Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought: Essays in Honor of Peter M. Smith (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies) [1 ed.] 9781138955226, 9781315666518, 1138955221

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Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought Essays in Honor of Peter M. Smith

Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought follows the construction of reality from Homer into the Hellenistic era and beyond. Not only in didactic poetry or philosophical works but in practically all genres from the time of Homer onwards, Greek literature has shown an awareness of the relationship between verbal art and the social, historical, or cultural reality that produces it, an awareness that this relationship is an approximate one at best and a distorting one at worst. This central theme of resemblance and its relationship to reality draws together essays on a range of Greek authors, and shows how they are unified or allied in posing similar questions to classical literature. Arum Park is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona, USA. Her research focuses on archaic and classical Greek poetry, but she has published on a wide range of authors, including Hesiod, Pindar, Ovid, and Longus. Her current book project, supported by a 2012–13 fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies, treats the concepts of truth, gender, and genre in Pindar and Aeschylus.

Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies

  1 The Roman Garden Katharine T. von Stackelberg

11 Virgil’s Homeric Lens Edan Dekel

  2 The Eunuch in Byzantine History and Society Shaun Tougher

12 Plato’s Dialectic on Woman: Equal, Therefore Inferior Elena Blair

  3 Actors and Audience in the Roman Courtroom Leanne Bablitz

13 Roman Literature, Gender, and Reception: Domina Illustris Edited by Donald Lateiner, Barbara K. Gold and Judith Perkins

  4 Life and Letters in the Ancient Greek World John Muir   5 Utopia Antiqua Rhiannon Evans

14 Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source Siobhán McElduff

  6 Greek Magic John Petropoulos

15 Displaying the Ideals of Antiquity: The Petrified Gaze Johannes Siapkas and Lena Sjögren

  7 Between Rome and Persia Peter Edwell

16 Menander in Contexts Edited by Alan H. Sommerstein

  8 Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought John T. Fitzgerald

17 Consumerism in the Ancient World: Imports and Identity Construction Justin St. P. Walsh

 9 Dacia Ioana A. Oltean 10 Rome in the Pyrenees Simon Esmonde-Cleary

18 Apuleius and Africa Edited by Benjamin Todd Lee, Ellen Finkelpearl and Luca Graverini

19 Lucian and His Roman Voices: Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts in the Late Roman Empire Eleni Bozia 20 Theology and Existentialism in Aeschylus: Written in the Cosmos Richard Rader

21 Rome and Provincial Resistance Gil Gambash 22 The Origins of Ancient Greek Science Michael Boylan 23 Athens Transformed, 404–262 BC: From Popular Sovereignty to the Dominion of the Elite Phillip Harding

Other books in this series: Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History Lesley A. Beaumont

Translating Classical Plays: The Collected Papers J. Michael Walton

Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Corinth 338–196 BC Michael D. Dixon

Athens: The City as University Niall Livingstone

Resemblance and Reality in Greek Thought Essays in Honor of Peter M. Smith

Edited by Arum Park

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Arum Park The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested. ISBN: 978-1-138-95522-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-66651-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon, UK

Paideia Sue Guiney

For Peter Smith

Dactyls like hooves trot over my page with a thunderous insistence. Sharply they drag me until I am clouded in memories exalted, decades of time when my passions were only for classical poetry veiled by a musical language, its meanings obscure and deceptive. Out loud I sang forth their rhythms soliciting meanings, bewildered. Sounds born of shapes often lulled me. Sleepless persistence unnerved me. Then, how I’d dream of the agora shaded by cypress and hemlock, sun beating down on my head as I swooned in the theatre, ecstatic, plaits of black hair coiling down like snakes over sweet perfumed shoulders. Bare arms outstretched from the cascading drapes of a wide-belted peplos. Who would I be? What fates would have favored my life then? Matron or slave? Maiden or fury? Teacher or poet? Certainly, it’s Aphrodite I’d wish to resemble. Who other? Yes, it’s Euripides’ genius, his boldness I’d aim to embody. Why dare to dream if not to be more than I picture myself now? Dreams are for breaking our reins, are for setting us flying beyond clouds. Give me Odyssean skills, the strength of a young Achilleus. Teach me the wisdom of Socrates, make him my guide, my advisor. Let the immortals, Athena and Hera, protect and inspire me. Sing to us, Muse, but sing of my deeds through my own words poetic. But my real life intrudes. My memories grow dim. Feet will stumble. My hair will age into gray like Anacreon’s cast-aside lover. Truths of reality fail to resemble the dreamscape envisioned. Yet, there are lessons still learned, still empowering the truth of my present. Gladly I stay still the student attending the voice of my teacher. And so I say: take all that is offered. Translate it. Release it. Civilizations are built not on dreams but on labor and gratitude, labor and gratitude, fantasies tempered by memory enduring, memories like dactyls which trot with divine grace toward glorious pastures.

Contents

Paideia

vii

SUE GUINEY

List of figures Contributors Introduction: Resemblance and reality as interpretive lens

xi xii 1

ARUM PARK AND MARY PENDERGRAFT

PART I

Greek poetry: Verbal resemblance as incomplete reality  1 Mētis on a mission: Unreliable narration and the perils of cunning in Odyssey 9

9 11

PETER AICHER

  2 Little things mean a lot: Odysseus’ scar and Eurycleia’s memory

31

JEFFREY BENEKER

  3 Failure of the textual relation: Anacreon’s purple ball poem (PMG 358)

46

T.H.M. GELLAR-GOAD

  4 Reality, illusion, or both? Cloud-women in Stesichorus and Pindar

65

ARUM PARK

  5 Neither beast nor woman: Reconstructing Callisto in Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus KEYNE CHESHIRE

80

x Contents PART II

Greek tragedy: Reality, expectation, tradition

95

  6 Necessity and universal reality: The use of χρή in Aeschylus

97

DAVID C.A. WILTSHIRE

  7 The arms of Achilles: Tradition and mythmaking in Sophocles’ Philoctetes

116

SHEILA MURNAGHAN

  8 The “Bad Place”: The horrific house of Euripides’ Heracles

130

DEREK SMITH KEYSER

  9 The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83) and reasoning from resemblances

141

EDWIN CARAWAN

PART III

Greek prose: Reality and appearances

155

10 Stereotypes as faulty resemblance: Humorous deception and ethnography in Herodotus

157

MARK C. MASH

11 The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates

176

DAVID JOHNSON

12 Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers: Phthonos and resemblance in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia

199

NORMAN SANDRIDGE

13 Performing Plato’s Forms

211

PATRICK LEE MILLER

Epilogue: Echoes of resemblance and reality in Latin literature

237

14 Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil: Cultural reality and literary metaphor

239

D. FELTON

General index Index locorum

259 263

Figures

  7.1 Odysseus presents Achilles’ armor to Neoptolemus 14.1 The doctor Iapyx tending to Aeneas’ thigh wound, with Aeneas’ son Ascanius and Venus looking on

121 249

Contributors

Peter Aicher is Emeritus Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine. Recent publications include an article on Herodotus’ CroesusStory (with accompanying translation) and its relation to a “vulnerability ethic” present in Homer (Arion, 2013). Earlier publications include Rome Alive: A Source-Guide to the Ancient City (Bolchazy, 2004), Guide to the Roman Aqueducts (Bolchazy, 1995), and articles on Roman topography and Homer. Jeffrey Beneker is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he teaches courses in Greek literature, Classical mythology, and Greco-Roman civilization. His publications include The Passionate Statesman: Eros and Politics in Plutarch’s Lives (Oxford University Press, 2012) and articles on Plutarch and ancient biography. He is co-translator of The Progymnasmata of Nikephoros Basilakes: Byzantine Rhetorical Exercises from the Twelfth-Century (Harvard University Press, 2016) and is currently writing a biography of Pompey the Great. Edwin Carawan is Professor of Classical Languages at Missouri State University. His research focuses on law and rhetoric in ancient Greece. He is the author of Rhetoric and the Law of Draco (Oxford University Press, 1998) and editor of The Attic Orators (Oxford University Press, 2007). For 2010–11, he received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a recent study of the settlement of civil conflict at Athens, The Athenian Amnesty and Reconstructing the Law (Oxford University Press, 2013). Keyne Cheshire is Professor of Classics at Davidson College. He has published articles primarily in the areas of Hellenistic and Greek lyric poetry, but has also authored a textbook, Alexander the Great (Cambridge University Press, 2009), and translated Sophocles’ Women of Trachis, retitled Murder at Jagged Rock, for a setting in a mythic Wild West (Word Works Press, 2015).

Contributors  xiii D. Felton is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she specializes in mythology and folklore. She is editor of the interdisciplinary journal Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural and associate review editor for the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. Besides her book Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity (University of Texas, 1999), she has published many papers on various aspects of folklore in the ancient world. Some of her recent work has focused on monsters and disability studies, and her current book project is Monsters and Monarchs: Serial Killers of Classical Myth and History. T.H.M. Gellar-Goad is Assistant Professor of Classical Languages at Wake Forest University. He has published articles on sacrifice and ritual imagery in Plautus and Terence and in 2012 served as Composer in Residence for a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, “The Performance of Roman Comedy.” Sue Guiney has for over two decades lived in London, where she writes and teaches fiction, poetry and plays. Her work has appeared in important literary journals on both sides of the Atlantic, and her first book is the text of her poetry play, Dreams of May (2006, 2nd edn. 2013). Sue’s first full-length poetry collection Her Life Collected was published in 2011. Her first novel Tangled Roots (2008) is set in Moscow and Boston, but much of her recent prose has centered on life in modern Cambodia: she is now working on a trilogy of novels set there, the first of which was published in 2010 and is called A Clash of Innocents; the second novel in the series, Out of the Ruins, was published in early 2014. Sue has also founded a creative writing NGO for atrisk populations in Cambodia and beyond called “Writing Through” (www. writingthrough.org). She now spends several months each year teaching and working in South-east Asia. Her work in Cambodia also led to her former position as writer-in-residence in the SE Asia Department of the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). David Johnson is Associate Professor of Classics at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He is the author of Socrates and Athens (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and a number of recent articles on Xenophon’s Socrates in journals including Ancient Philosophy, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, and Polis. Mark C. Mash is a public school teacher and independent scholar who lives in Durham, North Carolina. He received a B.A. in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin, and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has studied abroad at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and the American Academy in Rome. His primary area of research is Herodotus, and his article on the relationship between Herodotus and Aristophanes in their use of agon and embassy scenes is forthcoming in a Histos supplementary volume on comedy and historiography.

xiv Contributors Patrick Lee Miller is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, specializing in ancient Greek philosophy, psychoanalysis, and existentialism. His books include Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Continuum, 2011), and Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, 2nd edn., co-edited with C.D.C. Reeve (Hackett, 2015). He has published articles on Sophocles, Aristotle, Augustine, Nietzsche, Freud, and the films of David Lynch. Sheila Murnaghan is the Alfred Reginald Allen Memorial Professor of Greek at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and teaching have been supported by fellowships from Yale University, Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies, the University of Pennsylvania, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her numerous articles cover topics from Greek epic and tragedy to Classics for children. She is the author of Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (Princeton University Press, 1987; 2nd edn., Lexington, 2011) and co-editor of Odyssean Identities in Modern Cultures: The Journey Home (Ohio State, 2014) and Women and Slaves in Greco-Roman Culture: Differential Equations (Routledge, 1998, 2001). Arum Park is Assistant Professor of Classics at the University of Arizona. Her research focuses on archaic and classical Greek poetry, but she has published on a wide range of authors, including Hesiod, Pindar, Ovid, and Longus. Her current book project, supported by a 2012–13 fellowship from the Center for Hellenic Studies, treats the concepts of truth, gender, and genre in Pindar and Aeschylus. Mary Pendergraft is Professor of Classical Languages at Wake Forest University. She has worked with the Advanced Placement Latin program, chaired the committee for the SAT Subject Test in Latin, and served as Chief Reader for the A.P. Latin Exam during its recent period of transition and redesign. She currently chairs the National Committee for Latin and Greek, a standing committee of the American Classical League, and supervises the Tirones initiative in support of new Latin teachers. Norman Sandridge is Associate Professor of Classics at Howard University and Fellow in Leadership Studies and Greater Washington Outreach at Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies. He researches leadership in theory and practice, including the emotional experience of leadership. His book Loving Humanity, Learning, and Being Honored: The Foundations of Leadership in Xenophon’s Education of Cyrus (Harvard University Press Hellenic Studies Series, 2012) explores the foundations, both conceptual and cultural, of Xenophon’s theory of leadership. Currently, he is editing the Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Leadership in the Greco-Roman World with Sarah Ferrario and working on a book-length project on leadership and psychopathy with a focus on the fifthcentury Athenian statesman, Alcibiades.

Contributors  xv Derek Smith Keyser is a Lecturer at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. He received his Ph.D. in 2011 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he completed a dissertation on horror in Euripides’ Hecuba and Heracles under the direction of Peter M. Smith. David C.A. Wiltshire holds a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2012) and a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary (2013). His research interests include the use of laetus in Vergil’s Aeneid and the use of χρή in Aeschylus, the latter of which is reflected in this volume.

Introduction Resemblance and reality as interpretive lens Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft

Any book on resemblance and reality in Greek literature is almost required to start with a nod to the famous claim of Hesiod’s Muses (Theog. 27–8): ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, ἴδμεν δ᾽, εὖτ᾽ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι. We know how to say many false things similar to true ones, And we know, when we want to, how to speak true things.1 Scholars have debated the meaning of these words for so long that they now strain under the weight of the various arguments attached to them. Perhaps the most straightforward and elegant interpretation—and thus the simplest starting point for our purposes—is that of E.L. Bowie, who sees the distinction the Muses make as an opposition between two types of poets: those who tell the truth and those who do not (Bowie 1993: 20 and n. 21 for further references). Of course, this too is a fraught distinction, as it prompts the thoroughly problematic question of what counts as “truth” for poetry: factual accuracy? Adherence to accepted mythical tradition? An avoidance of fictionality? Further, is Hesiod’s audience to take this encounter with the Muses as a literary construct or as an autobiographical account of a real encounter with the supernatural?2 Wherever (if ever) the debate settles, what is undisputable is that Hesiod’s Muses invite us to ponder the nature and meaning of truth and false resemblances of it, and to consider the role of art in relation to these two concepts. This kind of thinking neither began nor ended with Hesiod, of course. Rather, the recognition of the truth-falsehood distinction surfaces as well in Homer, for example, in the very figure of Odysseus, whose character the Hesiodic Muses echo (ἴσκε ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγων ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, “he knew how to speak many false things that were similar to true ones,”3 Od. 19.203) and whose veracity and mendacity are nearly always two sides of the same coin.4 Furthermore, especially if Bowie is correct, these lines invite us to contemplate the very relationship that exists among various works of literature—what we would call the literary tradition—and their comparative distances from reality.

2  Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft Several hundred years later, we see Plato, too, targeting the same question of reality and its resemblance. In the ideal city Socrates5 proposes in the Republic, he asserts the importance of avoiding false stories about the gods and goddesses (2.377d–e), thus implying the same evaluation as that of Hesiod’s Muses, that the truth is preferable to falsehood. Unlike Hesiod’s Muses, however, he does not always identify this relationship as a hard distinction between two things, truth and falsehood, with the latter deceptively presenting itself as the former. On the one hand, he asserts the existence of a reality to which stories should cleave when he claims that some myths are true and some are false and that only the true ones should be told in the ideal city (Republic 2.377c–e). On the other, he nevertheless also calls for an acceptable resemblance of this reality when he then goes on to insist that stories that are true but somehow inappropriate ought to be silenced (378a). Here he acknowledges that the ideal city, by censoring its stories, would be lacking some part of reality yet would, paradoxically, resemble it in the best way. With his famous Theory of the Forms, Plato will make explicit this idea that the world we live in is only a resemblance of something more real, as he posits that our reality is a mere resemblance of an alternate, more sublime reality. But of course, Hesiod, Homer, and Plato were not the only Greek thinkers to grapple with the concepts of truth, falsehood, resemblance, and reality. In the intervening years and genres between the Archaic epic poetry of Hesiod and Homer and the late Classical Athenian philosophy of Plato, numerous authors have similarly wrestled with the ideas of reality and what it means to be a resemblance (. . . of what?), although Thucydides is the first Greek author to plainly differentiate the two, as Chris Emlyn-Jones observes (Emlyn-Jones 1986: 2): It is only when we get to Thucydides that a clear and explicit distinction is made between matter and manner, truth and presentation, in historical narrative (1.21). The tendency to blur these two aspects, clearly seen in Alkinoos’ compliment to Odysseus [Od. 11.367–8], is a natural consequence of the allpervading Greek rhetorical tradition, with its roots in Homer and culmination (Thucydides notwithstanding) in classical Athenian orators and sophists. Discussing Odysseus’ habitual conflation of reality and its verbal resemblance, Emlyn-Jones points out that the fifth-century historiographer Thucydides will problematize this tendency and insist on acknowledging that truth is distinct from its narrative representation. Contrary to Emlyn-Jones’s assertion, the essays in this volume suggest that even prior to Thucydides, ancient Greek authors did demonstrate awareness of—and express concern about—the distinction between reality and resemblance. The characterization of this relationship, however, varies across authors and genres, with some viewing resemblance and reality as truly distinct and separate, and others treating these two concepts as existing at variously spaced points along the same spectrum. Nonetheless, these authors cohere around an understanding that it is important to recognize and clarify the relationship between resemblance and reality.

Introduction  3 It thus becomes incumbent upon us, as scholars and students of antiquity, to acknowledge the resemblance-reality relationship as the lens through which we all— in some way—view classical antiquity. This volume represents a survey of the various ways poets, historiographers, tragedians, and philosophers have interrogated this relationship and identified its underpinnings. This concern about the nature of reality and how best to represent or resemble that reality is persistent in practically all genres from the time of Homer onwards. Many recent works of scholarship have detected and explored this idea6 and have provided the great service in particular of locating and identifying the emergence of fiction—the impulse to create a completely new story independent of mythical tradition. Indeed, in a literary culture in which self-definition in relation to previous authors (especially Homer) is of prime importance, any identifiable inclination toward entirely innovative literary creation would be nothing short of revolutionary and of utmost interest for classical scholarship. But this volume examines other refractions of the resemblance-reality relationship besides the hints of any incipient inclination toward fiction. The various contributions widely span genres and time periods, from Homer to Vergil, Anacreon to Xenophon. Each essay examines different aspects of the resemblancereality relationship, whether through a focus on physical objects or on intangibles such as the history of ideas or literary tradition. The connecting thread through these essays is the premise that reality and its representation or resemblance are key concerns to the ancient Greek authors studied here. Several essays discuss the awareness and critique of resemblance in its instantiation as deception or misdirection. Many of our ancient Greek authors hone in on deception as a deliberate misrepresentation of reality. In this spirit, Peter Aicher examines the famous Cyclops episode of Homer’s Odyssey. Aicher argues for a greater distinction than has previously been acknowledged between the Homeric narrator and Odysseus as narrator of his adventures, and suggests that the former is critical of the use of deceptive cunning by the latter. Further, he contends that this criticism reflects the mindset of the eighth-century historical reality of the poet behind the Odyssey. Ultimately, then, Odysseus’ use of cunning and deception is highly problematic for the Homeric narrator, who reflects the mentality of his own world. “Homer,” as Aicher argues, identifies and is perturbed by the exploitation of the resemblance-reality relationship that Odysseus’ cunning deception exemplifies. In a similar vein, Derek Smith Keyser’s discussion of the house in Euripides’ Heracles shows the dangers of resemblance when it allures by falsely representing reality. Keyser demonstrates the lengths to which Euripides presents the house of Heracles as a traditional Greek household—a space associated with security, stability, and familiarity—only to shatter that illusion with the horrific deaths that occur within it. Provocatively invoking modern horror genres, Keyser articulates the factors that make Euripidean tragedy particularly unsettling in its evocation and then total annihilation of the household, the traditional societal institution par excellence. In Keyser’s study, deceptive resemblance clashes with reality, to horrific effect. His essay, like Aicher’s, shows a Greek author playing upon the expectations triggered by false appearances and thus suggesting concern about alluringly realistic resemblances.

4  Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft Mark C. Mash’s essay, too, discusses the dangers of understanding reality based on false appearances, which appear as ethnic stereotypes in Herodotus. These stereotypes—understandings of reality based on superficial observations and generalizations about culture—lead to false conclusions, sometimes to disastrous ends. Mash shows how Herodotus reveals the large gap between reality and its resemblance by creating stereotyped expectations in both his characters and his readers. As Keyser does for Euripides, Mash explores the ways Herodotus reveals that expectations are premised on resemblances rather than reality, although the effects of these revelations are very different. Whereas Euripides shows unequivocally disastrous consequences of such false expectations, Herodotus often applies a lighter touch by infusing humor into his narratives of ethnic stereotyping and deception. For the alert reader of the Histories, these narratives of deception and culture-based assumptions accordingly yield a sharpened understanding that such assumptions are divorced from reality. The essays of Aicher, Keyser, and Mash focus on the gap between resemblance and reality, but the Greeks also recognized a convergence between the two. This may be obvious, but in some cases it even means that deception or illusion and reality are closely related. Indeed, Plato gestures toward this resistance to binaries when he scripts Diotima in the Symposium as saying Love is neither mortal nor immortal, neither ignorant nor wise (Symposium 203e–204a), neither good and beautiful nor bad and ugly (202b), but always somewhere in between each of these poles. In a similar spirit of confluence rather than opposition, various other Greek authors point out the closeness between reality and its resemblances, a focus of several other essays in this volume. Edwin Carawan’s exploration of the “Hymn to Zeus” in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon shows how the Chorus’ perplexity, their inability to “find the like” (οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι, Ag. 163) for something, reflects a mode of reasoning through resemblance, of understanding reality by means of comparison; this method of thought is more familiar to us from the later fifth-century work of Plato, as Carawan discusses. By identifying this tendency toward categorical thinking, Carawan shows how Aeschylus and other authors reflect a conception of resemblance and reality as closely connected, rather than deeply divided. In identifying this surprising link between Aeschylean and Platonic thought, Carawan’s essay prompts us to wonder whether other such overlaps exist. David C.A. Wiltshire’s essay, while not explicitly comparing Aeschylus to Plato, does explore an Aeschylean phenomenon with Platonic resonances: Wiltshire examines terms for necessity in Aeschylus and proposes that a certain type of necessity has its basis in a universal order or reality determined by the gods. This belief in an absolute reality is something Patrick Miller’s essay on Plato will explore, as we will discuss further below. For now it suffices to say that what Wiltshire discovers in Aeschylean terms for necessity is a conviction that a reality, a cosmic order, exists that is universally applicable. Wiltshire identifies in Aeschylus’ cosmos a widely shared presumption of this universality, a presumption that can be exploited by characters like Clytemnestra, who manipulates the

Introduction  5 appearances of this reality to deceive her interlocutors. She plays on an expectation that resemblance and reality are closely intertwined, in this way behaving like the Herodotean narrator. Likewise showing the Greek awareness of resemblance merging with reality, Arum Park’s contribution discusses the phenomenon of cloud-women in the myths of Stesichorus and Pindar. Such figures—constructed as illusions— nevertheless exist in, affect, and even engender reality. In their fluid movement between reality and illusion, these cloud-women represent myth’s potential to intertwine and even blend the two. This point is seen within the myths and possibly even asserted in meta-poetic commentary by the poets as well, thus complicating a hard and fast distinction between resemblance and reality and suggesting instead their close interrelationship. Furthermore, this blurring of reality and resemblance may have a gendered component since we see this phenomenon most distinctly in specifically female cloud-figures. Patrick Miller’s essay, too, makes gender a core focus of his inquiry into reality and resemblance. His discussion of performance and Plato’s Forms takes as its premise Plato’s own theory that the world we are familiar with must be understood as a resemblance of an eternal, immaterial reality he calls the Forms. Resemblances of the Forms manifest and are perceived in the material world. Miller’s examination in this volume has the specific goal of demonstrating the value of the Theory of Forms to gender theory, such as that of Judith Butler, but he secondarily implies that reality can be understood through examination of its various resemblances. In other words, as Carawan and Park similarly observe in Aeschylus, Pindar, and Stesichorus, Miller points out that for Plato, too, reality and its resemblance are closely related and should not be seen as existing at opposite ends of a spectrum. The natural implication of Carawan’s, Park’s, and Miller’s respective explorations of reality entwined with resemblance is that reality can be understood through resemblance, that reality can, even must, be constructed by resemblance. Two chapters in this volume explore this idea in more detail. Norman Sandridge’s essay on Xenophon’s Cyropaedia investigates the emotional underpinnings of the resemblance-reality relationship as it manifests in Cyrus’ handling of envy. As Sandridge argues, Xenophon, through his depiction of Cyrus’ leadership, explores the relationship between resemblance or appearance and reality by showing how Cyrus uses the one to help affect and effect the other. Cyrus’ good leadership depends on his ability to gauge other people’s feelings—how their dispositions appear to him—and to use his perceptions to shape their own perceptions of reality—i.e., to construct a resemblance of reality for them based on his own understanding. In this way, reality can be determined to be constructed and shaped by Cyrus’ own perception and how he influences others’ perceptions. To be a good leader, Cyrus must understand reality as constructed on a foundation of resemblance. Jeffrey Beneker, too, covers similar ground in his exploration of tokens and memory in the Odyssey. Beneker argues that while physical objects trigger recognition and memory, the real tokens are speeches and narratives reflecting shared

6  Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft recollections. Such verbal tokens construct recollection shared by two parties and give us, the audience, the reality, piece by piece, of Odysseus’ identity. Like Sandridge, Beneker identifies the phenomenon of reality—here, the reality of Odysseus’ identity—being constructed by a process of perception. In Homer’s Odyssey, this constructive process is carried out by verbal representations—or rather, verbal reconstructions—of shared memories. This process of construction through verbal representation is also apparent in Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus, as Keyne Cheshire explores. Although at first glance Callisto is mentioned only allusively, Cheshire argues that her presence permeates the Hymn and contributes to its narrative tensions in constructing a unique Zeus amid and against other mythical traditions. With a pointed reference to Hesiod’s Muses, Callimachus’ hymnist acknowledges his own role as a constructor of believable reality. Of course, this avowed construction of reality through verbal expression results in a potential tension between reality and resemblance, as any representation may be several removes from the reality. While Jeffrey Beneker’s essay suggests verbal representation as the closest adherent to reality, Cheshire’s points up the tensions that arise through verbal representation, especially in the face of multiple and conflicting representations. T.H.M. Gellar-Goad’s essay similarly takes this approach by highlighting the tensions inherent in the relationship between reality and its verbal representation. These tensions surface in the fraught gender identities of Anacreon’s purple ball fragment, the focus of Gellar-Goad’s chapter. Like Beneker, Gellar-Goad discusses the construction of identity, specifically sexual identity, but instead examines the way verbal representation can obscure rather than reveal reality. His essay explores the resemblance-reality relationship on several levels. In contrast to much scholarship on this fragment that has questioned the sexual identity of the object of the speaker’s attention, Gellar-Goad redirects attention to the speaker and points out that the speaker does indeed fail to recognize the gap between resemblance and reality, but that the poem itself, too, is elusive in meaning, using verbal misdirection to manipulate the reader’s grasp of the real sexual identity of the speaker. The final angle of the resemblance-reality relationship that this volume explores is the cultural or historical reality that forms the backdrop for literary representation. As we have already discussed, Peter Aicher’s essay briefly explores this relationship in observing the contrast between the mindset of Odysseus and the eighth-century mentality of the poet of the Odyssey. Certain other of our Greek authors similarly allow glimpses of the “real” world in which their texts were produced. David Johnson’s essay discusses Xenophon’s depiction of Socrates and argues that in defending Socrates, Xenophon makes certain aspects of his religious ideas more conventional. Yet in his Socrates we can also find an inchoate form of the argument from design, which would make Socrates religiously innovative. Although we can never fully know how closely such literary representations reflect the historical Socrates, the religious ambitions of Xenophon’s Socrates may provide some insight into the problems the real, historical Socrates had with the Athenians who would ultimately sentence him to death.

Introduction  7 Sheila Murnaghan’s essay on Sophocles’ Philoctetes is similarly suggestive about the historical Sophocles, but her focus is mainly on the tragedian’s art. As she argues, the actions of the characters in Philoctetes reflect the reality of the playwright. By identifying suggestive parallels between Neoptolemus’ lying and Sophocles’ tragic art, Murnaghan gives us a fascinating look at the resemblancereality relationship as she brings together the separate but connected strands of character, playwright, and mythical tradition. We thus observe what we might call the cultural reality behind the work of Sophocles, who, like Neoptolemus, must create something new while working within the constraints of an existing—and thus believable—tradition. Bridging the gap between Greek literature and its Latin descendants, and between cultural reality and literary metaphor, D. Felton’s essay explores thigh wounds in the poetry of Homer and Vergil. Felton similarly interweaves poetic representation and cultural reality by pointing out that the depiction of thigh wounds in epic poetry has a complicated relationship to such wounds in “real-life” battle situations. Although a critical injury to the real soldier, thigh wounds are surprisingly rare in epic poetry, even amidst the numerous and very specifically located battle injuries in Homer and Vergil. In real battle, thigh wounds are often fatal since they often involve damage to the femoral artery, but they are not depicted as such in the poetry of Homer and Vergil. Yet a strong link exists between real and poetic thigh wounds: informed by folklorist methodology, Felton shows how thigh wounds in epic poetry often symbolize castration and thus the end of a hero’s genealogical line. We see here a complex relationship between literary or poetic resemblance and cultural reality, worlds apart in the comparative frequency or infrequency of such wounds, yet closely connected in their significance: both real and poetic thigh wounds augur death—whether literal or metaphorical—for the warriors experiencing them. In this way literary metaphor meets cultural reality, since the significance of such wounds in literature match their real-world ramifications. These varied but interrelated approaches demonstrate the broad applicability of the resemblance-reality relationship as a lens through which to view Greek literature of nearly any genre and serve as a reminder that the seeming diversity of our examinations of ancient literature is unified by the common assumption that literature is a resemblance or an approximation of some acknowledged, underlying reality. This book, in revealing how a single issue informs the study of many periods and genres of Greek literature, is a call for methodological awareness: it is through our efforts that classical antiquity survives, and our representation of antiquity becomes its reality. Furthermore, the wide range of this volume is a testament to the diverse expertise of its contributors who are yet able to cohere around a single theme, and to Peter M. Smith’s considerable talents as a teacher and scholar. An emeritus professor of the University of North Carolina, Peter gave us the valuable foundations for our varied approaches to Classics and taught us to think critically and profoundly about the ideas expressed in classical literature. In some ways, the title of this volume itself indicates that our own scholarly efforts are at best a resemblance of our real gratitude and admiration for his guidance. This volume is dedicated to him.

8  Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft

Notes 1 Text of the Oxford Classical Text of Merkelbach and West. All translations are our own, unless otherwise indicated. 2 Cf. Louise Pratt 1993: 106–13, who offers an admirably thoughtful discussion of these lines and their interpretive complexity. See especially Pratt 1993: 107 n. 12, for references to further scholarship on this passage. 3 Quoted from the Oxford Classical Text of Thomas W. Allen; translation by Arum Park. 4 Cf. Emlyn-Jones 1986; see also Adkins 1972, who discusses truth in the Homeric poems more broadly. 5 For simplicity’s sake, we will use the name Socrates as shorthand for Plato’s philosophy and not address the distinction between the historical Socrates and the Socrates character of Plato’s dialogues. 6 Notably, the volume of essays edited by Gill and Wiseman, Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, Louise Pratt’s Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar, and Margalit Finkelberg’s The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece.

References Adkins, A.W.H. (1972), “Truth, KOSMOS, and APETH in the Homeric Poems,” Classical Quarterly New Series 22.1: 5–18. Bowie, E.L. (1993), “Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry,” in C. Gill and T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, pp. 1–37. Emlyn-Jones, C. (1986), “True and Lying Tales in the Odyssey,” Greece & Rome 2nd Series 33.1: 1–10. Finkelberg, M. (1998), The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gill, C. and T.P. Wiseman (eds.) (1993), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, Exeter: University of Exeter Press. Pratt, L.H. (1993), Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Part I

Greek poetry Verbal resemblance as incomplete reality

1 Mētis on a mission Unreliable narration and the perils of cunning in Odyssey 9 Peter Aicher

In this chapter I offer a reading of the Cyclopes episode in Odyssey 9 that places the rhetoric and point of view of Odysseus at the heart of the episode and displaces Homer to a point of considerable ironic distance behind his character’s narration. From the very first words of the episode to its conclusion, in Odysseus’ similes, his judgments, his self-characterizations of motives, his lurid descriptions of gore, and not least in the strange exculpating structure he gives his narrative, Odysseus’ celebration of his signature cunning and his very persuasive construct of the whole experience are shown by Homer to be just that, a cunning construct blind to and alternately obscuring its own excesses and even corruption. I will argue that Homer, the “real” narrator, separates himself from Odysseus, the fictive one, and in doing so exposes the unreliability of Odysseus’ narrative representation. The episode also reflects and criticizes a mentality emerging with the polis, as it presciently portrays the perils and self-justifications of a mētis-minded civilization advancing under full sail, thus linking the world represented in Odysseus’ narration with the real world of Homer’s eighth-century audience. Previous scholars have demonstrated in various degrees a distinction between the voice of Odysseus, as first-person narrator of the flashback adventures of Books 9 through 12 (the Apologoi), and the voice of the primary narrator “Homer.” De Jong (1992), for instance, has shown how the language of Odysseus is more emotive and evaluative than the language of the primary narrator,1 while others have been sensitive to the ways in which Odysseus bends his narrative for a desired effect on his fictional listeners, the Phaeacians. In such readings, the familiar character of the consummate rhetorician is given expression in Odysseus’ careful and purposeful speech as he calibrates his self-presentation to elicit both respect and pity from his hosts, with the aim of securing his safe passage back to Ithaca.2 While I do not dispute Odysseus’ concern for his “internal” audience of Phaeacians, I will argue that Odysseus’ distinct narrative point of view and its demonstrable unreliability are integral to analysis of the Cyclopes episode. My reading follows others who have linked the episode’s point of view to the epic’s structural distinctions between Nature and Culture, expressed as a conflict between Poseidon and Athena, force and cunning. I will argue that in this particular episode such distinctions are in the service of character-portrayal and deployed by Odysseus with limited perspective as both actor in and narrator of the episode.3

12  Peter Aicher Finally, I agree with other scholars ascribing hybris to Odysseus,4 but argue that his hybris is not limited to or even most egregiously displayed when he taunts Polyphemus and reveals his real name, but rather culminates in his stunningly cynical speech that has passed for piety (9.259–71). Such a reading, which views the entire episode as a performance in accordance with Odysseus’ character, will explain some of the apparent inconsistencies that continue to perplex other readings of the episode, such as when comments about the Cyclopes are attributed to Homer rather than to Odysseus.5 Not surprisingly, Odysseus’ distinctive mentality in Odyssey 9 finds its reflection in the traits and values of Athena. The goddess does not appear to Odysseus at any time in the Apologoi, but the behaviors, arts, and mental characteristics associated with Athena permeate the episode. Although Detienne and Vernant (1991) make no mention of the Cyclopes episode in Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society, their work, especially Chapter 8, “The ‘Sea Crow,’” reveals the full extent to which Odysseus identifies with Athena’s spirit and the larger extension of it in the type of intelligence known as mētis. As the title of their book suggests, the first step in vivifying the goddess is to replace Wisdom with Cunning. This category is in a sense an abstract heading for the specific domains or activities of Athena in which cunning or strategy is manifest, which include the invention of the Bit and Bridle and the mastery of the skills of Chariot Racing, Navigation, Ship-Building, and General Carpentry. Athena’s various domains include forms of technology that allow humans to control or exploit more elemental resources and in some cases more powerful forces—the bit and bridle in relation to horses, ship-building and navigation in relation to the sea, weaving to wool and carpentry to timber. Poseidon, of course, rules over much of this elemental terrain. As G.S. Kirk (1974) has emphasized, by the time we see Greek myth, we are already a good way down the road from sacred myth to Platonic allegorizing. The tensions between Poseidon and Athena, however far back they go, have become by the time of Homer and Hesiod a rich resource for expression and for shaping the imagination, especially when aligned with the perennial tensions or categories of Nature and Culture. That Poseidon is from an older generation of gods than Athena quite naturally extends the tension or conflict, should the bard care to do so, into the dimension of social conflict between the old and the new, between the primitive and the progressive—each term variously valued and judged, depending on the teller of the tale. Mētis can be considered a sort of heading for the various instantiations of cunning involved in Athena’s specific domains, and is represented most essentially in heroic form by Odysseus. For Detienne and Vernant, “the text of Homer most suited to reveal the nature of mētis comes in Book XXIII of the Iliad, in the episode of the Games” (1991: 12). It is surprising that they make no reference to Book 9 of the Odyssey, despite the near-apotheosis or epiphany of mētis when it sheds the disguises of Outis in a tour de force of linguistic cunning.6 That said, my main purpose in the rest of this essay is not to champion the Cyclopes episode for its numerous illustrations of mētis, but to show that these examples are presented

Mētis on a mission  13 as components of a character whose mētis-oriented perspective Homer portrays from a critical distance. That is, Homer evaluates them in this context very differently than does Odysseus. The insights of Detienne and Vernant into the various domains of Athena and Poseidon and into the modus operandi of mētis, reveal how thoroughly, even relentlessly, such categories are applied throughout the episode, or rather, how relentlessly and thoroughly Odysseus presents and understands himself as a man of mētis. Take, for instance, the similes Odysseus uses in tandem to describe the blinding of Polyphemus (9.384–94): the men twirl the glowing stake into his eye as a man would drill a hole in the beam of a ship with an auger, whereupon the eye sizzles “as when a metalworker plunges a large ax or adze into cold water, screeching loudly when he tempers it—for this is what gives the iron its strength.” These similes, linking Odysseus to the shipwright and smith, clearly show mētis getting the better of biē, as others have commented.7 Both similes are drawn from realms that at the time could be considered near the pinnacle of technology. While metalwork is not technically Athena’s domain, it is the domain of another mētis-minded god: Hephaestus. In each case, raw materials are improved upon by technology, and the simile on metalwork involves the manufacture of tools (“an ax, or an adze”) that are specifically used in carpentry; the domination of cleverness over force culminates in the blinding of the uncivilized giant. It could be argued that this picture of mētis getting the better of biē expresses a schema of Homer’s in which Odysseus partakes. Yet, even without setting this passage in the wider context of Odysseus’ rhetoric, I think it is possible to sense a certain zeal and pride that give some sculptural relief, as it were, to the narrator’s character. There is also a curious dialogue set up by the similes’ startling juxtaposition of extremes. The sophisticated technology and mētis responsible for the world of the similes not only enable Odysseus to inflict this luridly detailed violence, but in an odd way anchor it in civilization at the same time: relying on mētis, Odysseus’ violence is more civilized than is the violence of his adversary. Athena is not mentioned as a direct aid in this activity, but Odysseus clearly presents the action as triumph under her aegis.8 He invokes her once in the episode, at the critical moment when he turns to action after helplessly watching four of his men devoured for dinner and breakfast: “Would Athena give me glory?” he wonders (9.317). Though he never explicitly answers the question, he invites us to think she would: in the next verse, a plan (boulē, a significant word in the episode, connected with mētis) springs into his head, and in the verse following, he notes that there is a large trunk of an olive tree in the cave. Of course, Odysseus’ point of view does not determine what species of wood happens to be in the cave (that is a gift from Homer, it could be said), but he does shape his narrative and specifies olive wood, so that the compressed cluster of associations (Athena, plan, olive) reveals the connections he makes between them. He next surmises that in its natural state, the trunk is destined, once it dries, to be a club for the giant (i.e., a crude instrument of force). For Odysseus, however, the wood is unusable in its natural state, being “as large as the mast of a black, twenty-oared ship, wide and loaded with freight, such as cross the wide gulfs of the sea” (9.322–3). Odysseus

14  Peter Aicher then describes the carpentry required to cut it down to size, to plane it smooth, and to sharpen a point, which then needs to be hardened (or carbonized for quicker reheating?) in fire, and hidden away, once crafted, under dung that lies around the giant’s cave in abundant heaps. What in Polyphemus’ hands was destined to inflict blunt force trauma becomes, by a process of manufacturing and the comparison to the mast of a sea-going freighter, not just a big pointy stick but an instrument of advanced civilization. Just as telling is the first mention of Poseidon in the episode some thirty lines before Athena is mentioned. Polyphemus, after reveling in his strength and scoffing at Odysseus’ warning to fear Zeus (a speech discussed in more detail below), asks him where his ship is, “so that I might know” (9.280). This is about the sum of trickery the giant can muster (“so that I might know”!?). Odysseus of course is not fooled by this, and proudly tells us so (281); then he responds with “words of guile”: “The earth-shaker Poseidon smashed my ship apart” (9.283). On the narrative level, this lie demonstrates cunning, bolsters his (fictive) status as a suppliant, and most importantly saves the rest of the crew waiting on board. This picture of Odysseus—the alert saver rather than destroyer of his men’s lives—is most present in our minds when the giant responds by killing and eating two men. But the episode directly refers to a confrontation between his ship and Poseidon and thus also presents the encounter as a contest of mētis against biē, Athena against Poseidon. This review of a few passages in the episode exposes the binary opposition between Poseidon and Athena underlying the text and demonstrates how Odysseus relentlessly identifies himself, with pride and emotion, as an exponent of Athena and mētis. At this point, one might argue that the episode simply reflects and reinforces the epic-wide critique of biē and violations of xenia. But there are indeed some touchstones in the episode that compromise Odysseus’ narration and reveal it as limited. It is true that Odysseus himself acknowledges, in hindsight, that it would have been better if he had listened to his men and limited his encounter with Polyphemus to a raid of his possessions (9.228). Here, it might at least be argued, Odysseus the narrator shows himself to be more aware than Odysseus the actor in the episode. Equally, however, this admission works as a dodge, foreshadowing and emphasizing the terror ahead (the giant’s deeds), while establishing the candor of the narrator. And no doubt his insistence on revealing his identity to Polyphemus at the end of the episode is another and perhaps more damning revelation of an error, even tragic hybris, as some have claimed, that motivates the anger of Poseidon through the curse of Polyphemus. But I believe the episode’s flurry of distinctions between mētis and biē, and the distinctions drawn between civilized and wild, both cause and cover a more fundamental error or blindness on Odysseus’ part that Homer is concerned to dramatize. One touchstone is that Odysseus, while presenting himself (to his audience, to his men, to himself) as an upholder of xenia, violates the guest-host relationship before Polyphemus does. This has often been noted; the only thing remarkable about it is how little bearing it seems to have on most readings of the episode. First, however, the facts: (1) Odysseus and his men were not stranded on the

Mētis on a mission  15 Cyclopes’ shores, but elected to go there; (2) Polyphemus had done them no wrong prior to their arrival there; (3) they entered his dwelling uninvited in his absence, lit a fire, made a sacrifice, and ate his food before their “host” returned; (4) they had no qualms about stealing anything they could get away with. Thus, if one analyzes the action of the episode, the actual encounter, it is clear that Odysseus is responsible for initiating the conflict, and that, if the “law” of xenia applies to the situation, he commits the first violation of it. On the other hand, my entire picture of a guilty Odysseus is altered if, for whatever reason, one accepts that (1) there are no mutual standards such as xenia that apply to this particular encounter, and thus there is no violation of any standards, or (2) the Cyclops did in some way or at some time commit the first offense after all, or (3) Polyphemus’ response to this violation was so outrageous and excessive that it retroactively justified whatever violation Odysseus may have committed that led to it. In fact, all three of these exceptions are in play in Odysseus’ retrospective account of the action, and they reinforce each other. I will treat the last mentioned of these briefly. In common practice (in parenting, certainly), and perhaps with good reason, we sometimes entirely overlook an offense if it leads to retribution that is felt to be wildly out of proportion to the instigation. One of the episode’s most notable features, its graphic and gross violence, may be in play here. Odysseus hardly needs to gild the lily of cannibalism, but I do think the rhetorical value of Polyphemus’ vomit has been overlooked. Polyphemus, Odysseus makes us feel, is an abomination. The giant’s regurgitation of human parts evokes a visceral outrage of such force that it emotionally overshadows and even morally exonerates Odysseus of any blame for getting his men into the situation. As with the exuberance of the technological similes described earlier, I am suggesting that the detail and description should not be seen as simply functions of epic fullness and Homeric vividness, but as speech that reveals character and has rhetorical purpose. The first two exculpating exceptions (i.e., that xenia does not apply here, and that Polyphemus is the aggressor) are what Odysseus persuades us (and perhaps himself) to believe, not only as he recounts the disaster itself, but even more so by how he sets the encounter up and even by how he structures his narrative. The famous “Anthropology” of the Cyclopes (so often mined for Homer’s, or the epic’s, or the Greeks’ views on nature and civilization9) that begins the episode (9.105–15), and the account of Goat Island immediately following (9.116–41)— passages that together comprise what I will call the Preface of the episode—make more sense in this light, as speech-acts of Odysseus relevant to and implicated in the disastrous encounter with Polyphemus. Consider the structure first, and how, while not unique, it differs from the episode of the Lotus-Eaters that precedes the Cyclopes episode, or the Laestrygonian and Circe episodes that follow. In those episodes, after some brief, mostly evidential information, the nature of the inhabitants is revealed as the adventure unfolds in real time, with the danger gradually revealed to both the crew and to Odysseus’ audience. Not so with the equally unknown Cyclopes. It begins routinely enough: “We sailed on to the land of the Cyclopes . . .” (9.106). But the narrative action

16  Peter Aicher is abruptly suspended for nearly forty lines, as Odysseus inserts a description of Cyclopes-culture and a detailed description of the neglected island offshore. The narrative action then resumes (9.142) with their night-time arrival on the island, of which they see no more than the beach until the next morning, when their real-time knowledge of the Cyclopes can be said to begin (9.166). Simply by structuring the episode this way, prefacing the episode with an evaluation of the Cyclopes prior to the traumatic unfolding of the experiences on which his knowledge of them is entirely based, he lends his judgments the appearance of epic impartiality, often confused with Homer’s. Furthermore, this structure also helps cover the sleight of hand in the seemingly unremarkable lines that begin the episode (9.105–7): We sailed on, grieving in our hearts And came to the land of the insolent and lawless Cyclopes, Who . . . After engaging our sympathy with this display of bleeding hearts, he follows with a deception so subtle that it passes unnoticed, but is crucial to his exculpation. Odysseus has them going straight from one unelected danger in the Lotus-Eaters to a still worse unelected danger in the land of the wicked Cyclopes. Structured sequentially, the narrative would have them make landfall at night on Goat Island, where they would proceed the next morning to collect everything they could possibly want of the island’s plentiful supply of fresh water and game, followed by Odysseus’ insistence on a voluntary visit to the as-yet-unknown inhabitants. This, then, is another rhetorical function of the Preface, obscuring by its disruption of narrative sequence Odysseus’ role in initiating the ensuing disaster. As for the content of Odysseus’ evaluation of the Cyclopes, his opening claim that they are insolent and lawless establishes the other two of the three aforementioned conditions (i.e., the suspension of the code of xenia, and establishing the prior criminality of the Cyclopes) needed to place the onus of the coming confrontation and its violence on Polyphemus. This introduction would persuade us that, prior to any individual experience with the Cyclopes whatsoever, they are, by their very nature, both beyond the boundaries of law and the obligations and protocols of custom—they neither recognize nor are deserving of xenia—and are also the aggressors, such that any act against them is in a sense defensive. Odysseus’ introductory condemnation of the Cyclopes in the Preface is all the more effective as part of a fascinating and astute weave of observations, insights, and judgment. Taken together, his thoughts in the preface display an alert recognition of the connections between technology, trade, political institutions, mental development, and social customs or laws, such that differences between Greeks and Cyclopes in one of these categories is likely to mean differences in other categories as well. There is also the evaluative sense, not surprisingly, that the culture of seafaring Greeks (and their value of mētis) is the norm, and that the departures of Cyclopes from this norm are not just differences but deficiencies. What the preface and the episode as a whole portray is how

Mētis on a mission  17 these deficiencies in mētis get translated by Odysseus into a sort of criminality, even as he elevates the value of his own superior mētis on a self-appointed mission to oppose that criminality. Conceiving of the episode with this overarching rhetorical edifice knits its various parts together and explains some of the apparent and real inconsistencies that have vexed interpretation.10 Take, for instance, the following description of the Cyclopes at the beginning of the Anthropology (9.107–9): [The Cyclopes], who, trusting in the immortal gods, Neither sow crops with their hands nor plow, But all things grow for them unsown and unplowed . . . This has been analyzed as a confusing inclusion of Golden Age elements, imperfectly digested by Homer into the narrative.11 Traditional elements from a Golden Age may find their way into Odysseus’ language, but he is making an observation here that is all of a piece with his critique. As Heubeck notes, the Cyclopes’ trust in the immortal gods and Zeus’s rain emphasizes that they do not engage in agriculture (Heubeck and Hoekstra 1990: 20). The thrust of the description is not that they live in paradise, but rather that their ability to subsist on local bounty is related to their arrested development.12 As is clear from the preface as a whole, Odysseus (in this respect, like Herodotus’ Solon) asserts that no one piece of land provides all the necessities of civilized life, and that the laws and customs are intimately related to the necessary cooperation both of individuals within the polis and of their necessary interaction with people in other poleis. Thus, Odysseus’ description of the bounty of the Cyclopes’ land, and of their reliance on nature unimproved by arts, perfectly accords with his description of the absence of assemblies and laws and social structures larger than the family. Absent from Odysseus’ Anthropology of the Cyclopes is any penchant for violence, either among themselves or as external aggression or raiding. Even by his analysis, the Cyclopes’ social isolation is a function of pastoral self-sufficiency, and what social organization they have is based entirely on the family. And from what we can infer from details later in the episode, the life of Polyphemus, while solitary, supersized, and monocular, is one of day-long occupation in the routines of husbandry, herding, and a fairly elaborate manufacture of cheese. Yet others have interpreted this lack of violence as a vice rather than a virtue. Despite this absence of any aggression or needy opportunism in this opening description of the Cyclopes, Heubeck concludes, “we are not, therefore, surprised that this race, the embodiment of inhumanity, is endowed with non-human characteristics and is capable of acts of extreme barbarity” (1990: 21 ad 9.106–15). Notably, Heubeck attributes the Anthropology to “the poet” (i.e., Homer) rather than to Odysseus. Odysseus’ description has done its work: Heubeck accuses the Cyclopes, long before any indication of the atrocity that one of them will commit, of being “capable of acts of extreme barbarity” and cites Homer rather than Odysseus as the authority behind this assessment.

