believes that these gates are identical with those mentioned earlier (i. e. those at PGM IV 624 f.).⁶⁴ But Betz’s interpretation is unlikely for three reasons: 1. Why should the author refer to the same gates twice? 2. Linguistically, at PGM IV 661 f. we have the present participle ἀνοιγομένας, which means that the gates are in the process of opening, not ‘open’. The latter sense is expressed by the corresponding term employed in the earlier passage with the perfect participle ἀνεῳγυΐας. 3. At PGM IV 661 f. (= ‘you will see gates open’) one would expect an article before ‘gates’, if the passage were pointing back to the earlier section. Betz arbitrarily adds this article in his translation, but this is unwarranted. To conclude, we have to distinguish between the gates of the (moon˗)disk and the gates of Helios. The ascendant is now standing before the gates of Helios. There seven ‘maidens’ (παρθένοι), called ‘the Fates of Heaven’ (οὐρανοῦ Τύχαι), appear from beyond the gates (ἐκ τοῦ βάθους) and another group of seven gods with the faces of black bulls, the so˗called ‘pole˗rulers of Heaven’ (πολοκράτορες τοῦ οὐρανοῦ), ‘send out thunder and lightning … and thunderbolts against the nations of impious tribes’.⁶⁵ The ascendant greets both groups of deities elaborately.⁶⁶ More important for us than their exact identity⁶⁷ is the fact that the ascendant does not enter the gates of Helios. The encounter with the two groups of gods takes place outside the gates (both groups of deities ‘come’, cf. ἐρχόμενας/ προέρχονται PGM IV 662/673). Those interpreters (such as Betz and Dieterich) who want to see the text as steps of an ascent normally overlook the point that the ascendant does not reach beyond the gates of Helios. The advent of the anonymous high god follows, not in that the ascendant passes the gates of Helios, but in that the high god descends (κατερχόμενον).⁶⁸ His identity is not made explicit, but given the god’s appearance, which is described in consid-

        

PGM IV 653 f. PGM IV 655˗657 with Betz 2003, 174 offering parallels. PGM IV 662. Dieterich 1923, 70. Betz 2003, 174 f. PGM IV 681˗683. PGM IV 662˗692. For such attempts, see Betz 2003, 173˗180. PGM IV 696.

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erable detail (most notably the trousers and the golden shoulder of a young calf in his right hand), an identification with Mithras is at least plausible.⁶⁹ As in all encounters with the divine, the text prescribes exactly how to address the deity. This address includes the request of an oracle.⁷⁰ Apparently, the key to the fulfillment of this wish is the fact that the high god is ‘ordered’ by the voces mysticae ENTHO PHENEN THROPIOTH, while the ascendant introduces himself with his new mystic name, which he has acquired after his previous transformation to immortality, i. e. PHEROURA MIOURI.⁷¹ The high god immediately responds with a metric oracle, and departs. The ascendant memorizes the oracle, even if it is myriads of lines long.⁷² Here the representation of the ascension ends, followed by supplemental ritual instructions. The text has two objectives, viz. immortalization and oracular consultation, in this sequence. For most of the text as it stands (until ll. 653 f.), no one would have guessed that the point of the perilous journey of the ascendant is an oracular response (which he could have received without further ado with a simple magical consultation). Rather, from the beginning of the text, the impression is created that the primary task of the ritual is ‘immortalization’. Thus, in the introduction to the ritual, the first˗person narrator asks for ‘immortality for a single child’ through the ‘mysteries’.⁷³ The narrator also adds that Helios Mithras (sic!) orders the treatise ‘to be handed over to me by his archangel so that I alone may go to heaven as an ‘eagle’(?), and behold the all’.⁷⁴ And the supplemental ritual instructions after the ascent repeatedly refer to the ‘immortalization’ ritual (ἀπαθανατισμός), ignoring completely the oracular component.⁷⁵ However, the oracular section cannot easily be removed from the text, not the least because of scattered passages that are inexplicable unless we consider the oracular aspect as central.⁷⁶ Dieterich thinks that a redactor had reemployed the ascension for oracular purposes;⁷⁷ Merkelbach suggests an extension of its restricted use later on (but what exactly was its original use?);⁷⁸ Betz believes that the oracular

 For his appearance, cf. PGM IV 696˗704 with Betz 2003, 182˗185; for Mithras, also Edmond 2003, 237 f., but contra e. g. Gordon 2005, 100, who follows a long tradition of criticism of this identification.  PGM IV 712˗724.  PGM IV 711, 724.  PGM IV 724˗732.  PGM IV 476 f.  PGM IV 482˗485.  PGM IV 741, 747, 771.  PGM IV 732˗736, 777 f.  Dieterich 1923, 82.  Merkelbach 1992, 244.

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request is part of the original.⁷⁹ There is no way to solve this question. Suffice it to say that there are no apparent breaks in the narrative that would allow us to separate an ‘oracular’ section from an ‘immortalization’ account. Betz and Dieterich are among those who argue that the text represents an ascension to Mithras in seven steps molded at least partly on a seven˗step initiation ritual known from the Mithraic cult.⁸⁰ Of course, one can dissect the text in a manner that would justify such a seven˗fold structure. But apart from a certain arbitrariness of such a dissection, the underlying notion of a consistent ‘ascension’ is highly problematic, given that the last four stages of Betz’s and Dieterich’s analysis (4. Helios, 5. Fates, 6. pole-lords, 7. Mithras) all take place in front of the gates of Helios, as our philological analysis has just shown. There is no ascent, at most a series of encounters in front of Helios’ gates. And, as both scholars admit, there are important differences between the protagonists of our text and the archaeological evidence, including Celsus’ seven stages of the Mithraic initiate (this is, of course, not a sufficient argument, because in the case of the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ we would be talking about Egyptian Mithraism).⁸¹ The performance of the text/ritual certainly could do without liturgical pictures, the presentation of which accompanied the ritual, according to Betz and Dieterich;⁸² and it could certainly do without Merkelbach’s sacred drama.⁸³ The author of the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ is eccentric in describing in such exceptional detail the specific encounters with the various divine entities in the form of a celestial itinerary. There is, however, one somewhat ‘theatrical’ element : the performer is variously asked to ‘hiss’ (σύρισον), ‘pop’ (πόππυσον),⁸⁴ and ‘bellow’ (μυκάομαι).⁸⁵ As for the voces mysticae, in a passage that is remarkable and unique (at least in PGM), these are described as ‘the immortal names, living and honored, which have not yet passed into mortal nature nor been articulated by human tongue or mortal sound or mortal voice’.⁸⁶ The author thus reveals himself not only as a firm guide of the road to heaven, but also as a theoretician of divine language. A serious problem in the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ is the question of the form in which the human being ascends and ‘sees’. Is it as an incorporeal soul/pneuma

       

Betz 2003, 189 f. Betz 2003, 135˗140; Dieterich 1923, 90. Orig. Contra Cels. 6.22. Betz 2003, 138˗140; Dieterich 1923, 92˗212. Merkelbach 1992, 29˗40. PGM IV 488, 561 f., 578 f. PGM IV 490, 659, 705, 707, cf. 712. PGM IV 606˗610 with Betz 2003, 163 f. with parallels in Judaeo˗Christian apocrypha.

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or is it as endowed with his human body? In fact, it is as both. The ascendant invokes pneuma numerous times in the initial petitionary prayer,⁸⁷ and his incorporeal soul appears as beset with divine pneuma on various occasions.⁸⁸ All this is, of course, reminiscent of the Neoplatonic ‘soul vehicle’. The author of the ‘Mithras Liturgy’ envisions the ascendant as an incorporeal soul when the latter steps out of the body, leaving behind the corporeal perceptions of the human world, and receiving visions of the divine cosmos in return;⁸⁹ also when the ascendant asks the high god to ‘stay in his soul’ (meaning not to leave him);⁹⁰ finally when ˗after the revelation of the high god˗ the text says: ‘you will grow weak in your soul, and you will not be in yourself, when he answers you’.⁹¹ On the other hand, the ascendant is represented as fully embodied when he ‘closes his eyes’;⁹² he describes himself in front of Helios as a ‘human being’ (ἄνθρωπος ἐγώ) with his maternal and paternal affiliation, and as ‘reborn by you … and immortalized’ (τούτου ὑπό σου με‹τα›γεννηθέντος … ἀπαθανατισθείς);⁹³ when he ‘bellows’ and thereby ‘presses his stomach, in order to excite the five senses’;⁹⁴ or ‘kisses’ the phylacteries.⁹⁵ Most of all, the ascendant’s capacity of speech is, of course, of paramount importance throughout the ritual and can be conceptualized only with a fully corporeal human being. There is thus a severe incongruity in the text: On the one hand, it is theological speculation, a charter of ‘seeing’ the higher ontological orders for solely academic or philosophical ends. On the other hand, it is a magical recipe for practical performance and thus in need of a (corporeal) performer. Nowhere do the Greeks come as close to the notion of an ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ as in the PGM recipes. These epiphanies, however, cannot be compared to ‘epiphanies’ as these are dealt with in the remainder of this book, namely because 1. they are induced and, for their induction, human or material catalysators are indispensable (e. g. proxies such as children, candles, lamps, water bowls etc.); 2. they are controllable by the ritualist in both time and place through his particular knowledge and ritual practices; 3. they revolve around special light effects

        

PGM PGM PGM PGM PGM PGM PGM PGM PGM

IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV

489, 505, 510, 520. 538, 617 f., 627, 629, 658 f., 714; Aion too has pneuma, cf. line 589. 539˗544. 710. 725 f. with Betz 2003, 194 f. 588˗590, 594. 644, 646˗648 with Betz 2003, 170˗172. 704˗706. 407 f.

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perceived in a state between sleep and waking; 4. the deities addressed and invoked are often ‘magical’ forms of Greek or foreign deities that cannot unreservedly be identified with panhellenic gods or their local emanations; 5. they are restricted to the Egyptian milieu and influenced by Egyptian notions of ‘seeing’ and ‘divinity’.

Conclusions Generic Patterns The most important insight of this study is the fact that representations of divine epiphanies in the sense of ‘gods appearing before mortals in a visible shape’ are scarce, restricted to a few genres and clearly patterned, while the vast majority of textual genres ostentatiously shun the representation of epiphanies, most importantly those genres that pose as reflections of the human lifeworld. Furthermore, only very few of the extant representations, namely those serving as aetiologies for ritual changes in the human lifeworld, follow Petridou’s epiphanic schema, consisting of crisis, authorization/legitimation, resolution, and commemoration. Given this distribution and patternization, nothing suggests that in the mind of the ancient Greeks gods walk the earth in the human lifeworld in the same way as mortals do. Even the late ‘epiphanies’ of Neoplatonism and the magical recipes are not represented as ordinary lifeworld epiphanies, but as induced on specific occasions, either by a specific way of life (Plotinus), or by ritual practices (Iamblichus, PGM). Apart from Petridou’s schema, many more patterns can be identified which owe their existence to mere ad˗hoc dramaturgy or generic conventions. Suffice it to recapitulate the thematic restrictions on the tragic Dionysus, who is concerned only with self˗reassertion and the punishment of unbelievers; the focus in comedy on a fully humanized and degraded ‘anti˗Dionysus’; the absence from the human lifeworld of Zeus especially in those genres that are the most ‘epiphanic’ (epic, narrative hymns, drama); the dramaturgic patterns of prologue, reversal or epilogue epiphanies of drama, the parody of hymnic conventions in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4), or that of tragic conventions of epiphanic representations in Aristophanes. One could point to the structural importance of divinatory dreams, especially in historiography and the novel, and the general exhortative function of epiphany dreams as opposed to the normally anticipatory function of sign dreams. The list of generically determined representational patterns identified in this book is long, and the reader will find the details in the individual chapters. All these patterns are genre˗specific and often mutually incompatible. How can they be explained? At this point we return to Versnel, with whom this book began. As we have seen, in his 1987 article Versnel concludes that multiple ‘perspectives’ are the most important parameter in the representation (and interpretation) of epiphanies. Throughout his various publications, and most pronouncedly in his Sather Lectures of 1999 (published in 2011), Versnel remains fascinated by the question https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-017

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of ‘inconsistencies’ in Greek and Roman religions, and his answer remains always essentially the same: such ‘inconsistencies’ are due to changing representational perspectives, hence ‘multi-perspectiveness’.¹ Versnel’s fundamental insight is that gods appear differently in different ‘registers’, and these ‘registers’ are to be kept separate, if we want to do justice to the Greek representations of gods. The iron law, according to Versnel, is ‘… not to mix up the different registers of this divina commedia’.² Different occasions imply changes of representational perspectives.³ At this point of the book, we come to realize that textual genres are tantamount to Versnel’s ‘registers’. If so, any meaningful taxonomy of textual representations must apply Versnel’s iron law, and not ‘mix up’ genres.

Reality and ‘Epiphany˗Mindedness’ I still owe an answer to the question: ‘what did ancient man see in reality … ?’ Since the textual representations of epiphanies and epiphany dreams are so profoundly patterned/indebted to their generic environment, they cannot simply be taken as reflections of lifeworld reality. Before attempting an answer, let me address a basic methodological dilemma I encountered during the work on this book. A systemic fallacy of modern scholarly discourse is the need for stable categories. This need distinguishes modern scholarly texts from artistic writing, which may redefine its categories as it proceeds. Artistic writing may be deliberately inconsistent, vague, or even senseless, and still be meaningful art. By contrast, scholarly texts must attempt to define the parameters of a categorical grid and apply it consistently to the material. The obvious advantage of the scholarly approach is the establishment of a verifiable yardstick for quantification and qualification of the phenomena in question, but the disadvantage is the extreme reduction of highly complex phenomena to a set of properties and the creation of a rigid conceptual grid that disregards both the complexity and the fluidity of the phenomena. In fact, the more reductive, the clearer and more verifiable/quantifiable ˗but also more artificial and simplistic˗ the scholarly category. The dilemma is most obvious with the term ‘epiphany’. Most modern scholars define it as a very broad category of divine ‘presence’. Some would not even distinguish between waking and dream epiphanies. By adopting such an ‘inclu Cf. Versnel 1994 and 1990.  Versnel 2011, 496, cf. 148 f.  Versnel 2011, passim, for the term ‘multi-perspectiveness’, see ibid. index s.v., cf. also Versnel 2011a (according to Versnel 2011a, 27 n. 18 a ‘tiny abstract’ of chapter I of Versnel 2011).

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sive’ approach, scholars acknowledge the obvious fact that the boundaries between different forms of divine presence are fluid. The drawback of inclusivity, however, is that one can find epiphanies virtually everywhere in Greek ‘reality’. All in all, I do not question the importance of epiphanies in the sense of a vague divine presence. Although polytheistic gods ˗unlike their Abrahamic peers˗ are not necessarily omnipresent and must often be ‘summoned’, it is fair to assume that there is always a multitude of unnamed deities ‘present’ at any given place in Greek polytheism. Furthermore, the meaning of ‘epiphany’ in this inclusive sense is perfectly backed up by ancient sources. Nevertheless, a broad application of the term deprives us of the opportunity to ‘measure’ accurately the quantity and quality of epiphanic representations. Throughout this book, I have therefore focused on epiphany as the visible presence of gods in human reality. Visibility is the parameter that defines this book. It is responsible both for the exclusion of oracles and signs that suggest only a presence of the deity but not its visibility, and for the inclusion of dreams in which gods are ‘seen’. Visibility is a specific form of divine presence. From Homer on, it is a truism that all visible gods are somewhere present, but not all present gods are visible, at least not to all mortals alike. Visibility in a dream is so distinctive a criterion that many ancient authors who are otherwise hostile to the representation of epiphanies in the human lifeworld do not hesitate to represent epiphany and sign dreams in the critical ‘objective’ mode time and again. Visibility has an immediacy that a vague ‘presence’ has not. Visibility is also a testimony to piety: Albert Henrichs put it succinctly: ‘Seeing is believing’.⁴

Epiphanies in the Lifeworld and Intentional Reality In the introduction, I quoted Conte to the effect that ‘reality’ is a cultural construct. I also distinguished three forms of reality, namely (ordinary) lifeworld reality (based on empirical experience of the individual), intentional reality (based on the collective memory of the group and serving to create and guarantee social coherence), and invented reality (= fiction, namely imaginary events that are intended to be understood as such by the audience). Among these three, lifeworld reality is ‘reality’ par excellence in the modern western world and hence this term is normally employed without a specifying epithet: for us it is ‘reality’ per se.

 Henrichs 1993, 17.