18  Peter Aicher Odysseus’ description of Goat Island is in no way a digression or a shift in focus, but continues and broadens the Anthropology’s critique of the Cyclopes.13 One feature that unites both passages is their use of negation to characterize the Cyclopes. There is a remarkable abundance of adverbial ou/out’/oute forms and alpha-privatives throughout the Preface, and these forms of negation are complemented in the description of Goat Island by potential optative verb forms (e.g., the island “would bear all crops in season (sc. if inhabited by civilized humans)” (9.131)).14 While description by negation can and frequently does characterize portrayals of paradise and utopia15—no violence, no hunger, no pain, no injustice, etc.—here it presents difference as deficit and devaluation. This mode of description not only dispenses with an assessment of what the Cyclopes do or have, but by focusing on what they lack it also defines them as not just different or as lacking, but as the opposite of the Greeks. Joined closely to Odysseus’ indictment of Cyclopean society, the description of the island in its natural state becomes a further manifestation of the Cyclopes’ shortcomings. Through the relentless repetition of the negatives and the catalogue of unrealized potential, the Cyclopes’ way of life becomes the binary opposite of the good life.16 The description of Goat Island is also where ships enter the picture and are assigned their vital place in civilized life. The absence of mētis in the Cyclopes’ society had been alluded to in the Anthropology, through their lack of assembly and by the architectural marker of their cave-dwellings. Here Odysseus explicitly attributes the dereliction of Goat Island to the absence of ships among the Cyclopes (9.125–30): [The island is incomplete,] For there are no red-cheeked ships among the Cyclopes, Nor any builders of ships who might build them ships decked fore and aft, the sort that supply (teleoien) each city in their travels between them, as often as men cross the sea in ships to trade with each other. His attention to ships in these six lines is more than epic fullness, and more too than a play for the goodwill of the ship-loving Phaeacians. Ships are what enable vital connections among men in different cities, parallel in this way to the connectivity of counsel-bearing assemblies that the Cyclopes also lack. The word “ship” is repeated four times in five lines, and the last line refers to the shipwrights in the second line as the craftsmen required to realize the island’s potential. The word I translate as “supply,” moreover, has a basic sense of “complete, fulfill,” a meaning that stands in nice opposition to the word “to be widowed, bereft” (chēreuei, 9.124) that characterizes the current state of the land. With ships, humans find fulfillment in cities and civilized life. Odysseus revels in ships as a sign of his culture and his technological superiority. Ships are one of the chief signs by which he measures Greeks against Cyclopes. This is also why he can bring this cultural identity and his sense of the Cyclopes into

Mētis on a mission  19 full play before even meeting them: Goat Island (as he sees the next morning before meeting any Cyclopes) is totally undeveloped, which means the Cyclopes lack ships, and thus civilization and all its distinguishing features. Here too is where we see the presence of his patron Athena, as the goddess of the domains of navigation, shipbuilding, and carpentry. Also brought into play with the description of Goat Island is the contrast between what is wild or in its natural form, and what can be made of it through the agency of technologies such as seafaring and cultivation. The description of Goat Island then can be seen to connect to the dynamic between Athena and Poseidon, as drawn by Detienne and Vernant and as evident in the conflict between Odysseus and Polyphemus later in the episode. It is a credit to Odysseus’ analysis of the Cyclopes and the persuasive con­ nections he makes between politics, technology, trade, and the social customs required by complex interactions (xenia above all), that when he sets out on his adventure to meet and test himself against a Cyclops, his hunch that he will encounter a man who, in his words, “knows neither justice nor law” is entirely believable. Thus, by stages, we forget that Polyphemus, while already a lawless, brutal, backwards monster in the terms of the narrative, is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing when Odysseus steps onto his shore. It is important to note that murderous raids on strangers are not a crime in Homer’s epics. Xenia is not a universal obligation, such that Odysseus had anything to fear by way of retribution from the gods just because he robs a giant, eats his cheese, cooks his flock, or even kills him, with trickery or otherwise. He has much to account for by initiating the encounter with Polyphemus, and I think much of the rhetoric of the passage, as described above, works to obscure this responsibility, but none of these acts constitutes in itself an offense against xenia or an act of hybris. Rather, both of these offenses reach their pitch together, I argue, in Odysseus’ cunning but hubristic plea for xenia in his opening speech to Polyphemus (9.259–71). Odysseus’ narrative shows him approaching or developing the ideas and strategy of this speech in stages, which I will outline before analyzing the speech. In one sense, his casting of the Cyclopes as the antithesis of Greeks, especially in light of the importance he places on the absence or presence of mētis in their respective lives, contributes some of the foundation for the speech. If the absence of mētis is so reprehensible and implicated in the lawlessness that defines the Cyclopes, then the presence of it is correspondingly elevated as a good. And if the brute force of the Cyclopes is the reason they do not honor the gods, then the opposition to that brute force can, as its binary opposite, seem equivalent to honoring the gods. That some such moral elevation based on the superiority of his mētis affects— and infects—Odysseus becomes apparent earlier, when he first reveals his motives for visiting the Cyclopes. Significantly, he announces his motives after he “calls an assembly” (agorēn themenos) on the morning of their second day on Goat Island and declares his intentions “to all” (9.171). Thus, the situation is already coded with the hallmarks of communal behavior that distinguish the Greeks from

20  Peter Aicher the lawless Cyclopes, as established in the Preface. Odysseus quotes the speech he gave to the assembled men (9.172–6):17 The rest of you, my trusty companions, wait here [on Goat Island]; I will go over with my ship and my crew And make a test (peirēsomai) of these men, whatever sort they may be— Whether arrogant (hybristai) and wild and without justice, Or kind to strangers (philoxenoi) and disposed to fear the gods. In the absence of a practical need for this visit, something must motivate it, and here we have it: Odysseus has a moral mission. As these terms define the coming encounter, Odysseus, whatever he does, will do it in a white hat. Notice especially how effectively he establishes his moral credentials. By assuming the role of the tester, any suspicions he has about the suspected vices of others are really endorsements of virtues he must possess as the tester. Without bringing the issue up for reflection, or making any overt claims that might trigger our own independent examination of presumptive moral worth, he henceforth owns virtue. Thus is all ensuing behavior pre-judged: any breaches of xenia and any acts of hybris will be committed by the Cyclopes, the ones under examination and suspicion. But however effective the role of tester appears to be as a rhetorical move, most readers sense something wrong. Heubeck (1990: 24, note on lines 172–6) comments that Odysseus is motivated “merely by curiosity,” and that “his encounter with Polyphemus exposes his attitude as shallow.” Friedrich (1991: 26) comes closer to identifying how fraught with transgression this testing (peirēsomai) is. He calls it a “theoxeny-like enterprise,” referring to the divine visitations of gods in disguise to test if mortals are kind to strangers (philoxenoi).18 Friedrich alertly sees that Odysseus’ role as tester is part of a process in which Odysseus “arrogates to himself . . . a divine mission for which he has no authorization” (1991: 26). As the episode proceeds, Odysseus’ statement of his intentions evolves. The next formulation of his “mission” is briefer, but no less telling. When they reach Polyphemus’ cave and realize they are dealing with a giant, his companions plead for plundering and sailing off before the giant returns. Odysseus insists on remaining, “so that I might see him, and if he would give me a guest-gift” (9.229).19 His vaguer but value-laden claim that he would test the piety of the Cyclopes, has now been defined as getting a guest-gift from him. On the surface, there is no contradiction between these statements of intention: the second formulation is simply narrowed to the specific act that will test for piety. The context, however, reveals a piety in shambles. He clearly has no intention of abiding by the standards of xenia he is supposedly testing for; instead, the goal, while nominally and rhetorically a pious one, is now to trick the giant, and to get the better of his brute strength with mētis. His speech to Polyphemus, which I argue is most revealing of moral corrosion, is the specific act of mētis that Odysseus hopes will trick the giant into honoring xenia (9.259–71):

Mētis on a mission  21 We are Greeks returning from Troy, blown off course Across the great gulf of the sea by winds in all directions; Heading toward home, a different journey, not the route we planned, Brought us here instead. Thus, I suppose, has Zeus devised it (mētisasthai). We are men of mighty Agamemnon, son of Atreus, Whose fame has no equal now below the heavens: So great was the city he sacked, so numerous the people He destroyed. But we have come here and approach your knees To see if you will offer us a guest-gift (xeinēion), or a present Of some sort, as is the proper custom (themis) among guests (xeinōn). Respect (aideio) the gods, mighty as you are: we are your suppliants. Zeus, the god of guests (xeinios), watches over suppliants and guests (xeinōn), And goes with god-respecting guests (xeinoisin . . . aidoioisin) as their protector. The first thing to note, in an elucidation of this speech’s travesty of piety and respect for the gods, is that Odysseus and his men are not there as suppliants, contrary to his claim here. As with the first line of the episode (after the LotusEaters, “we came to the land of the Cyclopes”), the deception is easy to overlook, so skillfully does Odysseus cover up this essential falsehood with statements that are true. The truth-to-lie ratio of his actual statements may be twenty to one in favor of truth, but with the central premise of his speech denied, every truth is in the service of a trick. More seriously, Odysseus’ speech corrodes the values it purports to revere. To hear Odysseus preach about xenia and themis and the obligations owed to a stranger—while he himself has cast all such obligations aside—should at least make us wonder about the sincerity with which he uses these words elsewhere. This is perhaps as close as he comes to the Odysseus of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. If a suppliant’s plea is to mean anything and meet with success, if an appeal to the most sacred authorities is to carry any weight, these words must have a special value backed by divine power. Instead, Odysseus makes these words subservient to his trick in this sham performance professing an earnest concern for xenia, the gods, and a suppliant’s vulnerability. In a way, the futility of the speech obscures its corruption. Had it succeeded, one can imagine the men laughing and quoting parts of the speech, putting exaggerated emphasis, for instance, on all the repetitions of xenia-related words that Odysseus used to school and inveigle the dumb giant, and laughing at how Odysseus used the fear of Zeus to trick a gift out of him. Such laughter would simply help clarify the offense to Zeus in Odysseus’ speech. If hybris was suggested when Odysseus took on the role of the tester, here it is more egregious. Odysseus’ plan supplants Zeus’s plan, and the cunning of Odysseus supplants Zeus as the protector of the guest-host relationship. Odysseus ascribes the mētis in motion here to Zeus (mētisasthai, 9.262), when in truth Odysseus devises and purposefully sets the entire encounter in motion, however unintended the consequences. Likewise, Zeus cannot be pleased to witness earnest invocations of his power and prestige being relegated to rhetorical trickery. There is a rich irony in the final line of Odysseus’ speech: Zeus will protect god-respecting

22  Peter Aicher guests (xeinoisin . . . aidoioisin). Even as the words and claims of Odysseus reach the pitch of piety and profess the highest respect for Zeus, the same words reveal his own lack of aidōs in this instance.20 Readings such as Heubeck’s (in Heubeck and Hoekstra 1990) that see the disjunct and drama in this episode as one between the heroic world and its inadequacy in the face of Polyphemus’ barbaric disregard of the heroic code fail to see the disjunct between Odysseus’ professed respect for the heroic code and his own flouting of its key principles. Newton (2008: 23–30) and Friedrich (1991) are among the few scholars who give sufficient weight to the transgressions of Odysseus in the Cyclopes episode. Newton notes as well that Odysseus presents his actions in a way that glosses over this transgression against xenia. For Newton, however, Odysseus’ main offense is the sacrifice that Odysseus and his companions make in Polyphemus’ cave (9.231). Newton argues that it must have been an animal sacrifice, and that Odysseus suppresses this detail because his Phaeacian audience does not attach an urgent importance to meat and so will not presume or suspect the sacrifice involved meat. The external audience of the Odyssey-poet, however, will understand, Newton explains, that animal sacrifice and meat-eating were involved, which in the larger scheme of the epic links Odysseus’ behavior in the cave to the meat-eating violations of the suitors in Ithaca and of his sailors on Thrinacia. Accordingly, Odysseus too is deserving of punishment for his violation, and this is the reason, according to Newton, that Zeus does not accept Odysseus’ sacrifice of the ram at the end of the episode (9.550–5).21 The readings of the episode by Friedrich and Newton are insightful in many respects. A primary concern of both scholars is the vexed issue of Zeus’s justice in the epic, and the difficulties of squaring it with Poseidon’s vengeance. Whether or not a culpable Odysseus whose hybris offends Zeus is, as they attempt to show, the key to perceiving a consistent moral code in the epic, I think they are right to place the weight they do on this hybris. My reading of the episode differs, however, in two major respects: I locate the culmination of Odysseus’ hybris not in the sacrifice in Polyphemus’ cave, or in Odysseus’ boasting taunts from his ship, but in the speech he delivers on piety while in the guise of a suppliant. I have also argued, however, that this speech is intimately linked with and dependent on the rhetoric of the entire episode, and that Odysseus’ uncritical inflation of his mētis into a moral mission has prepared us for this speech. It is the various manifestations of metis and the complex weave that ties the opening words of the episode to this speech and the rest of the action, as well as the ironic distance between Homer and Odysseus, that binds the episode together. Can we really expect Homer, circa 700 bce, to have engaged his audiences with such an examination of mētis and its perils? Before addressing this question, I want to stress two points so that my argument and its direction are not misconstrued. First, I do not think Homer was a “Cyclopophile,” or that the episode is some sort of brief for the simple life, free of the incursions of civilization. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that Homer is not interested in the Cyclopes; rather, he is interested in Odysseus and in the operations and temptations of mētis.22 If he is a critical observer of Odysseus and notices flaws of judgment and

Mētis on a mission  23 corruption, that does not mean that he is engaged in any sort of transvaluation, or that the poet or the larger moral schema of the epic disagrees with the values espoused by Odysseus. That is one of the most fascinating and seductive aspects of Odysseus’ account: it harmonizes so well with the epic’s values, it “passes” so smoothly, that we can read his speech to Polyphemus as a straightforward defense of piety; there is nothing in the epic to suggest that its author would disagree with anything Odysseus says there. Indeed, Homer elsewhere, in the voice of the Odyssey-poet, calls the Cyclopes “arrogant,” and claims that the Cyclopes drove away the Phaeacians (6.5–8). By the same token, that this “authorial” judgment of Homer’s jibes with the judgment of Odysseus in no way undermines my argument about Odysseus’ rhetoric, any more than evidence of Shakespeare’s personal disapproval of borrowing and lending would make Polonius less of a fool. Second: although I think Odysseus’ portrayal of Greeks and Cyclopes in binary opposition is an important feature of the episode, it is not about distinctions between Greeks per se and foreigners or non-Greeks.23 The engagement of the mythic dimension, drawing on the opposition of Athena and Poseidon, helps to make this clear and even suggests where, in the realm of culture, the opposition lies: between the progressive, rapidly changing, innovative, cosmopolitan, trading communities on the one hand, and a largely pastoral, family-based, and isolated way of life on the other. The latter way of life might as readily be encountered in the hinterlands of Greek-speaking territories as elsewhere. Thucydides, for instance (3.94.4–5), refers to the Aetolians in his own day as a “populous, war-like ethnos living in dispersed, unwalled villages,” while the Eurytanes, “who compose the greatest part of the Aetolians, are said to speak an unintelligible dialect of Greek and to eat their meat raw.” And although ships are an important component of the episode, I imagine the oppositions and categories drawn in the Cyclopes episode could have resonance for experiences and tensions encountered even within a single polis or community. Questions remain. Can we plausibly expect Homer and his audience to be concerned about issues of cultural identity, as projected and revealed in the experience of cross-cultural conflicts? Is an anatomy of cultural rhetoric plausible for 700 bce? Was Homer’s world dynamic enough to present such issues? Was formulaic epic verse adaptable enough to keep pace with evolving or emergent experiences? Would audiences tolerate the exploration of modernity with heroes from the Trojan War? Finally, can a critique of technology, moral missions, and self-justifying rhetoric that in many respects is relevant today be credibly attributed to, rather than imposed upon, Homer? Though I am tempted simply to say that I don’t presume to answer all these questions, I suppose that my reading of Odyssey 9 does presume a “yes” answer to each of them, and that a “no” answer to any of them refutes my reading. That said, I will make a few observations in support of Homer’s “modernity,” in the sense that he expresses an awareness that he lives in a world of rapid change with resulting cultural divides. First, as I read the episode, Homer’s concerns, while perhaps prescient, are entirely consonant with distinctive concerns of later Greek thought. Detienne and Vernant’s work confirms this. In putting the theme of cunning and its conflict

24  Peter Aicher with force at the center of the episode, Homer shares a concern that Detienne and Vernant show to be prominent throughout Greek antiquity: “It is not difficult to detect the presence of mētis at the heart of the Greek mental world in the interplay of social and intellectual customs where its influence is sometimes all-pervasive” (1991: 3). The critical stance of the narrative, however, also harmonizes with another dominant feature of the Greek mental world: its penchant for examination and self-critique, and for lingering with an ironic eye at the busy intersection of moral claims, semantic ambiguity, and deception. With Socrates, too, a critical stance was entirely consistent with a deep ethnocentrism; he would wake Athens up, not put it to pasture in favor of another horse.24 My point here is not that we can presume to find in Homer the same concerns that reveal themselves three centuries later, but to establish, as it were, Athens as a pier in the bridge between Homer and us, one that is much closer to his own shore. More important support for my reading, however, can be found in recent scholarship on the relationship of oral poetry to its contemporary audience, and on the revolutionary changes taking place in Archaic (specifically eighth-century) Greece. Though both of these complex and disputed topics are beyond the scope of this essay, a few comments may be useful, if only to indicate how such topics may relate to my reading of Odyssey 9. In regard to oral poetry and audience, Morris (1986), Dalby (1995), Crielaard (2002), and Scodel (2009), for instance, though disagreeing on the social status of the epic audience (which can have a major effect on the range of what themes, tones, and values we imagine are possible in Homer), all emphasize a necessary bond between the epics and an eighth-century audience.25 These scholars all envision a poetic text that, for all its formulaic qualities and preservations of the past, is porous to the experiences of its eighth-century audience. As for the Homeric texts’ relationship to the archaeological and historical record, the internal consistency of various institutional features in Homeric epic, and the correspondence of these features with eighth-century evidence and social variety, debate obviously continues here as well.26 Some recent scholarship emphasizes the extent of eighth-century correspondences, and there seems to be a growing agreement that some features, such as the epic’s presumption of a (more or less developed) polis, belong to the eighth century.27 Few historians and archaeologists would quarrel, however, with the title of Morris’ recent chapter (1997) on this period, “The Eighth-century Revolution,” or with his characterization of the rapid changes that were occurring in the Greek world when Odyssey 9 was composed (Morris 1997: 545, 547): The whole Mediterranean world changed dramatically around 750 . . . Yet another spatial transformation was the collapse of distance . . . and we see a huge increase in finds of Greek pottery in other parts of the Mediterranean . . . Thousands of Greeks emigrated between 750 and 700, which supports the picture of rapid population growth. Colonization probably played a key part in the feverish social experiments of these years.

Mētis on a mission  25 Both the cross-cultural interaction that must have accompanied this expansion across the Mediterranean and the self-conscious awareness of change and innovation that must have accompanied these “feverish social experiments” suggest a promising social context for an audience at least some of whose members were versed in the complexities of intensive cultural interaction. One can imagine performances of epic poetry as part of a newly intensive social “loop” of poliscommunication that included the personal experience of travel, the unquenchable business “gossip” about good and bad ports and local conditions, and the absorption, reflection, and dissemination of these and other experiences in the evolving narratives of epic performance.28 A.J. Graham (1992: 83, 85), in a chapter on the colonial expansion of ancient Greece, notes that the Greeks colonized in all periods, but that the colonization of the Archaic Period was distinguished by its scale and extent, and by “its character, as a product of the world of the independent city-state, the polis.” He is not the first or last historian to cite Homer’s [sic] description of Goat Island as a literary source for this period: “From Homer we have . . . a clear description of an ideal colonial site (Od. 9.116–41). This occurs in the Cyclops episode, which is generally enlightening on many aspects of Greek colonization.” Perhaps most illuminating for placing Homer’s epics in a cultural milieu hospitable to my reading of Odyssey 9 is Graham’s conclusion to the chapter on colonization noted above (Graham 1992: 159): In conclusion we may consider the reasons for the success of the Greeks in establishing their numerous colonies so widely in the Archaic period. Clearly they possessed the various practical skills necessary for the task, and they were normally superior in seamanship and soldiering to the people among whom they settled. But it was probably more important that they brought with them a highly effective social and political organization, the polis, which proved easily transplantable and adaptable to very varied conditions, and was as a rule more cohesive and stronger than the political organizations of their native neighbors. Above all this, however, the secret of their success should be seen in their possession of a strong ‘culture pattern’. Believing in their gods and hence in themselves they had the morale required to create permanent new communities far from home. Again, I look to historians of the period to indicate a plausible context and a contemporary receptivity for Homer’s canny anatomy of an emerging mentality that, like his Odysseus, is self-conscious of its power and distinctiveness, and less aware of the moral confusions emerging with it. Graham notes the superiority of the Greeks in the areas of seamanship, warfare, and the new social organization of the polis, but credits above all their strong “culture pattern.” Detienne and Vernant have shown just how central mētis is to this cultural pattern. But once again, it is Homer who has led the way with his exploration of the rich ethical complexity at the intersection of ideals, identity, social codes, and contact with other cultural patterns (if only a previous stage of one’s own). The soaring rhetoric

26  Peter Aicher of the Parthenon, with its sculptural program elevating Athena and the civilized conquest of barbaric force, reads like a gloss on Homer’s portrayal, needing only Thucydides to point out the perils of a hybris that rode like a stowaway on Athenian triremes as it had on the ships of Odysseus. Through his complicated representation and assessment of Odysseus’ mētis, Homer provides a glimpse and critique of the real world developing in eighth-century Greece.

Acknowledgments My exploration of this episode goes back to a chapter on Goat Island in my Master’s thesis, directed by Peter Smith of the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill. Second only to his help in the genesis of my ideas has been Arum Park’s editorial help in their expression. Her care and labor have much improved this essay.

Notes   1 See also De Jong 1997, especially the remarks on “focalization,” pp. 312–19. See also Beck 2005 and Hopman 2012.   2 See Newton 2008: 24 and Byre 1994.   3 A natural question to ask here is if, in arguing for a strong distinct voice for the Cyclopes episode which generates much of its meaning by its ironic distance from Homer, I think such a voice and distance characterize all the episodes retold in Odysseus’ voice. At the moment, I think not, and I am comfortable with the possibility that Homer was adopting different compositional strategies, as appropriate for various episodes. Such variety after all characterizes the main narrative (e.g., the linguistic schema in the Calypso episode that support the binary theme of mortal and immortal, or the devices towards the end of the epic that begin to merge the consciousnesses of Odysseus and Penelope).   4 I accept that to use the word hybris as I and others do here “to suggest pride, overconfidence, or any behavior which may offend divine powers” may expand its meaning beyond its use in Homeric epic, where the term seems more narrowly used, as in later law, to indicate arrogant and violent behavior inflicted by the strong on the weak. Transgression in this broader sense, however, including presumptive boasting harming only a god’s honor and without human victims, is commonly recognized throughout Greek myth and recognized by Homer as well (e.g., Niobe’s children are killed by Apollo and Artemis because she “compared herself to Leto,” Il. 24.607).   5 Segal 1994, citing the readings of the episode by G.S. Kirk 1970 and P. Vidal-Naquet 1996, refers to an “unstable conjunction of opposites” in the presentation of the Cyclopes society (such as it is). For these attempts to reconcile the “opposites” (which essentially read all Odysseus’ statements as Homer’s), see Segal 1994: 202–5; Kirk 1970: 162–71; Vidal-Naquet 1996: 40–2.   6 On the punning of Outis and ou tis that yields mētis, see Clay 1997: 119–20.   7 See Clay 1997: 118–19 and especially Cook 1995: 104–10. Cook’s discussion is an insightful application of the Athena–Poseidon antagonism to the episode, informed by the work of Detienne and Vernant. His reading, however, subsumes these categories and cultural markers to the larger thematic concerns, stripping, as it were, Odysseus’ words of their quotation marks (e.g., see note 19 below).   8 Athena’s absence from the episode, and indeed from Odysseus’ wanderings between leaving Troy and leaving Calypso’s island, is of much debated significance. The most thorough exploration of this is Clay 1997. See esp. pp. 43–6 for her introduction and review of the issue, and p. 209 for her own summation of what she calls Athena’s

Mētis on a mission  27 abandonment of Odysseus: “Odysseus is too clever; his intelligence calls into question the superiority of the gods themselves” (original emphasis). Although she dismisses readings that stress the presence of Athena in Bk. 9 as allegorizing (p. 44), her contrast between Athena’s presence when Odysseus avenges the suitors’ violation of xenia, and her absence from his Cyclopes-mission, harmonizes with my reading of Odysseus’ mētis unhinged from divine sanction.   9 Heubeck’s long note (1990: 20–1) on lines 106–15 is a good example of the conflation of Homer and Odysseus: “The poet’s description of the Cyclopes’ way of life deserves particular attention . . . The sociological implications are clear: the poet has painted a picture of a people on the lowest cultural level, devoid of all that gives human life its distinctive quality.” 10 Kirk 1970: 165–9, for instance, devises a complicated scheme, from super-civilized to super-uncivilized, to account for the incommensurate characteristics of the Cyclopes, as described by Odysseus. 11 Mondi 1983: 29 conveniently if unwittingly exemplifies the confusions that arise when the Preface of the Cyclopes episode is read as Homer’s rather than Odysseus’ voice. All that Mondi finds “irreconcilable” when attributed to “the poet” are consonant when attributed to Odysseus’ rhetoric. 12 I see in this passage and the description of Goat Island a sort of theodicy in nuce, which finds advantages in the hardships sent by Zeus. As such, it is a precursor of Virgil’s theodicy in Georgics 1.118–59. Admittedly, Virgil’s justification of hardship (as a sharpener or creator of higher human consciousness) portrays the need for constant labor in a much harsher light than Odysseus’ proud embrace of the advantages that accrue from remediating the lack of natural resources. 13 According to Stanford 1974: 353, note on line 116, “Homer probably introduced this island as a device for putting Odysseus’ other eleven ships safely out of the Cyclops’ reach.” This is to overlook Goat Island’s important contributions in illuminating Odysseus’ values that drive the episode. 14 Though beyond the scope of this essay, there is in these negations a curious link with the central linguistic ruse of the episode involving Outis, mē tis, and mētis. See especially 9.147, with its ou tis . . . ophthalmoisin. 15 Homer’s own description of Mt. Olympus is a good example, where neither wind nor rain or snow disturb the gods’ secure abode (Od. 6.42–4). Another locus classicus is Horace’s depiction of the Blessed Isles in Epode 15. See also Davies 1987: 265–84. 16 It important to specify in just what sense the description of Goat Island completes, rather than competes with, the picture of “Golden Age” self-sufficiency described on the mainland. Byre 1994: 360 and Mondi 1983: 26–7 emphasize what they take to be a fundamental inconsistency between the Anthropology and Goat Island: how can Goat Island’s lack of development be a reproach to creatures who have no need to develop it? Such inconsistency, however, imports too many non-contextual assumptions with the so-called “Golden Age” conditions, viewing things again primarily as Homer’s description, and not that of Odysseus. Odysseus’ identity and self-investment in his way of life are being expressed; Goat Island reveals the values of a gregarious seafarer who considers civilization and its codes are intimately bound with protocols and technologies that fulfill mutual needs. In his Anthropology, Odysseus may use images common in Golden Age scenarios (Homeric or otherwise), but it’s quite clear that for Odysseus Cyclopean self-sufficiency is a factor intimately related to their arrested development. While one can speculate to what degree the Preface is shaped and colored by coming events, and to what degree it reveals an attitude that shapes the events themselves, the Preface is a unity in its portrayal of a binary opposition, as Odysseus perceives it, between the sailors and the Cyclopes. The use of negative expressions in both Anthropology and Goat Island is just one sign of this unity. Byre is on the right track when he finds that the Goat Island description primarily reveals something about Odysseus’ character; for Byre, however, the inconsistencies between Anthropology

28  Peter Aicher and Goat Island remain, but are explained by the fresh perspective Odysseus has on the island in hindsight, and on his desire to flatter his Phaeacian hosts with his appreciation of colonial exploitation. 17 These lines are an outstanding instance of Homer’s ability to use formulaic language to mean different things in different contexts. As Heubeck 1990: 24 notes, lines 175–6 are identical to 6.120–1 and 13.201–2, where they are preceded by true cries of despair, rather than motivated by curiosity or a sense of mission and self-assertion. 18 To illustrate theoxeny, Friedrich 1991: 26, note 37, aptly quotes Od. 17.485–7 (ironically, the words of a suitor cautioning Antinoos for his outrageous treatment of Odysseus as beggar): “For the gods, resembling strangers for foreign lands/in various guises pay visits to cities/to observe both the hybris and justice of humans.” 19 As a reminder of how effective this “testing for xenia” mission is on persuading his audience on the validity of his mission, note the implied praise of Odysseus’ moral code by Cook (1995: 103): the crew’s plea to raid and leave “allows Odysseus to reiterate his desire to establish xenia in explicit contrast to the piracy urged by the crew (9.228–9).” 20 Friedrich 1991: 25, though concerned as noted above to identify Odysseus’ hybris in the episode, ironically cites this speech (which he reads as a bona fide expression of Zeus’s moral law) as simply the pious set-up for the most extreme form of hybris in all of Homeric epic: Polyphemus’ response to it (9.273–8). 21 Newton’s claim (2008: 28) that Zeus punished Odysseus and his men for their violations of xenia in the cave is a tempting conclusion for my argument, even more so because Zeus is so clearly invoked and central to what I take to be the culmination of Odysseus’ offense in his plea for xenia. But this raises some problems in the larger scheme of things, some of which Newton addresses. 22 In light of this focus on mētis, Fenik’s assertion (1974: 210) that Odysseus’ blinding of Polyphemus was “justified in terms of Homeric or any other morality,” while correct and perhaps useful if refuting counter-claims, strikes me as somewhat beside the point. 23 As Hall 2008: 88–100, shows, the Cyclopes episode has proved fertile ground for imperial and racial exempla, as well as interpretations and re-writings of the episode more concerned than Homer with either the injustice done to Polyphemus, or with the punishment of his barbarism. 24 The playwrights, too, belong in the same category, critiquing Athenian culture within the wider social context of a celebration of it. Such a combination—self-critique as a component of celebration—was as familiar then as it is now. It is tempting to generalize that one of the disguises of mētis is precisely such self-critique, which is (like the scientific method that is its genetic offspring) ultimately in the service of self-knowledge, self-improvement, and therefore of power. I mention this penchant for self-critique as a potential element of the will to power to make it clear that my reading does not require a poet at a radical or critical remove from his audience, narrowly elite or otherwise. (For the argument that the audience was not limited to elites, see Dalby 1995. At any rate, the critique of mētis I find in the Cyclopes episode is aimed at the corruption of traditional values, not at these values themselves.) 25 Most persuasive is Scodel 2009, who notes that while the epics “need to bear relevant, contemporary meaning,” they need not be a close reflection of a contemporary social order, nor must all parts of an epic appeal or be equally comprehensible to all audiences (175–6). 26 Morris 1986: 115, lays out the evidence (against M. Finley, for example, who locates Homeric society in the tenth and ninth centuries) that “Homeric society is derived from the real world in which Homer and his audience lived.” See also Crielaard 2002. Donlan 1997: 652, however, notes for instance that the presence in the epic of marauder-chiefs engaged in trade is by 700 b.c. an anachronism from a century earlier. While such an image of marauder chiefs matches the raiding pattern of behavior that Odysseus and his crew engage in among the Cicones and Cyclopes, it does not match

Mētis on a mission  29 the more contemporary picture of polis-organization and colonization that Graham 1992 notes in Homer’s [sic] preface to the Cyclopes episode. 27 See Raaflaub 1997: 629, for a summation and bibliographic note concerning recent scholarship on the question of the centrality of the polis in Homeric society. 28 Scodel 2009: 180–1, sensibly cautions against assuming that all parts and components of a successful epic, including Homer’s, had to appeal or even be comprehensible to all members of the audience.

References Beck, D. (2005), “Odysseus: Narrator, Storyteller, Poet?” Classical Philology 100.3: 213–27. Boardman, J. and N.G.L. Hammond (eds.) (1992), The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. III.3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Byre, C.S. (1994), “The Rhetoric of Description in Odyssey 9.116–41: Odysseus and Goat Island,” Classical Journal 89.4: 357–67. Clay, J.S. (1997), The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey, New York and London: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers. Cook, E.F. (1995), The Odyssey in Athens: Myths of Cultural Origins, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Crielaard, J.P. (2002), “Past or Present? Epic Poetry, Aristocratic Self-Representation and the Concept of Time in the Eight and Seventh Centuries BC,” in F. Montanari (ed.), Omero Tremila Anni Dopo, Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, pp. 239–96. Dalby, A. (1995), “The Iliad, the Odyssey and Their Audiences,” Classical Quarterly New Series 45.2: 269–79. Davies, M. (1987), “Description by Negation: History of a Thought-Pattern in Ancient Accounts of Blissful Life,” Prometheus 13: 265–84. De Jong, I. (1992), “The Subjective Style in Odysseus’s Wanderings,” Classical Quarterly New Series 42.1: 1–11. —— (1997), “Homer and Narratology,” in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer, pp. 305–25. Detienne, M. and J.-P. Vernant (1991), Cunning Intelligence in Greek Culture and Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Donlan, W. (1997), “The Homeric Economy,” in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer, pp. 649–67. Fenik, B. (1974), Studies in the Odyssey, Hermes Einzelschriften 21, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Friedrich, R. (1991), “The Hybris of Odysseus,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 111: 16–28. Graham, A.J. (1992), “Colonial Expansion of Greece,” in J. Boardman and N.G.L. Hammond (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. III.3, pp. 83–162. Hall, E. (2008), The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Heubeck, A. and A. Hoekstra (1990), A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey, Volume II, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Note: Heubeck is the author of the commentary on Book 9.) Hopman, M. (2012), “Narrative and Rhetoric in Odysseus’ Tales to the Phaeacians,” American Journal of Philology 133.1: 1–30. Kirk, G.S. (1970), Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. —— (1974), The Nature of Greek Myths, London: Penguin Books.

30  Peter Aicher Mondi, R. (1983), “The Homeric Cyclopes: Folktale, Tradition, and Theme,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 113: 17–38. Morris, I. (1986), “The Use and Abuse of Homer,” Classical Antiquity 5.1: 81–138. —— (2009), “The Eighth-Century Revolution,” in K. Raaflaub and van Wees (eds.), A Companion to Archaic Greece, pp. 64–80. —— and B. Powell (eds.) (1997), A New Companion to Homer, Leiden and New York: Brill. Newton, R.M. (2008), “Assembly and Hospitality in the ‘Cyclopeia,’” College Literature, 35.4: 1–44. Raaflaub, K.A. (1997), “Homeric Society” in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer, pp. 624–48. —— and H. van Wees (2009), A Companion to Archaic Greece, Chicester: WileyBlackwell. Schein, S.L. (ed.) (1996), Reading the Odyssey, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scodel, R. (2009), Listening to Homer: Tradition, Narrative, and Audience, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Segal, C. (1994), Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stanford, W.B. (1974), The Odyssey of Homer: Books I–XII, London: Macmillan. Vidal-Naquet, P. (1996), “Land and Sacrifice,” in S.L. Schein (ed.), Reading the Odyssey, pp. 33–61.

2 Little things mean a lot Odysseus’ scar and Eurycleia’s memory Jeffrey Beneker

In a famous scene from the Odyssey, the nurse Eurycleia is bathing Odysseus’ feet when she discovers a scar on his leg (19.386–507). At this moment, she realizes that the man whom she and everyone else except the gods and Telemachus (and the audience) thought was a wandering beggar is in reality her master, returned home after an absence of twenty years. The discovery of the scar in this scene carries much meaning, and not only for Eurycleia, but for modern readers of the Odyssey as well. In his well-known essay “Odysseus’ Scar,” Auerbach (1953) uses the bathing scene as the basis for his argument that Homer’s narrative lacks complexity and depth. Nothing that appears in the poem, Auerbach asserts, may be left “half in darkness and unexternalized” (1953: 5). That is to say, no character has thoughts that are not expressed, and events said to have taken place in the past are narrated in the foreground as though they were happening in the present. This foregrounding of all narrative action is, for Auerbach, fundamental to Homeric style. And so when Homer comes to relating Eurycleia’s discovery of the scar as she begins to wash Odysseus’ feet, poetic style dictates that the scar itself “must be set in full light, and with it a portion of the hero’s boyhood” (1953: 6). In this way, Auerbach accounts for the rather long “interruption” of the main narrative, during which the narrator recounts Odysseus’ birth and his boyhood visit to his maternal grandfather, where he went hunting, was charged and wounded by a boar, and earned his identifying mark (Od. 19.390–466). For a moment, the past becomes the present and “fills both the stage and the reader’s mind completely” (1953: 4–5) until Homer returns to the narrative’s actual present and resumes the bathing scene. In a reassessment of Auerbach’s article, Bakker (1999) rejects the conclusion that Homer’s poetry, because of the simplicity of its narrative, allows for analysis but not literary interpretation.1 He does, nonetheless, acknowledge the correctness of Auerbach’s emphasis on the foregrounding of narrative detail. He attributes this trait not to a stylistic choice, however, but to a necessity imposed by oral performance, which depends on memorization as much as on recitation. Homeric poetry, he explains, is presented in units that are reproduced by the performer as an act of remembering. Central to Bakker’s explanation is the argument that a performer must visualize a scene in order to remember it, and that while reciting his poem he recreates his visions for his listeners. All narrative detail, then,

32  Jeffrey Beneker whether from the past or the present, must be held in the light (to use Auerbach’s phrase) and externalized so that the poet can “see” it, and therefore memorize and later recall it. Bakker thus gives a new foundation to Auerbach’s observations about the foregrounding of narrative detail, but this foundation depends primarily on the technical requirements of oral poetry. He is silent, therefore, about how the foregrounded scenes contribute to the development of the poem’s overall story. In considering the particular case of the scar, we may observe that the narrator’s “interruption” recounts events that belong to the past of both characters in the scene. This has led others to argue that the story of the scar reflects the characters’ memories. De Jong (1985), for instance, reads the scene from a narratological perspective, arguing that the account of the scar is an example of embedded focalization, told from Eurycleia’s perspective, and so based on her memory, even though the narrator describes the events. Scodel (2002) invokes the phenomenon of “flashbulb memories,” which are “particularly vivid and strongly visual” memories of specific events that individuals carry with them for a long time. She argues that in Homer’s poetry, recognitions based on signs, as with the scar in this scene, always rely on vivid, personal memories that are shared between two people. This scene is, in fact, one of three scenes featuring very personal recollections that Odysseus shares with Eurycleia, Penelope, and Laertes, though Odysseus himself recounts his memory only on the latter two occasions. Scodel shows, however, that on all three occasions the recalled events give substance to the signs used to recognize the returned hero. The foregrounded story of how Odysseus earned his scar, therefore, may indeed be an act of memory, not only for the poet or storyteller, but for the characters as well. We must acknowledge, however, that in this scene (unlike those with Penelope and Laertes), the narrator recounts the past and does not indicate that either Odysseus or Eurycleia has recalled anything. If we are to interpret the story as reflecting the unarticulated memories of the characters, we have to rely on inference and analogy with other scenes. In this essay, I argue that Eurycleia recognizes Odysseus despite his disguise not simply because she sees the scar but because she has shared with Odysseus a meaningful experience in the past. The recollection of this experience does indeed substantiate the sign of the scar, as Scodel argues, but it also (like the articulated memories that Odysseus shares with Penelope and Laertes) plays a central role in the larger scheme of disguise and recognition that is fundamental to the second half of the Odyssey, serving especially to re-establish the master-servant relationship that is necessary for the recovery of Odysseus’ identity. This connection to the larger plot and to other recognition scenes is important for interpreting the vivid but unspoken recollection shared between Odysseus and Eurycleia in this scene. To set the context for the discussion, I would like first to look briefly at how disguise and recognition are essential to the plot in the second half of the Odyssey.2 Having learned from Agamemnon’s fatal mistake, Odysseus wishes to test the loyalty of his household and the mood of Penelope’s suitors before he reveals that he has returned to Ithaca. He therefore avoids contact with anyone on the island

Little things mean a lot  33 until Athena has transformed his physical appearance, both his body and his clothing, so that he looks like an old, wandering beggar. In addition to giving him tattered clothing, she withers his lovely skin, destroys his fair hair, and dims his eyes, so that, as she explains to him, “you will appear unseemly to all the suitors, to your wife, and to your son, whom you left behind in your halls” (13.397–403).3 In sum, Odysseus no longer has the noble look that he had when he left for Troy. This change of appearance and adoption of a beggar’s persona allow him to enter his own house and to operate unrecognized by anyone (except his dog, Argus, and perhaps Penelope) until he himself chooses to make his presence known.4 Prior to the climactic battle with the suitors in book 22, Odysseus reveals his true identity only to his son (16) and to a pair of servants (21), while Eurycleia discovers who he is by accident (19). The rest of the characters, however, do not recognize him, and so the fact of his disguise is essential to nearly every scene in books 14–21. Following the battle with the suitors, when Odysseus’ identity becomes known generally, there still remain two important revelation-recognition scenes, those with his wife (23) and father (24). Taken as a whole, these revelation-recognition scenes demonstrate that Odysseus’ disguise is more than a device for allowing him to move about his house incognito. It also allows him to reveal his identity gradually and selectively as he attempts to accomplish a successful homecoming.5 As the narrative advances, we are presented with a series of scenes in which Odysseus reveals himself to, and is in turn recognized by, characters with whom he has special relationships and from whom he has been separated during his absence. This series of scenes, then, contributes to a general process of reconnecting Odysseus’ past to his present, a process that is essential to the poem’s larger narrative of Odysseus’ return. All of these characters—his servants, son, wife, and father—are essential to the life that Odysseus seeks to re-establish and are partners in the relationships that give definition to Odysseus’ character. In Murnaghan’s words, it is the “reanimation” of these relationships that allows Odysseus to reclaim his position upon returning to Ithaca: The permanence of Odysseus’ claim to his position may mimic the timeless power of the gods, but it actually rests on the durability of his domestic relationships, his capacity to recover a series of roles defined by his relations with others: father, son, husband, and master. (1987: 21) That is to say, by putting these relationships back in order, Odysseus not only restores his former life but also regains his status as master of his household and, by extension, leading man on Ithaca.6 Revelation followed by recognition, therefore, leads to a reassertion of Odysseus’ identity.7 The disguise and adopted persona are fundamental to this process. Even so, at the critical moments when another character recognizes him, there is always more to the event than simply reversing his change of appearance and dropping his persona. In fact, his servants Eurycleia, Eumaeus, and Philoetius (19.392–3; 21.221–6) know him not by sight but by the scar on his thigh, even while he

34  Jeffrey Beneker retains his full physical disguise. Penelope, although she sees him restored to his pre-Trojan War form, nonetheless seeks further confirmation before acknowledging him as Odysseus (23.173–230). And his father Laertes calls him “stranger” when they meet for the first time in the poem, even though this meeting occurs after Odysseus’ disguise has been completely removed (24.281). Recognition is accomplished in each of these instances, but it is negotiated via a sema or semata (a sign or signs) rather than appearance. These semata are a common element in folktales and legends that narrate a hero’s separation from his home and eventual return.8 In the Odyssey, they function as signs known to both parties that validate Odysseus’ claim to his identity or, in the case of Eurycleia, reveal his identity contrary to his wishes. A discussion of the nature of these semata in two scenes from the Odyssey, with Penelope and Laertes, will clarify how they function in the scene with Eurycleia, and it will lay the foundation for tackling our initial question about why Homer “interrupts” his narrative at length when Eurycleia discovers Odysseus’ scar.9 Penelope’s approach to Odysseus follows closely the generic pattern for recognizing someone who has returned after a long absence.10 Leaving aside their complicated conversation in book 19, which raises questions about Penelope’s motivations, instincts, and psychological state, I will focus on the scene in book 23 where the long-suffering wife negotiates with her husband to confirm his identity and finally to admit that he has returned.11 Penelope is the last of everyone in the house to acknowledge Odysseus. When she comes down from her chamber and into his presence, she alternates between knowing and not knowing her husband, as the narrator explains: “Now she would look upon him and see him clearly, but then she would fail to recognize him because he was wearing dreadful clothing” (23.94–5).12 Penelope’s hesitation in this scene continues Homer’s characterization of her as torn between hoping that Odysseus will return and refusing to believe that he will ever arrive. Equally important, however, is Telemachus’ reaction. The son chastises his mother for not accepting Odysseus more readily: she ought to approach him and ask him questions, he scolds (23.97–103). She replies, conditionally, that “if this really is Odysseus and he has returned home,” then the two of them (expressed in the dual for emphasis) will certainly recognize each other, and they can do “better” than questioning, for they share semata that are hidden from others but which they alone know (23.104–10). Odysseus then intervenes: picking up both Penelope’s mention of semata and the narrator’s description of his stillshabby appearance, he tells Telemachus to back off. “Let your mother test me in the hall,” he says. “Soon she will perceive things more clearly. But now, since I am filthy and wearing dreadful clothing, she has little regard for me and will not yet say that I am her husband” (23.113–16). The stage is set for a recognition that will be based partly on appearance but primarily on mutually recognizable signs known only to the couple. Once Athena has restored Odysseus to his former self (23.152–63), he expects his wife to accept him. When she remains distant, he asks for a bed to lie on alone (23.166–72), which prompts Penelope to perform her famous test. She tells Odysseus that she does indeed remember how he looked when he left for Troy,

Little things mean a lot  35 and she seems to acknowledge that he has regained his former appearance. Then she adds that he may lie on her bed, which Eurycleia will move outside the bedchamber. Odysseus’ angry reaction is the final proof of his identity, for he knows that the bed was built from a tree trunk rooted in the ground, a secret shared only by the couple and by Penelope’s personal maid, the daughter of Actor who accompanied Penelope from her father’s house to Odysseus (23.173–230).13 This is the essence of the semata that Penelope mentioned to Telemachus: in an echo of her earlier speech, the words sema and semata appear several times in this passage (23.188, 202, 206, 225), spoken by Odysseus, by the narrator, and by Penelope herself. If we consider the construction of the bed from the perspective of Scodel’s argument for flashbulb memories, we can see that Odysseus’ memory, articulated here for his wife, does indeed give meaning to the sema, which in turn allows for full recognition of the returned husband.14 It is important to note, however, that Penelope probably would not have had first-hand knowledge of the bed’s creation, something that Odysseus represents as having been done by him alone. Not only is it logical that Odysseus would have built his house and bedchamber before bringing Penelope to Ithaca, but his articulated memory is also phrased in the form of a description of how it was constructed. This is the story that Penelope might have heard after arriving in her new home and being introduced into the bedroom, and so in that sense it would serve as a memory for her as well, perhaps a strong and persistent one that could be called a flashbulb memory. What is equally important, however, is that the bed represents a fundamental element of the couple’s past life together: their union in marriage and the physical intimacy that this union entails. This is the element of the past that they are seeking to restore in the present through recognition via signs. It is no coincidence that Penelope’s personal maid—the only one in the household who has known Penelope both as an unmarried girl and as wife to Odysseus—is the only other person who shares the details of the bed. Homer implies that no one else was granted access to that space, where the private life of the husband and wife, and especially their marital intimacy, took place.15 And the personal nature of that space extends beyond the physical union that occurred there. When Penelope first mentions the bed, she is commanding Eurycleia to make it ready: “But come, Eurycleia, spread the stout bed outside the well-built bridal chamber which he himself made” (23.177–8). With this brief clarifying clause, Penelope explicitly connects the bed and the chamber to the couple’s past, specifically to the time when Odysseus himself constructed them for his new bride. And so, when Homer makes Odysseus express his anger at the suggestion that the bed has been moved, he also has his hero recount in direct speech how he built the bridal chamber around an olive tree, and then crafted the bed from the tree’s trunk (23.183–204). This account is a relatively brief 22 lines, as opposed to the 74 lines in book 19 that retell the story of how Odysseus earned his scar. Thus the narrator is not intruding on the narrative to foreground an event from the past as he does when Eurycleia discovers the scar; instead, a character is recalling the past and his account is presented overtly as a recollection told from his

36  Jeffrey Beneker own perspective. We can see, nonetheless, how this recollection is essential to the story. The suggestion that the bed has been moved plays on the importance of the bridal chamber in uniting the married couple, and what Odysseus recounts in those 22 lines is his memory of creating the space where he and Penelope first became husband and wife. In fact, it is Odysseus’ recollection of the past—the creation of the room and the implication of the intimacy shared there—and not the bed or the space itself that is most significant. The past recalled here represents the foundation of the life that was suspended while Odysseus was away, even as the chamber and bed remained intact, and of the life that Penelope protected as she kept the suitors at bay for several years. And this is the life that the couple aims to restore. There may indeed be poetic and performative reasons that led Homer to set Odysseus’ memory in full light, but in terms of the narrative, the recollection of the past at this critical moment in the story communicates clearly to the audience what was at stake during Odysseus’ absence and what is being restored through acknowledgment of his return. With Penelope’s scene in mind, I would like to consider the scene in the final book where Odysseus is reunited with his father Laertes (24.205–360). As he draws near to the old, broken man, Odysseus wavers between simply announcing his return and testing his father, finally deciding to impersonate a stranger who met “Odysseus” some years before and wishes to see him again on Ithaca. He manages to conceal his true identity despite having been transformed back to his original appearance by Athena. As Laertes begins to grieve at the recollection of his lost son, Odysseus is pained and can no longer sustain the ruse. He then declares to his father who he really is. Like Penelope, Laertes does not accept the declaration at face value but asks for a sema. He does not seem to recognize Odysseus when he asks for confirmation of his son’s claim, unlike Penelope, who admits that she recognizes Odysseus’ appearance but tests him anyway.16 Odysseus, in fact, provides his father with two semata. First, he points to the scar on his leg and recounts in brief his journey to his grandfather’s house and how he received his wound. Significantly, he remarks that “you sent me” (24.333), making clear, as happened with the marriage bed, that he is recalling a past that both characters have shared. Second, and with the same emphasis on a shared past, Odysseus describes the contents of the orchard where he and his father are presently standing. He indicates the trees, calling them the ones “that you once gave to me” and reminding his father how “while still a child I was asking you for each of them while following you through the garden; we walked through these very trees” (24.337–9). He goes on to recall in detail the types and quantities of the trees and the vines that his father gave to him. Thus the essence of the sema is not the contents of the fields, but it is the past that Odysseus and his father once shared there. As with husband and wife, so with father and son: the continuity of their relationship was threatened by Odysseus’ absence but is now restored by his return, and this return is authenticated by Odysseus’ knowledge of an event from the distant past that he and his father experienced together. But equally important, the recollection of the past allows the poet to introduce into the story a fundamental element of the father-son relationship. By setting this

Little things mean a lot  37 transfer of patrimony before the audience, he emphasizes that an essential part of Odysseus’ identity—son of Laertes and heir to his estate—has been restored through this revelation-recognition scene.17 As these scenes show, the semata that lead to recognition need not be things that belong to Odysseus alone. When Odysseus is negotiating with Penelope and Laertes, the semata (except for the scar) have in fact been in the possession of his wife and father during his entire absence. What occurs in both recognition scenes is the acknowledgment of a certain item or place as a sema. This acknowledgment leads to a voiced recollection of an event from each pair’s shared past, which in turn leads to an unequivocal recognition of Odysseus himself.18 That is to say, the semata work not simply because they carry significance in their own right, but because they trigger recollections of past experiences that reveal the essence of the relationship between the two characters. Recollection, in fact, constitutes one of the primary means for accomplishing literary recognitions in the catalogue of Aristotle (Poetics 1455a), who cites the example of Odysseus among the Phaeacians. In that episode, the as yet unrecognized hero unwittingly reveals to Alcinous that he fought at Troy by weeping as he listens to a song about the war; Alcinous notices the tears and inquires about the stranger’s background; this inquiry in turn compels Odysseus to reveal his identity (Od. 8.521–86; 9.19–20). In this instance, the singer voices Odysseus’ “memory” and Alcinous has not shared—either directly or indirectly—Odysseus’ experience, and so this recognition is different from those involving his wife and father. But the critical components are the same: Odysseus’ identity (in this case, as a hero) is tied to his recollection of the past, and his memory is revealed to the poem’s audience. The literary form requires that the narrator or a character express these memories as part of the story; as Cave (1988: 22) puts it, in epic poetry “recognition always reaches back analeptically to earlier narratives.” In the particular cases of Penelope and Laertes, which I believe are most similar to the case of Eurycleia, the characters accept Odysseus’ identity when they hear Odysseus himself narrate a memory that they also share. Moreover, they are able to resume their own identities, as wife and father, now that Odysseus has become husband and son once again.19 The recollection of a shared past also appears to be at the heart of a brief, but poignant, episode in book 17, when the old dog Argus recognizes his disguised master just as he enters the house (290–327). This episode, in fact, foreshadows the more critical recognitions made by the servants and family members. As in the recognition scenes considered above, which involve negotiation through semata, the narrator emphasizes the pair’s shared experience: “a dog . . . Argus, belonging to stout-hearted Odysseus, whom he himself once raised . . .” (291–3). So this scene, too, joins past to present, although the sema involved is not a physical token but, most likely, the master’s scent or his voice. And even if the character Odysseus does not realize the significance of the event—he is only made to shed a tear—the audience can understand the symbolism, realizing that the dog’s instinctive recognition of his master reveals that, despite a long absence and physical changes, Odysseus can still reclaim his identity.20

38  Jeffrey Beneker We can also understand the importance of recollection to establishing one’s identity through a negative example, the case of Telemachus, who has not seen his father since infancy and admits that he never knew him (1.213–20). When the two meet at Eumaeus’ outpost, Athena temporarily transforms Odysseus back to his original, younger form, and he proclaims his identity to his son. Telemachus’ reaction demonstrates why others are more wary of trusting in appearances alone. “You are not Odysseus, my father,” he says, “but a god is beguiling me” (16.194–5). If a man of heroic stature can impersonate a ragged beggar, then it is certainly possible that someone else, perhaps also with the aid of a god, could impersonate Odysseus. Penelope and Laertes seem to understand this and so proceed with caution, even after Odysseus’ artificial aging has been reversed.21 In this instance, however, Odysseus simply explains to Telemachus that Athena is responsible for the transformation and asserts once more that he is indeed the young man’s father. Telemachus accepts this explanation “with rather surprising facility,” as Stanford (1958: 271) puts it, and demands no additional proof. Katz (1994: 54) explains, however, that Telemachus’ uncritical recognition of Odysseus is confirmed through their collaboration in the events of the subsequent books, although at this moment in the narrative, “parental authority” is the primary impetus that compels the son to accept his father’s identity.22 Although ultimately correct, this recognition relies on Telemachus’ credulity and a bit of circular reasoning. Nonetheless, of the essential family relationships which comprise Odysseus’ identity (father, son, and husband), only one, that of father to Telemachus, is not re-established through a sema that depends upon a recollection of the past. In light of the other two, however, this makes perfect sense: no such sema exists because the pair has no shared past to recall. This is partially because they have been separated for nearly all of Telemachus’ life, but in general the poem demonstrates that initially a son must accept the identity of his father on faith, not by knowledge. Telemachus himself instructs Athena in this regard: “For no one has ever on his own account recognized his own parent” (1.216). It is more important, however, for the son to seek his identity through his father.23 Thus Telemachus begins to build his identity in books 1–2, with the help of Athena, and in books 3–4, when Nestor, Menelaus, and Helen assert his resemblance to his father. The process continues with his obedient acknowledgement of Odysseus’ return in book 16, but it is finally accomplished through other types of semata, in particular through Telemachus’ demonstration that he is able to string Odysseus’ bow (21.124–9) and his ability to act as a partner while the pair fight together to defeat the suitors and restore order to the household (22–4). The two men, therefore, construct what will become their shared past in the course of the narrative, and in the process Telemachus comes to trust in his identity as Odysseus’ son. Having considered the recognitions made by Odysseus’ wife, father, and son, I turn now to the scene with Eurycleia. A principal difference between this scene and those with Penelope and Laertes is that the narrator, rather than a character in direct speech, gives meaning to the sema by recalling the past at the critical moment. For Auerbach, this intrusion of the narrator, who thus vividly

Little things mean a lot  39 foregrounds a past event, was a requirement of Homeric style. To understand his point more completely, and to set up my own interpretation, I include below both the verses from book 19 that launch the story of Odysseus’ wound and Auerbach’s characterization of their effect (19.388–96): αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεὺς ἷζεν ἐπ’ ἐσχαρόφιν, ποτὶ δὲ σκότον ἐτράπετ’ αἶψα· αὐτίκα γὰρ κατὰ θυμὸν ὀΐσατο, μή ἑ λαβοῦσα οὐλὴν ἀμφράσσαιτο καὶ ἀμφαδὰ ἔργα γένοιτο. νίζε δ’ ἄρ’ ἄσσον ἰοῦσα ἄναχθ’ ἑόν· αὐτίκα δ’ ἔγνω οὐλήν, τήν ποτέ μιν σῦς ἤλασε λευκῷ ὀδόντι Παρνησόνδ’ ἐλθόντα μετ’ Αὐτόλυκόν τε καὶ υἷας, μητρὸς ἑῆς πατέρ’ ἐσθλόν, ὃς ἀνθρώπους ἐκέκαστο κλεπτοσύνῃ θ’ ὅρκῳ τε·. . . But Odysseus sat at the hearth, and quickly turned himself towards the darkness; for a foreboding came quickly to his heart, that as she touched him she might notice the scar and his deeds would be revealed. Coming near, then, she began to wash her master. And suddenly she recognized the scar, which once a boar had inflicted on him with its white tusk, when he had gone to Parnassus to visit Autolycus, his mother’s noble father who surpassed others in thievery and oath-making, and his sons . . . The ellipsis stands for the narration of why Odysseus went to Parnassus, how he received his scar, and what happened when he returned to Ithaca. I will return to that below. Following is Auerbach’s comment about the interruption of the narrative at this point: To be sure, in the case of such long episodes as the one we are considering, a purely syntactical connection with the principal theme would hardly have been possible; but a connection with it through perspective would have been all the easier had the content been arranged with that end in view; if, that is, the entire story of the scar had been presented as a recollection which awakens in Odysseus’ mind at this particular moment. It would have been perfectly easy to do; the story of the scar had only to be inserted two verses earlier, at the first mention of the word scar [l. 391], where the motifs “Odysseus” and “recollection” were already at hand. But any subjectivistic perspectivistic procedure, creating a foreground and background, resulting in the present lying open to the depths of the past, is entirely foreign to the Homeric style; the Homeric style knows only a foreground, only a uniformly illuminated, uniformly objective present. And so the excursus does not begin until two lines later [l. 393], when Euryclea has discovered the scar—the possibility for a perspectivistic connection no longer exists, and the story of the wound becomes an independent and exclusive present. (Auerbach 1953: 7)

40  Jeffrey Beneker Auerbach’s point is that, if not for a stylistic impediment, Homer could have phrased the long story of Odysseus’ wound as a personal memory by tying it to the first mention of the scar, where the narrator expresses Odysseus’ fear that this identifying mark might be discovered. That is, the story of the scar could have been expressed as Odysseus’ own thoughts. This would have been similar to the phrasing we find in the scenes with Penelope and Laertes, where Odysseus recalls the past in direct speech. Others have taken up the argument against Auerbach’s reading and have shown that Homeric poetry does in fact allow for perspective, even in passages related by the narrator.24 In considering the semata employed by Penelope and Laertes, however, we have also seen that a perspectivistic connection exists particularly in the negotiation of Odysseus’ identity. Moreover, a single character’s perspective can be shared—even must be shared—between both interlocutors when it is used to validate these semata, since they are based on past events that constitute a common experience. A close reading of the bathing scene shows that we encounter a perspectivistic account of the scar as well, even though the narrator rather than the characters is describing the past. We perhaps should not go so far as to claim that this account reflects the actual memories of Odysseus and Eurycleia, as Scodel does, because the narrator does not indicate that the characters themselves call the past to mind.25 Even so, we can see that what the narrator relates does indeed reflect the experiences of both characters and amounts to something like a composite memory. It is this “memory” that establishes the scar as a sema.26 After Homer says that Odysseus went to Parnassus to visit his maternal grandfather and his uncles (19.393–8), he relates why that trip took place. Autolycus came to Ithaca to visit the newly born Odysseus, and, significantly, he interacts with his nurse. Eurycleia is not a generic household servant: as Penelope makes clear when she assigns her the task of washing Odysseus’ feet, she has known her master from the moment he was born (19.353–6). Thus she is similar to the daughter of Actor in that she uniquely possesses personal knowledge of one of the leading characters. In the story of the scar, she places the child upon his grandfather’s knees and instructs him to give the boy a name. Autolycus responds by telling his daughter and son-in-law to name the boy Odysseus, and to send him to Parnassus when he has reached adolescence so that he may receive gifts (19.399–412). This is a part of the story that Odysseus could not have remembered directly because, although he was present, he was merely an infant. Yet Eurycleia was there and took a leading role in what occurred. Thus, this part of the story could represent her direct memory of events, one that she (or someone else) could have later relayed in whole or part to Odysseus. Moreover, she was the one who motivated Autolycus to name the baby, extend the invitation to Parnassus, and promise gifts. These gifts, in turn, are crucial to explaining why Odysseus received the scar: the next line begins, “for the sake of these Odysseus had come [to visit Autolycus], to carry off splendid gifts.” And so we see that the full story of the scar begins with Eurycleia. The central part of the story, which would have occurred a dozen or more years later, concerns events on Parnassus and, with regard to the characters that live on Ithaca, would belong to the direct memory of Odysseus alone. The narrator

Little things mean a lot  41 relates how Odysseus was welcomed by his mother’s family, enjoyed a feast, went hunting and received his wound from the boar, and in the end was cared for by his relatives and sent home (19.413–62). Now the roles are reversed: Odysseus has the experience apart from everyone else, and Eurycleia knows of the events only second hand, as does the rest of the household. Homer, in fact, makes the sharing of Odysseus’ adventure explicit in the third part of the story, where his parents welcome him home. After receiving him, they “asked him all the details about how he got the scar, and he fully explained to them how a boar wounded him with his white tusk while he was hunting” (19.462–6). We are probably meant to imagine that Odysseus’ adventure captivated the whole household for a time, which is why the loyal servants, Eumaeus and Philoetius in addition to Eurycleia, could all utilize the scar as a sema.27 Finally, as Homer transitions from the past back to the present in the bathing scene, he describes how Eurycleia took the scar into her hands and immediately identified Odysseus. If the story of the scar serves as a shared memory that gives substance to the sema of the scar, we should ask why the story is told by the narrator and not by one or both of the characters as in the scenes with Penelope and Laertes. De Jong (1985: 518) suggests that the story is a memory belonging to Eurycleia, but that the narrator relates it as a “mental flash-back” because Homer did not want Penelope to hear the memory articulated, and thus he cast the recollection as an embedded focalization representing the nurse’s perspective.28 But this suggestion discounts the variance in perspective and overstates the need for silence. There is no good reason to focalize the passage through a character that does not possess a direct memory of many of the story’s core events.29 Moreover, the argument is further weakened by the continuation of the scene, where Homer does explicitly shift the focalization to Eurycleia by making her speak aloud when she identifies Odysseus. At that moment, Athena intervenes to distract Penelope and Odysseus forcibly silences his nurse (19.473–98). De Jong is correct, however, in acknowledging the need to explain why the narrator relates the “memory.” This problem is ignored by Scodel, who nonetheless draws parallels to the other recognition scenes and makes a strong argument for reading the story as a combination of the flashbulb memories of both characters. The narrator’s intrusion is significant, however, since it diminishes the personal nature of the recollection, making it appear less vivid and blurring the line between the characters’ thoughts and the narrator’s own omniscient knowledge of the past.30 One way to get at the narrator’s role is to notice that despite the strong parallels, there are important differences between this scene and the other two recognition scenes, with Laertes and Penelope. As we have seen, the “memory” that constitutes the story of the scar does not represent a single experience shared by two characters, either at first or second hand, but rather it comprises two related but in fact quite separate experiences. In this way, it differs fundamentally from the memory shared with Laertes, which is the recollection of a specific conversation between father and son, and which is therefore easy to interpret as a memory that is vivid and significant for both characters. The story of the scar is more similar to the recollection of the creation of the bed and bridal chamber, where Odysseus

42  Jeffrey Beneker acted alone but Penelope learned of his actions afterward, either by hearing the story or simply inferring what Odysseus had done, as she shared the space that her husband had created. But even in this case, Penelope is not represented as having her own, independent experience of the bed in the way that Eurycleia has her own experience with the infant Odysseus and his grandfather. It seems to me important, then, to question why Odysseus or Eurycleia does not speak the memory and give meaning to the sema in the same fashion as in the other scenes. What accounts for the narrator’s role here, I suggest, is that the shared past itself, not the memory of the past per se, is most important to the plot of the poem. The narrator’s “interruption” does indeed transform the scar into an actual sema, but as in the other scenes, the substantiation of the sema also reveals to the audience a relationship-defining experience shared by the two characters. In this instance, the experience includes Odysseus’ birth and naming, and so the narrator’s story establishes that the servant sitting before her master has first-hand knowledge of his origins and therefore can validate not only his identity but also his birthright. The only other character who has similar knowledge is Odysseus’ mother, but she has died and resides in Hades (11.150–224). The other half of the shared experience—the trip to Parnassus and the acquisition of the scar—serves to validate the mark itself and to underscore why its bearer must be the returned hero. Had Eurycleia recounted the past, the story of the scar would have been told at second hand and thus would not have proved that Odysseus had knowledge of that past; had Odysseus been given the speech, he could not have verified his own birth. If Homer’s concern is both to give substance to the sema and to advance the plot by restoring a critical element of Odysseus’ identity, then it seems to be a logical choice to have the narrator relate this complex shared history. To understand the significance of the scene with Eurycleia, we need only consider the recognition scene with Eumaeus and Philoetius. There, Odysseus simply shows his scar to the servants, who upon examining it recognize their master (21.217–24). Missing is any meaningful description of the boar hunt, and there is no recollection of anything like a shared past.31 Eumaeus, in fact, has already made a speech that reveals his history with Odysseus (15.351–79), and this is unconnected to recognition or a sign. In this instance, the scar functions as a simple token of recognition (it might have been earned through, say, a slip while cutting something with a knife) and does not serve to reconnect the characters’ shared past to their shared present. By revealing a complex shared history at the moment when Eurycleia discovers the scar, therefore, the narrator’s account functions like the directly related memories found in the scenes with Penelope and Laertes. Taken as a group, these three scenes serve to re-establish Odysseus’ birth, marriage, and patrimony by linking him directly to characters who share unique knowledge of how those aspects of his identity were created, and who in fact are intimately connected to him in his roles as master, husband, and heir. The accounts of the past that are recalled in each case, either by Odysseus or by the narrator, set these significant events into the foreground, presenting them to the audience not only as vivid components of the narrative but also as essential elements of the hero’s present identity.

Little things mean a lot  43

Acknowledgments It is my honor to dedicate this chapter to Peter Smith, with whom I first read Homer. I am also grateful to Craig Gibson, Silvia Montiglio, and Arum Park for their helpful criticism.

Notes   1 Auerbach (1953: 13) claims that “Homer can be analyzed . . . but he cannot be interpreted.”   2 As scholars have long recognized: see especially Stewart 1976 and Murnaghan 1987. For an assessment of scholarship and further bibliography on disguise and recognition, see Katz 1991: 155 and Montiglio 2013: 3–15, 225–40.   3 On the importance of Odysseus’ change of clothing, in addition to the change in his physical appearance, see Block 1985.   4 On the question of whether Penelope recognizes Odysseus before book 23, see n. 11 below.   5 See Stewart 1976: 80, Murnaghan 1987: 31–9, and Segal 1994: 48–53.   6 Similarly, Stewart (1976: 80) says that Odysseus is seeking “to reclaim his place as king, husband, and father.”   7 Following Murnaghan (1987: 56–8), I do not include the suitors in the series of revelations. Their relationship to Odysseus is very different from that of the members of his family and household, and their (grudging) recognition of Odysseus does not in the end contribute to the re-establishment of his essential identity.   8 See Hansen 1997: 446–9.   9 I take up Telemachus’ recognition of his father below. 10 See Emlyn-Jones (1984: 6–7) on how Homer satisfies but also manipulates the expectations of his audience. 11 Some argue that Penelope recognizes Odysseus in the course of their conversation in book 19, or at least struggles with a subconscious impression that the beggar is her husband; for bibliography, see Zerba 2009: 308 n. 25. 12 On the interpretation of these lines, see Russo et al. 1992. 13 See Dimock (1956: 68–9) on Odysseus’ “exasperation” as critical to Penelope’s recognition of him. 14 It is worth quoting Scodel’s summation of how memories give meaning to semata: “The Odyssey allows a recognition through signs only where the sign can evoke an intense autobiographical memory that two characters share, although their memories may not be identical. No other form of memory is effective” (2002: 114–15). 15 Cf. Katz 1991: 182 and 1994: 67. One person revealing intimate knowledge of the other is also a common sema in folktales that involve return; see Hansen 1997: 449. 16 See further Katz 1991: 175–6. 17 Cf. Katz (1994: 68), who argues that Odysseus’ recollection of the orchard reconfigures the moment when he became his father’s legitimate heir. She connects this scene to the recognition scene with Penelope as follows: “The reckoning of the trees, then, through which Odysseus reacquires his patrimony, functions, like the account of the bed’s construction, not only to recall an earlier episode which belongs to the past history of a relationship, but also to instantiate anew the relationship to which it refers.” 18 On the process of noticing or recognizing a sema qua sema as a necessary step to recognizing its significance, see Nagy 1983. 19 Cf. Murnaghan 1987: 25. 20 This scene has been interpreted in numerous ways; for an overview, see Beck 1991: 163 n. 23, Köhnken 2003: 387 n. 8, and Scodel 2005. Recognition of a hero by one of his animals is also part of the motif of the return; see Hansen 1997: 447.

44  Jeffrey Beneker 21 At 23.215–17, Penelope explains that she resisted acknowledging Odysseus out of fear that he was an imposter; on the danger of the imposter, see also Cave 1988: 10–17. 22 See also Murnaghan (1987: 37), who characterizes Odysseus as impressing his identity upon Telemachus, and Scodel 2002: 114. 23 See Murnaghan 1987: 33–7. 24 See especially de Jong 1999 and Köhnken 2003. For general criticism, see Cave 1988: 22 n. 28. 25 The closest we get is the narrator telling us that Odysseus is thinking about the scar (19.391) before Eurycleia discovers it. For Scodel (2002: 109–11), this confirms that the scar is on the characters’ minds, and she argues that “the physical sign, the scar itself, prompts an intense visual memory for each of them.” 26 Both de Jong 1985 and Scodel 2002 make arguments that depend on the narrator taking the characters’ perspectives. I return to their arguments below. 27 The male servants view the scar as a simple sign, a point made by Aristotle in the Poetics; see Richardson 1983: 223, and below. 28 For “embedded focalization” see de Jong 2001: 477. She labels the focalization explicit, with ἔγνω (“she recognized,” Od. 19.392) acting as the verb that shifts the focus. 29 De Jong (2001: 477) acknowledges possible objections to her analysis: reference within the story to Eurycleia as a third party and the fact that Eurycleia lacked a direct memory of events. See also de Jong 1999: 158. 30 Nor is this sort of intrusion essential to Homer’s style. Cf. Od. 4.235–95, where Helen and Menelaus tell tales from Troy, each from their own perspective. In that instance, Homer gives each character direct speech. 31 Two lines (219–20) that have Odysseus make the briefest of explanations, saying that he received the scar from a boar while visiting Autolycus on Parnassus, are missing from two manuscripts and sometimes bracketed by editors; see Russo et al. 1992: 172.

References Auerbach, E. (1953), “Odysseus’ Scar,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, W.R. Trask (trans.), Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 3–23. Bakker, E.J. (1999), “Mimesis as Performance: Rereading Auerbach’s First Chapter,” Poetics Today 20: 11–26. Beck, W. (1991), “Dogs, Dwellings, and Masters: Ensemble and Symbol in the Odyssey,” Hermes 119: 158–67. Block, E. (1985), “Clothing Makes the Man: A Pattern in the Odyssey,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 115: 1–11. Cave, T. (1988), Recognitions: A Study in Poetics, Oxford: Clarendon Press. de Jong, I. (1985), “Eurykleia and Odysseus’ Scar: Odyssey 19.393–466,” Classical Quarterly New Series 35: 517–18. —— (1999), “Auerbach and Homer,” in J.N. Kazazis and A. Rengakos (eds.), Euphrosyne: Studies in Ancient Epic and its Legacy in Honor of Dimitris N. Maronitis, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, pp. 154–64. —— (2001), A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dimock, G. (1956), “The Name of Odysseus,” Hudson Review 9: 52–70. Emlyn-Jones, C. (1984), “The Reunion of Penelope and Odysseus,” Greece & Rome 31: 1–18.

Little things mean a lot  45 Hansen, W. (1997), “Homer and the Folktale,” in I. Morris and B. Powell (eds.), A New Companion to Homer, Leiden and New York: Brill, pp. 442–62. Katz, M.A. (1991), Penelope’s Renown: Meaning and Indeterminacy in the Odyssey, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (1994), “Homecoming and Hospitality: Recognition and the Construction of Identity in the Odyssey,” in S.M. Oberhelman, V. Kelly, and R.J. Golsan (eds.), Epic and Epoch: Essays on the Interpretation and History of a Genre, Lubbock: Texas Tech University Press, pp. 49–75. Köhnken, A. (1976), “Die Narbe des Odysseus,” Antike und Abendland 22: 101–14. —— (2003),“Perspectivisches Erzählen im homerischen Epos: Die Wiedererkennung Odysseus – Argos,” Hermes 131: 385–96. Montiglio, S. (2013), Love and Providence: Recognition in the Ancient Novel, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murnaghan, S. (1987), Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Nagy, G. (1983), “Sēma and Noēsis: Some Illustrations,” Arethusa 16: 35–55. Richardson, N. J. (1983), “Recognition Scenes in the Odyssey and Ancient Literary Criticism,” Papers of the Liverpool Latin Seminar 4: 219–35. Russo, J., M. Fernández-Galiano and A. Heubeck (1992), A Commentary on Homer’s Odyssey: Volume III, Books XVII–XXIV, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Scodel, R. (2002), “Homeric Signs and Flashbulb Memory,” in I. Worthington and J.M. Foley (eds.), Epea and Grammata: Oral and Written Communication in Ancient Greece (Orality and Literacy in Ancient Greece, 4), Leiden and Boston: Brill, pp. 99–116. —— (2005), “Odysseus’ Dog and the Productive Household,” Hermes 133: 401–8. Segal, C. (1994), Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stanford, W.B. (1958), The Odyssey of Homer, Volume 2 (Books 13–24), second edition, London: Macmillan. Stewart, D.J. (1976), The Disguised Guest: Rank, Role, and Identity in the Odyssey, Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press. Zerba, M. (2009), “What Penelope Knew: Doubt and Scepticism in the Odyssey,” Classical Quarterly New Series 59: 295–316.

3 Failure of the textual relation Anacreon’s purple ball poem (PMG 358) T.H.M. Gellar-Goad

Anacreon poem 358 PMG [= 15 Bergk = 13 Page (1962) = 13 Gentili (1958) = 5 Diehl = Athenaeus 13.599c = 15 Rozokoki] σφαίρηι δηὖτέ με πορφυρέηι βάλλων χρυσοκόμης ἔρως νήνι ποικιλοσαμβάλωι συμπαίζειν προκαλεῖται· ἡ δ’, ἐστὶν γὰρ † ἀπευκτικοῦ † Λέσβου, τὴν μὲν ἐμὴν κόμην, λευκὴ γάρ, καταμέμφεται, πρὸς δ’ ἄλλην τινὰ χάσκει. Well then, golden-haired eros, launching a purple ball at me, challenges me to play around with the girl with pretty sandals. But she—’cause she’s from well-built Lesbos—she criticizes my hair— it’s white you see—and goes gaping off at another.1 1 δηὖτέ Seidler : δεῦτέ codd. : δηῦτέ Wilamowitz-Moellendorff   πορφυρέηι Barnes : πορφυρενι codd. : πορφυρῆι Edmonds : πορφυρῇ D. Campbell (1982 et 1988)   2 ἔρως scripsi : Ἔρως paene omnes editores   3 νήνι plerique editores : νηνι aut νυνι codd. : νῆνι Edmonds   ποικιλοσαμβάλωι Seidler : ποικιλοσαμβαλῳ Edmonds : ποικίλους ἀμβάλω Etymologicum Gudianum : ποικίλος λαμβάνω codd.  5 ἡ plerique editores : ἣ Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, quem secutus est Wirth : ἠ Edmonds : ηδεστι codd.    ἀπευκτικοῦ : απευκτικου codd. : forsitan praeferendum sit ἀπ’ εὐκτικοῦ, cf. Hesych., s.v. εὐκτικόν [sic]—καλῶς κατεσκευασμένον, εὖ κεκτισμένον : ἀπ’ εὐκτίτου Barnes, quem secuti sunt paene omnes editores praeter me    6 λευκὴ codd. : λευκὴν cunctans coniecit Edmonds  8 ἄλλην codd. : ἄλλον Barnes, quem secuti sunt quidam editores inter quos de Pauw, Bergk, et Edmonds, quae tamen emendatio videlicet spuria est, cf. Woodbury (1991 [1979] 328–9)   5–8 M. Campbell, consulens Fränkel (1955) 60–1, totam strophen sic scripsit: ἡ δ’—ἐστὶν γὰρ ἀπ’ εὐκτίτου | Λέσβου—τὴν μὲν ἐμὴν κόμην | —λευκὴ γάρ—καταμέμφεται, | πρὸς δ’ ἄλλην τινὰ χάσκει. : vide quoque Wirth.

Failure of the textual relation  47 The speaker, through the agency of a colored sphere, encounters and expresses erotic interest in a well-clad young woman from Lesbos. But the speaker does not meet with amatory success, for the object of desire rebuffs the expressed interest, criticizes the speaker’s white hair, and “gapes at another.” The speaker has failed to negotiate the gap between appearances (a pretty girl plus a ball must equal a sexual invitation) and reality (she wants nothing to do with the speaker). Anacreon 358 PMG is short, succinct, epigrammatic; its vocabulary and syntax are intriguing and provocative. Its two stanzas are perfectly interlinked and mirrored, with the reality of the second at once building on and subverting the careful setup of resemblance in the first. The chasm between reality and resemblance operates at the level of text and interpretation, as well: not all here is as it seems. For all its eight short lines, this poem has occasioned copious scholarly interest, as is evident from the bibliography below, and has sparked sometimes contentious and even tendentious debate.2 Some scholars have examined it as part of Anacreon’s discourse on old age (Giangrande 1973 and 1976; Woodbury 1991 [1979]; Falkner 1995; Dell’Oro 2014: 82–3), others have interrogated the speaker’s identity and self-representation (Williamson 1998; Pfeijffer 2000), and one has even seen a political jab at Anacreon’s contemporaries on the island of Lesbos (Podlecki 1984: 176). But the vast majority of scholarship on the poem has tended to focus on the eighth line, and the question of the sexuality, or sexual proclivities, of the young woman from Lesbos. Other scholars have tried again and again to solve the riddle of the poem’s final line; in what follows, I instead offer a close reading of the poem and a challenge to readers to switch the spotlight away from the young woman from Lesbos and towards the speaker. The fact that the poem’s narrator has sexualized the woman does not mean that we must do so also, by making her a hetaira (sex-laborer) or a lesbian or a fellatrix. Instead, I argue, we should view the poem as a statement about the speaker’s own shortcomings, both erotic and poetic. The heteroerotic sexual experience in this poem takes place exclusively within the realm of the (presumably: see below) masculine speaker even as it intrudes upon feminine homosocial space, a feature pointing to one of the poem’s themes, namely the failure of the sexual relation, a concept I draw from the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. The poem’s numerous ambiguities and uncertainties are fruitful ground for metapoetic analysis (an area explored also by Trzaskoma 1998 and Vazquez 2014) and for readings that do not require a firm identification of what the young woman is doing or desiring. The self-representation of the speaker and the outcome of his erotic foray act as metaphors for Anacreon’s verse itself. Close attention to the poem reveals layers upon layers of ambiguity and of gaps between poetic representation and a more concrete reality: ultimately in doubt are the speaker’s identity, the young woman’s identity and activity, the agent of the speaker’s erotic stimulation, the import and connotation of the reference to Lesbos, the verb χάσκει, and the pronominal phrase ἄλλην τινά. As Budelmann comments, using this poem as a sample of Anacreon’s corpus as a whole, “like many Anacreon songs, 358 takes its listeners out of the closed room into scenes of their imagination” (2009: 230). Yet in this poem much of the scene

48  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad must be supplied by the imaginer, as has been borne out by the often-imaginative interpretations of it published in the past several decades. Almost every word, when subjected to philological scrutiny, turns out not to mean clearly what many modern readers have interpreted it to be. Language, with its complexities and ambiguities, becomes an analogue for the questionable sexuality of the speaker.

The text This poem, like many fragments of Greek lyric, is preserved in Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistai. Line 3 is found also in the Etymologicum Gudianum. The text is not particularly problematic, with the exception of the crux at the end of line 5. The poem is generally agreed to be preserved complete: although we could imagine a description of the scene in advance of the first extant stanza, or a continuation of the narrative after the end of the second, the forceful concision of the poem, its intriguing ending, and the use of δηὖτε in the first line (on which see below) suggest that the eight surviving lines comprise the poem entire. The poem’s main textual problem is the manuscript reading ἀπευκτικοῦ (“of accursed”) in line 5. Calling Lesbos “accursed” may seem inappropriate to the tone of the poem, so almost all scholars follow Barnes’s emendation ἀπ’ εὐκτίτου (“from well-built”)—and many do so without comment.3 By this reading, the Homeric hapax ἐΰκτιτος (“well-built” or “well-founded,” Il. 2.592, cf. h.Ap. 423, D.P. 552) is adapted here by Anacreon. Yet the lexicographer Hesychius of Alexandria provides a definition for the adjective εὐκτικόν (again “well-built”), which could be a textual corruption or a late (or spurious) word, but it could also be an acceptable alternative, equivalent in meaning to ἐΰκτιτος without requiring emendation.

The setting Two basic scenes have been posited for the action of this poem: a symposium, and a Homeric scene akin to Odysseus’ encounter with Nausicaa (cf. Pace 1996). Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who took the sphere of line 1 as purely metaphorical (more on this below), placed the speaker and the young woman from Lesbos at a symposium, with νήνι (“the girl”) at line 3 referring to a hetaira (sex-laborer).4 Davison (1959), who sees the young woman as of the citizen class and emphasizes that such women would not have participated in a symposium, identifies the setting instead as a more loosely governed pannuchis (“all-night party”), at which citizen women could conceivably be present. Certain scholars wish to take the sphere as referring to actual ball-throwing (e.g., Davison 1959; Tsagarakis 1977: 142 n. 47), and some of them point to Homeric parallels for support. The chance encounter between old and young shares features with the emblematic meeting of Odysseus and Nausicaa in Odyssey 6,5 and two Phaeacians play with a colored sphere, such as we see here, at Odyssey 8.372–3. Davidson suggests that the ball-throwing could have taken place outside, in a court setting, or even at a symposium—and that, whatever the

Failure of the textual relation  49 case, the speaker is definitely a spectator of the ball-throwing, and the “calling forth” of line 4 does not actually denote an invitation for him to join in the game (1987: 134, followed by Pfeijffer 2000). Neither interpretation is without problems, and Pfeijffer suggests that we should perhaps even take the poem to be “entirely fictional” (2000: 171), that is to say, as a fantasy or thought-experiment recited by the speaker. Hutchinson independently rejects the sympotic environment (the “situation . . . does not harmonize with anything we know of symposia,” 2001: 273) and calls into question the reality (or physicality) of the sphere mentioned at line 1: “a literal invitation . . . or even a literal game of ball, would not suit the next stanza well” (2001: 274).