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So ‘what did ancient man see in lifeworld reality?’ I submit that outside dreams (and similar subconscious states of mind) Greek gods, be they disguised or undisguised, are not normally seen by anyone in Greek lifeworld reality. Rather, the reason for this lingering modern misconception is Homer’s (fictional) epiphanic representations and Greek figural art on the one hand, and deliberate Christian distortion (based on a misapplication of Homeric representations and Greek art to the Greek lifeworld) on the other. Christian apologists can thereby exploit earlier philosophical criticism of the anthropomorphism of Homeric gods, which begins with Xenophanes and gains momentum with Plato.⁵ The dichotomy of gods of Homer/Greek art and those of the Greek lifeworld reality follows from the generic analysis of the textual evidence: as for the three most epiphanic genres of epic, narrative hymns and drama, in their epiphanic representations, they follow dramaturgic patterns involving type scenes and modes of disguise in Homer and the narrative hymns; prologue, reversal and epilogue epiphanies, as well as Dionysus in his capacity as deus praesentissimus or, by contrast, Zeus as deus absentissimus in drama. All this is generically determined and restricted to fiction, and there is nothing in the evidence that might point to an ‘epiphany˗mindedness’ beyond the narrow generic boundaries in which such epiphanic representations occur. Most characteristically (and controversially, I suppose), on the dramatic stage, epiphanic gods interact with human protagonists as fully emancipated agents of the main plot and its cast, not as ritual proxies: gods of drama are part of the dramatic fiction, not of the dramatic ritual. Ritual in a dramatic context is assigned to the chorus and when the latter declines in the mid˗fourth century BCE, so does the ritual link of Greek drama. Despite the disappearance of the chorus, however, epiphanic gods continue to be staged until the Roman period. Furthermore, gods of tragedy are fictional stereotypes, no more and no less than those of comedy (or the satyr play for that matter). It is arbitrary to construct from tragic representations the panhellenic lifeworld deities of Greek polytheism. As for the prose genres investigated here, most of them are committed to representing lifeworld reality as it (plausibly) is or could be. They are, however, profoundly reluctant to represent epiphanies. When they do, they virtually always turn to the anecdotal (not the Thucydidean critical) mode, with the typical stylistic buffers such as ‘it is said’ vel sim. Such an anecdotal mode is first explicitly and extensively embraced by Herodotus, who sees as his task to record what peo-

 Herrero de Jáuregui 2019; for the development of the discussion about ‘anthropomorphism’ in western culture, see the introduction of Gagé/ Herrero de Jáuregui 2019, 7˗42.

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ple say (λέγειν τὰ λεγόμενα) without being bound to believe it.⁶ Furthermore, the few epiphanic representations in Herodotus, but also in later historiography, show signs of a deliberate marginalization: they may 1. refer to an event at the periphery of the world of the author either geographically or chronologically; 2. involve minor local (non˗Olympian) deities (including Asclepius, Isis); 3. be tied to the vicinity of a specific shrine. To put it negatively, to my knowledge, nowhere in the genres investigated here, be they poetry or prose, do we find evidence for, say, a ‘visible’ lifeworld epiphany of a major Olympian as a direct response to a sacrificial offering or the invocation of him in a prayer or cletic hymn reported as a matter˗of˗fact account in the authoritative third˗person voice. At most, the god may respond to sacrifice or prayer through an epiphany dream or sign, but often he postpones his answer. The only exception seems to be Neoplatonism (especially since Iamblichus) and the magical papyri, where an epiphany may be induced by a sacrifice or invocation, and even here, the demarcation line between waking and oneiric experience is normally hard to draw. Despite such precautions to ensure compatibility with the lifeworld experience of the texts, the distribution of representations of epiphanies in the human lifeworld is profoundly restricted, with Herodotus being much fonder of them than any of his peer historians. Thucydides, the critical historian par excellence, does not deign epiphanies or dreams worthy of representation at all, while he is deeply interested in the psychology of oracles and signs. Xenophon and Polybius follow Thucydides in their scepticism about epiphanies. Even the erotic novel refers to epiphany scenes only from hearsay, never as a matter˗of˗ fact representation. Official inscriptions may rarely ‘report’ lifeworld epiphanies, but even here, epiphanies are normally meant rather to be epiphany dreams or signs. The distribution in private inscriptions is telling: in the entire corpus of hundreds of private inscriptions, most of which belong to the ex˗iussu˗type, I could identify only two that explicitly refer to waking epiphanies. I may perhaps have missed some, but the towering preponderance of dream epiphanies in the relevant corpus is incontestable. There is one exception to this ban on epiphanic representations, namely those representing ‘intentional’ reality, as the term is defined in the introduction to this book. To this group belong a few passages in historiography (most famously Herodotus’ Pan episode, presumably drawn from epigraphic evidence from the Athenian sanctuary of Pan), the bulk of epiphanic representations in Pausanias’ Periegesis, and many public inscriptions. It is to these that Petridou’s

 Hdt. 7.152.

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quadripartite epiphanic schema can often be applied. The veracity of these ‘intentional’ accounts is guaranteed by the local collective memory, as controlled by local interest groups (such as the priests of the relevant deity). Such accounts form the backbone of local ‘intentional history’. Their relevance to lifeworld reality lies in their power to legitimize the change or preservation of the status quo of rituals and cults. After all, epiphanies form the most authoritative and overriding form of divine intervention that may authorize the change or continuation of religious practices. For, unlike signs or oracles, a visible deity giving explicit orders cannot be misinterpreted; in fact, it is its ‘visibility’ that ensures the verifiability of its message. The inscriptions of Artemis Leucophryene from Magnesia-on-the-Maeander or the Lindian Chronicle are cases in point, although even here some unspecified epiphanies may in fact be epiphany dreams.

Dreams in the Lifeworld and Intentional Reality While not being ‘epiphany˗minded’, the Greeks are undoubtedly ‘dream˗minded’. For instance, Greek gods communicate with mortals through dreams, as the Epidaurian iamata, Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi or ordinary dream interventions such as those of the Nymphs in Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe demonstrate. Incubation rituals are common and compensate for the absence of lifeworld epiphanies. The priests, who draw material benefits from them, turn such rituals into a veritable industry, with its own marketing conventions exemplified in the Epidaurian iamata. These priests could have no interest in promoting the idea of waking epiphanies. As a result, such waking epiphanies are virtually never mentioned in incubational contexts. Dream epiphanies are represented in all genres investigated here, virtually always in the critical mode. That means they appear without any of the distancing linguistic qualifiers that we find with epiphanic representations (‘it is said …’ etc.). In fact, the extreme reservations with which ancient historians, (auto˗)biographers or erotic novelists represent epiphanies stand in marked contrast to their constant and unqualified matter˗of˗fact representations of epiphany and sign dreams. Herodotus and Plutarch (in his Lives) are obvious cases in point. The only historian who has nothing to say about dreams whatsoever is Thucydides. Even Polybius comments on the ‘dream˗mindedness’ of his audience, doubting the divinatory power of dreams but acknowledging their psychological impact and thus their importance for the average Greek. However, even the extant dream representations cannot be said to simply reflect the lifeworld reality of the Greeks. Rather, their representation too follows generic patterns and clear dramaturgic ends. A general (though not inviolable)

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tendency is to reserve epiphany dreams for divine exhortations that provoke a reaction by the recipient and are thus ˗following a terminology introduced by Whitmarsh for the Greek novel˗ labelled “exhortative” in this book, and sign dreams for predictions of an inalterable future, here called “anticipatory.” Furthermore, especially in the historical discourse, dreams serve often to explain the motives of the dreamer’s actions, especially when such motives are conjectural. For instance, most recipients of Herodotus’ divinatory dreams are nonGreeks or their proxies. Unlike lifeworld epiphanies, divinatory dreams are frequently employed to mark pivotal points of the plot. One may mention Herodotus’ first (sign?) dream, predicting the death of Croesus’ son, and announcing a vital theme of his entire work: predestination (to be demonstrated in no less than the subsequent 12 chapters);⁷ or take the cluster of Xerxes’ dream epiphanies, which introduce the most decisive phase of the Persian campaign.⁸ Ring composition is found when Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe begins with two dreams of the foster˗fathers of the two protagonists and ends with the dreams of their real fathers.⁹ It would be easy to multiply the evidence for such structural oneiric signposts in the historical or historicizing narratives. The three most epiphanic genres, namely epic, narrative hymns and dramatic poetry, are relatively reluctant (although not hostile) to represent divinatory dreams. The numbers of such dreams in epic and drama is very low compared to the numerous epiphanic representations. Narrative hymns avoid divinatory dreams altogether, because these do not afford encomiastic material for the deity. However, it would be wrong to postulate an intrinsic incompatibility of dreams with these genres. Their sometimes very elaborate and sophisticated dream representations, such as Penelope’s dream in Odyssey 19, clearly point in a different direction. Rather, in these genres divinatory dreams are often simply replaced by fully˗fledged epiphany accounts. Dreams are also the key for locating epiphanies in the philosophical discourse. From the first philosophical responses to Homeric poetry on (e. g. Xenophanes), the anthropomorphic epiphanic deities of epic have been unanimously discarded as a product of fiction. No philosophical school finds it worthwhile to systematically deal with lifeworld epiphanies. By contrast, as shown above, dreams have often intrigued physicians and philosophers. Aristotle, for instance, who writes on divinatory dreams, would hardly ever have considered writing a

 Hdt. 1.34˗45.  Hdt. 7.12˗19, 47.  Long. 1.7, 4.35.

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treatise on lifeworld epiphanies. Except for the Epicureans, all major philosophical schools grapple with the issue of dream divination. The Epicureans reject it out of hand.

Divine Fiction Versus Piety and Religion? The Question of ‘Aetiologies’ For many scholars, it is self-evident that Homeric and artistic representations of gods and epiphanies reflect at least to some extent Greek lifeworld reality. Let it suffice here to point to Lefkowitz’s reading of Euripidean gods as faithfully reflecting anthropomorphic, cruel, and unrelenting Homeric gods in the human lifeworld reality. By contrast, I have argued that the relevant textual representations are generically bound, fictional stereotypes. If I am right, can such divine fiction still claim to be ‘pious’ or ‘religious’? In the Abrahamic traditions, no self˗consciously divine fiction (i. e. with God as its protagonists) is extant or likely to have ever existed. God himself is no subject of fictional literature, be it in the form of the novel or of comedy or parody. In the Abrahamic traditions, God has various human properties (voice, sentiments etc.), but the texts are painstakingly careful not to describe his visible appearance. He does not even have a personal name (the transmitted Yhwh is not pronounced by the Jews and virtually ignored by the Christians). He is mysteriously ‘everywhere,’ which a polytheistic god or normal person can never be. New representations of his faceless interventions must adhere to strict rules: they must not challenge ‘canonical’ narratives such as Israel’s exodus from Egypt under Moses; Jesus’ crucifixion; Muhammad’s ascent to heaven/Miʿraj. These are theological cornerstones that cannot be challenged, changed, parodied or criticized, without challenging, changing, parodying or criticizing God himself. Ideally, there is only one true ˗and hence authoritative and ‘pious’˗ master˗narrative, because there is only one ‘true’ version of divine ‘reality’. To ensure representational homogeneity, all three Abrahamic traditions bring forth authoritative textual corpora through the process of canonization. By contrast, gods of Greek polytheism are defined not by their narratives, but by their divine personal names, their local shrines, and rituals, or ˗in a word˗ their cults. Stories with divine protagonists accompany cults, and the fictional character of such stories is accepted and acceptable to the cult adherents, because their fictionality does not challenge the cult itself. And the cult is all that matters. After all, it would be impossible to define the endless multitude of polytheistic gods through narrative ‘stories’ of past events in the canonizing Abrahamic fashion. Meanwhile, polytheistic cults, as defined by the theonym,

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the local shrines and rituals, remain immutable and are firmly anchored in the collective memory of the community, unless the deity itself sanctions a change, authorized by an oracle or, even better, an epiphany, and often both. This is the (only) moment when epiphanies enter the lifeworld of ancient man. We may call representations of such moments ‘aetiologies’, but we must employ the term with caution. We often speak of ‘aetiology’ as if a Greek polytheist would feel the need to ‘explain’ the existence of a cult. But I fear that this is ‘historicizing’ Abrahamic thinking. By contrast, many such hypothetic polytheistic ‘aetiologies’ are unconcealed poetic fictions with the aim of pleasing either the god or his votaries or both (τέρψις). Modern scholars may read the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2) as a poetic attempt to ‘aetiologize’ the Eleusinian cult. But if we take the gift˗character of Greek hymns seriously, we may doubt that the author ever intended the hymn to be aetiological. Rather, the hymn may only be a pleasant story or version about one of the deity’s favorite cult sites. While the ultimate goal of epic poetry is the pleasure of the mortal audience, the ultimate goal of the hymn is the pleasure of the gods. This means that the potential fictionality of the story does not challenge Demeter’s Eleusinian cult identity or ‘religious’ significance in any way. In the same vein, to read the Homeric Hymn to Hermes (4) as parody does not imply by any means that its contents offend the cult of the deity: in marked contrast to the Abrahamic Gods, Hermes, like Dionysus and other polytheistic deities, can be ridiculed, parodied and even denied during the most ‘religious’ moments of Greek religious lifeworld reality without offending any polytheist’s sense of ‘piety’. Otherwise, the representation of Dionysus in Cratinus’ Dionysalexandros or the ‘anti˗Dionysus’ of Eupolis’ Taxiarchoi and Aristophanes’ Ranae would be unthinkable, especially during festivals dedicated to – Dionysus! Nor does the cult of Dionysus need aetiological confirmation or reassertion by, say, Euripides’ Bacchae. I submit that all these texts constitute divine fiction presented for the single purpose of divine (and human) ‘pleasure’ (τέρψις). If this approach to the polytheistic mind is only partially correct, then we must free ourselves from the idea that the representations of gods and their epiphanies need to be part of ‘lifeworld reality’ in the mind of their creators or their audiences to express piety as the Greek polytheists experience it. Divine interventions, including epiphany accounts, are deliberately invented/fictional and still constitute ‘piety’, ‘piety’ of course in the un˗Abrahamic sense of a narrative gift to the god. In the absence of dogmatic restrictions, anything goes in the polytheistic cosmos of Greek myth as long as the existing cults of the gods in question are not challenged (when they are challenged, as in the case of the Roman Bacchanalia, intervention by the public authorities may be hard and swift). After all, Herodotus lauds Homer and Hesiod for practically ‘inventing’ from scratch

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the Greek gods, including their names, genealogies and iconographies.¹⁰ But no ancient critic would have charged either poet, or Herodotus for that matter, with asebeia. In a word, I hold that epiphanies in the sense of visible appearances of gods in their physical shape are generally foreign to the Greek lifeworld experience. Such epiphanic representations, as well as the names and all human properties of the gods, are ‘invented’ by the poets, first of all by Homer and Hesiod, but then also by the tragedians and others. It is as such inventions that they enter Greek figurative art. Cults are fixed, immutable, sanctioned by tradition and most importantly – by the local community. To change them one needs direct divine approval. This is the point at which epiphanies enter Greek ‘reality’, namely as aetiologies of cult changes, or more generally ‘intentional reality’. Even then, however, it is important to be aware of the chain of causality. In such ‘aetiological’ contexts, it may not be the veracity of an epiphany that is taken for granted to sanction ritual changes in ‘reality’, but conversely the cult changes may be taken as incontrovertible evidence for the fact that an epiphany had actually ‘really’ taken place.

 Hdt. 2.53.