The poem The poem is short and humorous. The humor, which comes in part from the stark contrast between erotic hope in the first stanza and erotic denial in the second, is in my view primarily one of irony.6 Anacreon focuses on the speaker’s unhappy (or at least unfulfilling) experience, but, in Massa Positano’s words, “the poet hides [sc. the speaker’s passion or pain] behind a veil of irony” (“il poeta cela . . . dietro un velo d’ironia,” 1946: 371). The identity of the speaker is unclear. Most interpreters of the poem assume that the speaker is Anacreon (or, at least, “Anacreon,” the poet-persona adopted by the author in his poetry), and almost all assume that the speaker is a man. There is no clear indication of the speaker’s gender. Neither reference to the speaker resolves the question, neither ἐμὴν κόμην at line 6 nor με at line 1, where in the poem’s first words we see the speaker subjected to an unknown action performed by means of the sphere (σφαίρηι). Two predominant interpretive strategies for explaining line 8—the “lesbian” hypothesis and the “fellatio” hypothesis, both of which I will examine in detail—depend intrinsically upon the speaker’s being a man. Pfeijffer makes the more sophisticated distinction between Anacreon and his poet-persona by consistently referring to the speaker of the poem as “the lyric ‘I’” (2000: passim). Davison is the first to suggest that the speaker could be a woman: “we do not know even the sex of the speaker” (1959: 41), though he almost immediately rejects this possibility in favor of a sympotic, or symposiumlike, context (42).7 The notion is not so inconceivable, given that the theme of an older speaker prevented by age (and specifically by white hair) from playing with attractive young women appears also in Sappho’s Tithonus poem (fr. 58). Only Braghetti suggests that the speaker of Anacreon 358 is non-specific, no one individual, but rather characterized by a “collective and symposiastic” identity (“questo «io» collettivo e simposiasta,” 2001: 139, cf. 140). The ambiguity of the speaker’s gender is a worthwhile matter to keep in mind while reading and thinking about this poem, and the reason I consistently refer to the gender-neutral “speaker.” While I do ultimately agree with identifying the speaker as a man, this missing component of (his) identity is one lacuna of many in the poem that must be supplemented by interpretive conjecture, a breakdown in verisimilitude and poetic semblances.

50  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad An interesting general feature of the poem, which I consider only briefly, is that of the subjectivity of the speaker. The poem focuses upon the speaker, and particularly upon the speaker’s failure in erotic endeavors. The speaker, both provoked by a divine power (Eros/eros) and rejected by a mortal object of desire, seems to be placed in an abject, subordinate position by middle of the poem’s second stanza, and perhaps even “comes perilously close to abdicating the masculine, erastes [i.e., older/active lover] position.”8 The final line of the poem, then, can be seen either as a vindication of the speaker’s dominant position (Williamson 1998: 80) or, instead, as the speaker’s helpless ranting in the face of more powerful forces. If so, we can say, following Marcovich, that “the poet’s indiscretion and revenge”—that is, the anger that may be perceived in the poem’s final line— “are a consequence of his frustration” (1991 [1983]: 57). The first stanza The poem begins with contingency, with a question that will not be answered until the final two lines. Every word in the first four lines is important for understanding the scene (as much as one can with the information the speaker provides) and appreciating the second stanza. The first stanza sets up the action of the second and provides a broader context for that action, a context of the speaker’s continued amatory adventures: δηὖτε on line 1 is a typical word for introducing another episode in the speaker’s recurring erotic travails (cf. Sappho 1.15, 16, 18; Snell 1953: 57–8; Page 1959: 13; Privitera 1967: 43–4; Carson 1986: 20; and Mace 1993: 347–9). This beginning in medias res immediately thrusts the reader into the perspective of the speaker, through whom the whole stanza and essentially the whole poem is focalized. Yet at the same time it is difficult to identify with the speaker because of how much is left out about the speaker, the scenario, and the action. The vexed questions about meaning, representation, and reality begin in this poem with the very first word, σφαίρηι. It is unclear to what exactly the “sphere” refers. Is it an apple, commonly associated with erotic scenes (cf. Smyth 1900: 288)? Is it the ball with which Eros plays in other ancient Greek poets?9 Or is it a literal ball, the object of play for the young woman from Lesbos as for the Phaeacians? We cannot say from the text alone. The ambiguity is perhaps itself conducive to the atmosphere of the stanza—the speaker is not only caught unawares by Eros and a sphere, but also is unaware of the sphere’s nature. The color-word applied to the ball, πορφυρέηι (“purple”), frequently evokes erotic passion (cf. Irwin 1974: 18–19 n. 31, 24). It has long since been noticed that words for color abound in these lines: πορφυρέηι, χρυσοκόμης, ποικιλοσαμβάλωι, one for each glyconic in the stanza; this tonal unity enhances our awareness of the tight composition of the passage.10 That the young woman from Lesbos is playing with a ball of this color may also strengthen her characterization as sophisticated or upper-class, since purple could also function as a symbol of social status and wealth. On the placement of σφαίρηι as the first word, followed soon after by βάλλων χρυσοκόμης ἔρως, Pfeijffer remarks, “this word order suggests that the lyric ‘I’ suspects an erotic interest on the basis of the stray ball only . . . [T]he premature

Failure of the textual relation  51 conclusion is telling for the preoccupations of the lyric ‘I’” (2000: 169). In line 2, the speaker attributes the agency of the speaker’s own erotic arousal to an external force, ἔρως. I print ἔρως uncapitalized to advertise the ambiguity between or unity of abstract forces/emotions and personified deities in Greco-Roman language and culture, as a result of which the distinction between concept and god need not be very firm (cf. Feeney 1998: 87–92 and Park 2009 generally; Williamson 1996: 251–2 on Anacreon’s Eros specifically). The ball-thrower could literally be Eros (gods, and only gods, are characterized as χρυσοκόμης; Pace 1996: 81 identifies this poem as the first in a Greek poetic tradition associating Eros with ball-play). Or it could, metaphorically, be the power of eros seizing upon the speaker. Bowie even speculates that Eros could be “a sublimation of a goldenhaired girl wearing the jazzy sandals” (2013: 35). If it is the god Eros as most scholars believe, he is the only named character in the poem, and so the bycontrast-pointed anonymity of both the speaker and the young woman becomes another non-realistic poetic gap. The “play” to which Eros/eros calls the speaker (συμπαίζειν προκαλεῖται, line 4) is erotic. The prepositional prefix συμ- may indicate a sympotic context, although it is far from certain.11 Bowie finds punning wordplay implied by the verb: the speaker seeks to play with the young woman, but she plays/ tricks/mocks him, and the uncertainties that fill the poem represent the poet’s clever play with us (2013: 36). Tsomis similarly ascribes the play to Eros, who is toying/playing with the speaker (2001: 258). Most scholars translate or gloss προκαλεῖται as “challenges” and thus posit an antagonistic relationship between the speaker and Eros (already implied by βάλλων χρυσοκόμης ἔρως). Only Falkner explicitly favors “invites” over “challenges” for προκαλεῖται (1995: 146; cf. also Vox 1990: 56). Vazquez (2014) argues for a metapoetic challenge to a song-competition. The simplest translation, “calls forth,” effectively preserves the Greek verb’s possibility for all these shades of meaning; I suggest that the word choice is deliberately multivalent, in a continuation of the contingency with which the stanza opened. Davison, reconstructing a dramatic scenario for the poem, suggests that the young woman is described as ποικιλοσαμβάλωι12 because the speaker was sleeping on the ground when hit with the ball and so her feet are the first part of her body to be seen (1959: 42 and 44). Hutchinson remarks on the absence of physical attributes of the young woman herself in the poem: “However fetching the item, it is striking that a word is not chosen to convey the girl’s beauty more directly. This increases our detachment” (2001: 276). The omission of physical description heightens not only the reader’s detachment but also the facelessness of the young woman, the objectification of her by the speaker, and the disjuncture between what the text presents and what an observer would in reality perceive. Taken as a whole, the first stanza paints a vivid and yet simultaneously vague picture for the reader. By withholding physical details and using ambiguous, multivalent language, the poet prevents us from fully identifying with the speaker, even as the stanza is completely focalized through said speaker. The contingency

52  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad with which the stanza began remains still in force by its end. Moving into the second stanza, the reader may not only join the speaker in seeking the source and significance of the purple ball but also question the speaker’s own reliability. The second stanza The contingency of the first stanza goes markedly unresolved in the second, final stanza. The poem’s four lines comprise the release of the dramatic tension created by the first four, and are in the largest sense a reversal of the first line. The colors of lines 1–3 are mirrored in negative by the whiteness of the speaker’s hair at line 6, the first stanza’s deliberate and concise construction is answered here by an almost conversational, self-interrupting compound sentence, and the sexual arousal signaled by the poem’s opening is soundly refused by its close. Hutchinson, assessing the γάρ-clauses in this stanza, states that “[t]he whole involved structure suitably accompanies the messiness of reality” (2001: 277). So-called “anticipatory clauses” such as these two, whether in archaic Greek lyric or in the histories of Herodotus, as a rule expect a subsequent “pay-off” that uses the information contained in the γάρ-clause (see Pelliccia 1991, with a rebuttal by Renehan 1993 and response by Pelliccia 1995). This “pay-off” need not be a punchline, but the anticipation set up by the twin γάρ-clauses has led many scholars (particularly Giangrande: see below) to favor a surprising, humorous, or otherwise striking interpretation of the poem’s last line. The lack of such a punchline may itself be the pointe of 358: a subversion of literary expectations to match the subversion of the speaker’s erotic expectations, a non-coherent reality to answer an idiosyncratically self-consistent semblance of reasoning. But the second stanza is not only contrast. Again, we have a stanza-long sentence, and again, the style is carefully arranged for a masterful impact on the reader. “In the second stanza . . . the composition is again vigorous and compact” (Harvey 1957). The text continues to present numerous uncertainties about language, particularly for modern readers, who must deal with the crux in the stanza’s first line (ἐστὶν γὰρ † ἀπευκτικοῦ † | Λέσβου). If we adopt Barnes’s emendation, εὐκτίτου imports Homeric diction into the poem in answer to the Aeolic dialect of the first stanza’s ποικιλοσαμβάλωι.13 The effect of the epic epithet’s inclusion in this poem is to elevate the stature of Lesbos, and hence of the young woman featured in the poem. “Why did he want a Homeric echo? . . . he wished to introduce a note of mock-solemnity” (Harvey 1957). Davison, positing a sympotic context, points out that “the parenthesis, ‘for she is from well-founded Lesbos,’ . . . implies that she is at the party as an equal of the speaker, with a right to pick and choose her own associates” (1959: 43). Kurke identifies Lesbos in this poem as associated not only with “aristocratic luxury” but also with “the East” (1990: 278; cf. MacLachlan 1997: 207). As with the emendation εὐκτίτου, the verb describing the young woman’s action (καταμέμφεται) is also a possible adaptation of a Homeric word, ἐπιμέμφεσθαι (e.g., Iliad 1.65, 2.225; Odyssey 16.97). Anacreon’s καταμέμφομαι does not appear in his contemporaries or predecessors except once (Pindar Nemean 11.30).

Failure of the textual relation  53 Marcovich uses the verb to concretize the young woman’s dissatisfaction with the speaker’s hair, with the claim that “the girl’s scorn of the poet’s white hair was expressed in words—the verb καταμέμφεται seems to imply this, as does the Homeric ἐπιμέμφεσθαι—and . . . λευκὴ γάρ is actually the reason adduced by the girl” (1991 [1983]: 50). The whiteness of the speaker’s hair (τὴν μὲν ἐμὴν κόμην, | λευκὴ γάρ) effects a strong contrast with the detailed colors of the first stanza, and λευκὴ γάρ in particular responds to χρυσοκόμης ἔρως. Goldhill asks, “Is there also an elusive suggestion that Eros is the player who will win the game he started? Can one beat Eros at his own game?” (1987: 17). The motif of the old speaker’s failure as lover, often with reference to white hair, recurs in Anacreon 374, 379a–b, 395, 397a, 418, and 420 PMG (with Vox 1990: 55 and Burzacchini 1995: 101 n. 105). Falkner remarks, “Hair is for Anacreon a primary symbol of the interrelationship between age and culture; the status of one’s hair is closely linked to erotic status and identity . . . Anacreon often links the idea of hair with that of erotic rejection” (1995: 143).14 The poem’s final line is far and away its most highly debated, particularly the phrase πρὸς δ’ ἄλλην τινὰ χάσκει. The issue is twofold. To whom, or what, does ἄλλην τινά refer? And what is the nature of the action described by πρὸς . . . χάσκει? Many have attempted to offer explanations, which I will now summarize and evaluate. Ultimately, I believe, it cannot be said for sure. Renehan remarks that “certainty is not attainable” (1993: 45), while Urios-Aparisi similarly comments that “the ambiguity is unresolved” (1993: 68). The extreme lack of clarity about what actually happens in the stanza is itself indicative of the gulf in this poem between resemblance and reality and, as I argue below, the unbridgeable divide between the speaker’s expectations and the young woman’s actual interests, which remain ultimately inscrutable to the speaker and to the reader alike. Two main ways to take ἄλλην τινά have been proposed: the phrase refers either to a young girl (νεάνιδα uel sim.) or to an understood κόμην (“hair”), with, by some scholars’ interpretations, the equation “ἄλλην = πρὸς δ’ ἄλλου τινὸς κόμην” (“someone else’s hair”).15 By the first interpretation, the young woman from Lesbos looks slack-jawed at another young woman nearby (literally or metaphorically near). There is a major question concomitant to this way of understanding ἄλλην τινά—namely, is the young woman’s “gaping” at this other woman erotically charged? We will turn to this question in considering the action of the verb χάσκει, below. By the second interpretation, the young woman from Lesbos does not gape after another woman, but after another set of hair. I suspect that this explication originated with Smyth as a way to avoid the young woman’s supposed homoerotic desire towards another woman, but some scholars since Smyth have more cogently argued that we are to understand κόμην with ἄλλην τινά. Most forcefully, Giangrande (1973: 131) asserts: “There is no doubt that ἄλλην τινά, coming as it does after the feminine forms κόμην and λευκή, means ‘a certain other hair which is not white’: this is confirmed by the responsion τὴν μέν .  .  . πρὸς δέ” (1973: 131; emphasis preserved). This idea is refuted persuasively by Pelliccia

54  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad (1995: 26): “unless we are to imagine that the scene unfolds in a wig emporium, the audience has thought of a person already if ἄλλην τινὰ makes them think of hair at all—because that is what hair comes attached to, persons.” Davison describes the term χάσκει as a “savage” and “blistering word” that expresses the speaker’s “furious hate and resentment” at the young woman’s rejection of erotic play (1959: 46). We can take the verb χάσκει as having erotic or sexual connotations, or we can take it without such connotations. Fewer scholars hold the latter view than the former, but most who do see χάσκει as non-sexual base their opinions on a philological analysis of the verb. Before Aristophanes, χάσκω is not used in reference to sex—and, as Campbell points out, the verb appears “nowhere else in an amatory context, unless the mating habits of partridges are relevant” (1982: 321), a reference to Athenaeus’ supplementation of Aristotle’s Historia Animalium (1.488b.4; cf. Davison 1959: 44). Cyrino cites technical medical usages of the verb for symptoms of throat and larynx diseases in Hippocratic texts and suggests that the poem “is applying a term of human physical dysfunction . . . to describe in a metaphorical sense another experience which is conceived of as suffered by the body, that is, the feeling of erotic desire” (1996: 381–2 and n. 31). Yet χάσκω seems to be used in the archaic period to mean something like “focusing on one thing to the point of distraction.” Hipponax 9 West line 1, Solon 13 West line 35, Semonides 7 West line 110 all suggest, though not beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the verb describes the direction of attention upon one thing to the exclusion of others. Renehan, citing Aristophanes Knights 651, 804, and Clouds 996, states that the speaker insults the young woman by describing her with a verb that denotes stupidity (1984: 31).16 The speaker, then, expresses anger at the amatory setback by simply insulting the young woman—and not by making a joke about (or proffering a light-hearted explanation on the basis of) her sexual tendencies, or her sexuality. Of those who believe that χάσκει is indeed sexual, two avenues of explanation have been predominant. Either the young woman from Lesbos is not only a Lesbian, but also a lesbian, or else she is interested exclusively in fellatio, in line with the Aristophanic associations of Lesbos and the uses of the verb λεσβιάζω in Old Comedy. A clear majority of scholars prefers the notion that the young woman from Lesbos does in fact express homoerotic, sexual desire with the verb χάσκει,17 although a vociferous minority maintains that she is a fellatrix (particularly Gentili and Giangrande). Readers seeking to classify χάσκει as sexual, homoerotic “gaping” tend to point to the modern and, by some accounts, late antique association of the island with feminine homoeroticism. (The debate on when “lesbian” came to mean “homosexual woman” is too extensive and contentious to address here; some scholars, e.g., Cassio 1983, point to Lucian’s de Meretricibus for evidence of such a use of the term in ancient Greek literature.) Those in favor of this reading argue that the mention of Lesbos at line 6 demands, or at least would suggest, a “pay-off” that is properly answered by a gay joke (Campbell 1983: 22; Pelliccia 1991: 31–3). A joke indeed it would be, for the speaker by this reading is essentially saying

Failure of the textual relation  55 that the young woman’s scorn is truly attributable not to the speaker’s physical unattractiveness or age, but to the fact that she has no interest in men whatsoever. Marcovich, on the other hand, sees the Lesbian woman not only as gay, but as closeted: “She is pretending, ‘You are too old for me,’ while concealing the real reason for rejecting the poet: ‘You are a man’” (1991 [1983]: 50). The speaker in this interpretation discovers that the young woman is (only?) attracted to women, and thus understands why she rejected the amatory advance implicit in lines 1–4. The final way to understand line 8 is to point to the comic association of Sappho and, by extension, women from Lesbos with fellatio. The young woman’s gaping, in this case, constitutes her preparation for oral intercourse, and the ἄλλην κόμην at which she gapes is the pubic hair of either the speaker (so Giangrande 1973, 1976) or another man (so Gentili 1973, 1976). I will allow this argument to speak for itself: Since pubic hair remains black after cephalic hair has turned white, and since fellatrices direct their expectant mouths towards pubic hair, the point which Anacreon makes is clear: the fact is—so argues the poet—that the girl neglects his white hair not because he is old and unworthy of the girl’s attention, but because she comes from Lesbos . . . i.e. is a fellatrix, and because, like all fellatrices, she is not interested in white hair . . . and is gaping expectantly at a certain other hair, which is still black, i.e. the poet’s pubic hair, ad fellandum.18 This argument includes the claim that χάσκω is a Greek technical term for indicating a person’s desire to perform fellatio. While not completely discounted, the fellatio hypothesis has been persuasively refuted (see, e.g., Goldhill 1987: 16–17). The claim that χάσκω is a technical term referring to fellatio simply is not supported by sufficient evidence. Neither is the incorporation of the Aristophanic λεσβιάζω reputation.19 Moreover, an immediate association of fellatio, or feminine homoeroticism for that matter, with Lesbos would ruin the “pay-off” at the poem’s conclusion (so Pelliccia: “ἐστὶν γὰρ ἀπ’ εὐκτίτου Λέσβου conveys no immediately usable explanatory information,” 1995: 32). Renehan’s point (in rejecting the identification of Lesbos with lesbianism in this period) about using later evidence of a sexual reputation for Lesbos to explicate Anacreon’s poem is equally applicable here (1984: 30): If Lesbian women were renowned for their beauty, the statement here could simply mean that the girl can afford to pick and choose; she is beautiful. It is also quite possible that Lesbos in Anacreon’s time already suggested female homosexuality. Sappho’s fame alone could adequately account for that. Unfortunately, if such were the case, this poem is the only extant evidence for it, and any formal argument as to the meaning of the poem based on the mention of Lesbos in lines 5–6 runs the risk, unavoidably, of circularity. But if there is not a sexual joke behind the mention of the young woman as being from Lesbos, then why is that famous island mentioned? For some scholars,

56  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad looking to Homer for guidance, the answer is beauty. A group of Homeric women from Lesbos—outstanding in beauty, offered as a gift or prize at Iliad 9.128–30— may be the reason for the inclusion of Lesbos in this poem. If Homer places value upon Lesbian women’s beauty, perhaps they were renowned for, or stereotypically associated with, beauty in the archaic period (West 1970; Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 331; Davidson 1987: 133; see, contra, Pelliccia 1991: 32 n. 7). The poem’s speaker, then, is rejected (and certainly is not the recipient of oral sexual pleasure from the young woman) not because of sexuality but rather simply because of age. As Davidson points out, “The poet is rejected outright because he is old. This is, after all, the apparently satisfactory point of other poems by Anacreon” (1987: 136). Ultimately, I do not think that it is necessary to come to any firm conclusion about the meaning of the final line, or the nature of the young woman’s gaping. I see no reason not to take it simply as the way one might expect a teenager to react to an erotic advance from a much older person, by making a shocked or disgusted face at a peer nearby. The sexual explanations strike me as rather prurient and over-clever, when we can find value in the poem without an epigram-like punch line and without an appeal to Aristophanic comedy. As Campbell persuasively puts it, we should not try to find a gay joke or a fellatio joke in our poem (1973–74: 169): The merit of this poem in particular lies rather in the consummate artistry brought to bear on a commonplace theme: we pass in an instant from colour and brightness and elegance to a gloom reflected in a disjointed, almost staccato, style. I contend that the poem is not even about the young woman—it is about the speaker. It is also a remarkable poetic accomplishment that addresses the gap between reality and its representation in language, as Goldhill articulates (1987: 17–18): . . . the delicacy, the χάρις, of Anacreon’s poetry is located in the manipulation of the gaps and veils of language, those blocks to simple assertions of synonymy . . . Anacreon’s poetry . . . manipulates with playful delight the uncertainties of erotic language and narrative . . . One must join in the dance of Anacreon’s language if it is not simply to elude us. The careful, mannered attention to detail in the first stanza, and the syncopated train of thought in the second, strongly focalize the poem’s progression through the speaker’s eyes, and so it is to, and through, the speaker that we should look. Careful attention to the speaker, as opposed to distracted scholarly gaping at the young woman and her ἄλλην τινά (in a reprise of the speaker’s own rapt attention to her and her activity), reveals a new story told in this short poem: sexual failure. The speaker perceives a sexual impulse, implies the undertaking of an advance towards someone on the basis of that urge, and attributes the consequent failure of that advance to the speaker’s own aged hair. Perhaps this piece is a playful exploration of the rare erotic topos of male impotence, as seen much later in Ovid

Failure of the textual relation  57 Amores 3.7. (If so, this poem could conceivably be the first documented instance of a man supposing a woman’s lesbianism as the explanation for his rebuffed advances.) The erotic element in this poem is not the young woman from Lesbos, but rather the sexuality—the pointedly failed sexuality—of the poem’s speaker. If the young woman’s gaping reaction (χάσκει) is, as I believe, non-sexual, then the sexual encounter of the poem plays out entirely inside the subjectivity of the speaker: it is all in his (yes, his) head. From this perspective, the poem is in a sense a textbook case of Lacan’s “failure of the sexual relation.” For Lacan, who lays out a fundamental psychology of love in his Seminar XX (1972–73, published 1975), the masculine lover in a heteroerotic relation desires not the woman herself but the sexual fulfillment promised by her body and within it, the sex-act that itself is the motivating force behind his desire. Lacan terms this desired sex-act Objet a (the A standing for autre, the Other) and suggests that the lover desires not the beloved, but this object that exists within the beloved. Because Objet a is ill-defined, unanchored, and unattainable, the relation that it prompts the desiring subject to seek always ends up in failure.20 Man’s desire here pre-dates (and predates) the woman’s body, which is allowed neither direct speech nor subjectivity. The speaker accumulates reasons for his rejection, but these reasons are his own, not spoken by the young woman. The speaker’s experience, inasmuch as it is sexual, is a one-man show, not an interpersonal interaction. Anacreon’s two stanzas, then, present not a punch line about Lesbian women’s proclivity for homoeroticism or fellatio but a dramatization of the enclosure of heteroerotic sexuality within the realm of the masculine. Again, the sexual arousal signaled by the poem’s opening is soundly refused by its close. The young woman dismisses the speaker and directs her undivided attention to another woman, sealing the speaker away from the society of women. The speaker expected an interaction with the woman on his own masculine, heteroerotic terms. He expected her to conform to his conception of women as sexual objects and his perception of this woman specifically as receptive to his advances. But his reading of the situation and his implicit characterization of her in the first stanza has proven incorrect. His failure of assessment corresponds both to the failure of the sexual relation he sought and to the failure of the heterosocial environment in which the poem began, but which has segregated into discrete homosocial units by the final line. The ambivalence of the speaker’s gender/ subjectivity (perhaps) and the ambiguous meaning of χάσκει both point to the chasm between man and woman, the unbridgeable gap that ultimately prevents the aggressive masculine gaze from true interaction with or access to women’s homosocial space. However we take it, the gaps in the poem’s narrative are substantial: the ambiguity of χάσκει and the uncertainty of the referent of ἄλλην τινά, the use of a descriptor about pretty sandals rather than pretty body parts, the lack of explicit mention of the speaker’s gender and the namelessness of all mortal characters, the poem’s in-the-middle-of-things incipit with δηὖτε. And I would like to suggest in closing that the poetic holes point to a metapoetic subtext to the passage.

58  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad The speaker, a stand-in for the poet’s own persona, is an old hand at erotic verse, and now feels the itch to write again. He happens upon what seems like a promising subject of erotic beauty. But in the end, he is not up to the erotic-poetic task, and full treatment of the chosen subject escapes him—just as erotic success escapes the speaker, the poem escapes resolution, and sureness about a fixed setting, dramatis personae, text, and interpretation escapes the reader. The insufficiency of the text calls attention to the impossibility of the sexual relation and the sexual-social ineffectiveness of the speaker, who becomes a metaphor for the ultimate ineffability of reality within the confines of a text.

Acknowledgments Highest gratitude to Peter M. Smith, whose 2009 seminar on Greek lyric opened new vistas onto some of the most beautiful verse ever written—and whose midterm exam was the most difficult assessment I’ve ever taken. I owe great thanks to both Stephen Trzaskoma and Adriana Vazquez for generously sharing their publication-in-progress conference papers on Anacreon 358 with me, and to Arum Park for her careful comments on drafts of this paper. My argument here could not have come about without my introduction to Lacan in Sharon L. James’s Ovid and Literary Theory course, on which see James 2015.

Notes   1 Translation mine.   2 For example, West 1970; Gentili 1973; Giangrande 1973; Campbell 1973–74; Gentili 1976; Giangrande 1976; Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 330 n. 24; Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 53–4; Goldhill 1987: 16–17; Renehan 1993; Mace 1993: 348 n. 45; Pelliccia 1995.   3 Harvey 1957: 213; Easterling 1977: 330 and n. 12; Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 329; Campbell 1983: 22; Duban 1983: 130; Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 55–6; Renehan 1984: 31 and 1993; Davidson 1987: 133; Goldhill 1987: 17; Urios-Aparisi 1993: 61; Falkner 1995: 145; Pelliccia 1995: 30–1 n. 20; Williamson 1998: 79–80; Pfeijffer 2000: 178.   4 For other affirmations of the sympotic context following Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, see Gentili 1976: 124; Vox 1990: 55; Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 326; Falkner 1995: 146; Williamson 1998: 79; and especially Urios-Aparisi 1993: 54–5. Urios-Aparisi also identifies the young woman as a hetaira (1993: 60).   5 On which see Davison 1959: 46; Davidson 1987: 134–5; Williamson 1998: 79; Rosenmeyer 2004: 168–70; and especially Pfeijffer 2000: 181–2 for the argument that the Homeric intertext supplies the setting, sets up the speaker as mock-heroic, foreshadows the failure to connect erotically, and shows a situation of inverse desires.   6 Cf. Fränkel 1969: 380; Pfeijffer 2000: 180 (“self-regarding irony”); and especially Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 333–4: “[the poem exhibits a] tone of rueful but detached irony . . . Anacreon’s subject is the speaker . . . whom he regards with an ironical eye . . . Everything points away from a single-minded absorption or infatuation and towards an aloof and delighted contemplation.”   7 Cf. Anacreon 385 and 432; Urios-Aparisi 1993: 53; and Pelliccia 1995: 24 n. 3: “some readers might find piquing the observation made to me by Michelle Kwintner that nothing in the text precludes the possibility that the speaker is a woman.” Both Vazquez 2014 and Trzaskoma 1998 independently argue that Anacreon 358 alludes programmatically to Sappho fr. 31. For a step-by-step reading of the stanza from the imagined perspective of the speaker, see Davison 1959.

Failure of the textual relation  59   8 Williamson 1998: 79, who continues: “Yet there are elements in the poem that work in the opposite direction and that enable the singer, and more importantly the audience, to reassert their masculinity. The girl is not addressed directly, as in the poems discussed earlier: instead the audience consists of observers, and as elsewhere the poem appeals to, and depends on, their knowledge both cultural and sexual to achieve its effects.”   9 Apollonius Argonautica 3.132–41; Palatine Anthology 5.214.1 (Meleager), 12.44.1–2; cf. Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 279 n. 1; Anacreon depicts erotic play, or the play of Eros, also in 346, 396, and 398 PMG. 10 Discussion of the color-words in the stanza occurs at least as early as Massa Positano 1946: 370–1). See especially Harvey 1957: 213: “each noun is artistically coupled with a colour-adjective and the two verbs [are] placed together in the clausula – a miracle of neat construction.” Pace links both πορφυρέηι and ποικιλοσαμβάλωι with the multiform variety of the μῆτις of Eros in Anacreon and Athena in Homer (1996: 85 n. 15). 11 See Degani and Burzacchini 1977: 249; Henderson 1991: 157 and n. 28; and Pfeijffer 2000: 167–9 and n. 10, on the erotic connotations of συμπαίζειν, which appears also at Anacreon 357 PMG line 4; and see Rosenmeyer (2004: passim) on παίζειν and its compound forms in early Greek poetry (and especially Rosenmeyer 2004: 166–8 on our poem). For parallels in other fragments of Anacreon featuring Eros in a competitive context, see Cyrino 1996: 371–2 and n. 5. 12 One might expect the Ionian form ποικιλοσανδάλωι rather than the Aeolic (Sapphic, even) ποικιλοσαμβάλωι. Cf. discussion by Labarbe in Giangrande 1967: 176; as well as Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 326; Urios-Aparisi 1993: 60; and Williamson 1998: 80. Trzaskoma 1998 sees an opposition in the poem between Homeric models flagged by εὐκτίτου (see below) and Sapphic counter-models flagged by ποικιλοσαμβάλωι. 13 Cf. Harvey 1957: 213: “in four out of the seven cases in which Lesbos is mentioned in the Iliad and the Odyssey it is coupled with the epithet εὐκτιμένη . . . εὐκτίτος, also a Homeric word . . . was close enough to the original to make the allusion unmistakable.” 14 For further support, see Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 332–3 and nn. 42–3; Urios-Aparisi 1993: 62–3; but see also, contra, Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 54–5. The often-sexualized link between hair and gender in the ancient Mediterranean is examined by Levine 1995. 15 Smyth 1900: 288, emphasis preserved. Smyth is followed by Massa Positano 1946: 372; Gentili 1958: ad loc.; and Vox 1990: 55. We can easily dispense with Barnes’s emendation ἄλλον (favored also at Fränkel 1969: 333 n. 3), which Campbell rightly calls “irresponsible” (1982: 321). Davison’s argument for ἄλλον—that Anacreon likely wrote the poem with that word, but it was spuriously “corrected” to ἄλλην by a later scribe familiar with Lesbos’ associations with feminine homoeroticism—is the most persuasively worded of any. But Davison’s article is problematic: it is filled with homophobic, moralizing terms, especially use of the term “perversion” in reference to eroticism between women (1959: 43 n. 7; 44 n. 8; 45; 46). Cf. Dover 1989: 183, in a discussion of this poem: “So long as we think of the world as divided into homosexuals and heterosexuals and regard the commission of a homosexual act, or even the entertaining of a homosexual desire, as an irrevocable step across a frontier which divides the normal, healthy, sane, natural and good from the abnormal, morbid, insane, unnatural and evil, we shall not get very far in understanding Greek attitudes to homosexuality.” 16 Cf. Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 51: “the early iambic and elegiac poetry . . . seems to confirm a general meaning of ‘eager expectation and keen interest.’” See also West 1970: 209; and Williamson 1998: 79: “One of the more securely attested connotations of this word, which can be illustrated from another sixth-century author (Solon 13.36), is foolishness or stupidity,” with reference to Urios-Aparisi 1993: 66–8. Renehan strongly rejects the sexual interpretation: “In fact, all attempts to see a reference to any explicit sexual act in the final verse fail as interpretations of the poem as a whole . . . The poem contains no bedroom scene” (1984: 30; emphasis preserved). Compare Hutchinson’s comment that “The fundamental point is not that the girl’s

60  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad love is homosexual; that merely adds a pleasing touch” (2001: 277), and see also Mace 1993: 348–9 n. 45. 17 Including at least Romagnoli 1933: 166; Lavagnini 1937: 173; Harvey 1957: 213; Page 1959: 143; Bowra 1961: 285; Marzullo 1965: 157–8; Gerber 1970: 230, who later changed his mind, cf. Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 320 n. 21; Kirkwood 1974: 167; Easterling 1977: 330; Preisshofen 1977; Campbell 1982: 321 and 1983: 21–2; Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 49; Falkner 1995: 144; MacLachlan 1997: 208; Pfeijffer 2000: 177; Hutchinson 2001: 277; Hubbard 2003. 18 Giangrande 1973: 132; cf. Gentili 1973. Giangrande later repeatedly reaffirms his argument (1976, 1981, 1995, 2011: 30–1), as does Gentili (1976: 130–3). Komornicka 1976, Adrados (1980: 406 n. 32), and Díaz (1995: 78–9) follow their arguments; Carbone 1993 follows them and supplements them with evidence from the fragments of the Peri blasphemion of Suetonius (written in Greek). White (2011) is the most recent attempt, brief and blistering, to resurrect this reading. 19 Woodbury 1991 [1979]: 330: “this is to go beyond the evidence, which attests to no more than the reputation of Lesbian women, in a later age and at a different place, for the possession of this sexual skill.” See also Marcovich 1991 [1983]: 52–3, especially 53, quoting Giangrande 1973: 132: “there is no evidence of χάσκειν being ‘the terminus technicus denoting eagerness to fellare,’ nor is there any likelihood that the verb may have this connotation in our poem.” Giangrande’s claim that “[t]he verb χάσκω has . . . retained its erotic sense in modern Greek” (2011: 30, emphasis mine) puts the cart before the horse. 20 For more on Lacan and the “failure of the sexual relation,” see, among many others, Barnard 2002: 6–11; Homer 2005: 106–7; Hirvonen 2010: 200–2; and, more broadly, Copjec 1994. For a Lacanian reading of tragedy, see Boliaki 2000 and Miller 2007; of Plato, Koppenfels 2009 and Sharpe 2010; of Aristotle, Cathelineau 1999; of Cicero, Leach 2000–2001; and of Roman elegy, Spelman 1999, Janan 2001, and Miller 2003. For the classical roots of poststructuralist literary theory including Lacan, see Miller 1998–1999. See also the special issue of Helios (v. 31, 2004) devoted to Lacan and the Classics. In a volume on resemblance and reality, I would be remiss not to mention a fundamental (and influential) element of Lacan’s theory, namely the three “realms” of the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real: the Imaginary is the realm of the individual psyche, the Symbolic the shared (masculine-dominated, or “phallologocentric”) experience of reality as (always) mediated by and performed through language, and the Real is the external, true reality that stands outside us and our social existences, rarely to be grasped except in times of trauma or crisis.

References Adrados, F.R. (1980), Lírica Griega Arcaica, Madrid: Gredos. Barnard, S. (2002), “Introduction,” in S. Barnard and B. Fink (eds.), Reading Seminar XX: Lacan’s Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality, Albany: State University of New York Press, pp. 1–20. Barnes, J. (1705), Anacreon Teius. Item Anacreontis vita, opera & studio J. Barnes, Cambridge: Edmund Jeffery. Bergk, T. (ed.) (1834), Anacreontis carminum reliquiae, Leipzig: Reichenbach. Boliaki, E. (2000), “Ancient Greek Drama and Postmodern Psychoanalysis: Euripides and Jacques Lacan,” Ph.D. dissertation, Syracuse University. Bowie, E. (2013), “The Sympotic Tease,” in J. Kwapisz, D. Petrain, and M. Szymanski (eds.), The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry, Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 33–43. Bowra, C.M. (1961), Greek Lyric Poetry (2nd edn.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Failure of the textual relation  61 Braghetti, G.A. (2001), “L’interpretazione dell’« io » nella lirica arcaica : alcuni esempi anacreontei,” in M.C. Fera and G.B. D’Alessio (eds.), I lirici greci: Forme della comunicazione e storia del testo: Atti dell’incontro di studi, Messina 5–6 novembre 1999, Messina: Bretschneider, pp. 135–40. Budelmann, F. (2009), “Anacreon and the Anacreontea,” in F. Budelmann (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 227–39. Burzacchini, G. (1995), “Lirica arcaica (I),” in U. Mattioli (ed.), Senectus: La vecchiaia nel mondo classico (vol. 1), Bologna: Pàtron Editore, pp. 69–124. Campbell, M. (1973–74), “Anacr. Fr. 358 P,” Museum Criticum 8–9: 168–9. Campbell, D.A. (ed.) (1982), Greek Lyric Poetry: A Selection of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac, and Iambic Poetry (2nd edn.), London: Bristol Classical Press. —— (1983), The Golden Lyre: The Themes of the Greek Lyric Poets, London: Duckworth. —— (1988), Greek Lyric II: Anacreon, Anacreontea, Choral Lyric from Olympus to Alcman (Loeb Classical Library, 143), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carbone, G. (1993), “Le donne di Lesbo nel lessico svetoniano delle ingiurie. (A proposito di Anacr. Fr. 13 Gent.),” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica New Series 44 [73]: 71–6. Carson, A. (1986), Eros the Bittersweet, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cassio, A.C. (1983), “Post-Classical Λέσβιαι,” Classical Quarterly New Series 33: 296–7. Cathelineau, P.-C. (1999), Lacan, lecteur d’Aristote: Politique, métaphysique, logique, Paris: Association freudienne. Copjec, J. (1994), Read My Desire: Lacan against the Historicists, Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Cyrino, M. (1996), “Anakreon and Eros Damalês,” Classical World 89.5: 371–82. Davidson, J.F. (1987), “Anacreon, Homer and the Young Woman from Lesbos,” Mnemosyne 40.1: 132–7. Davison, J.A. (1959 [repr. 1968]), “Anacreon, Fr. 5 Diehl,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 90: 40–7. Reprinted in From Archilochus to Pindar, London: Macmillan, 247–55. Degani, E. and G. Burzacchini (1977), Lirici greci. Antologia, Florence: La Nuova Italia. Dell’Oro, F. (2014), “‘Anacreon, the Connoisseur of Desires’: An Anacreontic Reading of Menecrates’ Sepulchral Epigrams (IKyzikos 18, 520),” in M. Baumbach and N. Dümmler (eds.), Imitate Anacreon! Mimesis, Poiesis and the Poetic Inspiration in the Carmina Anacreonta, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 67–95. Díaz, J.G. (1995), Anacreonte. Vida, obra, y estilo, Oviedo: University of Oviedo Press. Diehl, E. (1935), Anthologia lyrica graeca (vol. 1.4, 2nd edn.), Leipzig: Teubner. Dover, K.J. (1989), Greek Homosexuality (2nd edn.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Duban, J.M. (1983), Ancient and Modern Images of Sappho: Translations and Studies in Archaic Greek Love Lyric, Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Easterling, P.E. (1977), “Literary Traditions and the Transformations of Cupid,” Didaskalos 5.3: 318–37. Edmonds, J.M. (1958), Lyra Graeca (vol. 2) (Loeb Classical Library, 143), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Falkner, T.M. (1995), The Poetics of Old Age in Greek Epic, Lyric, and Tragedy, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Feeney, D.C. (1998), Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

62  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad Fränkel, H. (1955), Wege und Formen frühgriechischen Denkens, Munich: Beck. —— (1969), Dichtung und Philosophie des frühen Griechentums (3rd edn.), Munich: Beck. Gentili, B. (ed.) (1958), Anacreon: Introduzione, testo critico, traduzione, studio sui frammenti papiracei, Rome: Edizioni dell’Ateneo. —— (1973), “La ragazza di Lesbo,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 16: 124–8. —— (1976), “Addendum,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 21: 47. Gerber, D.E. (1970), Euterpe: An Anthology of Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry, Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert. Giangrande, G. (1967), “Sympotic Literature and Epigram,” in L’Épigramme grecque (Entretiens sur l’antiquité classique 14), Geneva: Vandœuvres, pp. 91–117. —— (1973), “Anacreon and the Lesbian Girl,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 16: 129–33. —— (1976), “On Anacreon’s Poetry,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 21: 43–6. —— (1981), “Anacreon and the Fellatrix from Lesbos,” Museum Philologum Londiniense 4: 15–18. —— (1995), “Anacreon’s Pubic Hair,” Habis 26: 9–12. —— (2011), “Anacreon’s Sense of Humour and the Greek Language,” Habis 42: 27–33. Goldhill, S. (1987), “The Dance of the Veils: Reading Five Fragments of Anacreon,” Eranos 85: 9–18. Greene, E. (ed.) (1996), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, Berkeley: University of California Press. Harvey, A.E. (1957), “Homeric Epithets in Greek Lyric Poetry,” Classical Quarterly New Series 7.3–4: 206–23. Henderson, J. (1991), The Maculate Muse (2nd edn.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hirvonen, A. (2010), “Between Signifier and Jouissance—Lacan with Teresa,” in J. de Vleminck and E. Dorfman (eds.), Sexuality and Psychoanalysis: Philosophical Criticisms, Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 199–214. Homer, S. (2005), Jacques Lacan, New York: Routledge. Hubbard, T.K. (2003), review of David M. Halperin, How to Do the History of Homosexuality, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2003.09.22. Hutchinson, G.O. (2001), Greek Lyric Poetry: A Commentary on Selected Larger Pieces (Alcman, Stesichorus, Sappho, Alcaeus, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides, Bacchylides, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Irwin, E. (1974), Colour Terms in Greek Poetry, Toronto: Hakkert. James, S.L. (2015), “Twenty Years of Ovid and Literary Theory,” Classical World 108.2: 205–20. Janan, M. (2001), The Politics of Desire: Propertius IV, Berkeley: University of California Press. Kantzios, Ippokratis (2005), “Tyranny and the Symposion of Anacreon,” Classical Journal 100.3: 227–45. Kirkwood, G.M. (1974), Early Greek Monody: The History of a Poetic Type, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Komornicka, M. (1976), “À la suite de la lecture ‘La ragazza di Lesbo,’” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 21: 37–41. von Koppenfels, M. (2009), “Ein komisches Gefühl. Lacan als Leser des Symposion,” in E. Goebel and E. Bronfen (eds.), Narziss und Eros. Bild oder Text?, Göttingen: Wallstein, pp. 269–95. Kurke, Leslie (1990), Coins, Bodies, Games, and Gold: The Politics of Meaning in Archaic Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Failure of the textual relation  63 Lavagnini, B. (1937), Aglaia: Nuova Antologia della Lirica Greca da Callino a Bacchilide (2nd edn. [3rd edn. 1949]), Turin: Paravia. Leach, E.W. (2000–2001), “Gendering Clodius,” Classical World 94.4: 335–59. Levine, M.M. (1995), “The Gendered Grammar of Ancient Mediterranean Hair,” in W. Doniger and H. Eilberg-Schwartz (eds.), Off with Her Head!, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 76–130. Mace, S.T. (1993), “Amour, Encore! The Development of δηὖτε in Archaic Lyric,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 34: 335–64. MacLachlan, B.C. (1997), “Personal Poetry,” in Douglas E. Gerber (ed.), A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets (Mnemosyne suppl. 173), Leiden and New York: Brill, pp. 133–220. Marcovich, M. (1991 [1983]), “Anacreon, 358 PMG (ap. Athen. XIII. 599c),” in Studies in Greek Poetry (Illinois Classical Studies suppl. 1), Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, pp. 47–57. Marzullo, B. (1965), Frammenti della lirica greca, Florence: Sansoni. Massa Positano, L. (1946), “Nugae,” Parola del Passato 1: 359–72. Miller, P.A. (1998–1999), “The Classical Roots of Poststructuralism: Lacan, Derrida, and Foucault,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 5.2: 204–25. —— (2003), Subjecting Verses: Latin Love Elegy and the Emergence of the Real, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (2007), “Lacan’s Antigone: The Sublime Object and the Ethics of Interpretation,” Phoenix 61.1/2: 1–14. Pace, C. (1996), “Anacreonte e la palla di Nausicaa (Anacr. fr. 13 G. = 358 PMG, 1–4),” Eikasmos 7: 81–6. Page, D. (1959), Sappho and Alcaeus, Oxford: Clarendon Press. —— (ed.) (1962 [repr. 1975]), Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Park, A. (2009), “Two Types of Ovidian Personification,” Classical Journal 104.3: 225–40. Pelliccia, H. (1991), “Anacreon 13 (358 PMG),” Classical Philology 86.1: 30–6. —— (1995), “Ambiguity against Ambiguity: Anacreon 13 Again,” Illinois Classical Studies 20: 23–34. Pfeijffer, I.L. (2000), “Playing Ball with Homer: An Interpretation of Anacreon 358 PMG,” Mnemosyne 53.2: 164–84. Podlecki, J. (1984), The Early Greek Poets and Their Times, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Preisshofen, F. (1977), Untersuchungen zur Darstellung des Greisenalters in der frühgriechischen Dichtung, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Privitera, G.A. (1967), “La rete di Afrodite. Ricerche sulla prima ode di Saffo,” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica 4: 7–58. Renehan, R. (1984), “Anacreon Fragment 13 Page,” Classical Philology 79.1: 28–32. —— (1993), “On the Interpretation of a Poem of Anacreon,” Illinois Classical Studies 18: 39–47. Romagnoli, E. (1933), I poeti lirici (vol. 3.), Bologna: Zanichelli. Rosenmeyer, P.A. (2004), “Girls at Play in Early Greek Poetry,” American Journal of Philology 125.2: 163–78. Rozokoki, A. (2006), Ἀνακρέων, Athens: Ακαδημία Αθηνών. Sharpe, M. (2010), “Uncovering Euthyphro’s Treasure: Reading Plato’s Euthyphro with Lacan,” Helios 37.1: 23–48. Smyth, H.W. (1900), Greek Melic Poets, New York: Macmillan. Snell, B. (1953), The Discovery of the Mind, trans. T.G. Rosenmeyer, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

64  T.H.M. Gellar-Goad Spelman, C.C. (1999), “Propertius 2.3: The Chaos of Desire,” Arethusa 32.1: 123–44. Trzaskoma, S.M. (1998), “Anacreon’s Lesbian Girl: An Idiotic Suggestion Revived,” Classical Association of the Middle West and South conference paper, Charlottesville. Tsagarakis, O. (1977), Self-Expression in Early Greek Lyric, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. Tsomis, G. (2001), Zusammenschau der frühgriechischen monodischen Melik (Alkaios, Sappho, Anakreon) (Palingenesia 52), Stuttgart: Steiner. Urios-Aparisi, E. (1993), “Anacreon: Love and Poetry (On 358 PMG, 13 Gent.),” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica New Series 44 [73]: 51–70. Vazquez, A. (2014), “The Girl from Lesbos: A Metapoetic Reading of Anacreon 358 PMG,” Classical Association of the Canadian West/Classical Association of the Pacific Northwest conference paper, Vancouver. Vox, O. (1990), Studi anacreonti («le Rane» Collana di Studi e Testi 6), Bari: Levante. West, M.L. (1970), “Melica,” Classical Quarterly New Series 20: 205–15. —— (1982), Greek Metre, Oxford: Oxford University Press. White, H. (2011), “Anacreon’s Two κόμαι,” Veleia 28: 281. Wigodsky, M. (1962), “Anacreon and the Girl from Lesbos,” Classical Philology 57: 109. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. (1913), Sappho und Simonides: Untersuchungen über griechische Lyriker, Berlin: Weidmann. Williamson, M. (1996), “Sappho and the Other Woman,” in E. Greene (ed.), Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 248–64. —— (1998), “Eros the Blacksmith: Performing Masculinity in Anakreon’s Love Lyrics,” in L. Foxhall and J. Salmon (eds.), Thinking Men: Masculinity and Self-representation in the Classical Tradition, London/New York: Routledge, pp. 71–82. Wirth, G. (1964), “Anacreon 5D,” in Miscellanea Critica 1, Leipzig: Teubner, pp. 295–306. Woodbury, L.E. (1991 [1979]), “Gold Hair and Grey, or The Game of Love: Anacreon fr. 13: (358) PMG = 13 Gentili,” in Collected Writings, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 325–34.

4 Reality, illusion, or both? Cloud-women in Stesichorus and Pindar Arum Park

Cloud-cover appears frequently in classical mythology as a means of obfuscation: for example, in the Iliad Aphrodite rescues Paris from his duel with Menelaus, having “covered him with thick mist” (ἐκάλυψε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἠέρι πολλῇ,1 3.381), and Zeus similarly tells Hera he will enfold her in a cloud of gold (νέφος ἀμφικαλύψω | χρύσεον, 14.343–4), lest any of the other gods see them while they make love. The use of cloud-cover for concealment is related to the construction of imitative resemblances from clouds, such as in Book 10 of Vergil’s Aeneid, where Juno creates a false Aeneas to battle Turnus (tum dea nube caua tenuem sine uiribus umbram | in faciem Aeneae,2 “Then from a hollow cloud the goddess [makes] a thin shade in the appearance of Aeneas,” 10.636–7). This fabrication is modeled after Apollo’s false Aeneas who fights Diomedes in Book 5 of the Iliad: αὐτὰρ ὁ εἴδωλον τεῦξ᾽ ἀργυρότοξος Ἀπόλλων | αὐτῷ τ᾽ Αἰνείᾳ ἴκελον καὶ τεύχεσι τοῖον (“But Apollo of the silver bow fashioned a phantom likeness to Aeneas, and a similar likeness to his armor,” 5.449–50; Harrison 1991: 227). The Vergilian phantom, which is explicitly constructed of clouds, helps us understand its Homeric predecessor as cloud-like in its ephemerality.3 Elsewhere the appearance of eidola are similarly suggestive of pale imitation. In Iliad 23 when the shade of Patroclus appears to Achilles, it speaks of the other shades of the dead as eidola (εἴδωλα καμόντων, 72), phantoms or the diminished remnants of the once living. In each of these instances, the ephemera of cloud-cover or cloud-apparitions have no real tangibility or sensibility. Even Vergil’s Aeneas-cloud, which is rather more elaborate and more agentive than its Homeric model, is explicitly described as a vapid mere imitation concocted by Juno. This pseudo-Aeneas speaks “empty words” (inania uerba, 639), has a “voice without mind” (sine mente sonum, 640), and resembles the shades of the dead or the apparitions of a dream (morte obita qualis fama est uolitare figuras | aut quae sopitos deludunt somnia sensus, “like such figures that they say flit about after death, or dreams that mock our senses in sleep,” 641–2); it disappears as soon as it accomplishes its purpose of luring Turnus away from the battlefield (huc sese trepida Aeneae fugientis imago | conicit in latebras, “here the fearful image of fleeing Aeneas throws itself into hiding,” 656–7).

66  Arum Park But the phenomenon of the cloud-apparition is taken up more elaborately with two distinct female figures from Archaic Greek poetry, who have much more agency than their cloud colleagues. Stesichorus, whose famous Palinode begins the alternate version of Helen’s myth, supposedly loses his sight for telling the traditional story of Helen’s departure to Troy and regains it after recanting4 and providing the “true” account, which posits that a phantom-Helen traveled to Troy in place of the real one, who actually spent the duration of the Trojan War in Egypt.5 Pindar similarly tells of a female cloud-figure in Pythian 2.35–43, where Zeus fashions a false Hera from a cloud to deceive and seduce Ixion. Each of these poets depicts a female figure posing as a “real” one, and through various actions of her own, she significantly affects the outcome of the narrative of which she is a part. With such influential agency, then, the Helen-phantom and the Hera-cloud are in a class apart from these other cloud-apparitions.6 In this essay, I will explore this particular class of cloud-figures represented by phantom-Helen and pseudoHera and the implications for resemblance and reality inherent in their stories. The text of the Palinode is preserved only—and only partially—in Plato’s Phaedrus (243a2–b3): ἔστιν δὲ τοῖς ἁμαρτάνουσι περὶ μυθολογίαν καθαρμὸς ἀρχαῖος, ὃν Ὅμηρος μὲν οὐκ ᾔσθετο, Στησίχορος δέ. τῶν γὰρ ὀμμάτων στερηθεὶς διὰ τὴν Ἑλένης κακηγορίαν οὐκ ἠγνόησεν ὥσπερ Ὅμηρος, ἀλλ᾽ ἅτε μουσικὸς ὢν ἔγνω τὴν αἰτίαν, καὶ ποιεῖ εὐθὺς— Οὐκ ἔστ᾽ ἔτυμος λόγος οὗτος, οὐδ᾽ ἔβας ἐν νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις, οὐδ᾽ ἵκεο Πέργαμα Τροίας· καὶ ποιήσας δὴ πᾶσαν τὴν καλουμένην Παλινῳδίαν παραχρῆμα ἀνέβλεψεν.7 For those who err in story-telling, there is an ancient purification, which Homer did not understand, but Stesichorus did. For robbed of his eyes because of his slander of Helen, he did not fail to recognize the reason, as Homer did, but since he was a lyric poet he understood and he immediately wrote: This is not a true story. Neither did you embark on the well-benched ships, Nor did you come to the high towers of Troy. And after completing all of the so-called Palinode [i.e., recantation], he recovered his sight on the spot. The tradition of Stesichorus’ blindness and re-sightedness is repeated in Isocrates’ Helen 64:8 ἐνεδείξατο δὲ καὶ Στησιχόρῳ τῷ ποιητῇ τὴν αὑτῆς δύναμιν· ὅτε μὲν γὰρ ἀρχόμενος τῆς ᾠδῆς ἐβλασφήμησέν τι περὶ αὐτῆς, ἀνέστη τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν ἐστερημένος, ἐπειδὴ δὲ γνοὺς τὴν αἰτίαν τῆς συμφορᾶς τὴν καλουμένην παλινῳδίαν ἐποίησεν, πάλιν αὐτὸν εἰς τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν κατέστησεν.

Reality, illusion, or both?  67 [Helen] showed her own power to the poet Stesichorus also: for when he slandered her at the beginning of his ode, he rose up, deprived of his eyesight, but when he recognized the cause of his misfortune, he composed the so-called Palinode, and she brought him back to his previous state.9 What we have of the Palinode itself consists of the three lines from the Phaedrus, which merely deny Helen’s presence in Troy and say nothing about what actually did happen. But other evidence surrounding the tradition of the Palinode reveals further that a semblance of Helen appeared in Troy. Plato’s Republic tells us that according to Stesichorus, the Trojan War heroes battled over Helen’s likeness, mistaking her for the real thing (τὸ τῆς Ἑλένης εἴδωλον ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Τροίᾳ Στησίχορός φησι γενέσθαι περιμάχητον ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς, “Stesichorus says that the phantom of Helen was fought over by those in Troy, in their ignorance of the truth,” 9.586c3–510). A papyrus fragment from a commentary on the lyric poets attributes two Palinodes to Stesichorus, faulting Homer and Hesiod, respectively, for placing the real Helen and not just her likeness in Troy (PMG 193 = P. Oxy. 2506 fr. 26 col. i).11 The interpretation of these lines and the tradition surrounding them has been difficult because of their fragmentary nature and their unknown performance context. Some ancient sources assume a sincere religious experience on Stesichorus’ part: Stesichorus spoke these lines as part of a truthful, autobiographical report of his actual loss and regaining of sight, which he attributes to his poems about Helen; but of course, this interpretation is not credible.12 Furthermore, the Isocrates passage suggests that the slander of Helen and its recantation—expressed in the three surviving lines of the Palinode—actually occurred within the same poem, thus suggesting that the blindness/re-sightedness was performative rather than actual.13 Modern scholars, whether or not they accept the argument that the Palinode was part of a longer poem that included the initial slander of Helen, generally agree, of course, that the stories about Stesichorus’ sight are not to be taken literally. Rather, the performative claim of blindness and recovery presents Stesichorus in competition with Homer and makes each authors of parallel traditions about Helen. E.L. Bowie presents “the explanation most often given, that his Spartan patrons had indicated their displeasure at his earlier poem’s defamation of Helen” as “curious” at best and proposes instead that “the real motive for change was artistic”—the poet desired innovation (Bowie 1993: 25–6). As Louise Pratt says, “The recantation, though it poses as self-correction, is primarily intended to discredit Homer’s version and to prepare the way for an alternate account” (Pratt 1993: 134). Norman Austin too notes that Stesichorus is the first poet on record to propose a wholesale revision of a myth canonized in epic (Austin 1994: 3). The variation in the traditions surrounding Helen is particularly apt for a character who herself recognizes that “her function is . . . to be first and foremost a story” (Austin 1994: 1). In addition to its innately competitive nature, Stesichorus’ Palinode has generated scholarly questions about poetic truth and truthfulness and what it means to have these alternate traditions about Helen’s whereabouts during the

68  Arum Park Trojan War. Gregory Nagy, for example, has argued for a distinction between Stesichorus’ local focus and the Panhellenic traditions of Homeric epic, an argument that Alexander Beecroft’s close reading of the Palinode supports (Nagy 1990: 421–2; Beecroft 2006). Karen Bassi has identified a gendered element to the Palinode’s competitive assertions of veracity: by denying the epic tradition, the Palinode paradoxically serves also to reaffirm it, and this ambiguously undermining and reinforcing position parallels the ambiguity of women like Helen, whose culpability is both denied and reaffirmed by the Palinode (Bassi 1993: esp. 51–2). This brief poetic fragment has generated so much interest because of the complex relationship between poetry and truth that it prompts us to ponder. It reveals a duality—perhaps even multiplicity—of poetic truths. Although ostensibly refuting the traditional, better-known version, the Palinode nonetheless suggests some truth to it simply by mentioning it and invoking its imagery: the “well-benched ships” (νηυσὶν εὐσέλμοις) echo Homer’s language and evoke its contexts, such as the myriad ships launched by the awesome, incomprehensible beauty of Helen (and listed in Homer’s famous catalogue, Iliad 2.494–759). Likewise, the image of the “high towers of Troy” (Πέργαμα Τροίας) calls to mind the Teichoscopia, Helen’s description of each of the Greek leaders as she and Priam view them from Troy’s high walls (Iliad 3.178–242). Inscribed in its “discourse of denial” (Bassi 1993) is such familiar Homeric language that the Palinode almost verifies Homeric epic if only as a function of its familiarity. Even the word “this” (οὗτος) situates us within the linguistic world of Homer’s catalogue of ships or his Teichoscopia, as Beecroft has argued (Beecroft 2006: 49–50, following Bakker 1999). The traditional version feels true to us simply because we so immediately recognize the story the images evoke. Furthermore, as Pratt notes, both Isocrates and Plato suggest that Stesichorus’ blindness results not so much from telling something factually inaccurate but rather from slandering or blaspheming Helen (Pratt 1993: 136). By this reasoning, the traditional account is not necessarily untrue, just unflattering. Yet at the same time the Palinode forces us to acknowledge the alternate reality of the Helen-Egypt story, thus presenting both versions at once.14 Rather than taking a strictly discrediting position, the Palinode juxtaposes two versions, perhaps to reflect their respective target audiences, local and Panhellenic.15 Further, its repudiation of Homer is not equivalent to an eradication. As Austin notes, “Helen was pleased with [Stesichorus’] revision . . . but her pleasure and her powerful intervention in composing the new plot could not erase the old plot that the Greeks had inherited from the Homeric tradition.”16 In any case, Stesichorus’ alternative version—purportedly the “true” one—cannot exist except in relation to the better-known version of Homer. The traditional version, then, benefits from the alternative version, which perpetuates and thus reinforces the continued telling of Homeric epic; conversely, if Stesichorus’ lesser-known version actually is demonstrably true, it must also continue to be told, as the Palinode implies. The two versions are intertwined, then, dependent on one another for survival. So, what exactly is true? Stesichorus’ claim that this Helen was a false one seems to offer a corrective only of this detail in Homer’s account and does not

Reality, illusion, or both?  69 seek to discredit the Trojan War tradition wholesale. His claim is not that the Trojan War as Homer told it never happened; rather, Stesichorus picks only one element of the traditional Homeric version to repudiate.17 The previous quotation from Plato’s Republic18 suggests that by Stesichorus’ reckoning, the rest of the Homeric tradition is valid: the Greeks and Trojans really did fight in a grievous, decade-long war over a woman, a war that destroyed the city of Troy. The assertions of the Palinode juxtaposed against the continued primacy of Homer suggest that the distinction between truth and falsehood, reality and resemblance, is a fraught one at best. Even without Stesichorus’ help, Homer’s Helen uniquely occupies a liminal, undefined space between real and unreal, as we see in the opening to the Teichoscopia (Iliad 3.156–60): οὐ νέμεσις Τρῶας καὶ ἐϋκνήμιδας Ἀχαιοὺς τοιῇδ᾽ ἀμφὶ γυναικὶ πολὺν χρόνον ἄλγεα πάσχειν· αἰνῶς ἀθανάτῃσι θεῇς εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν· ἀλλὰ καὶ ὧς τοίη περ ἐοῦσ᾽ ἐν νηυσὶ νεέσθω, μηδ᾽ ἡμῖν τεκέεσσί τ᾽ ὀπίσσω πῆμα λίποιτο. No blame on the Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans for long suffering ills over such a woman: she is strikingly like the immortal goddesses in appearance. But even though she is such a woman, let her sail back in the ships and not be left here as a bane to us and our children after us. As the Trojans murmur in awe over Helen’s appearance, they compare her to the gods and specifically remark on this comparison in terms of appearance or likeness (εἰς ὦπα ἔοικεν, 158),19 making Helen a bit of a mirage. As Ruby Blondell writes (2013: 118–19): . . . the beautiful Helen is herself an illusion, insofar as she embodies not a real woman but an idea—the idea of the most beautiful woman in the world. There is a sense, then, in which even the ‘real’ Helen is essentially an eidolon, since she stands for something that no flesh-and-blood woman can ever be. Even so, Helen retains the characteristics of real influence in her degree of agency and in the degree to which she is depicted as a sentient being. The Homeric narrator focalizes through Helen on more than one occasion, for example, when he describes her longing for her previous life in Greece (Iliad 3.139–40) or her bitter recognition of Aphrodite in disguise as an old woman (3.395–8). Stesichorus, in not denying the totality of the Homeric tradition, implicitly recognizes the veracity of phantom-Helen’s sentience,20 even as he denies the reality of her being itself. Thus, even the false Helen has some ties to reality or real experience. The vexed question of her realness, however, could explain why even in Homer, where she is not explicitly an eidolon, Helen is frustratingly passive: she often expresses displeasure at the course of her life but is either unable or unwilling to alter it.21

70  Arum Park So, even within Homer there is a duality to Helen, which is magnified and sharpened by Stesichorus’ assertion of two Helens, one a mere phantom of the other. But both Helens could be said to be “real” in that they are both agents of consequence. As a result of Helen’s presence—phantom or not—in Troy, the Greeks and Trojans fight mercilessly against one another. When Stesichorus denies the reality of Homer’s Helen but acknowledges the rest of the Homeric epic tradition as valid, the implication is that very real consequences—namely, the Trojan War—can result from a mere illusion. Thus, the nature of the Helen who appears at Troy, whether she is real or illusory, becomes irrelevant, given the sheer scope of the destruction she has caused. Euripides himself makes this point, as Austin notes (1994: 9): The most interesting aspect [of Euripides’ Helen] is that Euripides has made Helen the protagonist, a woman compelled to confront her own ontological ambiguity, represented by the eidolon that impersonated her at Troy and wielded so much more power than Helen could ever hope to wield, though the eidolon was but a ghost, while Helen was the daughter of Zeus. The consequences cross the bounds of myth and affect the poet as well, who purportedly experiences the palpable effects of telling either version. He loses his sight for repeating the Homeric version and regains it when he recants. Just like the characters within the myth who interact with Helen or her phantom, the poet experiences (or claims to experience) very real consequences for choosing one or the other version of the myth. Such a parallel between poet and characters suggests a certain permeability to myth, as there are no clear demarcations between it and the external reality of the poets who tell myths. This parallel also manifests in the respective reputations of the poet and the characters: the long-lasting reputation of the Palinode and its poet mirrors the enduring nature of stories about Helen. For both the Palinode and the character of Helen, reputation is key. Just as the Palinode’s revisionist repudiation of the Homeric tradition outlived the Palinode itself,22 so too does the mystique surrounding Helen eclipse the actual details of her story. Here we have the resemblance-reality relationship on full display and interrogated, for we see that the particulars of the reality of Helen are of secondary importance to the general enigma of Helen herself. The importance of Helen—Homeric or Stesichorean—stems from her reputation, what people say of her and their choice to speak of her at all, rather than from anything she actually did. The details of her story become less significant than the sheer perpetuation of her story. As the variations of the Helen-myth multiply, what is “true” becomes less interesting than the very multiplicity of narrative representations—the resemblances overshadow the original reality they purport to ape. In this way, reality becomes indistinguishable from its resemblance, as myth and consequence, poem and afterlife, poet and subject blur together. A similar phenomenon occurs with the second cloud-woman of this essay, the phantom-Hera of the Ixion-myth, as related by Pindar. In general, Pindar and Stesichorus make a natural pair for discussion since, as Gregory Nagy has argued,

Reality, illusion, or both?  71 Stesichorus’ poetry bears close relation to Pindar’s in terms of their formal similarities, their thematic affinities, and their respective relationships to Homer and the epic tradition (see Nagy 1990: 418–28). The specific examples of their cloud-women show both poets employing a similar female figure to represent the origin and exemplar of an alternate tradition.23 The Pindaric cloud-woman appears in Pythian 2.21–48: θεῶν δ᾽ ἐφετμαῖς Ἰξίονα φαντὶ ταῦτα βροτοῖς λέγειν ἐν πτερόεντι τροχῷ παντᾷ κυλινδόμενον· τὸν εὐεργέταν ἀγαναῖς ἀμοιβαῖς ἐποιχομένους τίνεσθαι. ἔμαθε δὲ σαφές. εὐμενέσσι γὰρ παρὰ Κρονίδαις γλυκὺν ἑλὼν βίοτον, μακρὸν οὐχ ὑπέμεινεν ὄλβον, μαινομέναις φρασίν Ἥρας ὅτ᾽ ἐράσσατο, τὰν Διὸς εὐναὶ λάχον πολυγαθέες· ἀλλά νιν ὕβρις εἰς ἀυάταν ὑπεράφανον ὦρσεν· τάχα δὲ παθὼν ἐοικότ᾽ ἀνήρ ἐξαίρετον ἕλε μόχθον. αἱ δύο δ᾽ ἀμπλακίαι φερέπονοι τελέθοντι· τὸ μὲν ἥρως ὅτι ἐμφύλιον αἷμα πρώτιστος οὐκ ἄτερ τέχνας ἐπέμειξε θνατοῖς, ὅτι τε μεγαλοκευθέεσσιν ἔν ποτε θαλάμοις Διὸς ἄκοιτιν ἐπειρᾶτο. χρὴ δὲ κατ᾽ αὐτὸν αἰεὶ παντὸς ὁρᾶν μέτρον. εὐναὶ δὲ παράτροποι ἐς κακότατ᾽ ἀθρόαν ἔβαλον· ποτὶ καὶ τὸν ἵκοντ᾽· ἐπεὶ νεφέλᾳ παρελέξατο ψεῦδος γλυκὺ μεθέπων ἄιδρις ἀνήρ· εἶδος γὰρ ὑπεροχωτάτᾳ πρέπεν Οὐρανιᾶν θυγατέρι Κρόνου· ἅντε δόλον αὐτῷ θέσαν Ζηνὸς παλάμαι, καλὸν πῆμα. τὸν δὲ τετράκναμον ἔπραξε δεσμόν ἑὸν ὄλεθρον ὅγ᾽· ἐν δ᾽ ἀφύκτοισι γυιοπέδαις πεσὼν τὰν πολύκοινον ἀνδέξατ᾽ ἀγγελίαν. ἄνευ οἱ Χαρίτων τέκεν γόνον ὑπερφίαλον μόνα καὶ μόνον οὔτ᾽ ἐν ἀνδράσι γερασφόρον οὔτ᾽ ἐν θεῶν νόμοις· τὸν ὀνύμαζε τράφοισα Κένταυρον, ὅς ἵπποισι Μαγνητίδεσσιν ἐμείγνυτ᾽ ἐν Παλίου σφυροῖς, ἐκ δ᾽ ἐγένοντο στρατός θαυμαστός, ἀμφοτέροις ὁμοῖοι τοκεῦσι, τὰ ματρόθεν μὲν κάτω, τὰ δ᾽ ὕπερθε πατρός.24 They say that by the gods’ orders Ixion says these things to mortals while being whirled in every direction on his winged wheel: “Approach your bene­ factor and repay him with gentle deeds in return.” He learned a clear lesson. For after winning a sweet life among Cronus’ kindly children, he did not sustain his prosperity long when with his wits crazed he fell in love with Hera, whom Zeus’s joyous marriage-bed possessed. But insolence drove him to arrogant delusion, and quickly suffering fitting things, the man won a singular hardship. His two sins cause hardship: one, that he was the first hero to mix

72  Arum Park mortals with family-blood, not without cunning; the other, because once in her capacious chambers he made an attempt on Zeus’s wife. One must always see the measure of everything according to his own station. Illicit acts of love cast one into complete misery; they came upon him too, because he lay with a cloud, a man unwittingly chasing a sweet lie, for in appearance she was like the most prominent of the heavenly goddesses, the daughter of Cronus, which the devices of Zeus set as a trap, a beautiful bane. This man made that four-spoked bond his own destruction. After falling into inescapable fetters, he received this general message. Without the Graces, that unique woman bore a unique child, who was monstrous and honored neither among men nor in the customs of the gods. She who raised him called him Centaurus. He mated with Magnesian mares in the foothills of Mt. Pelion, and from them was born the wondrous band, similar to both parents, their mother’s features below, their father’s above. Pindar makes reference to Ixion’s two crimes of murder and attempted rape. The first is a vague reference to Ixion murdering his father-in-law for trying to collect the bride-gifts Ixion had falsely promised. This crime is the first instance of kinmurder. According to the scholia to Pindar and Aeschylus’ Eumenides (717–18), Zeus grants purification and even invites Ixion into his home, where the opportunity for a second crime, the attempted rape of Hera, is born. Ixion abuses the privilege of living among the gods and pays the penalty of being duped by a mere image of the thing he covets. The coupling of Ixion and this false cloud results in a son named Centaurus, who becomes the eponymous father of the half-man, half-horse creatures famous from mythology.25 Scholars have largely focused on Pindar’s depiction of the perversion of exchange relationships between Ixion and Zeus, and what this perversion reveals about social institutions of reciprocity and the relationship between god and man. As Glenn Most observes, the Ixion-myth follows a “series of positive examples which illustrate various manifestations of the relation of χάρις,” yet the Ixion myth itself “is one of the most prominent mythic instances of an absence of χάρις” (1985: 76). In a similar vein, Marcel Detienne discusses the various episodes of Ixion’s myth, from his kin-killing to his coupling with pseudo-Hera, which depict Ixion emerging “as a destroyer of the social order through his systematic negation of marriage, his excessive practice of seduction and his denial of charis which goes along with his abuse of peithṓ” (1994: 86). Indeed, Ixion’s tale seems to function as a cautionary example of perversions of social institutions that occur when respectful reciprocity is not observed. But as with Stesichorus’ Helen-phantom, this myth incorporates a cloudwoman who demonstrates the fraught distinction between truth and falsehood by initiating an illusion-based reality. Embedded within the myth of Ixion, the Hera-cloud represents Zeus’s retributive deception for Ixion’s attempted rape of Hera, a lesser substitute for the real thing that Ixion so desired. She is both an act of deception and an act of retribution on the part of Zeus, who tailors the Hera-cloud to Ixion’s specific crimes. As a “lie” (ψεῦδος, 37), the Hera-cloud

Reality, illusion, or both?  73 answers the “cunning” (τέχνας, 32) with which he committed murder. This cloud is doubly punitive in that she corresponds to both his guile-infused murder and to his unrelenting lust. As Detienne notes, this punishment suits Ixion’s “excessive practice of seduction,” which is tied to his excessive employment of persuasion (peithṓ). Detienne further observes that Ixion and the Hera-cloud’s offspring perpetuates Ixion’s withholding of charis: “The fruit of this union devoid of charis, love or any exchange is a monstrous being, Kéntauros who is held in horror by gods and men alike” (1994: 87). Ixion himself understands his crime to be one against his host, as his admonition to “repay your benefactor” (τὸν εὐεργέταν . . . τίνεσθαι, 24), coupled with the ode’s focus on his crime against Zeus, suggests. The role of the Hera-cloud within this narrative of aborted charis is worth examining. Like phantom-Helen, pseudo-Hera has a degree of agency not afforded their cloud colleagues that allows her to straddle the line between real and unreal. Even her very role as a supposed punishment demonstrates this agency, as she engages with Ixion in a way that hardly seems punitive and is perhaps even enjoyable for her (definitely so for him). While she uniquely fits Ixion’s crimes of violent lust and lack of charis, she does not actually put a halt to his criminal behaviors: rather than alluring him with her resemblance to Hera and then immediately dissipating as he tries to consummate a physical relationship with her, she does not deprive him of but actually provides for him a channel for his lust. Granted, he does not have access to the real Hera, the original object of his wrongful affection. But he is nevertheless given a conduit for his desire in something almost as good and undetectably different from the real thing. He does not even realize (ἄιδρις, “unwitting,” 37) that he has been misled by a mere semblance of the object of his desire, indeed finding it “sweet” (γλυκύ, 37). His offspring suffers a lack of charis and the shunning of the rest of the gods, but Ixion himself does not suffer until he dies and goes to the Underworld, where he is affixed to his wheel of eternal torment. Even then, his regret seems to be for attempting to seduce the real Hera, not for successfully seducing the false one. There are numerous similarities between phantom-Helen and pseudo-Hera. Froma Zeitlin notes that both were created “in an erotic setting and with the purpose of foiling an attempt at unlawful possession [i.e., the Helen-cloud foils Paris’ unlawful abduction while the Hera-cloud foils Ixion’s]” (Zeitin 1996: 406–7). Both are designed to resemble real, corporeal beings, and the vocabulary describing them is similar: Plato refers to Stesichorus’ Helen-cloud as a “phantom” (εἴδωλον, Resp. 9.586c), using a word etymologically related to Pindar’s term for the Hera-cloud (εἶδος, Pyth. 2.38); both terms emphasize the likeness of these cloud-women to something else.26 Furthermore, each cloud-woman is surrounded by the language of truth and falsehood, which signals their origins as deceptive likenesses. Stesichorus’ Helen-cloud is embedded within a narrative that emphasizes the falsity of the traditional account, while the Hera-cloud is referred to as a pseudos, a “lie,” which points to her origins as a fabrication meant to deceive. Yet despite her fictive origins, each cloud-woman is able to effect real consequences, whether instigating the Trojan War and its aftermath or

74  Arum Park fostering a line of descendants who become essential to the fabric of Greek myth. In both the Pindaric and Stesichorean examples, reality and its resemblance are so interwoven as to become indistinguishable. With their cloud-women, both poets draw attention to the blurring of reality and its resemblance and make the point that even illusion can yield and shape a (new) reality, that illusion, in a sense, becomes reality. Finally, each is the creation of someone else. In the case of the Hera-cloud, Zeus is the author of this deception. With the phantom Helen, it is more difficult to identify her mythic creator, but she can at least be considered an invention of poets.27 Whether phantom-Helen’s creator lies within or without myth prompts consideration of how clear this very distinction between myth and its external reality is, again revealing the interchangeability between reality and its resemblance that I discussed above. What is supposedly a mere illusion nevertheless gives rise to very real consequences, not only for characters within the myth but for the poet too. Perhaps the most telling similarity between the Helen- and Hera-clouds is the reality of the consequences each effects. An implication of this resemblance-reality obfuscation concerns poetry itself: the cloud-women stories reveal the potential role of illusion and deception as origins of reality—a revelation that can apply to the relationship between poetry and myth, where creative innovation and truthful reflection are in a constant balancing act with one another. In some ways, the preservation of the Helen-cloud story is more telling than the original poem would have been, for in the contexts preserving the Palinode, the Helen-cloud tradition serves to contrast Stesichorus with Homer and to make a point more about the purpose and ramifications of poetry than anything else. Even though the Stesichorean version may be “true,” it has a fictive quality since Stesichorus, as the only known original teller of this Helen-cloud tradition, essentially becomes its author and creator. And through the creation of the Helencloud, Stesichorus crafts a new reality for himself, one in which he is not blind. Presumably, this is what causes Homer’s blindness too—the perpetuation of a false myth that places Helen, instead of her cloud, at Troy. Thus, it seems that real ramifications can result, not just for the characters within the myth who interact with the Helen-cloud, but for the poets external to the myth who create her. So, too, in the context of Pindar’s very self-conscious poetry, Ixion and the poet become interconnected. Glenn Most has discussed the points of correspondence between the Ixion-myth and the outer praise narrative of Pythian 2 in which the myth is embedded (1985: 77–8), pointing out that both concern themselves with proper observation of charis. The object of Pindar’s praise in this poem is Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, who, as Pindar tells us, has earned the gratitude of the Locrians for protecting them in war, a gratitude that is similar to the gratitude of the mythical Cyprian king Cinyras to Apollo (15–20).28 As Most writes, “the message which the listener is intended to learn from the myth is identical with that which Pindar has already affirmed with reference to the Cyprians and the maiden of Locri Epizephyrii—in a certain sense, the ἀγγελία of Ixion (41) and the ἀγγελία of Pindar (4) are one and the same” (1985: 78).

Reality, illusion, or both?  75 This interchangeability between fiction and reality and between poetry and its subject has very much to do with the nebulousness of female speech and agency, which can be traced back to Hesiod’s Muses in the prologue to the Theogony (26–32): “ποιμένες ἄγραυλοι, κάκ᾽ ἐλέγχεα, γαστέρες οἶον, ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, ἴδμεν δ᾽, εὖτ᾽ ἐθέλωμεν, ἀληθέα γηρύσασθαι.” ὣς ἔφασαν κοῦραι μεγάλου Διὸς ἀρτιέπειαι· καί μοι σκῆπτρον ἔδον, δάφνης ἐριθηλέος ὄζον δρέψασαι θηητόν· ἐνέπνευσαν δέ μοι αὐδὴν θέσπιν . . . 29 “Agrarian shepherds, wretched disgraces, mere bellies, we know how to speak lies like true things, and we know, when we wish, how to speak true things.” So the daughters of great Zeus, with their quick voices, spoke. And they gave me a staff, a branch of flourishing laurel, marvelous to look at; and they breathed a divine voice into me . . . In the words of Ann Bergren, this prologue “introduces the relation between language and the female in early Greek thought: a male author ascribes a kind of speech to a female and then makes it his own” (2008: 13). The Muses present themselves as both truth-speakers and truth-dissemblers. As Bergren says, “These two modes of the Muses’ discourse parallel the two kinds of speech attributed to women throughout Greek tradition . . . we see a degree of knowledge attributed to the female that results in a capacity for double speech, for both truth and the imitation of truth, a paradoxical speech hopelessly ambiguous to anyone whose knowledge is less than the speaker’s” (2008: 15). This power to channel truth and falsehood indiscriminately is appropriated by the male poet (Bergren 2008: 15): Thanks to the Muses’ inspiration, the poet acquires their capacity for knowledge and speech. Such appropriation by the male of what he attributes to the female persists throughout Greek literature. What varies, as we shall see, is the degree to which he attempts to demote, divide, or expel the “female” at the same time as he takes on her powers, and then to proceed as if they had always been his own. The poet-Muse relationship becomes circular since, through the poet’s narration, these female Muses become the poet’s creation even as they continue to be the source of the words he speaks. The Helen- and Hera-eidola represent fictive beings in a similar but converse vein. The Muses, formerly autonomous, become, through Hesiod’s description of them and his appropriation of their powers, the creations of the poet and thus change from creative beings in their own right to creations of someone else. The Helen- and Hera-clouds change in the opposite direction: originally created by someone else, they nevertheless have their own creative capacities. They are

76  Arum Park fictive beings both in the sense of being creations and being creative. Indeed, the Helen of Homer, as phantasmic as Stesichorus may claim she is, nevertheless serves her own creative purposes. Bergren, following the scholiast on Iliad 3.121–8, where Helen is introduced as weaving an image of the conflict between the Greeks and Trojans, likens her creative role to the poet’s (2008: 23), as does Zeitlin (1996: 409). This image of her is consistent with the Helen of the Odyssey, in which Helen drugs Menelaus, Telemachus, and Peisistratus and tells them she will tell them “fitting” (ἐοικότα, 4.239)—but not necessary true—things.30 The Hera-cloud, too, has a creative role in that she bears a son and ultimately is ancestress to the Centaurs. Female figures, whether phantom or not, create realities that are just as consequential as the original models they were created to emulate. Furthermore, all characters in poetry, male and female alike, are creations of the poet, yet aside from the male characters specifically performing the duties of the bard (e.g., Phemius or Demodocus in the Odyssey), it is female characters like Homer’s Helen or Hesiod’s Muses who serve the additional role of mimicking the creative role of poets. The cloud-women of this essay, who are created for the very purpose of being fake, nevertheless through their nebulous yet consequential agency, call attention to this imitative function of female characters and their fraught relationship to their male poets, and constantly unsettle the distinction between illusion and truth, resemblance and reality.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to Mary Pendergraft for reading and commenting on a draft of this essay; to Routledge’s anonymous referee for suggesting I write about lyric poetry for this volume; and of course, to Peter Smith, for encouraging me to explore the beautiful subtleties of Greek language and thought.

Notes   1 For the text of Homer’s Iliad, I use the Oxford Classical Text of David B. Munro and Thomas W. Allen; for the Odyssey, the Oxford Classical Text of Thomas W. Allen. Translations of all Greek or Latin passages are mine unless otherwise noted.   2 Quotations of Vergil are from the Oxford Classical Text of R.A.B. Mynors.   3 Harrison 1991: 226, also links the Vergilian passage with the Helen-phantom of Euripides’ Helen, which is explicitly constructed out of air (Eur., Helen 34).   4 The word palinode (παλινῳδία) itself denotes an ode recanting a previous one.   5 For the sake of simplicity, I have cleaved to just one conjecture about the content of Stesichorus’ Palinode. A lucid and thorough discussion of this rather difficult and complex issue can be found in Austin 1994: 90–117. According to a fragment of a Hellenistic commentary on the lyric poets, “Stesichorus himself says that the eidôlon went to Troy but that Helen remained with Proteus [i.e., in Egypt]” (Stesichorus fr. 193.12–16 PMG = P. Oxy. 2506, fr. 26., col. i). See Bassi 1993: 57 for the text and translation of this fragment. For further scholarship on whether Stesichorus’ Helen went to Egypt, see Bassi 1993: 56 n. 10 and Austin 1994: 7–8 and 97–9, especially 98 n. 14. The tradition of dual Helens, the real one of whom traveled to Egypt, is preserved

Reality, illusion, or both?  77 by Herodotus and Euripides. For discussions of their presentations, see Austin 1994: 118–36 and 137–203, for Herodotus and Euripides, respectively.   6 Cf. Blondell 2013: 118, who similarly observes that both the Helen- and Hera-clouds have actual physical capabilities.   7 Quoted from J. Burnet’s Oxford Classical Text.   8 It is also echoed in Conon FGH 26 F 1.18 and Pausanias 3.19.11. See Nagy 1990: 419.   9 Quoted from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. 10 Quoted from the Oxford Classical Text of S.R. Slings. 11 See Cingano 1982 for an argument in favor of two Stesichorean recantations of the Helen-story. Bowie 1993: 24–5 argues against this view. 12 Cf. Pratt 1993: 133–4. Even Woodbury 1967, who uses the Palinode as biographical evidence of the poet’s experience, understands his blindness to be metaphorical, a loss of his prophetic (rather than physical) vision. 13 Cf. Pratt 1993: 134 n. 6, and Sider 1989: 430, who argues “that the blinding is essentially to be understood as an act of theater in which Stesichorus, either alone or, more likely, in company with a body of singer-dancers, himself danced and sang as if unable to see.” Kannicht 1969 vol. 1: 28–9, argues that the slander and its recantation occurred within the same poem of Stesichorus; cf. Woodbury 1967: 168 n. 24, for additional sources in favor of this argument. Woodbury himself argues for two different poems. 14 This phenomenon of dual and simultaneous imagery is analogous to what Don Fowler (1990: 54) calls the “deviant focalization” of Vergil’s Aeneid, comparing it to the famous image of the duck-rabbit. 15 As I stated previously, some scholars have argued that the Stesichorean version stems from a local tradition whereas the traditional Homeric version reflects a Panhellenic focus. See Beecroft 2006 and Nagy 1990: 421–2. Nagy argues further that the two traditions are not necessarily in direct competition with one another: “The essence of Stesichorean lyric poetry is not that a given local version, as ordinarily formalized in the song of the chorus, has won out over the Panhellenic version, as formalized in the poetry of Homer. Rather it may be described as a local version in the process of making a bid for Panhellenic status.” 16 Austin 1994: 5 and n. 6, citing Bassi 1993: 51: “Texts that overtly deny other texts . . . are ambivalently situated within the tradition they inhabit and help to define.” See also Austin 1994: 58: in purporting to negate the Homeric Helen, the Palinode in effect “creates another Helen (or, more precisely, a look-alike Helen) to take the place of the old and, in doing so, finances its own subversion.” 17 Cf. Blondell 2013: 120: “The Palinode story changes nothing about Homer’s account of the Trojan War besides Helen’s ontological status.” 18 τὸ τῆς Ἑλένης εἴδωλον ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Τροίᾳ Στησίχορός φησι γενέσθαι περιμάχητον ἀγνοίᾳ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς (“Stesichorus says that the phantom of Helen was fought over by those in Troy, in their ignorance of the truth,” Republic 9.586c3–5). 19 Cf. Austin 1994: 9–11 on Helen’s “ontological ambiguity.” 20 Pace Blondell 2013: 120: “[The Helen-phantom] presumably looked and behaved exactly as Helen always did. If we are to believe the Palinode, none of these behaviors was—despite appearances—an expression of human agency.” 21 E.g., Iliad 3.399–420, where Helen tries and fails to defy Aphrodite’s injunction to go to Paris’ bed; Iliad 6.344–51, where she laments not dying as an infant and bemoans the fate the gods have bestowed on her. 22 Austin 1994: 5, makes this point. Cf. Blondell 2013: 119, who points out that the story about the Palinode was probably better known than the Palinode itself. 23 Both Zeitlin 1996: 406–7 and Blondell 2013: 118 also note this similarity between the Helen-phantom and the Hera-cloud. 24 Text from Maehler’s Teubner edition of Pindar.

78  Arum Park 25 See Carey 1981: 35 and Gantz 1993 vol. 2: 718–21, for a thorough summary of this myth and its various sources. 26 Blondell 2013: 118 also notes this etymological link and points out that Ibycus 282.5 uses the term eidos to refer to Helen’s beauty. 27 Cf. Blondell 2013: 121, who points out that the Palinode calls attention to poetic creation: “If the gods can construct Helens at their whim, so can Stesichorus, along with Homer and every other poet, create and re-create new Helens for purposes of his own.” 28 Race 1997: 233 n. 2: “According to the scholia, when Anaxilas of Rhegion threatened Lokroi with war (in 477), Hieron sent Chromios to tell him to stop or Hieron would attack him.” 29 Quoted from the Oxford Classical Text of F. Solmsen, R. Merkelbach and M.L. West. 30 Cf. Bergren 2008: 23–4, who discusses Helen as “both woven and the weaver of speech” in the Iliad and the Odyssey. For a discussion of the relationship between Helen’s and Menelaus’ tales in Book 4 of the Odyssey (4.240–64 and 266–89), see Zeitlin 1996: 409–10.