Bibliography The bibliography is selective and biased, in that it comprises only those scholarly contributions which I refer to, while I refer only to those whose argument I found to be sufficiently compelling either for or against my own train of thought. Relevance remains a debatable matter. The deadline for the titles included is 2020. Titles of periodicals are spelled out or abbreviated according to L’Année Philologique. Acosta-Hughes 2012: B. Acosta-Hughes, ‘Callimaque face aux Hymnes Homériques’, in: Bouchon al. 2012, 123 – 133. Addey 2014: C. Addey, Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism. Oracles of the Gods (Surrey 2014). Agnosini 2016: M. Agnosini, ‘Giamblico e la divinazione κατὰ τὸ φανταστικόν. Verso l’integrazione di un genere divinatorio. Il caso dell’ idromanzia’, in: H. Seng/L. G. Soares Santoprete/C. O. Tommasi (eds.), Formen und Nebenformen des Platonismus in der Spätantike (Heidelberg 2016), 219 – 241. Agosti 2011: G. Agosti, ‘Annotazioni per uno studio letterario degli Oracoli Caldaici’, in: F. Bottari et al., Dignum laude virum. Studi di cultura classica e musica offerti a Franco Serpa (Trieste 2011), 3 – 25. Allan 2004: W. Allan ‘Religious Syncretism: The New Gods of Greek Tragedy’, HSCP 102 (2004), 113 – 155. Alperowitz 1992: M. Alperowitz, Das Wirken und Walten der Götter im griechischen Roman (Heidelberg 1992). Aly 1921: W. Aly, Volksmärchen, Sage und Novelle bei Herodot (Göttingen 1921). Ameling 1996: W. Ameling, ‘Pausanias und die Hellenistische Geschichte’, in: J. Bingen (ed.), Pausanias Historien (Geneva 1996), 117 – 166. Anderson/Dix 2007: C. A. Anderson/T. K. Dix, ‘Prometheus and the Basileia in Aristophanes’ Birds’, CJ 102 (2007), 321 – 327. Anderson 1995: C. A. Anderson, Athena’s Epithets: Their Structural Significance in Plays of Aristophanes (Stuttgart 1995). Arend 1933: W. Arend, Die typischen Scenen bei Homer (Berlin 1933). Arnott 2010: G. Arnott, ‘Middle Comedy’, in: Dobrov 2010, 279 – 331. Asheri/Lloyd/Corcella 2007: D. Asheri/A. Lloyd/A. Corcella, A Commentary on Herodotus. Books I-IV (Oxford 2007). Athanassaki/Bowie 2011: L. Athanassaki/E. Bowie (eds.), Archaic and Classical Choral Song. Performance, Politics and Dissemination (Berlin 2011). Athanassaki/Martin/Miller 2009: L. Athanassaki/R. Martin/J. F. Miller (eds.), Apolline Politics and Poetics (Athens 2009). Athanassaki 1990: L. Athanassaki, Mantic Vision and Diction in Pindar’s Victory Odes (Diss. Brown 1990). Athanassaki 2009: L. Athanassaki, ‘Apollo and his Oracle in Pindar’s Epinicians: Poetic, Representations, Politics and Ideaology’, in: Athanassaki/Martin/Miller 2009, 405 – 471. Athanassakis 1987: A. N. Athanassakis, ‘Penelope’s Dream in the Context of the Eagle against Serpent Motif’, Hellenica 38 (1987), 260 – 268. Auffarth 2007: C. Auffarth, ‘Ritual, Performance, Theater: die Religion der Athener in Aristophanes’ Komödien’, in: Bierl/Lämmle/Wesselmann 2007, 387 – 409. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-018

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General Index Abrahamic religions 50, 249, 254 f. Aceratus 140 f. Achaeans 27 f., 34 f., 95, 126 Achaeus 95 Achilles 26 – 29, 32 – 35, 41, 44, 47, 120, 130, 203 f., 208 f., 212 – 214, 216 f. Acropolis, Athens 95, 125, 139 Actaeon 58 f. Adonia (festival) 22 Aeacids 141, 159 Aeacus 116, 127 Aeëtes 37 Aegeus 91, 93 Aegina 127, 159, 166 Aegisthus 29 Aegospotami, battle of 160 Aeneas 28, 35, 41, 47, 58, 99 Aesop 220 aetiology 4, 36, 53, 56, 64 – 66, 69 f., 72, 93 – 95, 101, 107, 110, 135, 139 – 141, 155, 158, 163, 168, 181, 191, 247, 254 – 256 Agamemnon 22, 28, 32, 42 – 44, 101, 123, 129 Agave 112 f. Agenor 28 Agesilaus 157, 163 Agnoia (personification) 87, 90 Ahenobarbus (Roman cognomen) 160 Aion (personification) 236, 240, 244 Air (personification) 88, 90, 106, 122 Ajax 28, 31 f., 84, 93, 134 Alcestis 84, 90 Alcmene 80 f., 88, 121 ᾿Aλήθεια / Truth (personification) 71, 178 Alexander the Great 149, 170, 182, 187, 221 Alexandra (priestess of Demeter) 199 f. Alexandria 15, 55, 75 Amasis 187 Amazon 44 Amphitryo 80 f., 88, 90, 97, 100, 105, 122 – 124, 157 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-019

᾿ νάγκη / Necessity (personification) 103 A Anaphe 45 Anaurus 37 Anaxipolis 188 Anchises 55 – 58, 64, 206 Andromache 94 Andromeda 213 anecdotal mode 2, 137 – 140, 148, 155 f., 159, 163, 204, 250 angel 22, 231, 239 aniconism 124, 145, 166 annalists 149 f. Annius, Titus 154 anodos tales 107 Antenor 35 Anthesteria (festival) 22 Anthia 210, 214 anthropomorphism 4, 32, 134, 149, 162, 166, 197, 250, 253 f. anticipatory function, see s.v. dream anti-hero, Dionysus: 112 – 117, 134, 247, 255 Anyte 170 Aphrodisias 185 Aphrodite 2, 28, 31 f., 34, 36 f., 47 f., 51, 54 – 58, 63 – 66, 75 – 77, 83 – 85, 89, 109, 115, 148, 162, 173, 204, 206, 208, 214 – 216 Apollo 26 – 28, 31 – 36, 47, 51 – 57, 59 – 67, 72, 75, 84, 86, 94 f., 100 f., 109 f., 114, 120, 123 – 125, 132 f., 135, 141, 147 – 149, 152, 157, 166 – 168, 170, 174, 183 – 185, 189, 192, 195, 198 – 200, 205, 212 f., 215, 220 – Callitecnus 174 – Clarius 174 – Delphinius 56, 64 – Eeoïus 36 – Loxias 124 – Lycius 189 – Maleatas 192 – Phoebus 174 – Ptoeus 198 Apollonia 158

288

General Index

appearance-and-sensation topic 55, 174 Aquileia 150 Arcadia 95, 166, 169, 171 archaeology 8, 96, 107 f., 113, 124, 146, 174, 185, 192, 213, 233, 238, 243 Arcturus (personification) 88, 90 Areopagus, Athens 94 f., 100 f., 135 Ares 28, 31, 33 f. aretalogy 52, 54, 56, 110 f., 157, 178, 192 f., 195, 201, 206 Argo 36, 38, 149 Argonauts 2, 36 – 39, 45 f., 48, 142, 149 Argos 35, 67, 95, 145 f., 166 Argument, better / worse (personifications) 15, 67, 106 Ariadne 114, 149 Aristichus 198 Aristodicus 152 Artabanus 151 Artabazus 141 Artaxerxes 208 Artemis 52, 58, 83, 94, 109, 143, 148, 159, 166, 168, 182 – 186, 200, 204 f., 208, 214 f., 217, 252 – Brauronia 94 – Cindyas 182 – Hyacinthotrophus 182 – Laphria 143 – Leucophryene 182 – 186, 200, 252 – Soteira 166 – Tauropolus 94 Asclepius 99, 105, 111, 170, 173 – 179, 192 – 196, 200 f., 221, 251 Asia 37, 182 f., 185, 206, 217 Assyria 141 astronomy, astrology, star 54, 56, 88, 90, 149 f., 219 f., 237 – 244 Astyages 152 f. asylia 184, 200 Athena 2, 26 – 34, 36, 40, 42 – 45, 47 f., 52 – 54, 58 – 60, 63, 67, 76, 84, 92 – 95, 99 – 102, 109, 115, 121 f., 125, 132 – 135, 140 – 142, 162, 166, 168, 174, 214 – Lindia 186 – 192, 200 – Polias 94, 133, 135 – Pronaea 140 – Sciras 142

Athens 19, 21 f., 63, 67, 82, 91, 93 – 95, 100 – 102, 104, 107, 114, 116 f., 119 f., 125, 132 f., 135 f., 138, 140 – 143, 145 f., 159, 166, 169, 178, 183, 188, 192, 195, 205, 251; see s.vv. Acropolis, Areopagus, Erechtheum, Parthenon Attica 96, 125, 195 audience 2, 7, 14 – 16, 19, 21, 26, 29 f., 46, 49, 70, 82, 84 – 88, 91, 94 – 97, 99, 106, 108, 119 f., 124, 129, 133, 135 f., 143, 153, 177, 233, 249, 252, 255 Autonous 142 autopsia (in magic) 234 f. Auxilium (personification) 87 Aventine Hill, Rome 158 barbarians 105, 110, 114, 140, 142 Bargylia 182 Basileia (personification) 96, 124 Βία / Violence (personification) 102 f., 121 Bird – omen 61 f., 69, 85, 123, 213 f. – bird-shape of Homeric gods: 32 birth / gonai plays (comic / tragic) 86, 108, 110, 115, 121 f.,134 Boeotia 168, 198 Boreas (personification) 142 Boutes 36 Brauron 94 Brauronia (festival) 22 Brennus 149 brevity, stylistic 181, 215 Britomartis 166 Brutus, Marcus Iunius 160 f., 163, 192, 235 Bryaxis 208 bull 112 f., 127, 241 Byzantium 204 Cabiri 149, 169 Cadmus 113, 127, 187 Caesar, Gaius Iulius 161 – 163, 191 f. Calasiris 205, 211 f., 216 Calchas 31 Callicles 188 Callidice 55 Calligeneia, see s.v. Demeter Calligone 209, 213

General Index

Callirhoe 208 – 210, 214, 216 Calliste (= Thera) 45 f. Calypso 29 f., 76 Cambyses 152 f. Caria 182, 191 Carneia (festival) 67 Cassander 188 Cassius, Gaius Cassius Longinus 161, 192 Castor, see s.v. Dioscuri Celeus 55 Chaireas 208 – 210, 213, 216 Chaos (personification) 106 Charicleia 205, 211 f., 215 Charites 76 Chariton 203 f., 206 – 209, 212, 214, 216 f. Charybdis 37 Chemmis 141 Chersonesus 149 Chloe 205 – 208, 214 – 217, 252 f. chorus, in drama 3 f., 21, 77, 79 – 81, 86 f., 96, 98, 106, 109 f., 112, 118 f., 121, 123, 129, 133, 250 Christianity, Christians 4, 9, 19 f., 22 f., 25, 46, 66, 168, 228, 243, 250, 254 Cimon 159 Circe 29, 37, 44 f. Cithaeron 112, 168 Clarus 170, 195 Cleisthenes 143 Cleitophon 204, 208 f., 213 Cleomenes, Spartan king 146 Cleon 96, 131 cletic hymns 75 f., 251 Clinias 213 Clouds (personification) 96, 106 f., 119, 123 Clytemnestra 95, 100 f., 104, 129 Cnemon 86 f., 205, 211 Cnidus 182 Colchis 36 Colophon 195 Comedy (personification) 86, 90 Core 169, 198 Corinth 93, 142 crane 97, 99, 135 Cremylus 89, 105 Creon 91 Crete 56, 118, 127, 148, 183

289

critical mode 2, 4, 137 f., 143 f., 146 – 148, 151, 154, 156, 165, 204, 249 – 252 Croesus 152 f., 253 Cronia (festival) 22 Cronus 102, 115, 171 Croton 149 cult 4 – 6, 9, 18 – 21, 36, 52 – 57, 59, 63 – 67, 90, 93 – 96, 100 f., 104, 106 – 108, 110, 117 – 120, 124 f., 134 f., 139 f., 142 – 146, 149 f., 158 f., 162 f., 165 f., 168 – 170, 175, 177, 181 f., 185 f., 189 – 192, 196, 198, 206 f., 212, 243, 252, 254 – 256 culture 2 f., 9 – 11, 14, 16, 18, 21, 32, 46, 54, 66, 102, 136, 141, 143, 153, 162, 166, 182, 203, 239, 249 f. Cumae 152 Curi 194 Cychreus 166 Cyclops 29 f. Cyrene 45, 48, 55, 67, 72, 198 Cyrus 152 f. Daidala (festival) 168 daimons 17, 22, 67, 158, 160 f., 163 f., 166, 223 f., 227, 235 f., 238 – 240 Danaids 187 Daphnis 205, 207 f., 214 – 217, 252 f. Darius 104, 129 Dates 152 Death / Thanatos (personification) 84, 90 deixis, in archaic poetry 49 Delos 52 f., 147, 198 Delphi 51 f., 56, 64, 69, 91, 94 f., 100 f., 124, 128, 132 f., 135, 140 – 142, 146 f., 149, 152, 166 – 168, 171, 183 – 185, 189, 193, 205, 211, 215 Demeter 51 – 57, 59 f., 63 – 67, 86, 90, 127, 140, 148, 162, 166, 168 f., 198 – 200, 255 – Calligeneia 86, 90 – Chthonia 169 – Thesmophoros 199 Demetrius Poliorcetes 188 Demetrius Phalereus 224 democracy and drama 81, 114 Demos (personification) 96

290

General Index

demotic magical papyri 178, 233 f. deus ex machina 93, 97, 121 Diagoras 185 Diasia (festival) 22, 123, 125 Dicte 127 Didyma 152, 199, 201 Didymeia (festival) 184 Diisoteria (festival) 125 Dike 71 Dinos (personification) 106 Diomedes 28, 31 f., 98 f., 109 Dionysalexander 86, 132 Dionysia, Great and Rural (festivals) 22, 56, 79 f., 110, 112, 119, 136 Dionysius, character in Chariton 209 Dionysius I, tyrant of Syracuse 154, 221 Dionysophanes 207 f. Dionysus 3, 20 – 22, 54, 56, 61, 65 f., 80, 85 f., 97, 100, 107 – 120, 122, 124 – 127, 132, 134, 145, 148 f., 166, 174, 176, 185, 206 f., 212, 247, 250, 255; apologetic stance in Greek tragedy: 109, 113, 116; see s. v. anti-hero, Dionysus Diophantus 198 Dioscuri 91, 92, 95 142, 149, 160, 163, 168 Dipolieia (festival) 22, 123 disguise, of gods 2, 11, 30 – 32, 35, 42, 44, 54 – 57, 61, 82, 97, 112 f., 116, 122, 157, 200, 205, 250; mask 79, 113 divination 43, 48, 58, 72, 146, 176, 195, 220, 223 f., 229, 231, 254; see s.v. prophecy/foretelling the future Dodona 121, 128 dolphin 54, 56, 63, 110, 113, 206 Dorian 95, 129, 187 Dorus 95 Dotium 54 f. dramaturgy 2, 7, 20 – 22, 25 – 27, 31 f., 39, 42, 44, 47 f., 50, 80, 82 f., 85 – 91, 93 f., 96, 100, 102 f., 107 f., 117, 119 f., 122 – 124, 126, 128 – 130, 132 – 136, 141, 151, 153, 162, 176, 204 f., 207, 212, 215, 217, 247, 250, 252 f. dream, passim, esp. 1 – 7, 10 – 12, 252 – 254 – anxiety dream 39, 44 f., 131, 155, 162, 210, 223, 231

– epiphany dream 2 – 4, 6 f., 11 f., 38 – 40, 42 – 46, 69, 87, 131 f., 147, 151 – 154, 162 – 164, 169 f., 173, 179, 181 f., 192, 194, 197 – 199, 201, 206, 208 f., 211, 216 f., 220, 247 f., 251 – 253 – exhortative function of epiphany dream 4, 7, 39, 44, 46, 87, 151, 162, 197, 208, 210 f., 217, 247, 253 – sign dream (= episode dream) 4, 7, 11, 39 f., 42 – 45, 103, 128 – 131, 151 – 153, 162, 181, 204, 208 – 212, 217, 221, 247, 249, 252 f. – anticipatory function of sign dream 4, 7, 39, 45 f., 87, 103, 128 – 130, 151, 154, 162, 208, 210, 213, 217, 247, 253 dream books 174, 221 f. dream-mindedness 73, 147, 162 f., 201, 252 – 254 Drusus, Nero Claudius 150 Dyrrhachium 158 f. eagle 40, 42 f., 120, 122 f., 127, 212 f., 242 Echetlaeus 166 ecphrasis 207, 212 f., 215, 217 Egypt 92, 178, 254 Eisiteria (festival) 185 Elatea 116 Elbe 150 Elenchos (personification) 87 Eleusis 22, 59, 64, 95, 140, 169, 255 Elis 111, 166 emplotment, see s.v. plot empty-space-aniconism 124 f., 145 f. empyromancy 233 f. Eos 120 Epeius 43 Ephesus 204, 217 epic cycle 33, 93 Epicrates 198 Epicurus 161, 225, 227, 254 Epidaurus 10, 111, 170, 178, 192 – 196, 200 f., 252 Epigethes 159 epiphanization 4, 6, 142 – 146, 159, 204, 214 – 217 epiphany, passim; – meaning, exclusive 4 – 6, 31, 248 f.