References Austin, N. (1994), Helen of Troy and Her Shameless Phantom, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bakker, E.J. (1999), “Homeric HOUTOS and the Poetics of Deixis,” Classical Philology 94.1: 1–19. Bassi, K. (1993), “Helen and the Discourse of Denial in Stesichorus’ Palinode,” Arethusa 26: 51–75. Beecroft, A.J. (2006), “‘This Is Not a True Story’: Stesichorus’s Palinode and the Revenge of the Epichoric,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 136: 47–69. Bergren, A. (2008), Weaving Truth: Essays on Language and the Female in Greek Thought (Hellenic Studies, 19), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Blondell, R. (2013), Helen of Troy: Beauty, Myth, Devastation, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Bowie, E.L. (1993), “Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry,” in C. Gill and T.P. Wiseman (eds.), Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World, Exeter: University of Exeter Press, pp. 1–37. Carey, C. (1981), A Commentary on Five Odes of Pindar: Pythian 2, Pythian 9, Nemean 1, Nemean 7, Isthmian 8, New York: Arno Press. Cingano, E. (1982), “Quante testimonianze sulle palinodie di Stesicoro?” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica New Series 12: 21–33. Detienne, M. (1994), The Gardens of Adonis: Spices in Greek Mythology, J. Lloyd trans., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. = ——— (1972), Les jardins d’Adonis, Paris: Gallimard. Fowler, D. (1990), “Deviant Focalisation in Vergil’s Aeneid,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 36: 42–63. Gantz, T. (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, 2 vols., Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harrison, S.J. (ed.) (1991), Vergil: Aeneid 10. With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kannicht, R. (1969), Euripides: Helena, 2 vols., Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag. Most, G.W. (1985), The Measures of Praise: Structure and Function in Pindar’s Second Pythian and Seventh Nemean Odes (Hypomnemata, 83), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Reality, illusion, or both?  79 Nagy, G. (1990), Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Pratt, L.H. (1993), Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Race, W.H. (ed. and trans.) (1997), Pindar (vol. 1) (Loeb Classical Library, 56), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sider, D. (1989), “The Blinding of Stesichorus,” Hermes 117: 423–31. Woodbury, L. (1967), “Helen and the Palinode,” Phoenix 21.3: 157–76. Zeitlin, F.I. (1996), Playing the Other: Gender and Society in Classical Greek Literature, Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.

5 Neither beast nor woman Reconstructing Callisto in Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus Keyne Cheshire

In manufacturing a tomb for Zeus, who is immortal, the Cretans confirmed their reputation as perpetual liars (ἀεὶ ψεῦσται, 8). So runs the argument of Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus (8–9). On this basis, the hymnist proceeds to reject Crete’s claim to Zeus’s birth, and locates it instead in Arcadia, on Mt. Lycaeus. Later in the hymn, Callimachus will again confront tradition, insisting that Zeus acceded to the sky not by lot, but by his own might (60–7), and declaring famously, “May I relate lies that persuade the listener’s ear!” (ψευδοίμην ἀίοντος ἅ κεν πεπίθοιεν ἀκουήν, 65). This line is, of course, inspired by the Muses’ own words at their epiphany to Hesiod in the Theogony (“We know how to tell many lies that resemble the truth,” ἴδμεν ψεύδεα πολλὰ λέγειν ἐτύμοισιν ὁμοῖα, Th. 27), and in appropriating this sentiment, Callimachus’ hymnist presents himself as a conscious constructor of a believable reality, inviting the reader to consider how and to what end this architect of the believable navigates other, less emphatic instances of traditions in conflict. In the hymn’s narrative of Zeus’s birth and bath in Arcadia (10–41), Rhea gives birth to Zeus, provides him (and herself) a miraculous bath in the then waterless region, and arranges the infant god’s delivery to a Cretan hiding place. But before turning to Crete, the narrative concludes with a positive focus on humankind; the very river that served as bath for Zeus and Rhea now provides water to contemporary Arcadians, described allusively in the account’s closing line in terms of their ancestral mother, Callisto: “the grandchildren of Lycaon’s daughter, the bear” (υἱωνοὶ . . . Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο, 41).1 This essay proposes that Callisto is in fact present in the background throughout the hymn’s Arcadian account, and that the mythical traditions surrounding her serve as vehicle for the hymn’s narrative tension and its unique construction of Zeus. Through subtle allusions across this birth narrative, the hymnist first sets Callisto in tension with Zeus’s own mother Rhea, suggesting that Rhea’s birth to Zeus on Mt. Lycaeus (10–14), and then the bath she produces there (15–32), depict a locus suited to accounts of the pregnant Callisto’s future death. With the narrative’s final lines (37–41), however, the hymnist ultimately resolves this tension, against other traditions, insisting on a Zeus who saw to the rescue of Callisto’s unborn child Arcas, and implying a Zeus who granted Callisto herself an eternal place among the stars.

Neither beast nor woman  81

Rhea’s birth-bed The hymnist begins the Arcadian narrative by describing the site of Zeus’s birth and relating a most curious prohibition against entering the sacred space (10–14): ἐν δέ σε Παρρασίῃ Ῥείη τέκεν, ἧχι μάλιστα ἔσκεν ὄρος θάμνοισι περισκεπές· ἔνθεν ὁ χῶρος ἱερός, οὐδέ τί μιν κεχρημένον Εἰλειθυίης ἑρπετὸν οὐδὲ γυνὴ ἐπιμίσγεται, ἀλλά ἑ Ῥείης ὠγύγιον καλέουσι λεχώιον Ἀπιδανῆες. In Parrhasia Rhea bore you, where the mountain was most hidden by thickets. Since then, that place is sacred, and nothing in need of Eileithyia— neither beast nor woman—approaches it, no, for the Apidaneans [Arcadians] call it Rhea’s primeval birth-bed. By including this prohibition, the hymnist appropriately magnifies the laudandus; a law permitting none but Rhea to give birth in this space ensures of course that none but Zeus will ever be born there. It is not apparent, however, why the hymnist’s prohibition should exclude not only women on the point of labor, but also parturient ἑρπετά, a word that calls all the more attention to itself for being a Homeric hapax legomenon.2 Scholars have found only approximate parallels for the peculiar prohibition. George McLennan (1977: 43) notes that women and various sorts of animals were commonly barred from sacred spaces.3 David Tandy (1979: 71) offers evidence that childbirth by women was often taboo at such sites,4 and Robert Parker (1983: 49) likewise points to the mysteries of Despoina at Lycosura, from which pregnant women and suckling mothers were excluded. None, however, has found an example of the exclusion of both parturient women and parturient animals. Susan Stephens (2003: 101–2) has offered the only literary explanation for the prohibition thus far. Reading ἑρπετόν as “snake,” she argues that the word hints at an identification of Zeus with the Egyptian god Horus, whom Seth sought to destroy in his infancy by unleashing serpents and poisonous creatures against him. But while Stephens adduces a number of other more compelling parallels between Callimachus’ account of Zeus’s birth and Egyptian traditions surrounding Horus,5 the linking of this ἑρπετόν with Seth is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, it sheds no light on the law’s exclusion of women in addition to these ἑρπετά. Second, it does not explain the emphatic rejection of the parturient; neither Seth nor the creatures he unleashed against the infant Horus were pregnant. Furthermore, while the word ἑρπετόν may certainly be used of a snake, it does not readily signify “snake” or “serpent” on its own.6 At its only occurrence in Homer, for example, ἑρπετά refers to the animal forms available to the shapeshifting Proteus (Od. 4.417–18):

82  Keyne Cheshire πάντα δὲ γιγνόμενος πειρήσεται, ὅσσ’ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἑρπετὰ γίγνονται, καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ θεσπιδαὲς πῦρ. . . . for he will try [to escape], transforming into all the creatures upon the earth, and into water and divinely kindled fire. There the word covers the whole range of creatures that move (deriving from ἕρπειν) upon the earth.7 Stephens cites the word’s use by Pindar of Typhoeus (Pyth. 1.25) and by Theocritus of the snakes that attack the infant Heracles (Id. 24.57), but neither of these contexts requires the word to denote anything more specific than “beasts that go upon the earth.”8 This of course includes snakes and other reptiles, but the word is used elsewhere of hounds (Pindar, fr. 106.3) and even insects (Semon. 13.1, Nic. fr. 74.46). Callimachus himself uses ἑρπετά of beasts of burden (fr. 659, ἑρπετὰ τῶν αἰεὶ τετρίφαται λοφιαί), of creatures that hide in their lairs (fr. 336, ἑρπετὰ δ’ ἰλυοῖσιν ἐνέκρυφεν), and in one instance apparently of all animals (fr. 192.6–7, δίκαιος ὁ [Ζε]ύς, οὐ δίκαι[α] δ̣’ αἰσυμνέ̣ω̣ν | τῶν ἑρπετῶν̣ [μ]ὲν ἐξέκοψε τὸ φθέ̣[γμα), including the dog (κυνός, 10) and the ass (ὄνου, 11), but also the parrot (πιττακοῦ, 11) and sea creatures (τῶν θάλασσαν ο̣ἰ̣ [κεύντων, 12). This essay follows Stephens in seeking a literary explanation for Callimachus’ prohibition, but proposes that, instead of Seth, the language alludes to Callisto, a figure well known for having been both beast and woman. The toponyms Lycaeus (Λυκαῖον, 4) and Parrhasia (Παρρασίῃ, 10) already hint at Callisto, the namesakes of this mountain and region being her father (Lycaon) and brother (Parrhasus), respectively. Lycaon himself later reappears in Callisto’s patronymic in the last line of the Arcadian narrative (Λυκαονίης, 41). The name Παρρασίη for its part calls attention to itself as another Homeric hapax (Il. 2.608),9 and may well on its own suggest Callisto. While Callisto is not called “Parrhasian” in Callimachus’ few extant works, she does go by Parrhasis and Parrhasis Ursa in Ovid (Met. 2.460, Heroid. 18.152), Parrhasis in Statius (Theb. 7.8),10 and Ἄρκτου Παρρασίης in Nonnus (Dion. 1.167–8), all regular re-workers of Callimachus. According to some sources, furthermore, Callisto was supposed to have violated a certain precinct of Zeus Lycaeus, located on the mountain by the same name. In fact, she appears to be the only female figure in extant literature to have done so. Ps.-Hyginus (Astr. 2.1) records a version in which, years after Artemis had transformed her into a bear, Callisto unwittingly violated the precinct, whereupon the Arcadians attempted to kill her, along with her son Arcas, who had followed her into the forbidden space. Ps.-Eratosthenes offers a nearly identical account, which he attributes to Hesiod (Cat. fr. 1 = Hesiod, fr. 163 M–W). Callimachus’ designation “Rhea’s primeval birth-bed” (13–14) is unattested elsewhere, but the hymn’s scholiasts appear to have a particular spot in mind, for they record that animals would lose their shadows on entering this sacred space, a detail that agrees with Pausanias’ description of the precinct of Zeus Lycaeus (8.38.6):11

Neither beast nor woman  83 τέμενός ἐστιν ἐν αὐτῷ Λυκαίου Διός, ἔσοδος δὲ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐς αὐτὸ ἀνθρώποις· ὑπεριδόντα δὲ τοῦ νόμου καὶ ἐσελθόντα ἀνάγκη πᾶσα αὐτὸν ἐνιαυτοῦ πρόσω μὴ βιῶναι. καὶ τάδε ἔτι ἐλέγετο, τὰ ἐντὸς τοῦ τεμένους γενόμενα ὁμοίως πάντα καὶ θηρία καὶ ἀνθρώπους οὐ παρέχεσθαι σκιάν. There is a precinct to Zeus Lycaeus on it [Mt. Lycaeus], and people are prohibited entrance into it. Anyone who disregards the law and enters must inevitably die within a year. And legend still held, too, that all things alike, including beasts and people, cast no shadow while inside the precinct. It seems certain, then, that the hymn’s scholiasts identify “Rhea’s primeval birthbed” in the hymn with this precinct of Zeus Lycaeus, the very site that Callisto (in bear form) was supposed to have violated. By expanding Pausanias’ Arcadian prohibition to include both woman and beast, the hymnist here hints at Callisto’s violation of the space. And yet, by limiting the prohibition to the parturient only (κεχρημένον Εἰλειθυίης, 12), the hymnist at the same time rejects the allegedly Hesiodic version preserved by Ps.-Hyginus and Ps.-Eratosthenes, wherein the bear Callisto violates the precinct many years after giving birth to Arcas.12 The hymnist’s rejection of a familiar tradition should come as no surprise; he has already explicitly rejected the Cretan claim to Zeus’s birth (8–9), and later in the hymn he will reject the Homeric tradition that lots won Zeus the sky as his domain (60–5). Furthermore, Callimachus himself may elsewhere even have penned a very different version of Callisto’s (near) death. The A scholion to Iliad 18.487 (= Call. fr. 632) links Callimachus to an account that has Hera turn (a presumably pregnant) Callisto into a bear and then order Artemis to shoot the beast outright.13 It is remarkable, however, that the hymnist calls this site “Rhea’s primeval birth-bed” instead of “precinct of Zeus Lycaeus,” the more familiar designation, and one well-suited to a hymn to Zeus. Callimachus is of course famous for his recondite preference for the less familiar, but in this case the chosen name contributes to the hymn’s narrative tension. Specifically, by making Rhea rather than Zeus the focus at this point in the hymn, Callimachus lays the groundwork for an opposition between Callisto and Zeus’s mother. And while the prohibition’s exclusion of the parturient marks a rejection of the “Hesiodic” account of Callisto’s trespass into the precinct, it inevitably calls to mind Callisto’s only child, Arcas, the eponymous founder of the Arcadians. This complex and highly allusive opening to the Arcadian account, then, not only opposes the mother of Zeus to the mother of the Arcadians but also proposes an opposition between Zeus and the Arcadians themselves. The hymnist will develop both of these oppositions in the catalog that follows.

Callisto in a catalog The three lines immediately following this prohibition relate succinctly the simple act of Rhea’s giving birth (15) and her subsequent search for a source of water

84  Keyne Cheshire with which to bathe herself and her infant Zeus (16–17).14 At this point, before any suitable bath site is found, the action of the narrative pauses for a catalog of rivers that ran underground at the time and were therefore unavailable for bathing (18–27): Λάδων ἀλλ’ οὔπω μέγας ἔρρεεν οὐδ’ Ἐρύμανθος, λευκότατος ποταμῶν, ἔτι δ’ ἄβροχος ἦεν ἅπασα Ἀζηνίς· μέλλεν δὲ μάλ’ εὔυδρος καλέεσθαι αὖτις· ἐπεὶ τημόσδε, Ῥέη ὅτε λύσατο μίτρην, ἦ πολλὰς ἐφύπερθε σαρωνίδας ὑγρὸς Ἰάων ἤειρεν, πολλὰς δὲ Μέλας ὤκχησεν ἁμάξας, πολλὰ δὲ Καρίωνος ἄνω διεροῦ περ ἐόντος ἰλυοὺς ἐβάλοντο κινώπετα, νίσσετο δ’ ἀνήρ πεζὸς ὑπὲρ Κρᾶθίν τε πολύστιόν τε Μετώπην διψαλέος· τὸ δὲ πολλὸν ὕδωρ ὑπὸ ποσσὶν ἔκειτο. But the great Ladon was not yet flowing, nor was the Erymanthus, clearest of rivers, for still waterless was all Azenis [Arcadia], though about to be called very well-watered thereafter, since at that time when Rhea loosened her girdle, very many hollow oaks above did the watery Iaon raise; and many wagons did the Melas carry; and many beasts, though the Carion was wet, put their lairs above it; and a person would go on foot over both the Crathis and the many-pebbled Metope thirsty, though that abundant water lay below his feet. This catalog consists of two parts. The first (18–21) establishes the situation: Arcadia was waterless. The second (21–7) clarifies through five examples (the rivers Iaon, Melas, Carion, Crathis, and Metope) that water was unavailable because all the rivers still flowed underground at the time. But the hymnist notably lists also what was above these rivers (trees, wagons, beasts, and human), providing in essence a parallel catalog that receives more attention than the rivers themselves.15 While the selection of elements might appear arbitrary and eclectic—indeed, previous scholars have not attempted to explain them as a group—the following discussion proposes that they are meant to recall Callisto’s four distinct identities in extant mythological accounts: hamadryad, constellation, bear, and woman. The catalog invites scrutiny from the outset, for its first item, σαρωνίδας (22), is a very rare word, perhaps even a Callimachean coining. It appears to refer to a type of oak; the scholia gloss it simply δρῦς, and derive the name from its split (σεσηρότα) and twisted bark. According to Ps.-Apollodorus (3.8.2), while Eumelus and others recorded that Callisto was a daughter of Lycaon, Hesiod numbered her among the nymphs.16 Ovid later appears to be drawing on this tradition when he associates her directly with the oak, numbering her among the hamadryads who followed Diana (Fasti, 2.154–6).17

Neither beast nor woman  85 The hint at Callisto grows stronger with the catalog’s second item, ἁμάξας (23). The Iliad and Odyssey record the tradition that Amaxa was another name for the constellation Arctus (Il. 18.487–9 = Od. 5.273–5): Ἄρκτόν θ᾽, ἣν καὶ Ἄμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν, ἥ τ᾽ αὐτοῦ στρέφεται καί τ᾽ Ὠρίωνα δοκεύει, οἴη δ᾽ ἄμμορός ἐστι λοετρῶν Ὠκεανοῖο. . . . and Bear, which they call also Wagon by name, that circles there and watches Orion, and alone has no share in the baths of Oceanus. There is no evidence that the Homeric tradition identified the constellation Arctus with Callisto. In fact, as McLennan (1977: 73) observes, Callimachus is the earliest poet whose extant material makes this connection, explicitly linking Callisto and Arctus in a passage that actually reworks the Homeric one above: Νωνακρίνη | Καλλιστ[ὼ λιβά]δ̣ων ἄβροχος Ὠκεαν[οῦ (“daughter of Nonacris, | Callisto, unwetted by the streams of Oceanus,” Aetia, fr. 17.9–10 Harder).18 That this Arctus/Amaxa/Callisto is bathless in both Homer and in Callimachus’ Aetia resonates intriguingly with Rhea’s own urgent need for a bath at this point in Callimachus’ hymn, heightening the contrast between the two figures. While the ἄβροχος Callisto as constellation will never bathe again, Rhea will in this hymn soon obtain a bath for herself and Zeus with remarkable ease, even in a waterless (ἄβροχος, 19) Arcadia. The last two elements of the catalog (κινώπετα and ἀνήρ, 25) recall the familiar animal and human identities of Callisto already hinted at by the prohibition against entrance into the site of Rhea’s birth-bed.19 McLennan (1977: 56), observing that Nicander uses κινώπετα of reptiles (Ther. 27, 195, 488), proposes that meaning here as well,20 but Tandy (1979: 92) rightly observes that the word, like ἑρπετόν (13), may refer to any sort of beast. The scholia agree, glossing κινώπετα as ἑρπετά and θηρία, and deriving the word from the animals’ going on the ground (κινεῖσθαι + πέδον), a derivation that readily suggests beasts of the land generally.21 Callimachus’ use of the word ἰλυούς (25) further recommends this interpretation. The hymn’s scholia gloss this φωλεούς, a term used of the lairs of a variety of animals,22 but especially (according to LSJ) of the caves in which bears hibernate. Callisto is not the primary focus of this catalog, of course; at any rate, the trees, wagons, beasts, and mortal cannot signify her in any concrete sense. With each element of the catalog, however, allusion to Callisto appears increasingly certain. The final two elements in particular, beasts and mortal, not only complete the list of hints at Callisto’s four identities (tree nymph, constellation, bear, human), but also recall the allusion to Callisto in the previous pairing of beast and woman (ἑρπετὸν . . . γυνή, 13). Through this device, the hymnist at once keeps Callisto present in the background of the narrative and maintains the theme of exclusion introduced at the account’s beginning: while Rhea’s primeval birth-bed was

86  Keyne Cheshire off-limits to animals and humans in need of Eileithyia, here no humans at all may enjoy access to the rivers below them.23 The hymnist will continue to build on this sense of exclusion in the following lines.

Rhea’s bath In contrast to the thirsting mortal that closes the catalog, Rhea does nothing like wander over rivers frustratingly below. The sole expression of her perturbation on seeing a dry Arcadia (ὑπ’ ἀμηχανίης σχομένη, 28) abruptly gives way to an immediate solution (28–32): καί ῥ’ ὑπ’ ἀμηχανίης σχομένη φάτο πότνια Ῥείη· ‘Γαῖα φίλη, τέκε καὶ σύ· τεαὶ δ’ ὠδῖνες ἐλαφραί.’ εἶπε καὶ ἀντανύσασα θεὴ μέγαν ὑψόθι πῆχυν πλῆξεν ὄρος σκήπτρῳ· τὸ δέ οἱ δίχα πουλὺ διέστη, ἐκ δ’ ἔχεεν μέγα χεῦμα. But, gripped by helplessness, august Rhea said, “Dear Gaea, you, too, give birth, for your pangs are easy.” The goddess spoke, raised up high her great arm, and with her staff struck the mountain; it split far apart for her, and out poured a great stream. Rhea thus forever transforms the site of her birth-bed,24 and this has important implications for the hymn’s earlier prohibition against entrance by the parturient. Previously, the hymnist had stressed the site’s utter seclusion in the wilderness (ἧχι μάλιστα | ἔσκεν ὄρος θάμνοισι περισκεπές, 10–11), a characteristic that made the prohibition against entrance appear strange, if not pointless: that was no place in which a woman would wish to give birth anyway.25 In creating a bathing spot here, however, Rhea turns the thicketed mountain site into a place considerably more suited to childbirth. The prohibition against the parturient now has greater relevance, and significantly also invites consideration of this place in light of other traditions surrounding Callisto. According to the Hesiodic account relayed by Ps.-Eratosthenes (Cat. fr. 1 = Hesiod, fr. 163 M–W) and Ps.-Hyginus (Astr. 2.1), Artemis discovered Callisto’s pregnancy at a bath, and in her anger transformed her into a bear. Ps.-Apollodorus (Bibl. 3.8.2), citing unnamed others, reports another version, that Artemis shot Callisto outright for not preserving her virginity.26 Presumably drawing on these or a related tradition, Ovid has Diana banish Callisto (but not transform her) to prevent her from defiling a sacred spring.27 As Shawn O’Bryhim (1990: 76–80) has recognized, pollution of the spring is a risk in Ovid’s account not because of Callisto’s loss of virginity, but because she is over nine months into her pregnancy.28 In light of the hymn’s peculiar prohibition against any parturient beast or woman (ἑρπετὸν . . . γυνή, 13), therefore, Rhea’s creation of this new spring invites the possibility that a parturient Callisto would later violate this same bath.29

Neither beast nor woman  87 This possibility strengthens the opposition not only between Callisto and Rhea, but also between Zeus and the Arcadians generally. In accounts where Callisto as a bear violates the precinct of Zeus Lycaeus and nearly dies at the hands of her son, Callisto endangers her life, but her life only. But in versions where a parturient Callisto violates the sacred bath, she endangers also the life of her unborn child, Arcas, eponymous founder of the Arcadians. The rescue and catasterism of Callisto was almost certainly not a given feature of the myth in Callimachus’ day,30 and as author of a treatise on Arcadia, Callimachus very likely knew that the Arcadians even pointed to a tomb of Callisto (Paus. 8.3.7, 8.35.8). In narrative terms, then, this uncertainty about Callisto’s fate contributes to the suspense, as circumstances surrounding the birth of Zeus appear now to threaten the life not only of Callisto, but also of Arcas, and consequently the very existence of the Arcadians.

Tensions resolved The hymnist resolves these tensions with the final five lines of the Arcadian account. Here Rhea names the new stream after the nymph Neda, as reward for her help in taking the infant Zeus to Crete, and the Arcadians themselves turn out climactically to have access to its waters, though at some distance from the sacred site (37–41): οὐδ’ ἁλίην ἀπέτεισε θεὴ χάριν, ἀλλὰ τὸ χεῦμα κεῖνο Νέδην ὀνόμηνε· τὸ μέν ποθι πουλὺ κατ’ αὐτό Καυκώνων πτολίεθρον, ὃ Λέπρειον πεφάτισται, συμφέρεται Νηρῆι, παλαιότατον δέ μιν ὕδωρ υἱωνοὶ πίνουσι Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο. And the goddess [Rhea] returned no trivial favor, no, for she named that stream the Neda. In abundance, somewhere near the very citadel of the Cauconians, which is called Lepreum, it meets with Nereus, and its most ancient water is drunk by the grandchildren of Lycaon’s daughter, the bear. This closing emphasis on reciprocity and access qualifies the tone of exclusion introduced in the Arcadian account’s opening passage (10–14): ἐν δέ σε Παρρασίῃ Ῥείη τέκεν, ἧχι μάλιστα ἔσκεν ὄρος θάμνοισι περισκεπές· ἔνθεν ὁ χῶρος ἱερός, οὐδέ τί μιν κεχρημένον Εἰλειθυίης ἑρπετὸν οὐδὲ γυνὴ ἐπιμίσγεται, ἀλλά ἑ Ῥείης ὠγύγιον καλέουσι λεχώιον Ἀπιδανῆες. In Parrhasia Rhea bore you, where the mountain was most hidden by thickets. Since then, that place is

88  Keyne Cheshire sacred, and nothing in need of Eileithyia— neither beast nor woman—approaches it, no, for the Apidaneans [Arcadians] call it Rhea’s primeval birth-bed. Callimachus in fact insists through carefully articulated parallels that these opening and closing passages, each five lines long, be read against one another. First of all, Zeus’s mother appears in the initial line of each passage (Ῥείη, 10; θεή, 37), both times after a third-foot caesura. The first two lines of each passage relate a past event (Rhea gave birth, 10–11; Rhea named the Neda River, 37–8), with the second line of each initiating a temporal shift forward to present circumstances that become the remainder of the passage’s focus (Rhea’s birth-bed, 11–14; the Neda River, 38–41). A like formula in each passage (οὐδὲ . . . οὐδὲ . . . ἀλλὰ . . . 12–13; οὐδὲ . . . ἀλλὰ . . . 37) introduces an explicit naming,31 with ἀλλά (13, 37) occurring immediately after the bucolic dieresis. The word μιν refers both to Rhea’s birth-bed (12) and to the river Neda (40), i.e., first the birthplace, then the bath-place, each of which is described as ancient (ὠγύγιον, 14; παλαιότατον, 40). Perhaps most striking of all, only four words comprise the last line of each passage (14, 41),32 and comparison of these final lines yields fruit: the Apidaneans (“non-drinkers,” α-πίνειν/α-πιεῖν/α-πῖδαξ) in the last line of the opening passage (14) actually drink (πίνουσι, 41) at the end of the closing passage.33 Finally, with the last two words of the Arcadian account (Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο, 41), the hymnist reveals the referent behind the opening passage’s riddling prohibition against parturient beast and woman (ἑρπετὸν . . . γυνή, 13): Callisto, identifiable as Lycaon’s daughter (i.e., a woman) and by reference to her ursine form (i.e., a beast). While the final word of the Arcadian account, ἄρκτοιο (41), certainly alludes to Callisto as bear, it also hints strongly at her identification with the constellation Ursa Major, which had gone by the name “Arctus” since Homer (Il. 18.487–9 = Od. 5.273–5). There are conflicting traditions, of course. Ps.-Hyginus (Astr. 2.1) points to one wherein Zeus places in the sky not Callisto herself but her likeness only, and Pausanias, aware of the tomb of Callisto in Arcadia, speculates that the constellation may merely have been named in her honor (8.3.7). But as we have seen, Callimachus elsewhere identifies Callisto with the constellation Ursa Major, an identification that implies her rescue from death by catasterism: Νωνακρίνη | Καλλιστ[ὼ λιβά]δ̣ων ἄβροχος Ὠκεαν[οῦ (“daughter of Nonacris, Callisto, unwetted by the streams of Oceanus,” Aetia, fr. 17.9–10 Harder). The special feature of this constellation here is that she never bathes in the river Oceanus, and so there remains the implied contrast of Callisto with Rhea, who does bathe in this hymn, and whose bath it is suggested Callisto would later violate.34 While Callisto remains bathless for all eternity, Callimachus alludes to her catasterism in a manner that emphasizes Zeus’s role as savior, specifically his ability to confer immortality (or at least everlasting honor) on those he chooses. But these closing lines of the hymn’s Arcadian section relieve the narrative tension further by insisting on the survival of Callisto’s unborn child Arcas. As Tandy (1979: 111), citing the scholia to Od. 3.366, observes, when the hymnist refers to the Cauconians, he hints at their namesake Caucon, the son of Arcas.35 When he

Neither beast nor woman  89 points to the city of Lepreum, he likewise hints at Lepreus, Arcas’ grandson.36 With the final two words of the episode (Λυκαονίης ἄρκτοιο, 41), the poet points to the two generations in the other direction: Arcas’ grandfather Lycaon and his mother, The Bear (Callisto).37 In those versions of the Callisto myth that feature Arcas’ rescue from his dying mother’s womb, it is Zeus who saves him, either personally or through the agency of Hermes, as recorded by Pausanias (8.3.6). The hymnist thus constructs Zeus’s birth narrative in a manner that ultimately alludes to Zeus’s own future beneficence toward Arcas, and consequently toward all Arcadians. Arcas’ descendants drink because of Zeus’s birth (and bath), but they will owe their very existence to Zeus’s later beneficence toward their eponymous forefather.

Acknowledgments I am grateful for the editorial work of Arum Park and Mary Pendergraft, and to William H. Race, who commented on an early draft version of this piece years ago. Thanks are due also to Edwin Carawan and to George Houston, for insights related to the impregnation of Seth and to viviparous snakes, respectively. Above all, I hope this essay might serve as some small token of my eternal gratitude to Peter Smith, whose graduate courses in Aeschylus, Homer, Greek Prose Composition, and Necessity have shaped my thought and life beyond reckoning.

Notes   1 For discussion of the diverse versions of the Callisto myth and their relationships to one another, see Robert 1878; Sale 1962: 122–41; Sale 1965: 11–35; Arena 1979: 5–26; Henrichs 1987: 254–67, 273–7; Gantz 1993: 725–9.   2 As Willetts 1958: 221 writes of Eileithyia, the remarkably enduring “continuity of her cult depends upon the unchanging concept of her function” as “goddess of childbirth” and “divine helper of women in labour.” See also Burkert 1985: 26, 170–1 on the specificity of Eileithyia’s function. For her role in childbirth in epic and hymn, see Il. 16.187–8, 19.103–5; h.Hom.Ap. 97–119; Call. H. 4.132, 257.   3 On the barring of dogs, for example, see also Parker 1983: 357.   4 In Aristophanes’ Frogs, 1080, for example, Aeschylus criticizes Euripides for having children born in temples. In his Lysistrata, 742–3, one of the women holding the Acropolis seeks permission to leave the sacred precinct on the pretext of going into labor. See Parker 1983: 49–52 on the pollution of birth.   5 Stephens 2003: 104–5 finds the following parallels: (1) the birth of each on a sacred hill, (2) the entrustment of each to a nurse for hiding and rearing on an island, (3) the appearance of venomous creatures, (4) a danger to each from their male relatives (Seth, Cronus), and (5) a causal link between the birth of each and the arrival of moisture to dry land. The third, I argue below, is not true of Zeus in Callimachus’ hymn.   6 McLennan 1979: 42 understands ἑρπετόν to refer to “an animal in general, rather than in the restricted sense of ‘snake’.” See also Hopkinson 1988: 124, who notes that ἑρπετόν refers to “any animal, not just a creeping one.”   7 Both Apollonius and Theocritus follow Homer’s lead in their uses of the Homeric hapax, explicitly contrasting land animals with those of the air: ἑρπετόν vs. ποτητόν (AR 4.1240) and ἑρπετά vs. πετεηνά (Theocr. Id. 15.118).   8 When Theocritus terms the infant Heracles’ attackers ἑρπετά (24.57), these creatures have already been described as αἰνὰ πέλωρα (“dread monsters,” 13) and θῆρε

90  Keyne Cheshire (“beasts,” 55). In Pindar’s first Pythian, Typhos has already received much description (15–24), so that the general term ἑρπετόν at its most specific locates the monster emphatically on land, in preparation for his spewing lava upward (ἀναπέμπει, Pyth. 1.26) into the air from beneath Mt. Aetna.   9 As McLennan 1977: 39 observes, Pindar (Ol. 9.95–6) already links Parrhasia explicitly with Zeus Lycaeus. 10 Statius also makes a Parrhasium . . . nemus (Theb. 7.163) the setting of Callisto’s rape by Zeus. 11 Pausanias (8.38.2) records also that some Arcadians call Mt. Lycaeus “Olympus,” while others call it “Sacred” (Ἱεράν). Callimachus may be hinting at the latter by the words ἔνθεν ὁ χῶρος ἱερός (11–12). 12 Even without the hymnist’s rejection, of course, the prohibition recorded by Pausanias (8.38.6) against entrance by people (ἀνθρώποις) is at odds with this “Hesiodic” account, wherein Callisto is a bear, not a human, when she violates the precinct. 13 Rudolf Pfeiffer 1949–53: 1.426 rightly cautions against assuming that Callimachus authored the whole of the account related by this scholion. This version, after all, shares much with the common Greek legend (τὰ λεγόμενα ἀπὸ Ἑλλήνων) preserved by Pausanias (8.3.6). Ps.-Apollodorus (Bibl. 3.8.2) reports a version in which Hera persuades Artemis to shoot Callisto, whom Zeus himself had transformed into a bear in a futile attempt to hide her from Hera. Ps.-Hyginus (Astr. 2.1) records the same account as Ps.-Apollodorus, but also another in which Artemis kills Callisto (presumably unwittingly) while hunting, some time after Hera had made Callisto a bear. 14 See Parker 1983: 50–1 for the importance of the first bath of mother and infant. 15 The elements of this catalog intensify as it progresses, together highlighting the plight of the thirsty mortal that concludes the list: the description of each element generally increases in length; the change in case from accusatives (σαρωνίδας, 22; ἁμάξας, 23) to nominatives (κινώπετα, 25; ἀνήρ, 25) achieves a dynamic shift from passive to active; while the plurality of the first three elements is emphasized by the adjective πολύς (22, 23, 24), the final, singular ἀνήρ (25) focalizes the progression climactically, drawing special attention to the plight of this individual. 16 This seems to contradict Ps.-Eratosthenes (Cat. fr. 1 = Hesiod, fr. 163 M-W) and Ps.-Hyginus (Astr. 2.1), who claim Hesiod calls Callisto daughter of Lycaon, i.e., a woman rather than a nymph. West 1985: 92, following Robert 1878: 238 n. 2, assumes two different Hesiodic poems: the Catalog (referred to by Ps.-Apollodorus) and the Astronomy (cited by the catasterismographic tradition). That in the Fasti the nymph Callisto is curiously addressed by the apparent patronymic Lycaoni (2.173) may betray Ovid’s awareness of the two distinct Hesiodic traditions regarding her origin. In any case, Callisto’s parentage was far from settled. Ps.-Apollodorus (Bibl. 3.8.2) goes on to record that Asius makes her the daughter of Nycteus, while Pherecydes gives Ceteus as her father. 17 See Cook 1914–40: 1.76–7 for the special importance of the oak to the Arcadians, who were known as “acorn-eaters,” and to Arcadian Zeus Lycaeus, in particular the tree’s connection with rain-magic on Mt. Lycaeus. Plutarch cites “a certain kinship” (τις συγγένεια, Quaest. Rom. 92) between the oak and the Arcadian people, specifically that they were the firstborn of humans, just as the oak was the firstborn of trees. But Lycophron (Al. 480) refers to a closer relationship, describing the Arcadians as ἔγγονοι δρυός. In his scholia to Lycrophron, Tzetzes writes ἔκγονοι δρυός and explains the phrase as an allusion to the myth of the hamadryad Chrysopeleia and Callisto’s son Arcas, to whose union the Arcadians traced their origins. Ps.-Apollodorus (Bibl. 3.9.1) cites Eumelus as a source for this version, and Pausanias (8.4.2) calls this hamadryad Erato. 18 See Harder 2012: 2.181–4. Callimachus almost certainly calls the constellation Arctus “Callisto” in the Coma Berenices as well. Although the Greek for the relevant lines (Aetia, fr. 110.65–6 Harder) is lost, Catullus rendered the lines into Latin as follows:

Neither beast nor woman  91 virginis et saevi contingens namque Leonis | lumina, Callisto iuncta Lycaoniae (66.65–6). As McLennan 1977: 73 points out, Catullus’ Lycaoniae probably reflects an original Λυκαονίης in Callimachus, the very word used also at the end of this hymn’s Arcadian section (41). 19 As often in Homer, ἀνήρ may designate a mortal category that includes women. Cf. Call. H. 3.20–2, where Artemis asserts that she will inhabit the mountains, visiting the cities of mortals (ἀνδρῶν) only when women in labor call for her help. 20 Hopkinson 1988: 125, apparently following McLennan, glosses κινώπετα as “reptiles” without explanation. 21 The Suda understands κινώπετα to denote land animals as opposed to sea animals, while Hesychius appears to recognize an even broader semantic range, glossing κινώπετα as θήρια and κνώδαλα, the latter a term used of sea animals. Cf. Callimachus’ own use of ἑρπετόν in one instance to include animals all types, including sea creatures (fr. 192.6–12). 22 E.g., for Apollonius, who spells the word εἰλυούς (1.1144), they are the lairs of θῆρες generally. 23 See Bassi 1989: 219–31 for the theme of exclusion in Callimachus’ second hymn. 24 If Rhea moves at all from the site of her birth-bed, she does not venture far, since Mt. Lycaeus is the source of the stream (the Neda) she produces for the bath (Paus. 4.20.2). The verb δίζητο (16), a word which Hopkinson 1984a: 142 suggests may have been chosen for a play on the name of Zeus, does not denote movement on its own. Pausanias records that most of Arcadia is visible from the altar of Zeus on Mt. Lycaeus (8.38.7), so that Rhea is already in an optimal location for surveying the waterless region before turning to her mother Gaea for help. 25 Rhea appears to have chosen the secluded but hardly ideal site as a desperate attempt to hide Zeus’s birth from Cronus. 26 Gantz 1993: 727 suggests that this tradition implies a variant in which Callisto was perhaps still in the form of a woman, i.e., never transformed into a bear at all, when Artemis slew her. This may be the same tradition alluded to in the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, ([Artemis] Καλλιστὼ κατέπεφνεν ἀπ’ ἀργυρέοιο βιοῖο, Certamen 9 West), a work that drew this material from the sophist Alcidamas’ Mouseion of the second half of the fourth century bce, on which see West 2003: 298. Still other accounts have Artemis shoot the apparently pregnant Callisto after her transformation into a bear: ps.-Apollodorus, Bibl. 3.8.2; ps.-Hyginus, Astr. 2.1; Pausanias 8.3.6; Callimachus, fr. 632). 27 “I procul hinc” dixit “nec sacros pollue fontes!” | Cynthia; deque suo iussit secedere coetu (Met. 2.464–5); cui dea “virgineos, periura Lycaoni, coetus | desere nec castas pollue” dixit “aquas,” (Fast. 2.173–4). In Ovid’s accounts, it is notably Juno who transforms Callisto into a bear after Diana expels her from the bath, and after the birth of Arcas. 28 O’Bryhim 1990: 77–8 also points out that contact with water was thought in antiquity to stimulate parturition. While Johnson 1996: 16 observes rightly that it is Callisto’s broken oath that incurs Diana’s anger in the Fasti (periura Lycaoni, 2.173), Diana appears to have Callisto’s impending labor in mind when she orders her not to pollute the spring (desere nec castas pollue . . . aquas, 2.174). As the following lines (2.175–6) explain, Callisto was due to give birth: luna novum decies implerat cornibus orbem: | quae fuerat virgo credita, mater erat. Cf. Met. 2.453: orbe resurgebant lunaria cornua nono. 29 The prohibition’s reference to Eileithyia (12), a familiar aspect of Artemis (cf. Call. H. 3.20–5), may already hint ironically at this goddess’ discovery of Callisto’s pregnancy. 30 Sale 1962: 140, Sale 1965: 34, and Henrichs 1987: 258–64 argue convincingly that the catasterism was a late accretion to the myth, possibly even a Hellenistic contribution. 31 The formula occurs once again in this hymn, at Zeus’s climactic selection of kings for his patronage (οὐ . . . οὐκ . . . οὐ . . . ἀλλὰ . . . , 70–2). 32 Only one other such line occurs in the hymn, a climactic cap to the rhetorical question that serves as the poem’s opening (3).

92  Keyne Cheshire 33 One will appreciate the significance of this reversal for the person who wandered thirsty over inaccessible waters in the hymn’s catalog (25–7). Von Jan 1893: 80 n.1 first recognized the hint in line 14 at the derivation of Ἀπία from α-πίνειν, attested by Eustathius’ commentary on Dionysius Periegetes 414. Hopkinson 1984b: 176 rightly sees its relevance also here at lines 40–1. The near-synonymous (ἐπιμίσγεται, 13) and (συμφέρεται, 40) may constitute yet another echo between the two passages, as may the phrases ἧχι μάλιστα (10) and ποθι πολύ (38). 34 O’Bryhim 1990: 75–80 argues convincingly that in preventing the constellation Arctus from bathing, Hera means to ensure that Callisto remain eternally polluted by her childbirth, a detail that further heightens the contrast between the mothers Rhea and Callisto. 35 According to other traditions, Caucon was one of the fifty sons of Lycaon (Apollod. 3.8.1), or a son of Celaenus (Paus. 4.1.5), or of Poseidon (Aelian, VH. 1.24). 36 As Tandy 1979: 112 points out, Lepreus is likely understood here as son of Caucon (cf. Aelian, VH. 1.24) rather than of Poseidon, despite the insistence of the hymn’s scholia. Another tradition makes him a son of Pyrgeus (Paus. 5.5.4). 37 Regarding Λυκαονίης (41), cf. Lyconiae in Catullus’ rendering of Callimachus’ Coma Berenices (66.66), and see Harder 2012: 2.839 and McLennan 1977: 73.

References Arena, R. (1979), “Considerazioni sul mito di Callisto,” Acme 32: 5–26. Bassi, K. (1989), “The Poetics of Exclusion in Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 119: 219–31. Burkert, W. (1985), Greek Religion, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cook, A.B. (1914–40), Zeus: A Study in Ancient Religion, 3 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gantz, T. (1993), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harder, A. (2012), Callimachus: Aetia, 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Henrichs, A. (1987), “Three Approaches to Greek Mythology,” in J.N. Bremmer (ed.), Interpretations of Greek Mythology, Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books, pp. 242–77. Hopkinson, N. (1984a), “Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus,” Classical Quarterly New Series 34.1: 139–48. —— (1984b), “Rhea in Callimachus’ Hymn to Zeus,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 104: 176–7. —— (1988), A Hellenistic Anthology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jan, F. von (1893), De Callimacho Homeri interprete, dissertation, University of Strasbourg. Johnson, W.R. (1996), “The Rapes of Callisto,” Classical Journal 92.1: 9–24. McLennan, G.R. (1977), Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus. Introduction and Commentary, Rome: Edizioni dell’ Ateneo & Bizzarri. O’Bryhim, S. (1990), “Ovid’s Version of Callisto’s Punishment,” Hermes 118.1: 75–80. Parker, R. (1983), Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pfeiffer, R. (ed.) (1949–53), Callimachus, 2 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robert, C. (1878), Eratosthenis Catasterismorum Reliquiae, Berlin: Weidmannos. Sale, W. (1962), “The Story of Callisto in Hesiod,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 105.2: 122–41.

Neither beast nor woman  93 —— (1965), “Callisto and the Virginity of Artemis,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 108.1: 11–35. Stephens, S.A. (2003), Seeing Double: Intercultural Poetics in Ptolemaic Alexandria, Berkeley: University of California Press. Tandy, D.W. (1979), Callimachus, Hymn to Zeus: Introduction and Commentary, dissertation, Yale University. West, M.L. (1985), The Hesiodic Catalogue of Women: Its Nature, Structure and Origins, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— West, M.L. (2003), Homeric Hymns, Homeric Apocrypha, Lives of Homer, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Willetts, R.F. (1958), “Cretan Eileithyia,” Classical Quarterly New Series 8.3/4: 221–3.

Part II

Greek tragedy Reality, expectation, tradition

6 Necessity and universal reality The use of χρή in Aeschylus David C.A. Wiltshire

This essay focuses on Aeschylus’ treatment of reality through his use of χρή (“necessary”). I will show that Aeschylus’ use of χρή reveals a conception of universal order, a reality that is acknowledged and accepted universally and associated with divinity. Clytemnestra is key to revealing the assumptions behind χρή as she masterfully manipulates and exploits the expectations associated with this word. I will also show that the use of χρή in the six plays traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus is so different from its use in the Prometheus Bound, where χρή is more specific and particular, that its analysis should be added to the evidence compiled in Mark Griffith’s landmark work The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound (1977).1 This suggests that Aeschylus conceives of a reality, a universal order, that is known to and accepted by all, and that the departure from this conception in the Prometheus Bound may reflect different, later authorship in keeping with a fifth-century intellectual shift away from the idea of a universal reality. My study of χρή2 suggests that Griffith had it right. In the seven plays, two very different usages of χρή appear. The first expresses proprieties and obligations that are timeless, commonly known, and affecting all mortals equally. This use has a universal quality in its applicability to all individuals, what I will call “cosmic” or “divine” law, i.e., the worldview endorsed by Aeschylus’ gods. In Aeschylus, this applies primarily to (human) behavior in relationships—χρή characterizes how people in relationships ought to behave toward one another and toward the gods—and the force of this “law” comes from the gods’ support of it.3 Some English analogues of this “universal” use might include: “You should pray,” “You must be humble before the divine,” “I must honor my mother,” and “You should love and respect your spouse.” These are the sort of statements for which Aeschylus uses χρή in the six plays: they are not time- or situation-specific, they do not require a specific audience, and they have to do generally with an individual’s relationship to the divine and other people. Very different statements of necessity might include, “To get there, you need to take I-40 for five miles, and get off at Exit 87,” or, “You need to finish your peas before you get dessert.” In these examples, the “necessity” is situation-specific, applicable only to the addressee, and unrelated to his or her relationship to the divine (including human relationships for which the gods are concerned, like the respect due between a son and his father).