General Index

– meaning, inclusive 5 f., 141, 167, 187, 248 f. – epilogue epiphany 9, 46, 83, 91, 93 – 97, 99, 105, 113, 123, 132 f., 135, 247, 250 – prologue epiphany 83 – 90, 94, 98 f., 122, 130, 132 – 135 – reversal epiphany 22, 98 f., 204, 217 epiphany dream, see s.v. dream epiphany-mindedness 1 – 4, 18 f., 73 – 77, 142 f., 147, 201, 204 f., 244, 248 – 250 Epizelus 141 Erchia 125 Erechtheïds / Hyacinthids 95 Erechtheum 95 Erechtheus 93 – 95, 135 Erinys 100 – 102, 160 f., 169; see s.v. Venerable Ones Eros 37 f., 76, 145, 205 – 207, 216 f., 228 Erysichthon 54 f., 67 Ethiopia 152 Euanthes 213 Euclio 88 f. Eumolpus 200 Eunus 149 Euphemus 38, 40, 44 – 46, 48 Euphorion 142 Europe (personal name) 127 Eurymachus 29, 35 Eurypylus 34 exhortative function, see s.v. dream ex-iussu inscription 15, 151, 174, 182, 197 – 199, 215 fate

25 – 27, 33, 90, 92, 103, 115, 203, 209, 220, 241, 243 Faunus 158 festival 9, 22, 59, 67, 93, 123, 125, 136, 143, 166, 168, 175, 185, 191, 200, 207, 255 fiction 1, 3, 19 f., 49 f., 60, 66, 69, 71 f., 75, 77, 82, 117, 135, 137, 143, 147, 157, 201, 203, 249 f., 253 – 255 food 64, 67, 105, 116, 166 Force (personification) 102 f., 121 Forum Romanum 160, 199

291

foundation – of cults 4, 52 f., 66, 80, 101, 107, 139 f., 142, 158, 169 f., 183 f., 193, 196 – of cities 48, 142, 170, 183 f. frenzy 75, 84, 118; see s.v. mania / madness Gaia 102 Galba 150 Galen 221 f., 225 Gauls 147, 166 – 168, 170 Gemini (astral constellation) 149 gender 32, 114, 128, 130 f., 200 – female 29, 32, 39, 45 f., 57, 67, 70 f., 77, 114, 118, 129 – 131, 160, 210, 214 f. – male 28, 32, 39 f., 42, 45, 67, 113 f., 118, 128, 131 f., 152, 215 Gens Domitia 160 Giants 30 Glauce 91 Glaucus 36, 38, 152 Γνῶσις / Knowledge (personification) 71 gonai plays, see s.v. birth plays Götterapparat, Homeric 25, 27, 33 Habrocomes 210 Hades 30, 127; see s.v. Underworld Halieis 194, 196 happy end 85, 97, 203, 208 f., 217 heaven 26 f., 33 f., 36, 41, 48, 83, 88, 104, 127, 154, 169, 191, 219, 237 f., 240 – 243; see s.v. Uranus Hecabe 130 Hecate 36 Hector 16, 26 – 28, 32, 34, 41, 47, 99, 126 Helen 28, 31, 42, 91 f., 95, 122, 216 Helenus 28, 34, 92 f. Heliads 70, 127 Helicon 69, 72, 177 Heliodorus 203, 205, 211, 215 – 217 Helios 37, 70, 91, 93, 107, 114, 123, 186 f., 192, 200, 238, 240 – 244 Help / Boetheia (personification) 87, 90 Hemera / Day (personification) 71 Hemithea 149 Hephaestus 102, 111, 141, 152 f.

292

General Index

Hera

28, 30, 32, 36 f., 44, 48, 91, 93, 98, 127, 141, 145 f., 168 – Acraea 91, 93 Heracles 22, 34, 36, 84, 92, 98, 105 f., 111 f., 116, 121, 143, 149, 168, 170, 187, 213 – Manticlus 170 Heraeum, Argive 145 f. Hercynian, rock 36 Hermaphroditus 148 Hermes 20, 28 – 30, 33, 41 f., 51, 56, 60 – 63, 65 f., 80, 84 – 86, 89, 94, 100, 105, 115, 120 f., 124, 127, 143, 170, 174, 247, 255 Hermion 169 Hermione 95 Hermogenes 185 hero 4 f., 21, 25 f., 28 – 40, 42, 47 – 50, 52, 65 f., 72, 79 f., 87, 90, 92 f., 95 f., 98, 105 f., 109, 111 f., 115 – 117, 131, 133 f., 141, 153, 159, 163, 166 – 168, 187, 195, 197 f., 213, 217, 220, 230 heroization 159, 164 Heros (character in Menander) 87, 90 Himera 154 Hipparchus 143, 152 Hippias 143, 153 Hippodamus 28 Hippolytus 83, 89, 94, 109 Homonoia (personification) 198 Hyacinthids, see s.v. Erechtheids Hydaspes 212 Hyginus 199 Hyperboreans 36, 148, 168 Hyperochus 167 iconography, divine 102, 107, 125, 145, 170, 175, 213, 222; see s.v. statue, divine Idmon 48 Idomeneus 28 Ignorance (personification) 90 illness 175, 177, 194, 199, 219 f., 222 f. imaginative power 230 immortality 29 f., 35, 48, 57 f., 75, 101, 199, 224, 240, 242 f. immortalization 236, 242 – 244

impasse, dramatic 38, 91 – 93, 97 – 99, 132, 135 Inachus 128 incubation 12, 99, 131, 175 f., 194 – 196, 221, 252 Indian 127 initiation 4, 7, 44, 64, 69, 98, 149, 169, 177, 206 – 208, 239 f., 243 Ino 29 Inopia / Penia (personification) 88, 90; see s.v. Poverty inscriptions 3, 6, 10, 15, 19, 111, 117, 140, 147, 151, 156, 165, 168, 174, 178 f., 181 – 201, 251 f. inspiration 42, 52, 79, 98, 133 f., 155, 158, 168, 176, 185, 220, 222, 229 intentional reality/ history 18 f., 66, 82, 139 f., 154, 159, 165, 170, 183 – 185, 187, 190, 192, 249, 251 f., 256 Iodama 168 Ionia 95, 182 Iphigenia 83, 94, 130 Iris 22, 28, 32 f., 42, 98, 124, 127 irony 93, 95, 163, 220 Islam, Muslims 4, 254 Isthmia 22 (festival) Italy 154, 158 Ithaca 29 Ithome 170 Itonia 168 Iuno, Veian 162 Jason 36 – 38, 44 – 46, 91, 142, 149, 206 Judaism, Jews 4, 23, 66, 228, 254 Jupiter 97, 122 f., 154 f., 158 – Elicius 158 Justice (personification) 86, 90 justice 20, 25, 100 – 103, 109, 120 f., 152, 248 Kourotrophos 86 Κράτος / Force (personification) 102 f., 121 Labienus, Quintus 191 Lacedaemon 31 Ladon 169 Lake Regillus 160, 163

General Index

Lamo 206 f., 212 Lampis 207 Laodocus 167 Laomedon 215 Lar 88 – 90 Latin(i)us, Titus 154 Lebena 178, 192 lecanomancy 233 – 235 Leonas 209 Lesbus 37 Leto 52 f. Leucippe 208 f., 212 – 214 Leucippus 183 f. Leucophryeneia (festival) 184 f. Leucothea 29 Leuctra, battle of 163, 170 Libya 38, 45, 123, 142 lifeworld, lifeworld experience 1, 3, 5, 9, 18 – 20, 26 f., 29 f., 41, 46, 48, 50, 52 – 54, 65, 69, 77, 79, 82, 86, 89 f., 95 f., 106 f., 116, 120, 122, 126 – 128, 133 – 138, 144, 146 f., 149 – 152, 155, 162, 173, 181, 201, 204, 216 f., 219 f., 221 f., 225, 236, 247 – 255 light, light effects (esp. in Neoplatonism and magic) 17, 34, 54, 56, 162, 206, 222, 227 f., 229 – 232, 234, 236, 244 lightning 149, 191, 241 Lindus 186 – 190, 200 lion 56, 110, 113 Locris 149 Ludi Romani (festival) 154 f. Luna 162 Luxuria / Tryphe (personification) 88, 90 Lycaenium 208, 214 f. lychnomancy 233 – 235 Lycia 183, 189 Lycomedes 210 Lycurgus 111, 114, 118 Lycus 98 Lydia 118, 152, 198 Lysander 160 Lyssa, see s.v. Rage Macedonia 119, 159 maenads 112 – 114, 117 f., 185

293

magic, magical recipes 10, 15, 17, 30, 45, 164, 233 – 245 Magnesia-on-the-Maeander 182 – 186, 200, 252 mania / madness 118, 223, 229; see s.v. frenzy Manticlus 170 Mantinea 166 Marathon 138 – 140, 159, 166 mask, see s.v. disguise, of gods Maximinus 150 Medea 37 f., 44 f., 83, 91, 93 f., 206 Media 152 medicine 2, 17, 219 f., 222, 225 Medusa 168 Megara 166, 169 Meidias painter 123 Melas 168 Memnon 120 memory 12, 18, 49, 165, 175, 181, 184, 195, 249, 252, 255 Memphis 141 Menelaus 28, 91 f., 95, 123, 214 Mercury 88 Messene 37, 170 messenger 11, 28, 33, 42, 79, 89, 112, 120, 127, 130, 152 Midas 159 Middle Comedy 85 Miletus 184, 199, 204, 216 mimetic hymns, Callimachus 6, 60, 118 Minos 111, 126, 138, 187 miracles 111 f., 117, 140, 192, 194, 206, 217 Mithras Liturgy 17, 236 – 245 Mithras 236, 238 f., 242 f. Mithridates 150, 166 Molossian 94 monotheism / monotheist 21 – 23, 50, 228 moon 55, 105, 219, 238 – 240 Mopsus 45, 48 Mt Cronius 166 Mt Ida 64, 126 Mt Olympus 31, 34, 41, 52, 57, 124, 126 f. Mt Parthenium / Parthenius 138, 168 Muhammad’s ascent to heaven/Miʿraj. 254 multi-iconism 145 multi-perspectiveness 248

294

General Index

Muse 6, 16, 19, 36, 50, 53, 59, 69 – 72, 99, 177 Music (personification) 86, 90 Mycenaean age 118, 125 Mysia 169 Mysius 169 mysticism 72, 176 f., 213, 239, 242 myth 8, 16, 48 f., 51 f., 59 f., 71 f., 79 f., 83, 85, 89, 91, 93 – 96, 106, 110 f., 114, 118, 122, 132 f., 142, 149, 157 f., 168, 175, 183, 187, 189, 195, 201, 212, 214, 255 τὸ μυθῶδες / ‘the implausible’ 138, 147 Nasamonians 221 Naulochus 198 Naupactus 170 Nausicaa 29, 39, 45 Naxus 149 Necessity (personification) 103 Nemesis 85, 90, 122, 170, 174 Neophron 93 Neoplatonism, Neoplatonists 6, 10, 17, 225, 227 – 232, 236 f., 239, 244, 247, 251 – ontological orders 227, 231 f., 244 Neoptolemus 34, 92 – 95 Neptune 155 Nereus 36, 45, 76 Nestor 29, 42 New Comedy 79, 81, 83, 85 f., 89 f., 97, 105, 119, 133 – 135, 203 Nicippe 54 f. Night / Nyx (personification) 70 f., 81, 100 Nile 38 Noemon 29 Numa 158, 162 Nymph 67, 158, 205, 207 – 209, 214 f., 217, 252 occasionality 15 occasion-boundedness of representations 1 – 3, 14 – 16 Oceanus 102 Odysseus 28 f., 31 f., 39, 42 f., 50, 56, 76, 84, 93, 98 f., 175 Oedipus 121 Ogygia 30

Old Comedy 20 – 22, 79 – 82, 85, 89, 104, 106, 114 f., 122, 128, 131 – 133 Olympian gods 5, 28 f., 36 f., 51, 53, 65, 71, 90, 100 – 102, 105, 107, 113 f., 121, 126 f., 132 – 134, 141 f., 156, 163 f., 166, 195 f., 206, 208, 251 Olympic Games 123, 168 f. omen 62, 69, 213 ōmophagia 118 on high, staging of gods 83 f., 91, 96 f., 99 f., 113, 135, 228 oneiromancy 233 – 235 Ops 168 oracle (divine message) 23, 52, 62, 69, 72, 86, 101, 121, 123 f., 128, 132 f., 135, 138, 142, 146 f., 152, 155, 159, 166, 168, 170, 175, 183 f., 189, 194 f., 199 f., 211 – 213, 224, 231, 236, 239, 241 – 243, 249, 251 f., 255 oracle (site): Clarus 170; Delphi 52, 124, 135; Didyma 152, 199; Dodona 121; Libya 123 orality 51, 192, 201 Orestes 83, 95, 100 f., 129 f., 141 Orestheion 95 Orpheus 36, 114, 149, 169 Orthopolis 169 Otanes 152 f. painting, vase 9, 50, 93, 108, 114, 118, 124 f., 158 f.; mural 212 – 214 Palladium 67 Pan 9, 86 f., 89 f., 111, 115, 133, 138 – 140, 142, 156, 168, 170, 199, 205 – 209, 214 f., 217, 251 – Lyterius 170 Panamaros, see s.v. Zeus Panathenaea (festival) 22 Pandarus 28 panhellenism 51 – 53, 65 f., 114, 125, 168, 185 f., 190, 196, 245, 250 Paphlagon 96, 132 f. τὸ παράδοξον / ‘the unpredictable element’ 147 f. paredros (in magic) 235 f. Paris (= Alexander) 99, 116, 157, 206

General Index

parody 22, 32, 35, 42 – 44, 60 – 63, 65 f., 82, 96 f., 104, 113 – 116, 131 – 133, 216 f., 247, 254 f. Parthenium well (Eleusis) 54 Parthenon 104, 125, 188 Parthian 190 f. Patara 141 Patroclus 28, 208, 216 Peace / Eirene (personification) 104 – 107, 124 Peisetaerus 96, 105, 124, 132 Peitho / persuasion (personification) 71 Peleus 27, 35, 37 f., 92, 94 Pellene 159 Pelopidas 163 Peloponnese 118, 146 Peloponnesian War 81, 132, 142 Penelope 39 f., 42 f., 253 Πεπρωμένη / Destiny 103; see s.v. fate Pergamon 173 f., 176, 178 Perge 198 Pericles 132, 146 peripeteia (reversal of dramatic plot) 98 Persephone 71, 87, 90, 116, 127, 162, 170, 200 Persians 81 f., 123, 127, 129, 140 – 142, 149, 151 f., 163, 166 f., 187 f., 253 Persinna 212 personification of abstract notions 28, 42, 46, 52, 71, 86 – 90, 96, 98, 100, 102 – 107, 119, 133, 142, 161 Phaeacians 29 f. Phaedra 83 f. Phalaris 221 Phalces 168 Phalysius 170 Phaon 37, 86 Pharus 213 Pheidippides 123 Pherecrates 86, 90 Phidias 125, 145, 174 Philammon 167 Philetas 205, 216 f. Philip V, king of Macedon 187 Philippi, battle of 161 Philippides 138 – 140, 168 Philius 198

295

Philoctetes 92 f. Philomela 214 Φιλοσοφία / Philosophy (personification) 71 philosophy 2, 10, 17, 49, 71, 128, 134, 144, 157, 160 f., 219 – 232, 235, 244, 250, 253 f. Phineus 48 Phrixus 37 Phye 6, 96, 142 f., 159 Phylacus 142, 167 Picus 158 Piraeus 125 pirate 66, 110, 114, 213 planet, see s.v. astronomy Plataea 140 f., 168 Platonism 17, 160, 163, 224, 228 f., 237 f. Plemnaeus 169 plot 3, 15 f., 21, 25, 27, 29, 31, 33, 43 – 47, 49, 61, 79 f., 83 – 94, 96, 98 – 100, 103, 106 – 108, 115 f., 120, 122, 130 – 135, 162, 203 – 207, 209 f., 217, 219, 228 f., 250, 253 – emplotment 10, 16, 22, 75, 89, 94, 98, 102, 129, 132, 137 pluralization, of gods 125 pneuma 237, 243 f. pole-lords 240, 243 Pollio, Gaius Asinius 161 Pollux, see s.v. Dioscuri Polydorus 84, 104, 130 Polymestor 35, 130 polytheism, polytheists 4, 17 f., 22 f., 46, 50, 125, 228, 249 f., 254 f. Polyxene 130 Poseidon 22, 28, 30 – 34, 38, 84, 94 f., 99, 106, 110, 123, 127, 135, 141, 166, 169 Potidaea 141 Poverty (personification), 105 – 107; see s.v. Inopia / Penia Praxithea 94, 135 prayer 26, 51, 64, 76, 109, 123, 220, 237, 239 f., 244, 251 presentification, Bakker’s concept of 49 Priam 27 f., 41 f. Priene 184, 197 procession 59, 67, 69, 101, 104, 125, 139, 142 f., 160, 191, 215

296

General Index

Proculus 158 Prometheus 82, 96, 100, 102 f., 105, 109, 121, 124, 128, 169, 213 prophecy, foretelling the future 35, 37, 45, 58 f., 62, 75, 91 – 96, 98, 103, 128 f., 148, 151, 155, 164, 176, 187, 213, 219, 221, 234; see s.v. divination Ptah 141 Ptolemy 187 f. punishment, divine 53, 58, 83, 102 f., 108, 110, 114 f., 117, 154, 194, 247 Pylades 95 Pyrrhus 166 f., 187 Pythia 2, 52, 101, 163, 212 Rage / Lyssa (personification) 22, 98 f., 133 reality 1 – 5, 9 f., 12 f., 16 – 21, 46 – 50, 75, 82, 108, 118, 133 – 139, 155, 204, 209, 219, 225, 248 – 256 Respiration (personification) 106 Rhea 86, 127 Rhesus 39, 98 f., 128, 131 Rhine 150 Rhodes 150, 186 – 188, 191 f., 200 Rhosandrus 174 riddle/ enigma 45, 152, 171, 217, 221 ritual 3 f., 9, 12, 18 f., 21 f., 48, 63 – 65, 67, 80 f., 107 f., 117 – 120, 124 f., 131, 133 f., 142 f., 145, 167 f., 182 f., 185 f., 189 – 191, 194 f., 201, 206, 227, 230, 233 – 239, 242 – 244, 247, 250, 252, 254 – 256 Romulus 158 royalty 40, 114, 131, 152, 208, 220 Sabacus 153 Sabazius 131 sacrifice 37, 39, 87, 96, 99, 105, 123, 139, 144, 147 f., 163, 167, 199, 208, 213, 251 Sagra 149 Salamis 142, 159, 166 Samothrace 149 Sarapis 174, 198 sarcasm 163 satire 16, 81, 106, 132, 203 satyr play 20, 46, 79, 108, 119, 134, 136, 250 Satyr 158