98  David C.A. Wiltshire These latter types of statements are analogous to the second use of χρή, which expresses specific truths concerning the future, known only to those with the required prophetic knowledge, and affecting a particular, named person. In addition to temporal reference, commonality of knowledge, and restrictiveness concerning the persons affected, the two types also differ in their portrayal of the gods’ relationship to the “necessity” behind what is χρή. In the first usage, the Olympian gods are agents or representatives of the universal order and reality expressed by χρή. In examples of the second usage, the gods act independently of—and sometimes at odds with—the source of necessity involved in the χρή-statement. This second use of χρή posits a reality that is true only for some people and thus only resembles or forms a subset of the universal reality of the first. Examples of the first type can be found in all seven of these plays, but the second usage is found almost exclusively in the Prometheus Bound—a suggestive finding in light of the play’s questionable authenticity. In the pages that follow, I will go through some revealing and defining instances of Aeschylean χρή. I will then discuss the character of Clytemnestra in the Oresteia trilogy and how her use of χρή exploits her interlocutors’ expectations of universality, which the term connotes. Clytemnestra is a particular point of interest for this volume, as she manipulatively juxtaposes the universal order implicit in χρή against her deceptive purposes. My final section will focus on the contrasting uses of χρή in the Prometheus Bound, which suggest not only a different author behind it but also a different moment in Greek intellectual thought wherein universal reality and future time are distinct concepts, and neither is under the purview of Zeus or the other Olympian gods.

ΧΡΗ: Universal, divinely sanctioned reality A key example of χρή as a universal rule occurs in the famous tapestry scene of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (927–30): καὶ τὸ μὴ κακῶς φρονεῖν θεοῦ μέγιστον δῶρον. ὀλβίσαι δὲ χρὴ βίον τελευτήσαντ᾽ ἐν εὐεστοῖ φίλῃ. εἰ πάντα δ᾽ ὣς πράσσοιμ᾽ ἄν, εὐθαρσὴς ἐγώ.4 Good sense is the greatest of god’s gifts. A man should be called fortunate only when he has finished his life in the prosperity that all desire. If I am one who will act consistently on these principles, I have nothing to fear. As Clytemnestra urges Agamemnon to tread on the tapestries, Agamemnon replies that one must not judge a person fortunate until he has continued in such fortune until death. This sentiment is universally applicable and widely agreed-upon, and it appears in numerous places elsewhere in Greek literature.5 It expresses the traditional view that the gods are jealous of any mortal who claims more than what is appropriate. Thus χρή here indicates humility for mortals before the divine, and the absence of subject for the infinitive emphasizes the universal nature of the necessity.

Necessity and universal reality  99 Darius expresses a similar sentiment in the Persians, when he explains to the Chorus what the Persian army will suffer as a result of their impious deeds (816–22): τόσος γὰρ ἔσται πελανὸς αἱματοσφαγὴς πρὸς γῇ Πλαταιῶν Δωρίδος λόγχης ὕπο· θῖνες νεκρῶν δὲ καὶ τριτοσπόρῳ γονῇ ἄφωνα σημανοῦσιν ὄμμασιν βροτῶν ὡς οὐχ ὑπέρφευ θνητὸν ὄντα χρὴ φρονεῖν· ὕβρις γὰρ ἐξανθοῦσ᾽ ἐκάρπωσε στάχυν ἄτης, ὅθεν πάγκλαυτον ἐξαμᾷ θέρος. . . . so great will be the clotted libation of slain men’s blood on the soil of the Plataeans, shed by the Dorian spear. The heaps of corpses will voicelessly proclaim to the eyes of men, even to the third generation, that one who is a mortal should not think arrogant thoughts: outrage has blossomed, and has produced a crop of ruin, from which it is reaping a harvest of universal sorrow. In this instance the appropriate behavior for mortals relative to the universe is characterized as the opposite of behavior that leads to chaos. Again, the subject of the infinitive is left unstated, as this statement applies to all equally. According to Darius, humility is a primary aspect of the human relationship to the universe, and acting without humility will have repercussions, as Darius precedes his χρήstatement with a gruesome description of the devastation to the gods’ images and temples, caused by Xerxes’ impiety (809–12). This is a warning to future generations: the law broken was timeless and universally applicable. As we continue through the examples, the link between divinely sanctioned universal reality and χρή becomes ever clearer. Even where particular circumstances prompt the use of χρή, the enjoinders introduced by χρή are applicable to all. For example, in the Suppliants when the ship conveying their Egyptian cousins is about to arrive, the daughters of Danaüs receive the following advice from their father (724–6): ἀλλ’ ἡσύχως χρὴ καὶ σεσωφρονισμένως πρὸς πρᾶγμ’ ὁρώσας τῶνδε μὴ ἀμελεῖν θεῶν. ἐγὼ δ’ ἀρωγοὺς ξυνδίκους θ’ ἥξω λαβών. Now you must look at this matter in a calm and disciplined way, and not forget these gods. I will come back with helpers and defenders. Although he is speaking to a particular situation, the applicability of Danaüs’ advice is not restricted to his daughters alone: as part of the universal order, one must be mindful not to neglect the gods. Danaüs adopts the stance of one who, being older and more experienced, can give this advice to others and thus distinguishes his wisdom from his daughters’ ignorance.

100  David C.A. Wiltshire This instance is an example of Aeschylus’ use of χρή to convey a universal principle, but narrower or more specific in scope: these instances convey a necessity that affects all people in a particular position or role. Each individual within a society has a different set of responsibilities and is subject to different expectations depending upon his or her class, history, profession, and position within the family unit; therefore, some rules pertain to some individuals but not to others. Nevertheless, these instances, although they do not apply to all equally, are timeless, and the force of the “necessity” behind them comes from divine law. For example, in the Persians when the Chorus of Elders and Atossa receive news about their army’s misfortunes, she instructs the Chorus about their responsibilities (527–8): ὑμᾶς δὲ χρὴ ’πὶ τοῖσδε τοῖς πεπραγμένοις πιστοῖσι πιστὰ ξυμφέρειν βουλεύματα. For your part, it is your duty, in the light of these events, to offer trusty counsel to us who trust you. The Chorus serve as advisors to her, so Atossa’s description of their duties makes sense: it is fitting, she says, that they communicate their trustworthy counsel to others. But the content of the χρή-statement itself is not limited to the Chorus alone but is applicable to all who serve in an advisory capacity. Similarly, in the opening of Seven Against Thebes (1–16), Eteocles describes the behavior appropriate to various members of his community depending on their role, and he uses χρή twice: Κάδμου πολῖται, χρὴ λέγειν τὰ καίρια, ὅστις φυλάσσει πρᾶγος ἐν πρύμνῃ πόλεως οἴακα νωμῶν, βλέφαρα μὴ κοιμῶν ὕπνῳ. εἰ μὲν γὰρ εὖ πράξαιμεν, αἰτία θεοῦ· εἰ δ᾽ αὖθ᾽, ὃ μὴ γένοιτο, συμφορὰ τύχοι, Ἐτεοκλέης ἂν εἷς πολὺς κατὰ πτόλιν ὑμνοῖθ᾽ ὑπ᾽ ἀστῶν φροιμίοις πολυρρόθοις οἰμώγμασίν θ᾽, ὧν Ζεὺς ἀλεξητήριος ἐπώνυμος γένοιτο Καδμείων πόλει. ὑμᾶς δὲ χρὴ νῦν, καὶ τὸν ἐλλείποντ᾽ ἔτι ἥβης ἀκμαίας καὶ τὸν ἔξηβον χρόνῳ βλαστημὸν ἀλδαίνοντα σώματος πολύν, ὤραν ἔχονθ᾽ ἕκαστον, ὥστε συμπρεπές, πόλει τ᾽ ἀρήγειν καὶ θεῶν ἐγχωρίων βωμοῖσι, τιμὰς μὴ ’ξαλειφθῆναί ποτε, τέκνοις τε γῇ τε μητρί, φιλτάτῃ τροφῷ. Citizens of Cadmus’ land, he who guards the city’s fortunes, controlling the helm at its stern, never letting his eyes rest in sleep, has to give the right advice for

Necessity and universal reality  101 the situation. For if we should be successful, the responsibility would be god’s; but if on the other hand disaster were to strike (which may it not!) then Eteocles’ name alone would be repeatedly harped on by the citizens throughout the town amid a noisy surge of terrified wailing—from which may Zeus the Defender, true to his title, defend the city of the Cadmeans! This is the time when every one of you—including both those who have not yet reached the peak of young manhood, and those whom time has carried past it and who are feeding abundant bodily growth—must have a care for your city, as is right and proper, must come to its aid, to the aid of the altars of its native gods so as never to let their rites be obliterated, to the aid of your children, and to the aid of your Motherland, your most loving nurse; for when you were children crawling along on her kindly soil, she generously accepted all the toil of your upbringing, and nurtured you to become her shield-bearing inhabitants and be faithful to her in this hour of need. Eteocles says what he should do as a ruler, and he describes what the citizens surrounding him should do.6 He thus begins the contrast he will make throughout the play, between his own allegiance to what is possible by human means and the Chorus’ blind insistence on seeking recourse and protection from the divine. Again, these instances of χρή are both universal and particular in that their expressions of necessity are not limited specifically to Eteocles and to the Chorus, but are more generally applicable to leaders and followers, respectively. With χρή at line 10, Eteocles asserts that it is appropriate for those unable to fight to supplicate the gods, even if he does not believe such action will produce any material benefit to him.7 The two uses of χρή here—“in this situation, it is my duty to do X, and yours to do Y”—are instructive for the characterization of Eteocles and indicate priorities that he will restate throughout the play. As Dawson notes, “the word order [of πόλει and βωμοῖσι, lines 14–15] is significant: first city, then gods.”8 These two instances of χρή describe what is appropriate for individuals based on their positions within society.9 In addition, Eteocles’ advice to his citizens characterizes human supplication to the gods as χρή. This type of necessity—true for all who find themselves in a particular group or situation—is explicitly backed by divine authority when Athena is represented as a mouthpiece for the universal order in the Eumenides (707–10): ταύτην μὲν ἐξέτειν᾽ ἐμοῖς παραίνεσιν ἀστοῖσιν εἰς τὸ λοιπόν· ὀρθοῦσθαι δὲ χρὴ καὶ ψῆφον αἴρειν καὶ διαγνῶναι δίκην αἰδουμένους τὸν ὅρκον. εἴρηται λόγος. I have made this long speech to advise my citizens for the future. Now [to the judges] you must rise, deliver your votes, and decide the case, respecting your oath. I have said my say. In addressing the Athenian jurors, Athena impresses on them the basic duty of jurors everywhere, punctuating this command with “I have said my say,” or, more

102  David C.A. Wiltshire literally, “The word has been spoken,” coupling logos with a perfect tense verb that connotes the enduring truth and significance of her speech. Athena here decrees before the Chorus what will be appropriate behavior for those who find themselves in the position of jurors. Previously in this speech, she had established the future influence of this new court, thus confirming its enduring longevity: ἔσται δὲ καὶ τὸ λοιπὸν Αἰγέως στρατῷ | αἰεὶ δικαστῶν τοῦτο βουλευτήριον (“In time to come also, the people of Aegeus will always have this council of judges,” 683–4). In the speech itself, she counsels the citizens to remain in awe and fear of the majesty of the gods; she considers the court and form of government to be a set of commands imposed upon mortals by the divine—artificial in appearance, but whose function is to uphold righteousness and natural order (690–3). Athena uses the χρή-statement here to relate this jury’s particular duty to the greater scheme in which they are functioning, and by both her action here and in her characterization of human duty, she links the gods with what is χρή. When she resumes her address to the Chorus and Apollo, Athena refers to participants in the scene according to their duty within it: her own, at 734, and the jurors whose duty it is to empty the urns, at 743. Her exchange with the Chorus that follows is her attempt to convince them that it is in accordance with Zeus’s will and in the best interests of all, that they receive reverence in return for bestowing natural blessings (906–12, 938–48) and those of social accord (976–87). As for this χρή-statement itself, she uses the present participle αἰδουμένους with “take” and “decide” to make it known that the one action requires the context of the other.10

Clytemnestra and χρή Nowhere is the significance of χρή more apparent than in the character of Clytemnestra, who masterfully manipulates her interlocutors through her use of χρή and its attendant expectations. I have argued above that what is χρή in the six plays is timeless and commonly known; it is the “divine law” sanctioned by the gods, what supports and upholds the cosmic order, and it has to do with how people treat the gods and other people. The term conveys reality in that it expresses a truth that is universally acknowledged and accepted, even if the various characters disagree about what that truth is. When they argue, it is clear that they argue over what the gods value and sanction, and what the gods require of them, but they agree with the underlying premise of χρή, that it is used to express a universal reality sanctioned by the gods. Clytemnestra is the only character to use χρή deceptively, thus juxtaposing the expectations of reality that χρή conveys against a resemblance of her own creation. In the Agamemnon, while others still believe she is loyal to Agamemnon, Clytemnestra uses χρή in a way consonant with Agamemnon’s priorities (338–42): εἰ δ᾽ εὐσεβοῦσι τοὺς πολισσούχους θεοὺς τοὺς τῆς ἁλούσης γῆς θεῶν θ᾽ ἱδρύματα,

Necessity and universal reality  103 οὐ τἂν ἑλόντες αὖθις ἀνθαλοῖεν ἄν. ἔρως δὲ μή τις πρότερον ἐμπίπτῃ στρατῷ πορθεῖν τὰ μὴ χρή, κέρδεσιν νικωμένους. If they act reverently towards the protecting gods of the city and land they have captured, there is no risk, you may be sure, that after capturing it they may become victims in their turn. Only let no desire first fall on the army to plunder what they should not, overcome by the prospect of gain. Here she describes the present whereabouts and condition of the Greeks still in Troy (as she imagines them). She uses χρή in a manner consistent with the use of others in the play: she characterizes disrespect toward the gods and their shrines as not χρή (μὴ χρή, 342; cf. εὐσεβοῦσι, 338) and associates this behavior with all sorts of negative fallout (she cannot know, at this point, that the Greeks have already committed such unholy deeds). Later, when Clytemnestra delivers a speech in the guise of a doting, dutifully anxious wife, she again uses χρή in a way consistent with the values of those around her (874–9): τοιῶνδ᾽ ἕκατι κληδόνων παλιγκότων πολλὰς ἄνωθεν ἀρτάνας ἐμῆς δέρης ἔλυσαν ἄλλοι πρὸς βίαν λελημμένης. ἐκ τῶνδέ τοι παῖς ἐνθάδ᾽ οὐ παραστατεῖ, ἐμῶν τε καὶ σῶν κύριος πιστωμάτων, ὡς χρῆν, Ὀρέστης· μηδὲ θαυμάσῃς τόδε. Because of dire reports like these, many a noose hung from above was untied from my neck by others after I had been seized and held by force. That, you will understand, is why our son is not standing here as he ought to be— Orestes. Don’t be surprised by this. She declares her supposed suicidal inclinations stemming from the ever-worsening reports from Troy and uses χρή here because she is aware that Orestes’ presence at the homecoming of his father would be very much “appropriate” or “necessary” in Agamemnon’s opinion.11 The construction here, ὡς χρῆν, “as was appropriate,” shows this use of χρή as predictable and transferable: the phrase implies that there is a broad base of reference as to what is χρή. I suspect it is no coincidence that Clytemnestra is the only character in Aeschylus to use χρή deceptively and to use a construction which implies that what is χρή is a matter of general consensus (cf. 1556 below): she has a heightened awareness of others’ priorities. Once Agamemnon is dead, however, she has no further need to dissemble, and her uses of χρή begin to reflect very different values. After Cassandra has gone inside and Agamemnon cries out for the first time as he is dying (1310), the “divine law” Clytemnestra describes with χρή cleaves to her own ideas of what is proper (1415–20):

104  David C.A. Wiltshire ὃς οὐ προτιμῶν, ὡσπερεὶ βοτοῦ μόρον μήλων φλεόντων εὐπόκοις νομεύμασιν, ἔθυσεν αὑτοῦ παῖδα, φιλτάτην ἐμοὶ ὠδῖν᾽, ἐπῳδὸν Θρῃκίων ἀημάτων. οὐ τοῦτον ἐκ γῆς τῆσδε χρῆν σ᾽ ἀνδρηλατεῖν μιασμάτων ἄποιν᾽; [Agamemnon who,] setting no special value on her—treating her death as if it were the death of one beast out of large flocks of well-fleeced sheep— he sacrificed his own child, the darling offspring of my pangs, as a spell to soothe the Thracian winds. Shouldn’t you have driven him from this land in punishment for that unclean deed? Here she chastises the Chorus for not doing what was appropriate to her mind and values. According to her, since Agamemnon slaughtered his own daughter, he should have been driven out of the land. By using χρή with such a tone, Clytemnestra takes the position of one of greater authority informing those below her of what is χρή; the Chorus here is of advisors, but she exerts her authority as queen over them (1420–5).12 Similarly, since Clytemnestra has no need to prevaricate after Agamemnon’s death, she then is free to use χρή sarcastically (1551–9): οὐ σὲ προσήκει τὸ μέλημ᾽ ἀλέγειν τοῦτο· πρὸς ἡμῶν κάππεσε, κάτθανε, καὶ καταθάψομεν, οὐχ ὑπὸ κλαυθμῶν τῶν ἐξοίκων, ἀλλ᾽ Ἰφιγένειά νιν ἀσπασίως θυγάτηρ, ὡς χρή, πατέρ᾽ ἀντιάσασα πρὸς ὠκύπορον πόρθμευμ᾽ ἀχέων περὶ χεῖρε βαλοῦσα φιλήσει. It is not your business to trouble yourself with that concern. At our hand he fell, at our hand he died, and our hand will bury him, not to the accompaniment of grieving by those outside the family— no, his daughter Iphigenia, as is proper, will meet and welcome her father at the swift Ferry of Grief, throw her arms around him and kiss him! Clytemnestra here makes a χρή-statement in a context she feels to be a total perversion of what is divine law. A daughter should welcome her father home—but this daughter has been sacrificed by her father, and she welcomes

Necessity and universal reality  105 him now in death. Clytemnestra’s sarcasm here is mirrored by the word order, with θυγάτηρ (“daughter”) and πατέρ’ (“father”) each beginning successive lines and thus linked syntactically just as Iphigenia and Agamemnon are joined in death. In these instances χρή refers to appropriate behavior in familial relationships. Again, Clytemnestra uses the phrase “as is χρή,” an echo of line 879. When Clytemnestra interrupts the argument between the Chorus and Aegisthus at the end of the play, she hijacks the divine law underlying χρή to match the reality she has now created (1657–60): στείχετ᾽, αἰδοῖοι γέροντες, πρὸς δόμους, †πεπρωμένοις τούσδε† πρὶν παθεῖν †ἔρξαντες καιρὸν† χρὴ τάδ᾽ ὡς ἐπράξαμεν. εἰ δέ τοι μόχθων γένοιτο τῶνδ᾽ ἄκος, δεχοίμεθ᾽ ἄν, δαίμονος χηλῇ βαρείᾳ δυστυχῶς πεπληγμένοι.13 Go now, honourable elders, to your homes, before you suffer. These things must as we have done them. If, I tell you, a cure for these troubles were to appear, we would accept it, after having been so wretchedly struck by the heavy talon of the evil spirit. The brevity and position of the χρή-statement at the end of the play strengthens the statement’s function: Clytemnestra and Aegisthus did what they had to do. However, Clytemnestra uses the overtones of cosmic importance and her new position as queen now without a king (by far the most powerful individual in the scene) to end the discussion. She is in a position to dispense wisdom, and the χρήstatement here functions as part of her taking control of the situation. What is χρή here is what is appropriate for a given person given his or her location within society, especially within the family. Clytemnestra’s primary motivation in the murder of her husband was retribution for his murder of their daughter Iphigenia; therefore, when she refers to what is χρή for herself, she refers to that which is appropriate action for the mother of a murdered daughter. From her perspective, this act brings the sequence of events full circle to a restoration of balance. Clytemnestra believes that what was χρή for her to do can be reconciled with a greater order (cf. her speech at 1566–76). But as the trilogy continues, the nature of divine sanction underlying χρή becomes an increasingly contentious point, in keeping with the difficult ethical question permeating the Oresteia concerning the nature of divine justice. In the Choephoroi, Orestes and Clytemnestra use χρή to argue the nature of divine law. Orestes condemns his mother’s failure to behave appropriately as a wife (904–7): ἕπου, πρὸς αὐτὸν τόνδε σὲ σφάξαι θέλω· καὶ ζῶντα γάρ νιν κρείσσον᾽ ἡγήσω πατρός. τούτῳ θανοῦσα συγκάθευδ᾽, ἐπεὶ φιλεῖς τὸν ἄνδρα τοῦτον, ὃν δὲ χρῆν φιλεῖν στυγεῖς.

106  David C.A. Wiltshire Follow me. I want to slay you right next to that man, since in life too you thought him better than my father. Sleep with him in death, since he is the man you love, while hating the man you should have loved! Orestes conceives of the gods as closely connected to what is χρή; in the few lines directly preceding (900–3), he asks Pylades for advice, and Pylades reminds him of the oracles of Apollo and Orestes’ own pledges to the god; Orestes quickly and wholeheartedly accepts this reminder of where his priorities should lie, and the two (god and χρή) are inextricably combined in Orestes’ mind. Shortly afterward, Orestes accuses his mother with similar words: κάνες τὸν οὐ χρῆν· καὶ τὸ μὴ χρεὼν πάθε (“You killed the one whom you ought not; now suffer what you ought not!” 930). Since Clytemnestra has flouted what is χρή in committing her act, the only fit retribution is retribution in kind (cf. the law of reciprocity: “the doer must suffer”). Orestes admits, however, that his own act goes against what is χρή—and he hesitates several times (434–8, 297, 899) in fear over the correct course of behavior. Orestes experiences conflicting emotions concerning what is χρή because he is forced to decide between his roles as the son of his father (and agent of Apollo), and as the son of his mother. Either choice in such a situation would result in a failure of what is χρή, as this is the Gordian knot of the whole trilogy. Although Orestes finds it more heinous that a woman should murder her husband than that a son should murder his mother, his tone is regretful, and he is uncertain. The complicity of the supernatural in this scheme of what is χρή is indicated here (as often): the use follows hard on the interpretation of Clytemnestra’s dream (929).

Χρή in the Prometheus Bound: An alternate tradition Aeschylus uses χρή for the most part coherently in the six plays to refer to a necessity universal, timeless, and divinely intended. The Prometheus Bound reflects a divergent tradition, an alternate conception of necessity that is not tethered to universal truth. In large part, this different use of χρή in Prometheus coincides with a different conception of the gods and their role in the universe: in Prometheus the gods are often portrayed as subject to and struggling against what is χρή (i.e., they are not the representatives for cosmic law).14 This opposition requires that the two entities be distinct from one another, but it also diminishes the majesty and influence of the gods by implying some greater order, one they do not have the natural wisdom to obey (by contrast, consider Athena in the Eumenides). The plot of the Prometheus is dependent upon the idea of an external order creating and enforcing change: Prometheus’ main source of comfort is the knowledge that his present predicament cannot last forever, and the plot itself rests upon the (potential) overthrow of Zeus.15 Zeus does not, therefore, represent what is χρή, and the relationship that the gods in general have to what is χρή in the other six plays— i.e., effecting or representing what is χρή—is untenable here. The “cosmic law” use of χρή—the use that informs relationships according to divine will—does appear in Prometheus, although the nature of divine will is in

Necessity and universal reality  107 question. The first instance of χρή reflecting this “cosmic law” use appears at the beginning of the play (1–6): Χθονὸς μὲν εἰς τήλουρον ἥκομεν πέδον, Σκύθην ἐς οἷμον, ἄβροτον εἰς ἐρημίαν. Ἥφαιστε, σοὶ δὲ χρὴ μέλειν ἐπιστολὰς ἅς σοι πατὴρ ἐφεῖτο, τόνδε πρὸς πέτραις ὑψηλοκρήμνοις τὸν λεωργὸν ὀχμάσαι ἀδαμαντίνων δεσμῶν ἐν ἀρρήκτοις πέδαις. We have reached the land at the furthest bounds of earth, the Scythian marches, a wilderness where no mortals live. Hephaestus, you must attend to the instructions the Father has laid upon you, to bind this criminal to the high rocky cliffs in the unbreakable fetters of adamantine bonds. Kratos in this passage attempts to intimidate, or shame, Hephaistos into doing what he had been brought to do, to clamp Prometheus to the rock. At first glance, this use of χρή seems typical: it is necessary to obey the commands of Zeus, Kratos says.16 But Hephaistos, in his reply, corrects Kratos’ use and makes clear what sort of necessity enjoins him: πάντως δ’ ἀνάγκη τῶνδέ μοι τόλμαν σχεθεῖν, | εὐωριάζειν γὰρ πατρὸς λόγους βαρύ (“Still, I have no alternative but to endure doing it, for it is dangerous to slight the Father’s word,” 16–17). The use of ἀνάγκη here referring to physical compulsion is telling: Hephaistos is compelled by the threat of physical retribution should he defy the orders of Zeus (who even in these lines is personified, distanced from an abstract order: he is self-aware and capable of λόγους). “What compels me is not χρή—it is ἀνάγκη.” The opposition between χρή and ἀνάγκη, in which the former is characterized as lofty and the latter is associated with Zeus, continues later in the play (103–5): τὴν πεπρωμένην δὲ χρὴ αἶσαν φέρειν ὡς ῥᾷστα, γιγνώσκονθ᾽ ὅτι τὸ τῆς ἀνάγκης ἔστ᾽ ἀδήριτον σθένος. I must bear my destined fate as easily as may be, knowing that the power of Necessity is unchallengeable. This instance, in which Prometheus philosophizes to himself, resembles the universal cosmic-law χρή in that it states, without subject for the infinitive, a code of behavior that is applicable to all. That it instructs correct behavior for individuals relative to αἶσα (which itself is one aspect of the universal order) is given by the indirect discourse clause: χρή here describes appropriate action in the face of events beyond one’s control. Therefore, as with numerous other instances of χρή, it relates the relationship of the speaker to the cosmos. The cosmic order, however, is not identified with the gods, since Prometheus does

108  David C.A. Wiltshire not connect his acceptance of his “fate” to proper reverence of Zeus.17 Rather, Zeus’s sphere concerns ἀνάγκη, physical compulsion, instead of the cosmic order connoted by χρή. Most of the other uses of χρή in the Prometheus Bound are characterized by reference to: a) future time, especially as distinguished from the present; b) a specific, named individual; c) a conception of the gods as acting independently of, or even at odds with, the source of necessity communicated by the χρή-statement; and d) specific knowledge known or predictable only to one individual (i.e., the one making the χρή-statement) within the scene.18 Χρή in cosmic-law instances of the other six plays usually describes a type of action, not a specific action, as it has to do with a manner of comportment. By contrast, the following example from the Prometheus Bound concerns a request for a specific piece of information regarding the future of one individual alone (93–100): δέρχθηθ᾽ οἵαις ᾀκείαισιν διακναιόμενος τὸν μυριέτη χρόνον ἀθλεύσω· τοιόνδ᾽ ὁ νέος ταγὸς μακάρων ἐξηῦρ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἐμοὶ δεσμὸν ἀεικῆ. φεῦ φεῦ, τὸ παρὸν τό τ᾽ ἐπερχόμενον πῆμα στενάχω· ποῖ ποτε μόχθων χρὴ τέρματα τῶνδ᾽ ἐπιτεῖλαι; Look, with what indignities I am tormented, to endure these trials for endless years! Such a degrading bondage has been invented for me by the new high commander of the Blest Ones. Alas, I groan for my present suffering and for that which is coming: where can one fix a limit for these sorrows? Prometheus here is very much concerned by time, and he contrasts the present with hopeful change to come in the future.19 He is speaking alone on stage to himself, and he does not expect the knowledge of what is χρή to come from an authority figure. Similarly, when the Chorus expresses their fear concerning Prometheus’ fate, a striking contrast between the controllers of the present and those of the future presents itself (181–9): Xo. ἐμᾶς δὲ φρένας ἠρέθισε διάτορος φόβος, δέδια δ᾽ ἀμφὶ σαῖς τύχαις, ποῖ ποτε τῶνδε πόνων χρή σε τέρμα κέλσαντ᾽ ἐσιδεῖν· ἀκίχητα γὰρ ἤθεα καὶ κέαρ ἀπαράμυθον ἔχει Κρόνου παῖς.

Necessity and universal reality  109 Πρ. τραχύς γ᾽, οἶδ᾽ ὅτι, καὶ παρ᾽ ἑαυτῷ τὸ δίκαιον ἔχων· ἔμπας δ᾽, οἴω, μαλακογνώμων ἔσται ποθ᾽, ὅταν ταύτῃ ῥαισθῇ. Chorus: A piercing fear agitates my mind, and I am afraid what may befall you: where are you ever to reach harbour and see a limit to these sufferings? For the son of Cronus has a character that is immovable, a heart that is inexorable. Prometheus: He is harsh, I know, and makes justice As he pleases; all the same, I fancy, his mind will one day be softened, when he is shattered in the way I spoke of. Zeus’s actions are in present time (ἔχει, 185), whereas Prometheus’ response, which claims that Zeus will one day be mollified, uses the future tense ἔσται (189). The Chorus understands the agent behind Prometheus’ misery to be Zeus (lines 160–7), and the χρή-statement here refers to the time when Zeus’s control will fail (as Prometheus has hinted to the Chorus at lines 171–2). What’s implicit here is that the force of necessity underlying χρή is distinct from the will of Zeus, who has no control over the future, in Prometheus’ estimation. The tension between present and future is also clear when Prometheus addresses the Chorus later (484–92): τρόπους δὲ πολλοὺς μαντικῆς ἐστοίχισα, κἄκρινα πρῶτος ἐξ ὀνειράτων ἃ χρὴ ὕπαρ γενέσθαι, κληδόνας τε δυσκρίτους ἐγνώρισ᾽ αὐτοῖς ἐνοδίους τε συμβόλους· γαμψωνύχων τε πτῆσιν οἰωνῶν σκεθρῶς διώρισ᾽, οἵτινές τε δεξιοί φύσιν εὐωνύμους τε, καὶ δίαιταν ἥντινα ἔχουσ᾽ ἕκαστοι, καὶ πρὸς ἀλλήλους τίνες ἔχθραι τε καὶ στέργηθρα καὶ ξυνεδρίαι. I also systematized many kinds of seer-craft. I was the first to interpret from dreams what actual events were destined to happen; I made known to them the difficult arts of interpreting significant utterances and encounters on journeys; I defined precisely the flight of crook-taloned birds, which of them were favourable and which sinister by nature, the habits of each species and their mutual hatreds, affections and companionships. Griffith translates 485–6, “I was the first to interpret from dreams what must happen during waking hours.”20 Whether or not we take the antecedent of ἅ to be “dreams,” the relative clause implies events that occur after the dreams

110  David C.A. Wiltshire themselves (and after the reading of them). I read “ὕπαρ” here as adverbial and indicating reality, and therefore: “I was the first to discern what of their dreams would become real while awake.” The whole passage concerns the tension between the present and the future, since it details means of divination (the interpretation of dreams, how to read omens and signs, augury and the habits of birds, reading entrails, sacrifice, reading signs from flames) and ascribes these avenues of knowledge about the future to Prometheus. Furthermore, in only one part of this speech does Prometheus mention the gods in relation to his own teachings to men; as he describes sacrifices, he refers to the color that bile must have in order to be pleasing to the gods, but he refers to performing a successful sacrifice as a “skill of making difficult inferences” (δυστέκμαρτον τέχνην, 497), and not with any greater relationship to the cosmos. Prometheus’ speech concerning the future of Io is replete with these typically “Promethean,” particularized applications of χρή (700–4): τὴν πρίν γε χρείαν ἠνύσασθ᾽ ἐμοῦ πάρα κούφως· μαθεῖν γὰρ τῆσδε πρῶτ᾽ ἐχρῄζετε τὸν ἀμφ᾽ ἑαυτῆς ἆθλον ἐξηγουμένης· τὰ λοιπὰ νῦν ἀκούσαθ᾽, οἷα χρὴ πάθη τλῆναι πρὸς Ἥρας τήνδε τὴν νεανίδα. You obtained your previous request from me easily, since you first wanted to learn from her the account of her own trials. Now hear about the future, what sufferings this young woman is destined to endure at Hera’s hands. Xρή here clearly refers to future events, and the wording calls attention to the contrast between present (νῦν, 703) and future (τὰ λοιπά, 703),21 and between past (Io’s preceding speech on the sufferings she has already endured) and future (what she will endure, which Prometheus is about to tell). These sufferings will apply only to one identified individual: what is described as χρή here is not applicable to anyone else, as these are discrete acts (just as the discrete pieces of information desired in the indirect questions above) performed by an individual (Io) with no reference to universal order (and no application outside the immediate future of Io herself). In addition, χρή in the other six plays has no named agent, no conscious mind deciding what is χρή, but Hera is named here as the agent of Io’s sufferings, and she is acting against Zeus’s wishes. There is no greater context or explanation for the source or reasoning behind these sufferings for Io; they do not form part of any higher order. Furthermore, in the other plays when a character suffers punishment described as χρή (e.g., Choephoroi 930, see above), it is in retribution for having committed something contrary to “cosmic law,” but here Io has committed no such offense. As a speech act, this use is purely descriptive; it is not an imperative of any kind, and Io is the passive recipient here of what is χρή. On account of Prometheus’ ability to foretell the future, the other characters in the play show general deference

Necessity and universal reality  111 to him; however, the clear reference to the authority of the speaker in cosmic-law instances stems from the obvious nature of the content of the χρή-statement. In this instance, this knowledge belongs to Prometheus alone, and he is not reminding his audience of what is χρή, but rather, informing them.22 As the speech continues, Prometheus advises Io on how her course will lead and how best to avoid unnecessary dangers (709–23, 729–31): Σκύθας δ᾽ ἀφίξῃ νομάδας, οἳ πλεκτὰς στέγας πεδάρσιοι ναίουσ᾽ ἐπ᾽ εὐκύκλοις ὄχοις, ἑκηβόλοις τόξοισιν ἐξηρτυμένοι· οἷς μὴ πελάζειν, ἀλλ᾽ ἁλιστόνοις πόδας χρίμπτουσα ῥαχίαισιν ἐκπερᾶν χθόνα. λαιᾶς δὲ χειρὸς οἱ σιδηροτέκτονες οἰκοῦσι Χάλυβες, οὓς φυλάξασθαί σε χρή· ἀνήμεροι γὰρ οὐδὲ πρόσπλατοι ξένοις. ἥξεις δ᾽ Ὑβριστὴν ποταμὸν οὐ ψευδώνυμον· ὃν μὴ περάσῃς, οὐ γὰρ εὔβατος περᾶν, πρὶν ἂν πρὸς αὐτὸν Καύκασον μόλῃς, ὀρῶν ὕψιστον, ἔνθα ποταμὸς ἐκφυσᾷ μένος κροτάφων ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν. ἀστρογείτονας δὲ χρὴ κορυφὰς ὑπερβαλοῦσαν εἰς μεσημβρινὴν βῆναι κέλευθον. . . . ἰσθμὸν δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ αὐταῖς στενοπόροις λίμνης πύλαις Κιμμερικὸν ἥξεις, ὃν θρασυσπλάγχνως σε χρὴ λιποῦσαν αὐλῶν᾽ ἐκπερᾶν Μαιωτικόν. You will come to the nomad Scythians, who dwell in wicker homes, off the ground, on strong-wheeled wagons, armed with far-shooting bows. Do not go near them: go on through and out of their country, keeping your path close to the rocky coast of the groaning sea. Next, on your left, dwell the Chalybes, workers in iron: beware of them, for they are savage and not safe for strangers to approach. You will then come to the Violent River, not inaptly named; do not cross it—it is not easy to cross—until you come to Caucasus itself, the highest of mountains, where the river pours its strength out from the very summit. After crossing over those peaks close to the stars, you must take the way to the south . . . You will then come to the Cimmerian isthmus, right at the narrow gateway to the lake; with a bold heart you must leave it, and cross the Maeotic channel. These three instances are imperatives coming from one who rightfully adopts the tone of one more knowledgeable of such things. As at line 703, they refer to the actions of one individual in unique circumstances (of which only one

112  David C.A. Wiltshire other individual has knowledge). Their reference to the future is clear by the future tense of the finite verbs around them (ἀφίξῃ, 709; ἥξεις, 717 and 724, etc.). Perhaps the main difference illustrated here between the “Promethean” use and the “cosmic-law” uses in the other Aeschylean plays is that Io does not yet know the information being passed on to her, nor does the Chorus. In other instances, in which one character is “informing” another, any person of authority could and likely would give the same advice; here, it is the special knowledge of Prometheus. The chasm between Promethean χρή and the universal reality signified by χρή in the other six plays is most evident when Prometheus dispenses information to Hermes (995–6): γνάμψει γὰρ οὐδὲν τῶνδέ μ’ ὥστε καὶ φράσαι πρὸς οὗ χρεών νιν ἐκπεσεῖν τυραννίδος. None of that will bend me to make me say at whose hands [Zeus] is destined to fall from his supreme power. Not only is Prometheus here the sole possessor of the knowledge of what is χρή (and his words apply to one individual alone), but what is χρή here is so far removed from cosmic, timeless law, that what it indicates for the future does not, in the end, occur. Although they are all divinities, nevertheless the individuals involved (Zeus, and that unspecified οὗ) have concrete identities in Prometheus’ mind, in a situation to which no universal truth is applicable.

Conclusion Thus χρή in these seven plays has two basic uses: in the first, the necessity communicated by the word implies some concept of external, universal order, often associated with divinity or the Olympian gods. In the second, the word describes events yet to come, and if it does communicate some external order, this order is characterized as conflicting with the wishes of the Olympians, particularly Zeus. The starkness of contrast between the two types, combined with the fact that the overwhelming majority of instances of the second type are found in the Prometheus, lends itself to explanation by way of the discussion on the authorship of the Prometheus and whether it is genuinely Aeschylean. My findings are at home among the philological discussions of Griffith regarding the work’s authenticity, and I favor the arguments of others that would place the writing of the Prometheus at a late date.23

Notes   1 The difficulty of reconciling linguistic, metrical, and stylistic features of the Prometheus Bound to the other six plays has been the subject of scholarship only for the last century and a half; the authenticity of the Prometheus was not explicitly denied until 1911. Over the course of the twentieth century, prominent scholars argued on both sides of the case, and this argument culminated in Griffith’s dissertation, in which

Necessity and universal reality  113 he compares meter, style, syntax, and vocabulary use among the Prometheus, and the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, to demonstrate the Prometheus’ significant departure on all these levels.   2 Not much has been written on the semantics of necessity in Greek thus far in classical scholarship. The best studies are Goodell 1914 and Benardete 1965. I am grateful to have the work of Redard 1953 as a reference, but his interpretation of χρή and its relatives rests primarily on the evidence from Homer, and he uses these categories as prescriptive toward the instances of later authors, often without explanation; he also seems to feel pressure to read χρή in a manner complementary to his reading of χρῆσθαι (and other words; he explores the whole range of cognates). As Goodell notes, study of the etymologically related words is useful toward understanding the meaning of χρή only in the instances concerning oracular response; outside this context, the comparison is not helpful (94).   3 This aspect of χρή most clearly distinguishes it from the use of δεῖ in Aeschylus, as what is δεῖ nowhere instructs proper humility and action on the part of mortals relative to the gods.   4 Text and translation of Sommerstein’s 2008 Loeb Classical Library editions of Aeschylus.   5 For a selection of these instances, see Radermacher 1938: 296.   6 Another instance in which the sense of χρή is tailored to the social position or occupation of the person indicated occurs at Septem 1005, where the herald claims that it is χρή for him to announce information. I do not discuss that instance here because I am convinced against the authenticity of the end of the Septem. See Lloyd-Jones 1959; Lupaş and Petre 1981: 281, and Dawson 1970: 22–5.   7 Since lines 5–6 refer to the assigning of blame after the fact, I interpret line 4 as assigning praise in like manner.   8 Dawson 1970: 32.   9 Cf. Lupaş and Petre 1981: 7: “Le premier discours d’Étéocle définit d’emblée le rôle qui revient au roi dans la défense de la cité.” 10 Αἰδέομαι has primarily a religious connotation (i.e., reference to the gods, and not a general “respect”), in Aeschylus, at any rate: cf. its appearance at Supplices 478 and 641, Agamemnon 362, Choephoroi 106, and Eumenides 483 and 680. 11 Whether the action described as χρή was actually undertaken has no bearing on its propriety; Orestes was not there, but his presence was nevertheless appropriate. The necessity behind χρή is valid whether individuals acquiesce in it or not (cf. “You should love your spouse.”). Cf. Smyth §1777. 12 Contrast this exchange (in tone, especially) with that between Atossa and the Chorus in the Persae. 13 This passage has been reconstructed from a damaged manuscript tradition. For a description of the manuscript difficulties, see Fraenkel 1950: 794. 14 Cf. Rader 2013: 163: “In this play Zeus is portrayed as both a Punisher and just another god subject to the iron law of the cosmos.” 15 Cf. Inoue and Cohen 1978: 26, on the closeness of characterization of Zeus and Prometheus in this play: “Their closeness arises out of the juxtaposition of their relationship to one another with their mutual relation to a cosmic order larger than both of them.” The question the authors discuss is whether Zeus in the Prometheus is the same as cosmic law; the authors consider χρή in the same category as ἀνάγκη, μοῖρα, μόρσιμον, and πέπρωται as denoting an “external standard” (28); they write (29): “The limited and narrow application of words of necessity to Zeus and Prometheus in contrast with the overwhelming repetition of words denoting a necessity outside both of them supports the interpretation that Zeus as well as Prometheus is subject to a larger cosmic order (whether or not this order is called fate) . . . Zeus’s ἁρμονία (551), like his laws and justice, is self-contained and out of step with a larger ἁρμονία to which it must be reconciled.”

114  David C.A. Wiltshire 16 But Zeus’s command to chain someone to a rock seems comparatively less lofty. Elsewhere, although individuals like Orestes respond to others’ infractions of the cosmic law with punishment, the necessity behind those actions arises from the punisher’s own place within the universal order. Orestes did not act only to punish Clytemnestra; rather, he considered his own position as the son to a murdered father to compel him. Here, neither Kratos nor Hephaistos has a stake in seeing the punishment done and they act only from fear of punishment for disobeying Zeus’s self-serving orders. 17 A similar “cosmic law” instance of χρή in the Prometheus occurs at line 659, as Io describes to Prometheus what she and her father have already endured. 18 Cf. Griffith 1983: 225 on his discussion of line 772. 19 Cf. Griffith 1983: 104. 20 Griffith 1983: 174. 21 Prometheus foretells Io’s struggles yet to come—both of them are in the middle of their agony, but the end is foreseeable for one and not the other, the one doing the telling. Cf. Long 1958: 248. 22 Of course, this difference in use has not been appreciated by me alone; these instances of χρή (and others) have been translated as “it is fated that” (and not “it is necessary that”) for centuries. I am explicating the subconscious thought processes behind such a translation (Cf. Griffith’s identifications [1983: 225], or Italie’s Latin translations [Italie and Radt 1964: 329]). By using the phrase “it is fated that,” an English speaker refers to a) a specific event, necessarily in the future, for comparison with the present, b) a certain individual or group of individuals, and c) supernatural agency. 23 Arguments on the date include Herington 1970, Griffith 1977 and 1984, West 1979, and others; for a list, see Irby-Massie 2008: 135 n. 13, and esp. Griffith 1977: 9–13, in which he concludes that the play was written between 479 and 415 bc (see also pp. 252–4). Cf. also Flintoff 1986 and Sutton 1983.