Satyrus 213 Scamander 99 Scephrus 168 schema, Petridou’s quadripartite 9 f., 107, 140 – 142, 148, 155, 160, 165, 181, 184, 189, 247, 252 Scipio, Publius Cornelius (Africanus) 155 Scycles 152 Scylla 37 Scyrus 159 Scythia 103, 152 Semele 108, 110 – 112, 115, 127 Sennacherib 141 Sethus 153 Sicon 86 Sicyon 168 f. sign 5, 7, 12, 32, 38 – 40, 48, 61 f., 69, 72, 84, 120, 123, 130, 140, 146 f., 149 f., 152 f., 155, 167 f., 178, 183 – 185, 190 f., 197 f., 201, 206, 209, 217, 219, 231, 249, 251 – 253 sign-mindedness 4 – 7, 62, 146 Silenus 79, 159 Siren 29, 36 ‘situational’ belief 143 smiling, of deities 75 f., 113 Smyrna 170, 177 snake 43, 113, 129, 166, 193 f. Socrates 12, 82, 96 f., 106 f., 123, 134, 147, 220 – 222, 235 Sosias 116 Sosipolis 166, 170 Sostratus 87, 204 Soteria (festival) 168 soul 17, 80, 146, 153, 163 f., 219, 221 – 225, 227 – 232, 236 f., 239 f., 243 f. – vehicle 230, 232, 244 Spain 150 sparagmos 112, 114, 118 Sparta 92, 138, 142, 146 f., 149, 152, 168 f., 195 spectacle, theater as a 20 f., 118 f., 133 Sphacteria, battle of 131 star, see s.v. astronomy statue, divine 9, 59, 86 f., 94, 107, 125, 141, 143 – 146, 149, 162, 166, 168, 170, 174, 181, 185, 198 f., 212, 215, 222

General Index

Sthenelus 36 Stratonicea 190 f., 200 f. Strepsiades 97, 123 Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 158 f., 166 Symplegades 36 Syracuse 154 Syrinx 214 f. Syriscus 189 systasis (in magic) 235 Tauromenium 154 Taxilus 166 Tegea 168, 194 Telemachus 29, 31, 39, 175 Telephus 187 Telesphorus 174 Temenus 168 Tereus 214 Teuthis 168 Tharsagoras 186 Thasus 111, 168 Theagenes 168, 205, 211, 215 Thebes (Boeotia) 95, 98, 108 f., 112, 163, 170, 185 Themis 102 Themisonium 170 Theoclymenus 91 f. theodicy 54, 100, 103, 108 f., 132 theomachoi 108 – 110 Theonoe 91 Θεωρíα / Contemplation (personification) 71 Thera 38 f., 45 f., 48, 198 Theron 209 Theseia (festival) 22 Theseus 83, 95, 159 Thesmophoria (festival) 22, 67 Thespiae 145 Thessaly 54 f., 183, 215 Thetis 28 f., 33, 37, 94, 120 theurgy 10, 230 – 232, 236 f., 239 Thrace 99, 114, 118, 148, 204 thunderbolt 96 f., 120 f., 123 f., 140, 167, 239 – 241 Thyamis 211 Thyia (festival) 166 Thynia 36 Timachidas 186

297

Timosthenes 168 Tiresias 58 f., 113 Titan 102 Tithonus 58 Tlepolemus 187 Tongue (personification) 106 Triballian gods 22, 105 Tricala 169 Triton 37 – 39, 45, 48, 142 Troizen 83, 94, 170, 194, 196 Troy 27 f., 34 f., 41, 43 f., 58, 60, 92 f., 99, 126, 138, 166, 168 Trygaeus 105, 124 Tyche 87, 90, 147, 150 tyranny 102, 115, 121, 152, 154, 221 Tyre 149 Underworld 104, 114, 116, 124, 127, 174, 237; see s.v. Hades Uranus 102; see s.v. heaven vase, see s.v. painting, vase Veii 162 Venerable Ones 95, 100 – 102, 135 visibility 3 – 6, 8, 17, 27, 29 – 31, 36 – 38, 49 f., 53, 71, 77, 84, 108, 127, 138, 141 f., 147, 165, 168 f., 175, 185, 187, 204, 207, 216, 227, 233, 235, 237 f., 247, 249, 251 f., 254, 256 voces mysticae 239 f., 242 f. War (personification) 100, 104 – 106, 124, 127, 149 Wealth (personification) 89, 99 f., 104 – 107, 119, 123, 195 Wittgenstein 14 women 6, 37, 39, 44 f., 54 f., 67, 75, 112 f., 126, 128 f., 131, 143, 150, 154, 159, 166, 169 f., 193, 199 f., 214 Xanthias 124 Xanthus 32, 41 Xerxes 129, 151 – 153, 253 Zeus

3, 26 – 30, 32 f., 41 f., 52 f., 57 f., 62 f., 65, 75, 80 f., 84 – 86, 88, 90, 92 – 94, 96 f., 100 – 106, 108 – 110, 113, 115, 118,

298

General Index

120 – 128, 133 f., 145 f., 154, 157, 162 f., 168, 170, 174, 190 – 192, 200, 213, 222, 247, 250 – Ammon 123, 162 – Basileus 134 – Casius 213

– Meilichius 125, 134 – Panamarus 190 – 192, 200 – Polieus 125 – Soter 125 Zoroastrian 161

Index of Ancient Sources 1

Literary sources

Achilles Tatius – 1.3: 209 n. 43 f. – 1.4: 214 n. 81 – 2.12: 213 n. 73 – 3.6: 213 n. 69 – 3.6˗8: 213 n. 67 – 3.17: 213 n. 70 – 4.1: 208 n. 36 – 5.3 f.: 214 n. 74 – 5.4: 214 n. 75 – 5.5: 214 n. 76 – 5.8: 213 n. 70 – 7.12: 204 n. 8 – 8.18: 204 n. 8 Adespota Comica – fr. 215 CGF: 86 n. 39 – fr. 1104 (PCG VIII.422): 86 n. 38 Aeschylus – Agamemnon – 111˗137: 123 n. 275 – 160˗175: 121 n. 253 – Choephori – 32˗41: 129 n. 313 – 523˗539: 129 n. 313 – 540˗550: 129 n. 314 – 928 f.: 129 n. 313 – Eumenides – 1˗33: 101 n. 125 – 19: 124 n. 284 – 46˗59: 101 n. 127 – 162 f.: 100 n. 115 – 163: 101 n. 118 – 198˗205: 101 n. 122 – 198˗234: 101 n. 119 – 312: 101 n. 120 – 322: 100 n. 116 – 350: 101 n. 121 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110638851-020

– 416: 100 n. 116 – 465: 101 n. 122 – 470˗489: 101 n. 126 – 594˗596: 101 n. 122 – 614˗621: 101 n. 123 – 681˗710: 101 n. 126 – 721 f.: 101 n. 124 – 745: 100 n. 116 – 778 f.: 100 n. 115 – 804˗807: 101 n. 128 – 808 f.: 100 n. 115 – 851˗857: 101 n. 128 – 916˗926: 102 n. 130 – 1021˗1047: 101 n. 128 – Persae – 176˗199: 129 n. 311 – 205˗210: 123 n. 276 – 518˗520: 129 n. 312 – Fragments – frs. 23 f.: 114 n. 218 – fr. 61: 113 n. 209 – fr. 70: 127 n. 305 – fr. 169: 98 n. 106 – frs. 279˗280a: 120 n. 252 [Aeschylus] – Prometheus Vinctus – 8˗11: 102 n. 132 – 29˗31: 102 n. 133 – 50: 102 n. 136 – 96 f.: 102 n. 134 – 149˗151: 102 n. 134 – 196˗241: 102 n. 139 – 209 f.: 102 n. 135 – 266: 103 n. 141 – 310: 102 n. 134 – 324: 102 n. 136 – 389: 102 n. 137 – 402˗405: 102 n. 134

300

Index of Ancient Sources

– 515˗525: 103 n. 140 – 645˗672: 128 n. 308 – 734˗737: 102 n. 138 – 756: 103 n. 140 – 761˗777: 103 n. 140 – 908˗940: 103 n. 140 – 944˗1093: 124 n. 280 – 947˗952: 124 n. 280 – 955 f.: 102 n. 134 Ameipsias – fr. 4: 115 n. 222 Anaxandrides – fr. 28: 115 n. 228 Antipater – Del Corno 1969, 75, 156 f.: 224 n. 47 Antiphanes – fr. 189: 16 n. 68, 85 n. 35 Apollonius Rhodius – 1.22: 36 n. 71 – 1.1310˗1331: 36 n. 71, 38 n. 81 – 2.537˗548: 36 n. 65 – 2.598˗603: 36 n. 65 – 2.611˗614: 36 n. 66 – 2.669˗719: 36 n. 70 – 2.911˗929: 36 n. 70 – 3.66˗73: 37 n. 73 – 3.275: 38 n. 77 – 3.275˗298: 38 n. 76, 206 n. 20 – 3.596˗600: 37 n. 71 – 3.616: 44 n. 120 – 3.616˗635: 44 n. 119 – 3.618.: 44 n. 120 – 3.648˗652: 38 n. 79 – 3.927˗946: 48 n. 139 – 3.938˗947: 48 n. 139 – 3.1212˗1224: 37 n. 71 – 4.640˗644: 36 n. 67 – 4.660˗752: 37 n. 71 – 4.664˗669: 45 n. 122 – 4. 723 f.: 45 n. 122 – 4.852˗855: 37 n. 71 – 4.861˗864: 37 n. 71

– 4.912˗919: 36 n. 68 – 4.933˗938: 37 n. 71 – 4.1305˗1379: 38 n. 80 – 4.1541˗1585: 38 n. 82 – 4.1547˗1553: 142 n. 19 – 4.1602˗1619: 38 n. 83 – 4.1706˗1713: 36 n. 69 – 4.1731˗1764: 45 n. 126 – 4.1732˗1745: 45 n. 125 Appian – Bella Civilia – 4.17.134: 161 n. 23 – Bellum Mithridaticum – 27: 150 n. 62 Aristides, Publius Aelius – 2.39: 174 n. 20 – 18.116: 175 n. 23 – 27.2: 176 n. 26 – 37.1: 176 n. 26 – 38.1 f.: 176 n. 26 – 40.22: 176 n. 26 – 41.1: 176 n. 26 – 42.11 f.: 176 n. 26 – 43.6: 177 n. 33 – 47.11˗13: 174 n. 20 – 47.16: 176 n. 26 – 47.18: 174 n. 10 – 47.42: 176 n. 26 – 47.58: 173 n. 6 – 47.71: 174 n. 7 – 48.1˗9: 177 n. 32 – 48.2: 173 n. 3 – 48.18: 174 n. 8 – 48.24: 177 n. 33 – 48.32: 6 n. 19, 194 n. 66 – 48.41 f.: 174 n. 11, n. 20, n. 22 – 48.9: 173 n. 6 – 49.12: 195 n. 78 – 49.13: 174 n. 20 – 49.20˗22: 174 n. 20 – 49.23: 174 n. 14 – 49.46: 173 n. 5, 174 n. 12, n. 20 – 49.46 f.: 174 n. 15 – 49.47: 174 n. 19

Index of Ancient Sources

– 50.19: 174 n. 21 – 50.25: 176 n. 26 – 50.29: 176 n. 26 – 50.39 f.: 174 n. 17 – 50.39˗41: 176 n. 26 – 50.40: 174 n. 13 – 50.40 f. : 174 n. 16 – 50.41: 174 n. 18 – 50.50: 173 n. 5, 174 n. 20 – 50.52: 175 n. 23 – 50.53 f.: 176 n. 30 – 50.54: 175 n. 24 – 51.16: 176 n. 26 – 51.22: 174 n. 14 – 51.24: 174 n. 14 Aristophanes – Acharnenses – 247˗279: 22 n. 91 – 504 f.: 22 n. 91 – 960˗1232: 22 n. 91 – 1154 f.: 22 n. 91 – Aves – 186: 105 n. 156 – 619 f.: 123 n. 274 – 717˗722: 7 n. 20 – 726˗728: 123 n. 272 – 819: 104 n. 143 – 1494˗1552: 105 n. 155 – 1514: 123 n. 274 – 1515˗1524: 105 n. 156 – 1549˗1552: 22 n. 91 – 1565˗1693: 96 n. 90 – 1583˗1590: 106 n. 160 – 1641˗1673: 106 n. 160 – Ecclesiazusae – 730˗745: 22 n. 91 – Equites – 109˗148: 133 n. 338 – 123 f.: 133 n. 338 – 177: 133 n. 338 – 193˗222: 133 n. 338 – 220: 133 n. 338 – 809: 131 n. 329

– 1015˗1020: 133 n. 338 – 1030˗1034: 133 n. 338 – 1037˗1040: 133 n. 338 – 1067 f.: 133 n. 338 – 1090 – 1095: 132 n. 332, 133 n. 337 – 1333: 96 – 1354: 96 – Nubes – 217˗274: 96 n. 98 – 223: 97 n. 99 – 250 f.: 97 n. 100 – 252: 106 n. 162 – 263˗274: 106 n. 164 – 297: 106 n. 162 – 314˗424: 106 n. 161 – 316˗318: 106 n. 162 – 365: 106 n. 162 – 367˗374: 123 n. 274 – 380 f.: 106 n. 161 – 385˗387: 22 n. 91 – 408˗411: 22 n. 91, 123 n. 274 – 423 f.: 106 n. 165 – 424: 106 n. 163 – 498: 22 n. 91 – 563˗574: 107 n. 167, 123 n. 274 – 575 f.: 86 n. 38 – 627: 106 n. 166 – 818˗831: 123 n. 274 – 879˗1114: 106 n. 163 – 984 f.: 22 n. 91, 123 n. 274, 125 – 988 f.: 22 n. 91 – 1050˗1054: 106 n. 160 – 1240 f.: 123 n. 274 – 1467˗1480: 123 n. 274 – 1470 f.: 106 n. 161 – Pax – 177˗179: 104 n. 145 – 177˗209: 123 n. 274 – 196 f.: 124 n. 282 – 204˗233: 105 n. 151, 159 – 263˗267: 86 n. 38 – 276˗279: 86 n. 38 – 371 f.: 105 n. 152, 159 – 403˗728: 105 n. 159 – 420: 22 n. 91

301

302

Index of Ancient Sources

– 426˗526: 79 n. 4 – 528˗532: 22 n. 91 – 876: 22 n. 91 – 879 f.: 22 n. 91 – Plutus – 87˗92: 104 n. 147, 123 n. 274 – 119˗146: 123 n. 274 – 581˗586: 123 n. 274 – 627: 22 n. 91 – 627˗759: 196 n. 83 – 633˗744: 194 n. 66 – 653 – 657: 131 n. 327 – 774˗781: 99 n. 113 – 802˗822: 89 n. 64 – 1112˗1116: 105 n. 157 – 1118˗1170: 105 n. 158 – 1188˗1195: 104 n. 150 – Ranae – 1˗4: 86 n. 38 – 170˗177: 104 n. 146 – 464 – 673: 116 – 504˗507: 106 n. 160 – 631: 113 n. 215 – 756: 123 n. 274 – 1317: 110 n. 187 – 1331˗1344: 131 n. 328 – 1346˗1351: 131 n. 328 – Thesmophoriazusae – 272: 123 n. 273 – 743˗747: 22 n. 91 – 985˗1000: 112 n. 208 – 1008˗1014: 99 n. 112 – 1008˗1132: 99 n. 112 – 1098˗1102: 99 n. 112 – Vespae – 8 – 53: 132 n. 330 – 52 f.: 132 n. 331 – 54˗75: 86 n. 38 – 121 – 123: 131 n. 327 – 323˗333: 123 n. 274 – 1030: 106 n. 160

– Fragments – fr. 331: 86 n. 42, 90 n. 67 Aristotle – Athensium Res Publica – 14.4: 142 n. 22 – De Divinatione Per Somnia – 463b 12˗15: 223 n. 35 – 463b 31˗464a 24: 224 n. 40 – Ethica Nicomachea – 1094b 23 – 25: 1 – 1128a 22˗24: 82 n. 24 – Poetica – 1447a 1: 13 n. 53 – 1447b 17˗20: 25 n. 1, 69 n. 1 – 1451a 16˗35: 33 n. 50 – 1451a 38˗1451b 5: 137 n. 1 – 1452b 13: 13 n. 54 – 1452b 25: 13 n. 54 – 1454b 2˗6: 83 n. 25 – 1455b 32: 13 n. 55 – 1456a 2 f.: 103 n. 142 – 1456a 25˗28: 119 n. 244 – 1456a 33: 13 n. 54 – 1461b 19˗21: 91 n. 70 Artemidorus – Praef. 1: 222 n. 26 – 1.3: 222 n. 27 – 1.6: 222 n. 29 – 1.26 f.: 211 n. 58 – 2.34: 196 n. 84 – 2.35: 174 n. 20 – 4.59: 222 n. 29 Augustine – Confessiones – 11.14: 13 n. 56 – De Doctrina Christiana – 2.17.27: 6 n. 19

Index of Ancient Sources

Callimachus – Aetia – fr. 1.21˗24 Harder: 72 n. 19 – fr. 2d: 72 n. 22 – fr. 29: 72 n. 19 – fr. 30a.7: 69 n. 3 – fr. 43.59˗65: 69 n. 3, 72 n. 23 – fr. 43.74˗77: 69 n. 3, 72 n. 23 – fr. 75.20˗38: 69 n. 3, 72 n. 23 – fr. 85a.9˗16: 69 n. 3 – T6.7 f.: 72 n. 22 – Hymn to Zeus (1) – 58˗67: 53 n. 15 – Hymn to Apollo (2) – 1˗8: 59 n. 61 – 32˗41: 59 n. 62 – 65˗68: 72 n. 20 – 71 f.: 67 – 80: 67 – 88 – 96: 67 – Hymn to Delos (4) – 82: 53 n. 16, 59 n. 59 – 178˗190: 147 n. 49 – Hymn to Athena (5) – 96˗130: 59 n. 58 – 101 f.: 58 n. 47

303

– 2.6: 216 n. 90 – 2.9: 208 n. 34, 216 n. 92 – 2.11: 208 n. 34, 216 n. 92 – 3.2: 214 n. 77 – 3.6: 204 n. 10, 216 n. 91 – 3.7: 210 n. 49 – 3.8 f.: 214 n. 77 – 4.1: 210 n. 49, 214 n. 77 – 4.7: 214 n. 77 – 5.2: 216 n. 90 – 5.5: 209 n. 42 – 5.9: 214 n. 77 – 6.2: 208 n. 35 – 6.3: 214 n. 77 – 8.6: 214 n. 77 Chrysippus – frs. 1196˗1206 (SVF) = Del Corno 1969, 52˗57, 135˗137: 224 n. 46 Cicero – De Divinatione – 1.4: 224 n. 45 – 1.11 f.: 224 n. 44 – 1.34: 224 n. 44 f. – De Natura Deorum – 2.2.6: 149 n. 57, 227 n. 1 – 2.66.166: 227 n. 1 – 3.5.11˗13: 227 n. 1

– Hymn to Demeter (6) – 31˗117: 55 n. 23 – 38: 67 – 42˗44: 54 n. 22 – 58: 57 n. 43

Clearchus – frs. 5˗10 Wehrli: 224 n. 42

Chaeremon – frs. 4˗7: 108 n. 176

Cleophon – T 1: 108 n. 176

Chariton – 1.1: 214 n. 77, n. 78 – 1.12: 209 n. 45, n. 48 – 1.14: 204 n. 9, 214 n. 77, 216 n. 91 – 2.1: 209 n. 42, n. 46 – 2.2: 204 n. 10, 216 n. 91 – 2.3: 208 n. 33, 214 n. 77

Cratinus – Dionysalexandros – Hypoth.: 85 f.

– Res Publica – 2.10.20 f.: 158 n. 9

– Fragments – fr. 114: 85 n. 36 – fr 118: 85 n. 36

304

– fr. – fr. – fr. – fr.

Index of Ancient Sources

171.1˗28: 86 n. 38 193: 86 n. 40 342: 82 n. 20 502: 82 n. 20

Empedocles – EGP V.2, D 4 ( = D/K 31 B 112) 10˗12: 219 n. 2

Cratippus – Del Corno 1969, 76 f., 158˗160: 224 n. 42

Eupolis – fr. 62: 107 n. 169 – fr. 392: 86 n. 38

Demetrius Phalereus – fr. 1 = Fortenbaugh/Schütrumpf: 224 n. 42

Euripides – Alcestis – 64˗71: 84 n. 32

Dicaearchus – frs. 30a˗31c Fortenbaugh/Schütrumpf: 224 n. 42

– Andromache – 1231˗1272: 94 n. 86

Dio Cassius – 48.26: 192 n. 56 – 55.1.3˗5: 150 n. 65 – 64.1.2: 150 n. 64 Diodorus – 1.65: 153 n. 78 – 2.47.1: 148 n. 52 – 2.47.6: 148 n. 52 – 22.9.1: 148 n. 51, 167 n. 11 – 22.9.4: 149 n. 60 – 4.3.2: 148 n. 54 – 4.3.2 f.: 118 n. 240 – 4.43.2: 149 n. 56 – 4.6.5: 148 n. 53 – 4.61.5: 149 n. 56 – 5.49.5 f.: 149 n. 56 – 5.62.4: 149 n. 56 – 5.77.5 f.: 148 n. 55 – 6.6.1: 149 n. 56 – 8.32: 149 n. 57 – 11.14.4: 149 n. 58 – 17.41.5˗8: 149 n. 59 – 34/35.2.5 f.: 149 n. 61 Dionysius Halicarnasseus – Antiquitates Romanae – 2.63.3 f.: 158 n. 9 – 2.68: 227 n. 1 – 6.13: 160 n. 19 – 7.68.3˗7.69: 154 n. 89

– Bacchae – 1 f.: 113 n. 215 – 4: 113 – 13˗22: 114 n. 217 – 27: 113 n. 215 – 45: 109 – 45˗48: 109 n. 179 – 53 f.: 109 n. 179 – 64˗166: 112 n. 208 – 84: 113 n. 215 – 100: 113 n. 211 – 353: 113 n. 209 – 439: 113 n. 210 – 443˗450: 112 n. 199 – 449 f.: 112 n. 197 – 462 – 464: 118 – 482: 114 n. 217 – 576˗95: 112 n. 201 – 576˗656: 112 n. 200 – 596˗603: 112 n. 202 – 616˗619: 113 n. 211 – 616˗637: 112 n. 203 – 667: 112 n. 198 – 677˗774: 112 n. 204 – 777: 109 n. 178 – 918˗1152: 112 n. 205 – 920˗922: 112 n. 203, n. 211 – 1017˗1019: 113 n. 211 – 1021: 113 n. 210 – 1114˗1152: 112 n. 207 – 1163˗1074: 112 n. 206 – 1330˗1350: 98 n. 105

Index of Ancient Sources

– 1341 f.: 113 n. 215 – 1349: 109, 113 n. 215 – Electra – 435 f.: 110 n. 187 – 1254˗1291: 95 n. 90

– 1438˗1467: 94 n. 88 – Medea – 663˗758: 91 n. 70 – 1317˗1414: 91 n. 69 – 1378˗1388: 93 n. 79

– Hecuba – 1˗59: 130 n. 319 – 35˗50: 84 n. 31 – 68˗76: 130 n. 317, n. 319 – 87˗91: 130 n. 317, n. 319 – 93˗95: 130 n. 317, 319

– Orestes – 618: 130 n. 318 – 1625˗1665: 95 n. 90

– Helena – 1341˗1345: 121 n. 262 – 1642˗1687: 92 n. 71 – 1643˗1679: 95 n. 90 – 1658˗1661: 92 n. 71 – 1669: 92 n. 71

– Troades – 1˗97: 94 n. 85 – 78˗97: 84 n. 33

– Hercules Furens – 815˗820: 98 n. 107 – 822˗873: 98 n. 106 – Hippolytus – 1 f.: 83 – 9 – 40: 83 – 21: 83 – 24 – 37: 83 – 42: 83 – 42˗48: 83 n. 26 – 1283 – 1439: 83 – 1329˗1334: 109 n. 182 – 1423˗1430: 94 n. 87 – Ion – 67˗73: 84 n. 30, 124 n. 281 – 67˗75: 94 n. 84 – 1556˗1559: 94 n. 83 – 1569˗1594: 95 n. 90 – Iphigenia in Tauris – 42˗60: 130 n. 317, n. 323 – 148˗151: 130 n. 317, n. 323 – 347˗350: 130 n. 317, n. 323 – 569˗571: 130 n. 317, n. 323

305

– Supplices – 1183˗1212: 95 n. 90

– Fragments – Alexandros, test. III.4˗7: 130 n. 321 – Kadmos [?], TrGF V.1, p. 475: 108 n. 176 – frs. 87b˗104: 80 n. 15, 121 n. 260 – frs. 124 f.: 99 n. 112 – fr. 370.55˗115: 94 n. 89, 135 n. 342 [Euripides] – Rhesus – 565˗594: 99 n. 109 – 595˗674: 98 n. 108 – 780˗788: 128 n. 309 – 780 – 789: 131 n. 326 – 906 – 982: 99 Galen – De curandi ratione per venae sectionem – 23 (= 11.315 Kühn): 221 n. 23 – De dignotione ex insomniis – 4 (= 6.833 Kühn): 221 n. 24 Heliodorus – 1.2: 215 n. 83 – 1.18: 211 n. 56 – 1.30: 211 n. 56 – 2.16: 211 n. 58 – 3.3 f.: 215 n. 85 – 3.11˗13: 205 n. 11

306

Index of Ancient Sources

– 3.12: 205 n. 11, 216 n. 93 – 3.12˗14: 217 n. 94 – 3.13: 205 n. 12 – 3.14: 205 n. 13 – 4.14 f.: 212 n. 59 – 5.28˗32: 215 n. 84 – 5.31: 215 n. 84 – 8.11: 211 n. 57 – 8.16: 211 n. 57 – 9.25 f.: 212 n. 60 – 10.3 f.: 212 n. 61 Heraclides Ponticus – fr. 108 Schütrumpf: 221 n. 20 – fr. 117a, b: 221 n. 21 – fr. 118: 221 n. 22 Hermippus – fr. 77: 115 n. 223 Herodian – 8.3.8 f.: 150 n. 63 Herodotus – 1.34˗45: 153 n. 78, 253 n. 7 – 1.60: 96 n. 96, 142 n. 22 f. – 1.67 f.: 141 n. 18 – 1.107 f.: 153 n. 78 – 1.120 f.: 153 n. 78 – 1.159: 152 n. 70 – 1.181 f.: 141 n. 19 – 1.209 f.: 153 n. 78 – 2.53: 256 n. 10 – 2.91: 141 n. 19 – 2.139: 152 n. 71, n. 73, 153 n. 78 – 2.141: 141 n. 16, 152 n. 71 f., 153 n. 78 – 2.145: 111 n. 190 – 2.152: 153 n. 78 – 3.27: 6 n. 16 – 3.30: 153 n. 78 – 3.64 f.: 152 n. 71, n. 75, 153 n. 78 – 3.149: 153 n. 78 – 4.79 f.: 153 n. 78 – 4.179: 37 n. 72, 142 n. 19 – 5.55 f.: 152 n. 76 – 5.56: 152 n. 71, n. 74 – 5.62: 152 n. 76

– 5.75: 141 n. 18 – 5.79˗81: 141 n. 18 – 5.83: 141 n. 18 – 6.61: 140 n. 12 – 6.82: 146 n. 42 – 6.86: 152 n. 70 – 6.105: 139 n. 5 – 6.105 f.: 168 n. 15 – 6.107: 153 n. 79 – 6.117: 141 n. 19 – 6.118: 153 n. 78 – 6.127: 142 n. 19 – 7.12: 152 n. 74 – 7.12˗19: 151 n. 66, 153 n. 78, 253 n. 8 – 7.19: 151 n. 67 – 7.47: 151 n. 66, 253 n. 8 – 7.152: 137 n. 2, 171 n. 34, 251 n. 6 – 7.189: 142 n. 19, n. 21 – 8.36˗39: 149 n. 58, 167 n. 11 – 8.37: 141 n. 14 – 8.38 f.: 142 n. 20 – 8.57: 153 n. 78 – 8.64: 141 n. 18 – 8.64 f.: 159 n. 16 – 8.84: 141 n. 18 – 8.94: 142 n. 19 – 8.129: 141 n. 15 – 8.138: 159 n. 12 – 9.61 f.: 141 n. 17 – 9.65: 140 n. 13 Herophilus – T 226 a˗d Von Staden: 225 n. 50 Hesiod – Opera – 747: 69 n. 2 – Theogonia – 9: 71 n. 12 – 27 f.: 19 n. 77, 50 n. 145, 71 n. 14 – 30 f.: 69 n. 4 – 32: 70 n. 11 – 38: 70 n. 11 – 947˗949: 114 n. 216

Index of Ancient Sources

Hippocrates – Epistulae – 15 Smith: 178 n. 39 – De Victu – 4.86: 219 n. 5 – 4.86˗93: 220 n. 11 – 4.87: 220 n. 11, n. 13 – 4.88: 219 n. 6 – 4.89: 219 n. 7 – 4.89 f.: 220 n. 11 – 4.90: 220 n. 9 – 4.93: 220 n. 10 Homer – Iliad – 1.43˗49: 31 n. 33 – 1.188˗222: 28 n. 12, 30 n. 32 – 1.197˗200: 31 n. 33 – 1.197˗222: 174 n. 20 – 1.357˗361: 28 n. 14, 30 n. 32 – 2.5˗34: 42 n. 104 – 2.5˗41: 44 n. 117 – 2.20 f.: 42 n. 104 – 2.26: 42 n. 104 – 2.59: 42 n. 104 – 2.155˗182: 84 n. 34 – 2.155˗207: 28 n. 12, 30 n. 32 – 2.279˗282: 28 n. 12 – 2.280: 32 n. 45 – 2.445˗454: 28 n. 12, 30 n. 32 – 2.786˗807: 28 n. 13, 42 n. 105 – 2.790˗795: 32 n. 47 – 3.121˗124: 28 n. 13, n. 18, 42 n. 105 – 3.383˗389: 28 n. 13, n. 18 – 3.385˗417: 31 n. 39 – 3.396 f.: 31 n. 39 – 3.424: 76 n. 13 – 4.68˗104: 28 n. 12 – 4.86 f.: 32 n. 45 – 4.514 – 516: 30 n. 32 – 5.123: 30 n. 32 – 5.311˗344: 28 n. 13 – 5.330 f.: 31 n. 34 – 5.432˗442: 28 n. 12, 30 n. 32 – 5.433: 31 n. 34 – 5.461˗470: 28 n. 13

– 5.600˗607: 31 n. 34 – 5.710˗908: 28 n. 12 f. – 5.733˗747: 31 n. 33 – 5.785: 32 n. 47 – 5.793˗863: 32 n. 41 – 5.815: 31 n. 34 – 5.815˗824: 32 n. 41 – 5.824: 31 n. 34 – 5.845: 30 n. 27 – 6.132˗137: 111 n. 191 – 6.311: 144 n. 33 – 7.17˗62: 28 n. 12 – 7.58 – 60: 32 n. 44 – 8.41˗52: 126 n. 297 – 10.496 f.: 39 n. 90, 128 n. 309 – 10.503˗514: 28 n. 12 – 10.507 f.: 30 n. 32 – 10.515˗519: 28 n. 12 – 11.195˗211: 28 n. 13, 30 n. 32 – 11.714 – 717: 30 n. 32 – 13.43˗80: 32 n. 40 – 13.43˗125: 28 n. 13 – 13.68˗72: 32 n. 40 – 13.71: 32 n. 48 – 13.206˗239: 28 n. 13 – 13.355˗357: 30 n. 28 – 14.135 f.: 32 n. 41 – 14.135˗153: 28 n. 13, n. 16 – 14.148 f.: 32 n. 41 – 14.153: 30 n. 28 – 14.231˗360: 42 n. 106 – 14.323˗325: 111 n. 191 f. – 14.354˗387: 28 n. 13 – 15.8: 30 n. 28 – 15.187˗192: 53 n. 15 – 15.220˗262: 28 n. 12 – 15.243: 30 n. 32 – 15.693˗695: 126 n. 299 – 16.698˗711: 28 n. 12 – 16.715˗726: 28 n. 12 – 16.783˗804: 28 n. 12 – 17.55: 32 n. 45 – 17.70˗82: 28 n. 12 – 17.319˗342: 28 n. 12 – 17.543˗574: 28 n. 12 – 17.582˗592: 28 n. 12 – 18.35˗147: 28 n. 14

307

308

Index of Ancient Sources

– 18.165 – 169: 30 n. 32 – 18.165˗202: 28 n. 13 – 19.2˗39: 28 n. 14 – 19.340˗356: 28 n. 12 – 20.22˗25: 126 n. 296 – 20.48 – 53: 30 n. 32 – 20.79˗111: 28 n. 12 – 20.318˗340: 28 n. 13 – 20.375: 30 n. 32 – 20.375˗380: 28 n. 12 – 21.211˗226: 32 n. 41 – 21.284 f.: 32 n. 45 – 21.284˗304: 28 n. 12 f. – 21.544˗598: 28 n. 12 – 21.595˗22.21: 28 n. 12 – 22.203 f.: 27 n. 11 – 22.209 – 213: 26 – 22.214˗225: 28 n. 12 – 22.214˗231: 27 n. 9 – 22.224˗228: 32 n. 45 – 22.226˗247: 28 n. 12 – 22.277: 27 – 22.296˗305: 27 n. 10 – 23.65˗107: 40 n. 96, 208 n. 34 – 23.66 f.: 216 n. 92 – 23.99˗101: 40 n. 95 – 23.388 – 393: 30 n. 32 – 24.120˗142: 28 n. 14 – 24.143˗188: 28 n. 13, n. 17 – 24.329˗338: 41 n. 98 – 24.339˗469: 28 n. 13, n. 17 – 24.347 f.: 41 n. 99 – 24.440˗447: 41 n. 100 – 24.460˗467: 41 n. 101 – 24.677˗694: 28 n. 13, n. 17 – 24.679˗694: 41 n. 102 – 24.682: 42 n. 105 – Odyssey – 1.32˗34: 25 n. 3 – 1.38˗43: 29 n. 20 – 1.81˗86: 29 n. 20, n. 23 – 1.96˗324: 29 n. 19 – 2.267 f.: 32 n. 46 – 2.267˗3.373: 29 n. 19 – 2.382˗387: 29 n. 19 – 2.401: 32 n. 46

– 4.795˗803: 42 n. 105 – 4.795˗840: 39 n. 87 – 4.796 f.: 32 n. 46 – 4.796˗837: 40 n. 93 – 4.838 f.: 40 n. 95 – 5.28˗147: 29 n. 20, n. 23 – 5.78˗80: 30 n. 26 – 5.180: 76 n. 14 – 5.333˗353: 29 n. 22 – 6.13˗40: 39 n. 88 – 6.20: 40 n. 94 – 6.20˗47: 29 n. 19 – 6.20˗51: 40 n. 97 – 6.21: 42 n. 105 – 6.25˗40: 45 n. 123 – 7.18˗38: 29 n. 19 – 7. 201˗206: 30 n. 31 – 8.7˗23: 29 n. 19 – 8.193˗200: 29 n. 19 – 10.275˗308: 29 n. 21 – 10.277 f.: 30 n. 32 – 10.573 f.: 31 n. 35 – 11.207 f.: 40 n. 96 – 11.222: 40 n. 96 – 13.221˗440: 29 n. 19 – 13.256˗286: 50 n. 146, 56 n. 32 – 13.287: 76 n. 14 – 13.287˗289: 32 n. 46 – 13.299 f.: 33 n. 49 – 13.312 f.: 33 n. 49 – 14.199˗359: 50 n. 146, 56 n. 32 – 15.1˗44: 29 n. 19 – 15.9: 30 n. 32 – 16.154˗163: 31 n. 36 – 16.156˗174: 29 n. 19 – 17.360 – 363: 30 n. 32 – 17.361˗368: 29 n. 19 – 17.415˗444: 50 n. 146, 56 n. 32 – 19.21˗52: 31 n. 37 – 19.33 f.: 29 n. 19 – 19.51 f.: 31 – 19.178 f.: 126 n. 298 – 19.535 – 553: 39, 40 n. 92, 42 n. 108 – 19.547: 42 n. 106 – 20.30˗55: 29 n. 19 – 20.31: 32 n. 46 – 20.32: 42 n. 105

Index of Ancient Sources

– 20.87˗90: 39 n. 89 – 20.90: 42 n. 106 – 22.205˗275: 29 n. 19 – 24.11˗14: 40 n. 96 – 24.12: 40 n. 96 – 24.27 – 97: 30 n. 32 – 24.502˗548: 29 n. 19 – Homeric Hymns – to Demeter (2) – 91˗95: 54 n. 20 – 101: 55 n. 26 – 101 f.: 54 n. 21 – 111: 55 n. 24 – 118˗137: 56 n. 34 – 159: 56 n. 31 – 188˗190: 55 n. 27 – 192˗211: 64 n. 92 – 231˗255: 64 n. 94 – 256˗275: 59 n. 56 – 270˗272: 64 n. 91 – 273 f.: 64 n. 92 – 275˗304: 57 n. 41 – 314˗324: 127 n. 302 – 314˗389: 127 n. 303 – 372˗374: 64 n. 93 – 441˗469: 127 n. 304 – 473˗479: 64 n. 92 – 474˗476: 64 n. 95

– 87˗93: 61 n. 73 – 187˗212: 61 n. 73 – 212˗214: 61 n. 75, 62 n. 80 – 215˗226: 62 n. 79 – 295: 62 n. 81 – 303: 62 n. 82 – 333˗364: 62 n. 79 – 354 f.: 61 n. 73 – 389˗402: 62 n. 83 – 471˗474: 62 n. 84 – 533˗568: 62 n. 85 – 544: 62 n. 85 – to Aphrodite (5) – 76˗80: 58 n. 45 – 84˗91: 55 n. 28 – 91˗106: 64 n. 96 – 92˗99: 55 n. 29 – 107˗142: 56 n. 33, 64 n. 97 – 168 f.: 58 n. 46 – 173˗180: 57 n. 39 – 182˗190: 57 n. 44 – 191˗290: 57 n. 40 – 192˗199: 58 n. 50 – 193˗238: 58 n. 51 – 239˗243: 58 n. 52 – 244˗255: 58 n. 53 – 256˗283: 58 n. 54 – 284˗290: 58 n. 55

– to Apollo (3) – 30˗88: 52 n. 10, 53 n. 12 – 81: 54 n. 17 – 216˗387: 52 n. 11 – 388˗544: 52 n. 11 – 399˗417: 56 n. 35 – 440˗447: 56 n. 37 – 449˗451: 54 n. 18 – 464˗466: 54 n. 18, 56 n. 30 – 475˗501: 64 n. 89, 59 n. 57 – 480: 57 n. 42 – 486˗510: 56 n. 36, 64 n. 88 – 532˗544: 59 n. 57, 64 n. 89

Horace – Carmina – 1.10: 61 n. 70

– to Hermes (4) – 55˗60: 62 n. 77 – 68˗93: 62 n. 79

Iamblichus – 1.9.31: 230 n. 22 – 1.12.40: 231 n. 27

– to Dionysus (7) – 7 f.: 110 n. 184 – 13˗15: 110 n. 185 – 19˗21: 110 n. 186 – 44˗54: 113 n. 213 – 44˗57: 56 n. 38, 110 n. 187 – to Dionysus (26) – 6˗11: 61 n. 71

309

310

Index of Ancient Sources

– 1.12.41: 230 n. 24 – 2.2.69: 231 n. 33 – 2.4.77˗2.5.79: 230 n. 25 – 2.5.79 f.: 231 n. 26 – 2.6.83: 231 n. 33 – 3.1.102˗3.2.104: 231 n. 35 – 3.14.132: 230 n. 21 – 3.14.134: 230 n. 23 – 3.15.219: 231 n. 30 – 3.2.103˗3.3.108: 232 n. 36 – 3.2.104 f.: 232 n. 37 – 3.3.106.9: 232 n. 36 – 3.5.111: 231 n. 31 – 3.31.178: 230 n. 20 – 5.19.225 f.: 231 n. 28 – 5.20.228: 231 n. 29 – 5.22.230 f.: 231 n. 28 – 10.5.291˗6.292: 231 n. 32

– 2.37: 215 n. 82 – 2.39: 214 n. 82, 215 n. 82 – 3.9˗11: 206 n. 24 – 3.15˗17: 215 n. 82 – 3.17: 208 n. 39 – 3.23: 214 n. 82 – 3.27: 208 n. 40 – 3.34: 206 n. 22 – 4.3: 207 n. 25, 212 n. 65 f. – 4.8: 207 n. 25 f., 212 n. 65 – 4.13: 207 n. 25, 212 n. 65 – 4.14: 215 n. 82 – 4.17: 206 n. 22 – 4.25: 207 n. 25, 212 n. 65 – 4.32 f.: 214 n. 82, 215 n. 82 – 4.34: 208 n. 41 – 4.35: 207 n. 29, 253 n. 9 – 4.39: 205 n. 14

Iophon – T 1: 108 n. 176

Lycophron – T 3: 108 n. 176

Justin – Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi – 20.2.10˗3.9: 149 n. 57 – 24.7 f. : 167 n. 11, 148 n. 51

Macrobius – Saturnalia – 1.11.3˗5: 155 n. 90

Livy – 1.16.5˗8: 158 n. 9 – 2.36: 154 n. 89 Longus – Prol.: 205 n. 14, 212 n. 64 – 1.4: 215 n. 82 – 1.7: 207 n. 29, 216 n. 88, 253 n. 9 – 1.16: 206 n. 23 – 1.24: 214 f. n. 82 – 2.2: 206 n. 24 – 2.4˗8: 205 n. 16 – 2.20: 215 n. 82 – 2.23: 208 n. 37, 215 n. 82 – 2.23 f.: 215 n. 82 – 2.25˗29: 206 n. 21 – 2.26 f.: 208 n. 38 – 2.30: 215 n. 82 – 2.34: 214 n. 82

Marinus – Vita Procli – 30: 6 n. 19 Maximus Tyrius – Dissertationes – 5.1: 159 n. 12 – 9.7: 194 n. 66 Menander – Aspis – 97˗148: 87 n. 47 – Dyskolos – 1˗4: 86 n. 44 – 1˗49: 86 n. 43 – 230˗232: 87 n. 46 – 311: 86 – 400 – 619: 87 – 401 f.: 86 – 407˗418: 87 n. 45

Index of Ancient Sources

– 444 f.: 86 – 570 – 573: 87 – Perikeiromene – 121˗171: 90 n. 68 – 121˗181: 87 n. 48 – Incerta – fr. 507: 87 n. 51 Menander Rhetor – 333.8˗10: 75 n. 6 – 334.25˗32: 75 n. 6 – 344.1˗4: 176 n. 26 Nonnus – Dionysiaca – 1.90˗124: 127 n. 300 – 1.321˗323: 127 n. 300 – 1.345˗351: 127 n. 300 – 5.119 f.: 127 n. 300 – 7.319˗367: 127 n. 300 – 24.77˗82: 127 n. 300 – 24.119˗122: 127 n. 300 Oracula Chaldaica – fr. 124 Des Places: 237 n. 31 – fr. 130: 237 n. 31 – fr. 138: 231 n. 33 Origines – Contra Celsum – 6.22: 243 n. 81 Ovid – Fasti – 2.499˗512: 158 n. 9 – 3.291˗346: 158 n. 8 – Metamorphoses – 3.658 f.: 117 n. 239, 185 n. 22 Parmenides – EGP V.2, D 4 (= D/K 28 B 1) – 3: 72 n. 18 – 5: 70 n. 8 – 7: 71 n. 16

311

– 9 f.: 70 n. 9 – 10: 71 n. 12 – 22 f.: 71 n. 13 – 24: 70 n. 10 – 28˗30: 71 n. 15 Pausanias – 1.4.4: 148 n. 51, 167 n. 8, n. 12, 161 n. 13 – 1.4.5: 159 n. 12 – 1.13.8: 166 n. 6 – 1.14.3: 169 n. 24 – 1.15.3: 166 n. 6 – 1.20.3: 145 n. 36 – 1.24.4: 125 n. 287 – 1.28.4: 139 n. 8 f., 168 n. 15 – 1.28.6 f.: 102 n. 131 – 1.32.4 f.: 166 n. 6 – 1.36.1: 166 n. 6 – 1.37.2: 169 n. 16 – 1.37.4: 169 n. 24 – 1.38.7: 169 n. 24 – 1.39.1 f.: 169 n. 17 – 1.40.2 f.: 166 n. 6 – 2.5.8: 169 n. 18 – 2.6.7: 168 n. 15 – 2.11.2: 168 n. 15, 169 n. 18 – 2.17.4˗6: 145 n. 36 – 2.18.3: 169 n. 19 – 2.30.3: 166 n. 4 – 2.32.5: 170 n. 27 – 2.35.4 f.: 169 n. 20 – 3.9.3 f.: 163 n. 38 – 3.14.5: 169 n. 21 – 3.16.3: 168 n. 15 – 4.26.3: 170 n. 26 – 5.10.1: 169 n. 25 – 5.16.6: 111 n. 194 – 6.11.2˗9: 168 n. 15 – 6.20.4˗6: 166 n. 6 – 6.25.4: 170 n. 30 – 6.26.1: 166 n. 5 – 7.5.2: 170 n. 26 – 7.18.12: 143 n. 25 – 7.27.9 f.: 169 n. 19 – 8.8.3: 171 n. 35 – 8.10.8: 166 n. 6

312

Index of Ancient Sources

– 8.10.9: 148 n. 51, 166 n. 7, 167 n. 8 – 8.25.3˗10: 169 n. 23 – 8.28.5: 168 n. 15 – 8.42.7: 170 n. 30 – 8.53.2 f.: 168 n. 15 – 8.54.6: 139 n. 8, 168 n. 15 – 9.3.1 f.: 168 n. 15 – 9.22.1: 143 n. 25 – 9.23.3 f.: 170 n. 31 – 9.25.5 f.: 169 n. 22 – 9.27.1: 145 n. 40 – 9.34.1 f.: 168 n. 15 – 9.36.3: 167 n. 11 – 10.3.4: 148 n. 51, 167 n. 8 – 10.7.1: 148 n. 51 – 10.8.3: 148 n. 51 – 10.8.7: 167 n. 10 – 10.22.12˗10.23.10: 167 n. 8 – 10.23.1: 148 n. 51, 167 n. 11 – 10.32.5: 170 n. 32 f. – 10.33.11: 170 n. 33 – 10.34.2: 167 n. 11 – 10.34.6: 166 n. 6 – 10.38.13: 170 n. 29 Pherecydes – fr. 155: 86 n. 41 Philemon – fr. 95: 88 n. 60 – fr. 95.4 f.: 122 n. 268 Phrynichus – fr. 10: 115 n. 225

– Pythian Odes – 1.48: 126 n. 299 – 4.13˗37: 39 n. 84 – 4.19˗23: 37 n. 72 – 4.20˗37: 142 n. 19 – 4.34 – 39: 157 n. 7 – Fragments – fr. 52 f (= Pae. 6) 80: 157 n. 7 – fr. 52 i (= Pae. 8a) 17 – 25: 157 n. 7 Plato – Apologia – 33C: 220 n. 15 – Crito – 44 A˗B: 220 n. 16 – Leges – 738B˗C: 182 n. 1 – 910 A: 196 n. 90 – Phaedo – 60E˗61B: 220 n. 18 – 111 A: 229 n. 12 – Symposium – 202E˗203 A: 17 n. 70, 163 n. 39 – 223D: 82 n. 19 – Timaeus – 40D: 237 n. 34 – 45B˗46 A: 223 n. 31 – 70D˗72B: 223 n. 32 – 71E: 222 n. 30

Pindar – Nemean Odes – 10.15 f.: 2 n. 7, 157 n. 7 – 10.50˗52: 2 n. 7

[Plato] – Epinomis – 985C˗D: 182 n. 1

– Olympian Odes – 1.71˗74: 2 n. 7 – 7.39˗53: 186 n. 25 – 13.66˗68: 69 n. 5 – 13.66 – 72: 157 n. 7

Plato Comicus – fr. 86: 107 n. 169 – frs. 89˗94: 81 n. 15 – fr. 188: 86 n. 38 – frs. 188˗198: 37 n. 74

Index of Ancient Sources

Platonius – FOC I, 6˗11: 81 n. 17

– 3.5.3.1˗19: 228 n. 4 – 4.7.13.15 f.: 229 n. 13 – 5.3.14.8˗13: 229 n. 17 – 5.5.7: 228 n. 4 – 5.8.4.39˗44: 229 n. 12 – 5.8.11.33˗40: 228 n. 4 – 6.5.12.28˗31: 228 n. 11 – 6.7.36.18˗22: 228 n. 3 – 6.8.2.5˗9: 229 n. 16 – 6.8.11.23: 229 n. 14 – 6.9.7.30˗34: 229 n. 15 – 6.9.10 f.: 228 n. 5 – 6.9.11.12˗16: 229 n. 18

Plautus – Amphitryo – 1˗152: 88 n. 54 – 50˗61: 80 n. 14 – 89˗94: 122 n. 271 – 112˗114: 81 n. 15 – 142˗152: 88 n. 55 – 149: 81 n. 15 – 164 f.: 81 n. 15 – 271˗284: 81 n. 15 – 464˗498: 88 n. 56, 124 n. 283 – 546˗550: 81 n. 15 – 1052: 97 n. 102, 123 n. 277 – 1053˗1076: 97 n. 102, 123 n. 277 – 1133 f.: 97

Plutarch A. Vitae – Aemilius Paulus – 25.1 f.: 160 n. 18 f.

– Aulularia – 1˗3: 88 n. 53

– Agesilaus – 6.4˗6: 163 n. 38

– Cistellaria – 149˗202: 87 n. 49

– Alexander – 1.2: 157 n. 4

– Rudens – 1˗82: 88 n. 57 – 6 f.: 88 n. 58 – 32 f.: 88 n. 57 – 68˗71: 88 n. 59 – 83˗87: 81 n. 15

– Aratus – 32.1˗3: 159 n. 13

– Trinummus – 1˗22: 89 n. 61 – 18˗21: 89 n. 62 Plotinus – 1.2.6.3: 228 n. 8 – 1.2.7.27˗31: 228 n. 8 – 1.6.4.12˗22: 228 n. 4 – 1.6.5.48˗50: 228 n. 6 – 1.6.6.1˗11: 228 n. 7 – 1.6.6.16˗21: 228 n. 8 – 1.6.7.6 f.: 228 n. 7 – 1.6.8.25˗27: 228 n. 11 – 2.9.9.50: 228 n. 8 – 3.1.3.13˗17: 229 n. 19

– Aristides – 11.2˗8: 162 n. 30 – Brutus – 36: 235 n. 15 – 36 f.: 160 n. 21, 161 n. 28 – 37.1: 161 n. 27 – Caesar – 69.2: 160 n. 21, 161 n. 28 – 69.5˗8: 160 n. 21, 161 n. 28 – Camillus – 6.1: 162 n. 30 – Cicero – 44.2˗4: 162 n. 30 – 44.3 f.: 162 n. 31

313

314

Index of Ancient Sources

– Cimon – 8.3˗6: 159 n. 15 – Coriolanus – 3.4: 160 n. 18 – 24: 154 n. 89 – 24.2: 162 n. 30 – Demetrius – 12.2˗4: 188 n. 36 – 23.3˗24.1: 188 n. 36 – 26.3: 188 n. 36 – Dio – 2: 160 n. 21 – 55: 160 n. 21 f. – Lucullus – 10: 162 n. 30 – 10.2: 162 n. 33 – 12.1 f.: 162 n. 30 – Lysander – 12.1: 160 n. 17 – 20.5: 162 n. 30 – Numa – 2.3: 158 n. 9 – 15: 158 n. 8 – 15.5: 162 n. 32 – Pelopidas – 21.3˗22.2: 163 n. 38 – Pericles – 13.8: 162 n. 30 – Romulus – 2.5: 162 n. 30 – 28.1˗3: 158 n. 9 – Sulla – 9.4: 162 n. 30 – 27.2: 158 n. 10 – Themistocles – 15.1: 159 n. 16

– 15.2: 141 n. 18 – Theseus – 35.5: 159 n. 14 – 36: 159 n. 15 – Timoleon – 8.1: 162 n. 30 B. Moralia – Comparatio Aristophanis et Menandri, 853 A˗854D: 81 n. 16 – De defectu oraculorum 432C: 164 n. 40 – De superstitione 165E˗166 A: 164 n. 40 – Quaestiones Graecae 299 A˗B: 111 n. 194 Polybius – 1.4.8: 155 n. 91 – 1.6.5: 147 n. 47 – 2.20.6: 147 n. 47 – 2.35.7: 147 n. 47 – 2.35.7 f.: 147 n. 48 – 4.46.1: 147 n. 47 – 5.108.5: 155 n. 91 – 9.35.1: 147 n. 47 – 10.2.8˗13: 155 n. 92 – 10.4.5˗10.5.8: 155 n. 92 – 10.11.7 f.: 155 n. 93 – 12.12b.1: 155 n. 91 – 12.24.5: 154 n. 86 – 12.26c.2: 155 n. 91 – 18.15.12 f.: 155 n. 91 – 18.46.7: 155 n. 91 – 33.21: 155 n. 91 Polyphrasmon – fr. 1: 108 n. 176 Polyzelus – fr. 6 f.: 115 n. 224 Porphyrius – 307F Smith: 199 n. 103 Posidonius – BNJ 87 F 108 H [Dowden 2013]: 149 n. 61 – fr. 108 Kidd: 225 n. 48

Index of Ancient Sources

Proclus – In Alcibiadem I – 39.16˗40.2 Westerink: 239 n. 47 – In Rem Publicam – I 152.10 f. Kroll: 236 n. 23 Quintus Smyrnaeus – 1.124˗137: 44 n. 117 – 3.32˗42: 35 n. 61 – 3.60˗62: 35 n. 62 – 3.487 f.: 33 n. 51 – 3.650 f.: 33 n. 51 – 3.699: 33 n. 55 – 4.4˗6: 34 n. 59 – 5.359˗362: 34 n. 59 – 5.451˗455: 34 n. 59 – 7.142˗144: 34 n. 59 – 7.556˗563: 34 n. 57, n. 59 – 8.237˗266: 34 n. 58 f. – 8.326˗328: 34 n. 58 f. – 8.340˗358: 34 n. 59 – 9.255˗259: 34 n. 59 – 9.291˗320: 34 n. 59 – 9.291˗332: 34 n. 59 – 9.403˗405: 34 n. 59 – 9.483 f.: 34 n. 59 – 11.129˗144: 35 n. 63 – 11.272˗277: 33 n. 51 – 11.283˗287: 34 n. 59 – 11.283˗297: 34 n. 59, 47 n. 129 – 11.405˗413: 34 n. 59 – 11.479 f.: 34 n. 59, 47 n. 129 – 12.104˗114: 43 n. 116 – 12.147 f.: 43 n. 116 – 12.160 f.: 127 n. 300 – 12.189 f.: 127 n. 300 – 12.395˗415: 34 n. 59 – 12.447˗482: 34 n. 59 – 13.326˗330: 34 n. 59 – 13.385˗392: 34 n. 59 – 13.559˗561: 33 n. 51 – 14.57˗69: 34 n. 59 – 14.151˗153: 34 n. 59 – 14.467˗491: 33 n. 55 – 14.580˗587: 34 n. 59

315

Rhintho – Test. 1 A (= CGF p. 218): 81 n. 15 Sappho – 1 Voigt: 75 n. 1 – 1.6 f.: 75 n. 5 – 1.7˗12: 75 n. 7 – 1.13˗18: 75 n. 8 – 1.14: 76 n. 11 – 1.18˗20: 76 n. 9 – 1.25˗28: 76 n. 10 – fr. 2: 75 n. 6, 76 n. 15 – fr. 17: 75 n. 6 – fr. 63: 76 n. 18 – fr. 133: 76 n. 15 – fr. 134: 76 n. 18 – fr. 159: 76 n. 15 – fr. 194: 76 n. 17 – NSaphho fr. 5: 76 n. 15 f. – NSaphho fr. 15.9: 76 n. 15 Scholia – Schol. A Heph. Poem. 3 Consbruch (p. 169): 75 n. 4 – Schol. Il. 10.435: 99 n. 110 – Schol. Il. 13.18b: 126 n. 294 – Schol. Pi. O. 7.71a˗b D (I 216): 186 n. 25 Sextus Empiricus – Adversus Logicos 1 (= Adversus Mathematicos 7) 111: 70 n. 7 Sophocles – Ajax – 1 – 133: 84 – 14˗17: 84 n. 34 – Antigone – 1115˗1152: 112 n. 208 – Electra – 417˗423: 129 n. 316 – Oedipus Coloneus – 1623˗1630: 121 n. 257 – 1657˗1662: 121 n. 258, 123 n. 277

316

Index of Ancient Sources

– Philoctetes – 86˗134: 93 n. 78 – 1054˗1062: 93 n. 78 – 1409˗1444: 92 n. 72 – 1411 f.: 92 n. 75 – 1415: 92 n. 76 – 1426 f.: 92 n. 77 – Trachiniae – 161˗172: 121 n. 256 – 1159˗1161: 121 n. 256 – 1164˗1173: 121 n. 256 – Fragments – fr. **10c: 92 n. 73 – fr. 523: 130 n. 322 Stesichorus – fr. 180 Finglass: 129 n. 315 Strabo – 6.1.10: 149 n. 57 Strattis – fr. 4: 97 n. 101 – fr. 46: 97 n. 101 Syriscus – BNJ 807 T1 [Cuypers 2012]: 189 n. 41 Theophrastus – (on dreams and dream divination) Del Corno 1969, 68 f., 148 f.: 224 n. 42 Thespis – T 1: 108 n. 176 Thucydides – 1.21.1: 13 n. 52, 138 n. 3, 147 n. 44 – 2.47˗50: 146 n. 43 – 2.64.2: 146 n. 43 – 3.89.4: 147 n. 43 – 3.104.4 f.: 51 n. 1 – 5.103.2: 146 n. 43 Timaeus – BNJ 566 F 29 [Champion 2010]: 154 n. 87

Timositheus – TrGF I, p. 324 f.: 121 n. 259 Valerius Antias – FRHist 25 F 8: 158 n. 8 Vergil – Aeneid – 4.259˗278: 41 n. 103 – 4.554˗570: 41 n. 103 Xenagoras – BNJ 240 [Higbie 2007]: 190 n. 45 Xenocles – F 1: 108 n. 176 Xenophanes – EGP III, D 8˗14 (= D/K 21 B 11˗16): 49 n. 143 Xenophon – Anabasis – 3.1.11˗14: 153 n. 84 – 4.3.8 f.: 153 n. 84 – 6.1.22: 153 n. 84 – 7.8.1: 153 n. 81 – Cyropaedia – 8.7.2: 153 n. 81 – 8.7.21: 153 n. 83 – Hellenica – 3.4.3 f.: 163 n. 38 – 7.1.34: 163 n. 38 – 7.1.35: 163 n. 38 – Memorabilia – 1.1.2 f.: 147 n. 46 – 4.3.13: 147 n. 45 – Symposium – 4.33: 153 n. 81 f. Xenophon Ephesius – 1.1 f.: 214 n. 79 – 1.12: 210 n. 52, 214 n. 80

Index of Ancient Sources

– 2.2: 214 n. 80 – 2.8: 210 n. 53

2

– 5.8: 210 n. 55

Inscriptions

– IG = Inscriptiones Graecae – II2 2318.201˗209: 80 n. 10 – II2 4514: 178 n. 36 – III2 1091: 183 n. 10 – IV2 1.126: 178 n. 36 – IV2 1.121 f.: 192 n. 57. – XI 4.1299: 198 n. 98 – XII 3.420: 117 n. 239, 185 n. 22 – XII 3 suppl. 1336: 198 n. 97 – XII 4.166: 182 n. 2 – XII 8.356: 111 n. 192 Sylloge3, Dittenberger – 398: 6 n. 16, 148 n. 50, 167 n. 11 Acraephia – SEG 53.454 = Renberg 2010, 46 f.: 198 n. 96 Crete – I.Cret. I, xvii. 8˗12: 192 n. 57 – I.Cret. I, xvii 17˗19: 178 n. 36 Didyma – I.Did. 496 A: 199 n. 105, n. 107 – I.Did. 496 B: 200 n. 110 Epidaurus Iamata, cf. esp. 192 – 196 – A 5 LiDonnici: 194 n. 68 – A 7: 194 n. 70 – A 10: 193 n. 63, 194 n. 68, n. 73 – A 16: 194 n. 68 – A 17: 194 n. 74 – A 19: 194 n. 74 – A 20: 194 n. 68 – A 22: 194 n. 68 – B 1: 195 n. 76 – B 3: 194 n. 73, 196 n. 87 – B 4: 194 n. 71 – B 5: 194 n. 66, n. 68, n. 73

–B –B –B –B –B –C –C –C –C –C –C –C

6: 194 n. 68, n. 74 9: 194 n. 69 11˗13: 193 n. 62 13: 194 n. 68, 194 n. 73, 196 n. 87 23: 194 n. 68 1: 194 n. 68, n. 74 2: 194 n. 72, 194 n. 74 3: 194 n. 75 4: 194 n. 68, n. 70, n. 73 5: 194 n. 73 15: 194 n. 74 22: 194 n. 73

Iasus – I.Iasos 613: 182 n. 2 Lindus – Lindian Chronicle, cf. esp. 186 – 190 – A 2 – 4 Higbie: 187 – B 23˗36 = § 5: 187 n. 29 – B 37˗41 = § 6: 187 n. 29 – B 48˗53 = § 8: 187 n. 29 – B 48˗53 = §8: 189 n. 39 – B 109˗116 = § 17: 187 n. 29 – C 65˗79 = § 32: 188 n. 32 – C 85˗93 = § 35: 188 n. 32 – C 97˗109 = §§37 f.: 189 n. 39 – C 110˗113 = §39: 188 n. 34 – C 115 f. = § 40: 189 n. 39 – D 35 – 42: 188 – D 47 – 59: 188 – D 94˗119: 188 n. 34 Magnesia-on-the-Maeander cf. esp. 183 – 186 – I.Magn. 17: 183 n. 8 – I.Magn. 20 : 183 n. 9 – I.Magn. 100: 185 n. 19 – I.Magn. 215: 117 n. 239, 185 n. 21

317

318

Index of Ancient Sources

Manisa – Herrmann/Polatkan 1969, 10 ll. 32˗36: 198 n. 99 Priene – Renberg 2010, 43 f. = Blümel/Merkelbach/Rumscheid 2014, I, no. 195 (pp. 393 f.): 198 n. 95, n. 101

3

Rome – IGUR 148: 192 n. 57 – IGUR 184 + add. IV.149 = Renberg 2010, 48 f.: 199 n. 102 Stratonicea – I.Stratonikeia 10: 190 – 192

Papyri

– Aretalogy of Imuthes-Asclepius – Festugière I, 52 – 54: 178 – PDM = Papyri Demoticae Magicae – XIV 117˗149 Betz: 234 n. 9 – XIV 490˗495: 234 n. 6 – PGM = Papyri Graecae Magicae – I 43 – 194 Preisendanz: 235, 236 n. 20 – III 698 f.: 234 n. 11 – IV 407 f.: 244 n. 95 – IV 437 f.: 237 n. 30 – IV 476 f.: 242 n. 73 – IV 482˗485: 242 n. 74 – IV 483 f.: 239 n. 50 – IV 485˗537: 237 n. 29 – IV 485˗732: 237 n. 27 – IV 488: 243 n. 84 – IV 489: 244 n. 87 – IV 490: 243 n. 85 – IV 505: 244 n. 87 – IV 510: 244 n. 87 – IV 520: 244 n. 87 – IV 538: 244 n. 88 – IV 539˗544: 244 n. 89 – IV 539˗555: 237 n. 32 – IV 545: 237 – IV 545˗549: 237 n. 33 – IV 548: 239 – IV 556˗568: 239 n. 43 – IV 561 f.: 243 n. 84 – IV 569˗577: 240 n. 51 – IV 571: 239 n. 50 – IV 576: 239 – IV 577˗585: 240 n. 53

– IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV

578 f.: 243 n. 84 579 f.: 239 583: 239 585˗628: 240 n. 57 588˗590: 240 n. 56, 244 n. 92 589: 244 n. 88 594: 240 n. 56, 244 n. 92 606˗610: 243 n. 86 617 f.: 244 n. 88 620˗628: 240 n. 58 624 f.: 241 627: 244 n. 88 628˗655: 240 n. 59 628˗661: 238 n. 37, 240 n. 55 629: 244 n. 88 644: 244 n. 93 646˗648: 244 n. 93 653 f.: 241 n. 60, 242 655˗657: 241 n. 61 658 f.: 244 n. 88 659: 243 n. 85 661 f.: 241 662: 241 662˗692: 241 n. 66 673: 241 678˗683: 240 n. 52 681˗683: 241 n. 65 696: 241 n. 68 696˗704: 242 n. 69 704˗706: 244 n. 94 705: 243 n. 85 707: 243 n. 85 710: 244 n. 90 711: 242 n. 71 712: 243 n. 85

Index of Ancient Sources

– IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV – IV

712˗724: 242 n. 70 714: 244 n. 88 724: 242 n. 71 724˗732: 242 n. 72 725 f.: 244 n. 91 732˗736: 242 n. 76 741: 242 n. 75 747: 242 n. 75 753: 238 n. 41 771: 242 n. 75 777 f.: 242 n. 76 787: 238 n. 41

– IV 796˗798: 238 n. 40 – IV 930: 234 n. 11 – IV 951˗953: 234 n. 11 – V 55: 234 n. 11 – V 379˗446: 234 n. 10 – VII 505 – 528: 235 – XIII 734: 234 n. 11 – Wilcken UPZ I – no. 70 recto, ll. 27˗30: 178 n. 38 – nos. 77˗81: 178 n. 37

319