References Benardete, S. (1965), “ΧΡΗ and ΔΕΙ in Plato and Others,” Glotta 43: 285–98. Dawson, C.M. (1970), Aeschylus Seven against Thebes, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Flintoff, E. (1986), “The Date of the Prometheus Bound,” Mnemosyne 39: 82–91. Fraenkel, E. (1950), Aeschylus Agamemnon. 3 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press. Goodell, T.D. (1914), “ΧΡΗ and ΔΕΙ,” Classical Quarterly 8: 91–102. Griffith, M. (1977), The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. —— (ed.) (1983), Aeschylus Prometheus Bound, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Herington, C.J. (1970), The Author of the Prometheus Bound, Austin: University of Texas Press. Inoue, E. and D. Cohen (1978), “Verbal Patterns in the Prometheus Bound,” Classical Journal 74: 26–33. Irby-Massie, G.L. (2008) “Prometheus Bound and Contemporary Trends in Greek Natural Philosophy,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 48: 133–57. Italie, G. and S.L. Radt (1964), Index Aeschyleus, 2nd edn., Leiden: Brill. Lloyd-Jones, H. (1959), “The End of the Seven against Thebes,” Classical Quarterly New Series 9: 80–115. Long, Herbert S. (1958), “Notes on Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 102.3: 229–80. Lupaş, L. and Z. Petre (1981), Commentaire aux «Sept contre Thèbes» d’Eschyle, Bucharest: Les Belles Lettres.

Necessity and universal reality  115 Rader, R. (2013), “The Radical Theology of Prometheus Bound; or, On Prometheus’ God Problem,” Ramus 42: 162–82. Radermacher, L. (1938), “Review of A Lexikon to Herodotus by I. Enoch Powell,” Gnomon 14: 294–7. Redard, G. (1953), Recherches sur XPH, ΧΡΗΣΘΑΙ: Étude sémantique, Paris: Champion. Sutton, D.F. (1983), “The Date of Prometheus Bound,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 24: 289–94. West, M.L. (1979), “The Prometheus Trilogy,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 99: 130–48.

Appendix The table below shows instances of various words for necessity in Aeschylus. I have compiled this table from the instances given in Italie and Radt 1964; however, I do not consider all of them genuine. I am convinced by the arguments against the authenticity of the instances at Septem 1005, Agamemnon 571/3 and 1226, and Prometheus 606 and 970, and I include them here in brackets.

Persae Supplices Agamemnon Choephoroi Eumenides Septem Prometheus ἀνάγκη

254 293 569 587

δεῖ

χρή (including χρεών)

153 219 527 801 820

 440  478 1031

 218  726  902 1042 1071

 75 239 754

 426  550

  16   72  105  108  290  514  515 1052

 390  407  417  450  765

 343  567  598  848

548 582 668 672 879

  94  264  519  591  826  829

 203

   9   86  870  875

 176  502  519  724  763  938  971  980

 166  342 [571/3]  580  821  879  917  922  928 [1226] 1368 1419 1429 1556 1658

203 297 907 930 (2)

 708 1003

  1  10 617 713 717 [1005]

  3  100   103   183   213   295   485 [606]   630   640   659   703   715   721   730   772   930 [970]   996 1067

7 The arms of Achilles Tradition and mythmaking in Sophocles’ Philoctetes Sheila Murnaghan

The plot of Sophocles’ Philoctetes begins with the construction of a plausible fiction. The trickster Odysseus supplies his protégé Neoptolemus with the outline of a sympathetic cover story that will allow him to win Philoctetes’ trust. Neoptolemus must claim that he, like Philoctetes, has been mistreated by the Atridae: summoned to the Achaean camp with assurances that he is indispensable to the effort to take Troy, he has discovered that his father’s armor was handed over to Odysseus and is returning home in outrage. Through Odysseus’ self-seeking variant, Sophocles here alludes to one of the most compelling and frequently retold episodes of the Troy legend, the Judgment of Arms, in which Achilles’ armor is awarded to Odysseus rather than to Ajax, leading to Ajax’s subsequent rage and suicide.1 The plausibility of Neoptolemus’ false tale is secured by its resemblance to the Ajax story, which belongs at once to the realm of reality—since, for the characters Odysseus and Neoptolemus, it constitutes real past events—and to the realm of representation—since, for audiences and readers of the play, it constitutes a mythical event from the literary tradition. Some version of the Ajax story presumably forms the background to the Philoctetes’ own plot, but Sophocles characteristically leaves us in doubt about the details. It is not made clear who actually possesses Achilles’ armor at the time when this scene unfolds, although that information could be relevant to the relationship between Odysseus and Neoptolemus. As early as the epic cycle, there was a tradition that, having won the armor in the competition with Ajax, Odysseus subsequently passed it on to Neoptolemus, but there is no reference to that event in the Philoctetes.2 We might well expect Neoptolemus to bring it up at a point towards the end of the play when he is no longer trying to deceive Philoctetes and Philoctetes repeats back to him his false story that he was deprived of the armor. But he does not, and the significance of that omission, and of his failure in general to retract the story, has been the subject of considerable discussion.3 Whatever the presumed “reality” underlying the Philoctetes’ action, we here see the traditional story being manipulated in a way that is typical of Odysseus, who is famous for his ability to create persuasive lies, especially in the Odyssey, where he excels at reworking actual events into “lies that resemble the truth” (Od. 19.203).4 As Neoptolemus follows Odysseus’ prompt and generates a new story based on a traditional model, he comes to resemble not only his fictional

The arms of Achilles  117 mentor but also Sophocles himself, whose role as a tragedian also involves reworking pre-existing myths.5 Here Sophocles reworks not only the versions told by his predecessors but his own earlier treatment of the same episode in the Ajax, where it plays a determining role in the background to the action. In this respect, Neoptolemus’ narrative resembles the Philoctetes as a whole, since the Philoctetes is a new work built on the same template as the Ajax: both plays deal with the Achaean camp in the period between the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy and feature heroes who are afflicted by disease, who become alienated from their fellow warriors when they feel themselves to be mistreated, and who are ultimately reintegrated into that community (whether dead or alive) through the actions of Odysseus. By recreating his own practice through a character’s construction of a fiction that resembles the truth, Sophocles dramatizes the interplay of freedom and constraint within his own art form as well as in the lives of his characters. As we will see, traditional aspects of the Judgment of Arms story persist even as its details are freely reinvented, indicating the inescapable limitations, aligned with fate and divine will, by which both the playwright and his characters are bound. In Neoptolemus’ false tale, the weight of tradition is felt in the absent presence of Ajax, whose experiences have to be edited out of the story so that Neoptolemus himself can play the role of the cheated rightful heir to Achilles’ armor.6 In response to Neoptolemus’ narrative, Philoctetes himself immediately thinks of Ajax and asks why he did not act to prevent this miscarriage of justice, to which Neoptolemus can only answer in general terms that Ajax had died by that point without giving any details (Phil. 410–15). When Neoptolemus in effect reworks the story of the embassy in Iliad 9 into an account of how he was summoned from Scyros, there can only be two ambassadors, Odysseus and Phoenix (Phil. 344).7 And when in Neoptolemus’ narrative Odysseus is imagined as justifying the award, he points to the episode on which the decision between himself and Ajax was traditionally based, the fight over Achilles’ fallen body, but he has no competitor there on the battlefield to compare himself to and has to contrast himself with Neoptolemus on the grounds that Neoptolemus was not there at all (Phil. 371–82). Later readers have responded to Ajax’s absence by trying to put him back into the Philoctetes. Towards the end of the play, when Philoctetes brings up Neoptolemus’ alleged mistreatment by the Atridae as a reason why Neoptolemus should not now be supporting them, an interpolator has added two lines in which he also adduces their mistreatment of Ajax (1365–1365b), introducing as a parallel what is actually the model that the false story has displaced.8 Trying to make sense of the choral ode that follows Neoptolemus’ false tale, in which the chorus perjures itself in order to back him up (claiming that they called out to the great mother when they saw the arms going to Odysseus instead of Neoptolemus), Bernard Knox suggests that the “the chorus is talking about the original award of the arms of Odysseus,” although he also notes that, as Scyrian subjects of Neoptolemus, they could not have witnessed that event, so that their oath still retains a measure of falsehood.9

118  Sheila Murnaghan When Odysseus gives Neoptolemus his instructions, he encourages him to portray himself, Odysseus, as negatively as he would like. Doing so, he insists, will cause him no pain, while not doing so would be detrimental to the Argive cause and to Neoptolemus’ own destiny as the taker of Troy (Phil. 64–7): λέγων ὅσ᾽ ἂν θέληις καθ᾽ ἡμῶν ἔσχατ᾽ ἐσχάτων κακά. τούτωι γὰρ οὐδέν μ᾽ ἀλγυνεῖς· εἰ δ᾽ ἐργάσηι μὴ ταῦτα, λύπην πᾶσιν Ἀργείοις βαλεῖς. εἰ γὰρ τὰ τοῦδε τόξα μὴ ληφθήσεται, οὐκ ἔστι πέρσαι σοι τὸ Δαρδάνου πέδον. Say as much as you want against me, the most extreme of extreme evils. You won’t cause me any pain by this, but if you don’t do it, you’ll cast sorrow on all the Argives. For if this man’s bow shall not be taken, it will be impossible for you to sack the plain of Dardanos.10 Odysseus is willing to sacrifice his own reputation—as one critic puts it, he “nonchalantly writes himself into a blame tradition” (O’Higgins 1991: 43)—if it will serve his ends.11 Neoptolemus does portray Odysseus quite negatively in his false tale, but there are interesting limits to how negative he is willing to be. In his imagined scenario, Odysseus nastily lashes out at Neoptolemus in order to defend his own claim to the armor: οὐκ ἦσθ᾽ ἵν᾽ ἡμεῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ἀπῆσθ᾽ ἵν᾽ οὔ σ᾽ ἔδει (“You were not where we were, but off where you shouldn’t have been,” Phil. 379). But he only does so because he is stung to it (δηχθεὶς, 378) by Neoptolemus’ curses; this taunt goes against his nature since, according to Neoptolemus, he is not quick to anger (οὐ δύσοργος, Phil. 377). Neoptolemus exonerates Odysseus for the misallocation of the armor, assigning responsibility to the Atridae: κοὐκ αἰτιῶμαι κεῖνον ὡς τοὺς ἐν τέλει (“And I don’t blame him as much as those in office,” Phil. 385). The passage introduced by this declaration has been suspected by many critics, in part because it seems a surprising departure from the vilification of Odysseus that precedes it and that could be expected to appeal to Philoctetes.12 Neoptolemus’ lenience towards Odysseus can be interpreted as an indication of his state of mind, the sign of a deep loyalty to his mentor that interferes with his commitment to the deception and makes him embarrassed to abuse Odysseus (Webster 1970: 95). His words echo Odysseus’ own earlier self-justifying explanation that he abandoned Philoctetes (ταχθεὶς . . . τῶν ἀνασσόντων ὕπο, “following the kings’ orders,” Phil. 6). But this portrayal can also be read as revealing the force of previous tradition as a constraint on Neoptolemus’ invention. As Seth Schein has pointed out, the characterization of Odysseus as οὐ δύσοργος is “almost metaliterary,” as if Neoptolemus is responding to Odysseus’ famous endurance and self-control as portrayed in the Odyssey (Schein 2013: 188).

The arms of Achilles  119 Furthermore, Neoptolemus’ portrayal of Odysseus as willing to speak up for his right to the armor only when provoked recalls previous versions of the Judgment of Arms myth in which Odysseus seemingly disavows his victory. In the episode in Odyssey 11 in which Odysseus encounters Ajax in the underworld, Odysseus not only says that he regrets having won because of Ajax’s suicide, but also confirms Ajax’s claim to the arms, according to what might seem to be the logical criterion for awarding them, namely similarity to Achilles, also an important standard in the Philoctetes (Od. 11.548–51, trans. Lattimore): ὡς δὴ μὴ ὄφελον νικᾶν τοιῷδ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ἀέθλῳ· τοίην γὰρ κεφαλὴν ἕνεκ᾽ αὐτῶν γαῖα κατέσχεν, Αἴανθ᾽, ὃς περὶ μὲν εἶδος, περὶ δ᾽ ἔργα τέτυκτο τῶν ἄλλων Δαναῶν μετ᾽ ἀμύμονα Πηλείωνα. I wish I had never won in a contest like this, so high a head has gone under the ground for the sake of that armor, Aias, who for beauty and for achievement surpassed all the Danaans next to the stately son of Peleus. At the end of Sophocles’ Ajax, in a passage that recalls Odyssey 11, Odysseus speaks up in favor of Ajax’s burial and again confirms Ajax’s qualification for the arms according to that same standard (Aj. 1336–41): κἀμοὶ γὰρ ἦν ποθ᾽ οὗτος ἔχθιστος στρατοῦ, ἐξ οὗ ᾽κράτησα τῶν Ἀχιλλείων ὅπλων, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν ἔμπας ὄντ᾽ ἐγὼ τοιόνδ᾽ ἐμοὶ οὐκ ἀντατιμάσαιμ᾽ ἄν, ὥστε μὴ λέγειν ἕν᾽ ἄνδρ᾽ ἰδεῖν ἄριστον Ἀργείων, ὅσοι Τροίαν ἀφικόμεσθα, πλὴν Ἀχιλλέως. For me too he was once the greatest enemy in the army, from the time when I got hold of Achilles’ arms, but even though that’s how he stood towards me, I would nοt do him the dishonor of denying that I saw him as the single best man of the Argives, of all of us who came to Troy, except Achilles. In both of these instances, then, Odysseus distances himself from his own victory, but only after the fact, when Ajax is dead and he himself is still standing. The process by which the arms are awarded varies considerably from one version of the myth to another, but it is striking how often the reasons behind the decision in Odysseus’ favor are represented as questionable at best. This is the case even when the outcome itself is viewed as desirable and necessary, beneficial not only to Odysseus himself but to the community making the award. In the case of the Ajax, once again Sophocles has left the background situation somewhat

120  Sheila Murnaghan unclear, so that the exact circumstances of the judgment are hard to reconstruct, although we do know that it involved voting by members of the Achaean camp. But the idea that the contest was improperly decided is strongly present, both in Ajax’s conviction that Achilles would have wanted him to win and that his strength was unfairly undervalued (Aj. 441–6) and in Teucer’s more pointed allegations of corruption against the Atridae (Aj. 1135, 1137). Looking back to earlier versions, it appears that in the Little Iliad the decision turned on a narrowly focused and divinely rigged assessment of the two heroes’ actions during the rescue of Achilles’ corpse from the battlefield (Schol. Ar. Eq. 1056a = frg. 2 West). Following a recommendation by Nestor, the judgment is based on an overheard conversation between two Trojan girls, who are discussing the question. One argues for Ajax on the grounds that he lifted up Achilles’ body and carried it out of the battle, which Odysseus did not want to do. But the other—at the prompting of Athena—responds that even a woman could carry a burden, if a man put it on her, but she couldn’t fight (as Odysseus evidently did while Ajax was carrying off the body). While that argument apparently carries the day, the many depictions of this episode on vases (Burgess 2009: 143–4; Gantz 1996: 632) show how significant an achievement lifting the body actually was.13 In Pindar’s openly critical treatment of the Judgment in Nemean 8 (Nem. 8.23–33), Odysseus wins the arms through his rhetorical skill, which is identified with αἰόλῳ ψεύδει (“shifty falsehood”) and corruption: Odysseus is preferred by the Danaans κρυφίαισι . . . ἐν ψάφοις (“in secret votes”), even though the wounds suffered in the battle over Achilles’ corpse tell a different story. Here, as apparently in the back story to the Ajax, the grounds for the judgment are shifted away from performance on the battlefield to performance in debate, and the decision is made through voting by the Greek leaders. On a series of early fifth-century Attic vases, the Judgment is represented as a formal trial such as might take place in an Athenian court (Spivey 1994). One of these, a cup by Douris now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (ANSA IV 3695), makes clear the positive value of this procedure: on one side, a violent fight is about to break out between the two contenders while, on the other, Athena presides over an orderly formal trial with voting pebbles; finally, the tondo of the cup illustrates the ultimate outcome of the episode, with an image of Odysseus passing the armor on to Neoptolemus (see Figure 7.1). Only a few lines survive of Aeschylus’ play about this episode, the Hoplôn Krisis (“Judgment of Arms”), but given this visual tradition and Aeschylus’ interest in trials, which he introduced into several mythological scenarios (Spivey 1994: 40), it is tempting to think that it also involved a trial, quite possibly presided over by Athena. If our surviving play by Aeschylus featuring a trial presided over by Athena, the Eumenides, can be used as a guide, it seems plausible that the Hoplôn Krisis also presented a decision based on arbitrary and questionable grounds that was nonetheless aligned with communal values and the resolution of conflict.14 Finally, the idea that Odysseus was really not entitled to the arms is reflected in an alternative story about their ultimate fate reported by Pausanias: Odysseus kept the arms rather than turning them over to Neoptolemus, but when

The arms of Achilles  121

Figure 7.1  Odysseus presents Achilles’ armor to Neoptolemus, © KHMMuseumsverband, used with permission.

he was shipwrecked on the way home from Troy they floated ashore near the tomb of Ajax (1.35.4). These varied versions of the Judgment of Arms establish a pattern that Sophocles inherited and reworked in both of his extant Trojan War plays: Odysseus wins the arms by questionable means; he is not himself inclined to revel in his victory, or to take on the role of martial champion that having the arms might indicate, and he does not care about keeping them if passing them on to someone else can serve his ultimate purposes; the resolution of the contest in his favor is aligned with the fated direction of a narrative and is beneficial to a larger community. This pattern is a fundamental feature of the Troy legend, in which Odysseus dominates the action after Achilles’ death and eventually prevails as the hero who takes Troy, doing so through the trick of the Trojan Horse rather than through physical strength or martial skill.15 As he waits for the proper moment when Troy is doomed to fall at last, he willingly stands back and allows other heroes, such as Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, to shine (a motif that is given a sinister twist in the Philoctetes, where he uses Neoptolemus as a front for his own scheme). Odysseus’ carefully managed, often covert predominance is essential to the fated fall of Troy and is further elaborated in the Odyssey’s account of his successful nostos and restoration of justice on Ithaca through the killing of the Suitors, an achievement that also requires trickery and self-restraint. In adapting this myth, Sophocles aligns it with his own understanding of the workings of fate and its enactment by human agents. In the Ajax, Odysseus’

122  Sheila Murnaghan identity as self-effacing survivor is cast in positive terms and placed in service of a conclusion that reflects the play’s Athenian context as much as its Homeric background: both Odysseus’ initial victory in the contest and his subsequent championship of Ajax’s burial are essential to Ajax’s sacrificial death and reintegration into the community as a cult hero. In the Philoctetes, Odysseus’ actions also serve a necessary outcome, backed by the gods, even though he himself is portrayed quite negatively. Odysseus is absent from the ending of the Philoctetes, where there is no mention of his past and future successes. In the words of Heracles, Philoctetes is the one who will assume the position associated with the arms of Achilles, being ἀρετῆι τε πρῶτος ἐκκριθεὶς στρατεύματος (“judged best in the army for heroism,” Phil. 1425). This is consistent with Odysseus’ ready admission in Odyssey 8 that Philoctetes was a greater archer than he was (Od. 8.219–20). But even though the spotlight is on the imminent achievements of Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, those achievements will pave the way for Odysseus’ decisive action in taking the city, whether or not that eventuality is actually mentioned (Schein 2003: 101). And the play’s conclusion is strongly evocative of Odysseus in other ways; Odysseus’ ending may be lost from view in its familiar version (Roberts 1989: 175), but it surfaces in displaced forms, in keeping with his own tendency to go underground when expedient. In the final words of the play, the chorus looks forward to nostos, or “homecoming,” the achievement with which Odysseus is particularly associated (Phil. 1471). Meanwhile, Philoctetes himself has emerged as a kind of double for Odysseus (Schein 2006). Heracles addresses him in the terms that are strikingly reminiscent of the way he addresses Odysseus in Odyssey 11, identifying him as one who is fated to endure ponoi similar to his own (Phil. 1418–22; cf. Od. 11.618–21, Schein 2013: 335). Like Odysseus, Philoctetes departs from an island on which he has been trapped for years, ultimately to return home, but does so only at the proper fated moment, which coincides with the coming of age of a younger man who will fight at his side. The partnership of Philoctetes and Neoptolemus, which echoes the partnership of Odysseus and Telemachus, is an innovation on Sophocles’ part. Its traditional basis is the shadowy event that is never mentioned in the Philoctetes—Odysseus’ enlistment of Neoptolemus in the effort against Troy by giving him Achilles’ armor—but which is replayed through a more elaborate plot in which Odysseus works behind the scenes to bring Neoptolemus together with another significant weapon, the bow of Philoctetes. In both scenarios, Odysseus uses his possession of Achilles’ arms as a strategic asset in his pursuit of a long-term goal, whether directly as a way of winning Neoptolemus’ participation in the war, or indirectly as the basis of a false tale that will lead to an indispensable alliance between Neoptolemus and Philoctetes. The negative portrayal of Odysseus as sophistic and manipulative is in part offset by Philoctetes’ assumption of an Odyssean identity, which reaffirms the destined positive outcome of Odysseus’ story, and by Heracles’ decisive endorsement of Odysseus’ goals. In generating his own version of the last phase of the Troy legend, Sophocles has in effect followed the prescription he puts in Odysseus’ mouth,

The arms of Achilles  123 presenting Odysseus negatively, in keeping with what other tragedians were also doing at the time (Montiglio 2011: 3–12) and almost to the point of caricature, and yet not really harming him as a result. We see here Sophocles’ affirmation of the necessary direction of events, which must in this case lead to the fall of Troy and to nostos for the victorious Greeks, as an imperative that trumps the effects of individual character. Odysseus’ success in promoting the Greek victory at Troy despite his unsavory personality can be compared to another Sophoclean plot in which an individual’s character is ultimately irrelevant: Deianeira’s inevitable destruction of Heracles in the Trachiniae despite her gentle and well-meaning disposition. It is important to note that, like his internal counterpart Neoptolemus, Sophocles also limits his negative portrayal of Odysseus. This can be seen in the kommos between Philoctetes and the Chorus that occurs towards the end of the play. At his lowest ebb, betrayed by his supposed friend and deprived of his bow, Philoctetes voices a bitter fantasy about his enemy Odysseus handling the bow and laughing at him (Phil. 1123–39): οἴμοι μοι, καί που πολιᾶς πόντου θινὸς ἐφήμενος, γελᾶι μου, χερὶ πάλλων τὰν ἐμὰν μελέου τροφάν, τὰν οὐδείς ποτ᾽ ἐβάστασεν. ὦ τόξον φίλον, ὦ φίλων χειρῶν ἐκβεβιασμένον, ἦ που ἐλεινὸν ὁρᾶις, φρένας εἴ τινας ἔχεις, τὸν Ἡράκλειον ἄθλιον ὧδέ σοι οὐκέτι χρησόμενον τὸ μεθύστερον ἄλλου δ᾽ ἐν μεταλλαγᾶι πολυμηχάνου ἀνδρὸς ἐρέσσηι, ὁρῶν μὲν αἰσχρὰς ἀπάτας, στυγνόν τε φῶτ᾽ ἐχθοδοπόν, μυρί᾽ ἀπ᾽ αἰσχρῶν ἀνατέλλονθ᾽ ὃς ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν κάκ᾽ ἐμήσατ᾽ †Ὀδυσσεύς†. Alas, sitting somewhere on the shore of the gray sea, he laughs at me, brandishing in his hand the arms that sustained my wretched life, which no one ever handled. You dear bow, violently forced from hands dear to you, surely you see with pity, if you have any feeling, that Herakles’ wretched comrade

124  Sheila Murnaghan will no longer use you in the future; instead, you are handled by a man of many devices, seeing the shameful deceptions of the hated enemy who devised against us countless evils sprung from shameful deeds. Unscrupulous as Odysseus may be, the play gives no reason for thinking that he would now be laughing at Philoctetes, or that he views Philoctetes as a personal enemy rather than an inconvenient obstacle to the goal of taking Troy. Nor is there any indication that Odysseus himself has ever touched the bow. Philoctetes’ fantasy goes beyond what the situation warrants, projecting vindictive hostility where there is only a conflicting agenda and a determination to achieve it by whatever means.16 Here the Ajax provides an instructive parallel: Ajax himself (Aj. 381–2) and his supporters, the chorus (Aj. 955–60) and Tecmessa (Aj. 970), all imagine that Odysseus is laughing at Ajax in his downfall; yet the opening scene of the play dramatizes his refusal to do so, despite the conflict that has opened up between himself and Ajax, a response that initiates Odysseus’ mutation from Ajax’s enemy to (once again) his friend. However much they differ in their personalities, their moral stature, and their methods, both of Sophocles’ versions of Odysseus are pre-eminently pragmatists, who forward the fated (and ultimately self-advantageous) direction of events by restoring cooperation within the Achaean camp. The chorus’ response to Philoctetes’ complaint is out of sympathy with his sense of bitter grievance (Phil. 1140–5): ἀνδρός τοι τὸ μὲν ὃν δίκαιον εἰπεῖν, εἰπόντος δὲ μὴ φθονερὰν ἐξῶσαι γλώσσας ὀδύναν. κεῖνος δ᾽ εἷς ἀπὸ πολλῶν ταχθεὶς τοῦδ᾽ ἐφημοσύναι κοινὰν ἤνυσεν ἐς φίλους ἀρωγάν. It is a man’s part to assert his own right, but not, once he has spoken, to sting with a rancorous and painful tongue. That man, but one out of many, at this man’s command, accomplished a public benefit for his friends. The chorus redefines the behavior that Philoctetes has condemned as a personal assault as a matter of following orders within a collective enterprise, recalling Neoptolemus’ earlier excuse of Odysseus on the grounds that he was only following orders. It seems that the chorus is here defending Neoptolemus, but their

The arms of Achilles  125 words are general enough that they can apply to Odysseus as well and they use a term, ταχθείς, that exactly echoes Odysseus’ own description of his circumstances in his opening speech (Phil. 6). For some critics, the Chorus’ lack of harmony with Philoctetes reveals their unedifying character: they are “the expedient, the timeservers, the followers” (Gardiner 1987: 44) or they display “weak pity and strong self-interest” (Winnington-Ingram 1980: 294 n. 44).17 But their position may be less an index of their moral stature than a sign of the direction in which the plot is moving, to which they look forward even if doing so puts them at odds with Philoctetes’ current position. The stance they adopt here reflects a gradual shift in emphasis by which cooperating with the Atridae comes to be valued more positively than negatively, a view that even Philoctetes accepts after Heracles’ decisive intervention and that makes a resolution that satisfies Odysseus’ wishes more palatable. The Atridae and their opportunistic ally Odysseus do not emerge as more admirable characters, but the taking of Troy is reaffirmed as a fated necessity, backed by Zeus,18 that outweighs personal animosity. A renewed alliance between Philoctetes and the Achaean leaders is consistent with the endless mutability of friendship and enmity, a major Sophoclean theme that runs through all of his plays, surfacing most explicitly in the Ajax and the Oedipus at Colonus. The Ajax again provides a particularly instructive parallel: Ajax’s embrace of his fate and vision of his own salvation, while remaining in many ways mysterious, is formulated in his great speech on time and change as acceptance of a need to yield to the Atridae that is equated with showing reverence to the gods (Aj. 666–7) (however unworthy the Atridae appear to be and even though Ajax himself never relinquishes his anger towards them). Such shifting alliances are guided by principles of cosmic timing that lie beyond human control and do not necessarily answer to a human sense of justice. Early in the play, Neoptolemus suggests to the chorus that Philoctetes’ disease and difficult life on Lemnos were divinely ordained so that Philoctetes and the bow would be held in reserve until the right moment for their part in the fall of Troy (Phil. 191–200): οὐδὲν τούτων θαυμαστὸν ἐμοί· θεῖα γάρ, εἴπερ κἀγώ τι φρονῶ, καὶ τὰ παθήματα κεῖνα πρὸς αὐτὸν τῆς ὠμόφρονος Χρύσης ἐπέβη, καὶ νῦν ἃ πονεῖ δίχα κηδεμόνων, οὐκ ἔσθ᾽ ὡς οὐ θεῶν του μελέτηι τοῦ μὴ πρότερον τόνδ᾽ ἐπὶ Τροίαι τεῖναι τὰ θεῶν ἀμάχητα βέλη, πρὶν ὅδ᾽ ἐξήκοι χρόνος, ὧι λέγεται χρῆναί σφ᾽ ὑπὸ τῶνδε δαμῆναι. None of this surprises me. For these sufferings, if I have any understanding, are divine and came to him

126  Sheila Murnaghan from savage-minded Chryse; as for his present, painful labors, with no one to care for him— there’s no way the gods are not concerned lest this man draw against Troy too soon the unopposable shafts of the gods, until the time in which it is said that the city must be conquered by them. Neoptolemus does not explain the source of his conviction, and his words may come across as “complacent and self-serving” (Schein 2006: 136; cf. Schein 2013: 24), but he is not wrong about the gods’ interest in these events or about the paramount importance of timing, and his scenario of painful labors preceding glorious success anticipates the pattern of experience that Heracles both claims for himself and dictates to Philoctetes at 1418–22.19 As that moment approaches, Neoptolemus elaborates on this scenario by suggesting that the relationship between Philoctetes and the Atridae is about to change for the better. This occurs at the very end of his unsuccessful attempt to persuade Philoctetes to return with him to Troy, just before he gives up on further talk and agrees to take Philoctetes home. Philoctetes is still unable to get past the cruel treatment that he has suffered from the Atridae, but Neoptolemus asks him to consider it as part of a broader trajectory (Phil. 1390–1): Φι.: ἐγὼ οὐκ Ἀτρείδας ἐκβαλόντας οἶδά με; Νε: ἀλλ᾽ ἐκβαλόντες εἰ πάλιν σώσουσ᾽ ὅρα. Ph: Don’t I know that the sons of Atreus cast me away? Ne: What if, having cast you out, they will take you back and save you? Neoptolemus’ words are insufficient to change Philoctetes’ mind, but they give an accurate account of the future, and they evoke the recurrent rhythm of rise and fall that structures Sophocles’ universe and provides as much of a guide to divine purposes as human beings can hope for. In his formulation, the Atridae play a role similar to that of the gods themselves in the line that provides Sophocles’ clearest explanation of the fortunes of Oedipus: arriving with news of new oracles predicting that Oedipus will now be sought by the Thebans as a source of salvation, Ismene declares to her father: νῦν γὰρ θεοί σ᾽ ὀρθοῦσι, πρόσθε δ᾽ ὤλλυσαν (“Now the gods are raising you up; before they destroyed you,” O.C. 394). In both the Ajax and the Philoctetes, Sophocles dramatizes the struggles of heroes who assert themselves and pursue justice for themselves within the larger narrative of the Troy legend, in which the overriding dictates of fate favor the interests of Odysseus and the Atridae. For Ajax and Philoctetes, both of whom are alienated from the Achaean cause and driven by personal injury to oppose those interests, this feature of the mythological tradition represents one of those baffling shifts of fortune with which Sophoclean characters have to contend. Sophocles presents their willful resistance to Odysseus’ predominance so compellingly that

The arms of Achilles  127 their eventual acquiescence can feel to us like defeat, even though a promised salvation lies ahead for them. This is especially the case in the Philoctetes, where Philoctetes is clearly the victim of injustice, Odysseus is portrayed as an unsympathetic character, and Philoctetes’ change of heart requires the intervention of a higher authority. In the Philoctetes, Sophocles also establishes a parallel between the strategies of his characters and the practice of tragic story-telling by incorporating into the plot Neoptolemus’ fictional reworking of the famous episode of the Judgment of Arms. But even if that story can be reworked, it is finally dominated by Odysseus, who suggests it in the first place and who prevails in any version of it, whether his rival is Ajax or Neoptolemus, whether he is portrayed as humble and empathetic or unscrupulous and self-seeking. This dramatized exercise in myth-making affirms in the end an Odyssean point: successful fictions must mirror inescapable truths. Both the playwright and his characters are constrained by the underlying conditions of human existence, which they do not control and which they must, in the end, acknowledge as real whether they want to or not.

Acknowledgments It is a great pleasure to offer this essay as thanks for Peter Smith’s important role in my graduate education, especially his much appreciated help with my dissertation. I am also grateful for valuable comments from Seth Schein, Deborah H. Roberts, and the participants at the Philoctetes Study Day at Yale in September 2013, where I presented an earlier version.

Notes   1 For an overview of the evidence for these events, see Gantz 1996: 629–35.   2 Odysseus’ transfer of the arms to Neoptolemus figures in Proclus’ summary of the Little Iliad (Argumentum 3, West 2003, p. 122); it is also mentioned by Apollodorus (Ep. 5.11) and Quintus Smyrnaeus (7.445) and depicted on a red figure cup by Douris (see Fig. 7.1 above). The only recorded alternative to this tradition is Pausanias’ report that the Aetolians living near Troy claimed that the arms washed ashore near the tomb of Ajax when Odysseus was shipwrecked (1.35.4).   3 This episode shows how consequential Neoptolemus’ lie has been, not only in deceiving Philoctetes, but also in tying his own hands. Neoptolemus cannot now be freed of deceit despite his newfound compassion for Philoctetes and eventual willingness to honor Philoctetes’ wish to go home over his own desire to return to Troy: Schein 2013: 24; Pucci 2003: 313–14; Winnington-Ingram 1980: 296.   4 For the parallel, see Roberts 1989: 168; O’Higgins 1991: 38; Schein 2003: 98. For the view that Neoptolemus’ story is actually true, see Adams 1957: 140–2, which is well refuted by Knox 1964: 191 n. 30; see also Bers 1981: 501.   5 As Greengard observes, Neoptolemus’ story is in effect “a new myth” that “creates its own sense of reality” (1987: 23–4). A number of critics have noted that Odysseus, as the originator of Neoptolemus’ charade, can also be compared to a playwright. See especially Greengard 1987: 25; Ringer 1998: 103–7, and Lada-Richards 2009, who stresses Neoptolemus’ resemblance to an actor, in particular one who ultimately rebels against the script assigned to him.

128  Sheila Murnaghan   6 Neoptolemus’ extensive and detailed narrative is also patterned on the story of Achilles (Knox 1964: 123) and on the situation of Philoctetes himself, for which it provides a kind of template (Hamilton 1975).   7 This pairing may, however, pre-date the Philoctetes, as Odysseus and Phoenix appear on a vase from the 470s trying to persuade Neoptolemus’ grandfather Lycomedes to let him go to Troy (Gantz 1996: 640).   8 For these lines as clearly spurious, see Jebb 1898: 252 and Schein 2013: 327.   9 Knox 1964: 192 n. 33. On the Chorus’ perjury, see Bers 1981. 10 Quotations from the Greek text of the Philoctetes are taken from Schein 2013, translations from Schein 2003. 11 This is consistent with Odysseus’ behavior in Aeschylus’ lost Philoctetes, where he himself reportedly gave Philoctetes a false account of events at Troy that included the claim that he had been charged with a most disgraceful crime (αἰσχίστῃ): Dio Chrys., Or. 52.10. 12 For discussion and bibliography, see Schein 2013: 189–90. 13 Cf. for example, the depiction by Exekias on an amphora in the University of Pennsylvania Museum (MS3442), which emphasizes the dead weight of Achilles’ inert body and Ajax’s powerful arms and thighs. 14 On the possible relationship between both Aeschylean plays and the portrayal of Ajax in the Ajax, see Murnaghan 2014. 15 For this point, see Holt 1992: 327; for events at Troy between the death of Achilles and the fall of the city, see Gantz 1996: 629–46. 16 See Easterling 1978: 38 for the observation that Odysseus “is by no means the simple embodiment of evil that he seems to Philoctetes.” Dio Chrysostom, in his comparison of the Philoctetes plays by the three major tragedians, characterizes Sophocles’ version of Odysseus as πραιότερον καὶ ἁπλούστερον, “more gentle and straightforward,” than Euripides’ (Or. 52.16). 17 See also Kitzinger 2008: 126–7, for the view that the failed communication between Philoctetes and the chorus in this kommos signals a thoroughgoing breakdown of traditional choral functions in the world of the play. 18 At Phil. 1415, Heracles identifies the course of action that he enjoins on Philoctetes as τὰ Διός . . . βουλεύματα, recalling the programmatic Διὸς βουλή of Iliad 1.5 and other early epic narratives. 19 “Neoptolemus is right of course! But it is rather glib, the cocksureness of youth” (Winnington-Ingram 1980: 284–5).

References Adams, S.M. (1957), Sophocles the Playwright, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bers, V. (1981), “The Perjured Chorus in Sophocles’ ‘Philoctetes’,” Hermes 109: 500–4. Burgess, J.S. (2009), The Death and Afterlife of Achilles, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Easterling, P.E. (1978), “Philoctetes and Modern Criticism,” Illinois Classical Studies 3: 27–39. Gantz, T. (1996), Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources, 2 vols., Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gardiner, C.P. (1987), The Sophoclean Chorus: A Study of Character and Function, Iowa City: University of Iowa Press. Greengard, C. (1987), Theatre in Crisis: Sophocles’ Reconstruction of Genre and Politics in Philoctetes, Amsterdam: Hakkert. Hamilton, R. (1975), “Neoptolemos’ Story in the Philoctetes,” American Journal of Philology 96: 131–7.

The arms of Achilles  129 Holt, P. (1992), “Ajax’ Burial in Early Greek Epic,” American Journal of Philology 113: 319–31. Jebb, R.C. (1898), Sophocles: Philoctetes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kitzinger, M.R. (2008), The Choruses of Sophokles’ Antigone and Philoktetes, Leiden: Brill. Knox, B.M.W. (1964), The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lada-Richards, I. (2009), “‘The Players Will Tell All’: The Dramatist, the Actors, and the Art of Acting in Sophocles’ Philoctetes,” in S. Goldhill and E. Hall (eds.), Sophocles and the Greek Tragic Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 48–68. Montiglio, S. (2011), From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Murnaghan, S. (2014), “The Creation of Anachronism: Assessing Ancient Valor in Sophocles’ Ajax,” in J. Ker and C. Pieper (eds.), Valuing the Past in the Greco-Roman World: Proceedings from the Penn-Leiden Colloquia on Ancient Values VII, Leiden: Brill, pp. 199–218. O’Higgins, D. (1991), “Narrators and Narrative in the Philoctetes of Sophocles,” Ramus 20: 37–52. Pucci, P. (2003), Sofocle, Filottete, Milan: Mondadori. Ringer, M. (1998), The Empty Urn: Metatheater and Role Playing in Sophocles, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Roberts, D.H. (1989), “Different Stories: Sophoclean Narrative(s) in the Philoctetes,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 119: 161–76. Schein, S.L. (2003), Sophokles, Philoktetes, translation with notes, introduction, and interpretive essay, Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing. —— (2006), “The Iliad and Odyssey in Sophocles’ Philoctetes: Generic Complexity and Ethical Ambiguity,” in J. Davidson, F. Muecke, and P. Wilson (eds.), Greek Drama III: Essays in Honour of Kevin Lee, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 87, London: University of London, pp. 129–40. —— (ed.) (2013), Sophocles, Philoctetes. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spivey, N. (1994), “Psephological Heroes,” in R. Osborne and S. Hornblower (eds.), Ritual, Finance, Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 39–51. Webster, T.B.L. (ed.) (1970), Sophocles, Philoctetes. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. West, M.L. (2003), Greek Epic Fragments (Loeb Classical Library, 497), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Winnington-Ingram, R.P. (1980), Sophocles: An Interpretation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

8 The “Bad Place” The horrific house of Euripides’ Heracles Derek Smith Keyser

Introduction Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho contains one of the most iconic scenes of horror in film history: the main character, played by Janet Leigh, is stabbed to death in the shower of a motel by what appears to be an old woman. It is a shocking scene marked by frequent film cuts, shrieking violins, and a sudden act of violence that abruptly cuts off the film’s previous narrative involving embezzlement and running from the law. While most viewers find this moment hard to forget, there is an earlier bathroom scene in the film that deserves some attention: the close-up of the toilet as Janet Leigh flushes a torn piece of paper. This candid, seemingly mundane moment was in fact the first instance of toilet-flushing shown in an American film. Screenwriter Joseph Stefano demanded the inclusion of the scene and argued for its significance to the film: “This is where you’re going to begin to know what the human race is all about. We’re going to start by showing you the toilet and it’s only going to get worse” (Rebello 2010: 47). Though Psycho’s frank depiction of private space may not be as striking for modern viewers, the toilet scene still serves an important function in the film. The appearance of something as mundane and familiar as a bathroom toilet lulls an audience into a false sense of security. The sudden intrusion of a gruesome act of violence, like that which occurs in the shower murder scene, shatters that security and generates feelings of intense horror. Euripides achieves a similarly horrific effect in Heracles by first evoking the apparent safety associated with domestic space, then shattering the false impression of security through a detailed depiction of slaughter that exposes the vulnerability of the home and the family within it. As in Psycho, Euripides’ play has a bipartite plot structure revolving around a sudden act of violence in the middle of the story that abruptly shifts the narrative. In the first half of the play, the wicked tyrant Lycus is plotting to kill the family of Heracles while the hero is away completing his twelve labors (significantly, Euripides has adapted the myth so that Heracles completes the labors before he goes mad and kills his family). The family, particularly Heracles’ father Amphitryon and wife Megara, have been barred from their house and are about to voluntarily submit themselves for execution when Heracles arrives in the nick of time to save them. Heracles secretly

The “Bad Place”  131 enters the house and kills Lycus in an ambush, but during the celebration that follows, the goddesses Iris and Lyssa, sent by Hera, drive the hero mad and incite him to murder Megara and the children. The second half of the play focuses on Heracles regaining his sanity and coming to terms with his crime through interactions with Amphitryon and the recently arrived Theseus. The detailed depictions of Heracles’ house in all parts of the play—before, during, and after the massacre of the family—highlight Euripides’ skill in generating horror through a deliberate bait and switch: the false appearance of salvation is subverted by the grim reality of slaughter. Before I discuss the depictions of the house in Heracles and how they contribute to the horror of the play, it would be useful first to define horror in modern art and literature, then to explain how such a definition might be applied to ancient drama. Noel Carroll defines the emotion “art-horror” (i.e., a feeling of horror felt by an audience in response to a piece of fiction) as a combination of fear and repulsion; the latter part is felt in response to a severe and violent contradiction of a normative cultural category, as defined in the anthropological research of Mary Douglas (Carroll 1990; Douglas 1966). A suspenseful piece of fiction, such as a spy novel or a superhero comic, may cause the audience to feel fear by placing the main character’s life in peril, but the audience does not feel repulsion because this peril is in accordance with a defined set of expectations for those characters: spies know other spies shoot guns, superheroes are aware villains can be vicious. In a piece of horror fiction, however, protagonists are confronted with monsters that defy essential boundaries that fictional characters and real-life audiences take for granted: zombies and vampires blur the distinctions between the living and the dead; werewolves, between humans and animals. Though Carroll limits his definition of horror fiction and the “art-horror” emotion to supernatural stories involving transgressive monsters, this is an unnecessary limitation. Many popular films and stories firmly rooted in the horror genre lack supernatural elements yet still create the same combination of terror and repulsion by subverting cultural categories through a killer’s psychological abnormalities, transgressive violence, or an unexpected setting for carnage. The horror in Psycho, for example, stems from the ambivalent identity (male and female, mother and son) of killer Norman Bates, as well as from the bathroom setting mentioned above: to the unknowing victim, it appears as a conventional refuge for private hygienic purposes; to the psychologically repressed killer, it offers an opportunity to explore taboo fantasies through voyeurism, stalking, and murder. Horror as defined above would be useful in discussions of emotional responses to Heracles and other Greek tragedies. Fear, one of the components of horror, has long been accepted as a significant emotion felt by a tragic audience, as argued by Aristotle in the Poetics (1449b24–8). Though the philosopher does not here give a precise definition for φόβος, his description of the emotion in the Rhetoric—a pain felt at the thought of some “destructive or painful event in the future” (μέλλοντος κακοῦ φθαρτικοῦ ἢ λυπηροῦ, 1382a21–2)—seems to fit with the concept of dramatic suspense, which a tragic audience might experience in response to the threat of looming violence. In the Heracles, an audience might

132  Derek Smith Keyser feel such suspense during the first half of the play while the tyrant Lycus plans to execute Heracles’ family. This is a frightening situation, but not horrific. The tyrant’s desire to execute the helpless family of a political rival is depicted as unjust and cruel, but it does not seem to violate any fundamental cultural assumptions; executing innocent people is standard operating procedure for tyrants, at least in the Athenian mindset. This conception of φόβος cannot on its own, however, explain the emotional effect of Heracles’ deranged murder of his family. Euripides generates horror in the play by drawing on cultural associations of the household as a safe space before subverting these associations in the murder scene and its aftermath. The conventional and apparently mundane setting becomes horrifically distorted by grotesque violence, which in turn compels the desperate victims to manipulate familiar space in unfamiliar ways.

The house in Heracles In the first half of the Heracles, Euripides uses visual and verbal cues to establish the house as salvation for the family of Heracles. Amphitryon remarks in the prologue: “For we sit (outside) barred from our home without any means of safety” (ἐκ γὰρ ἐσφραγισμένοι | δόμων καθήμεθ’ ἀπορίᾳ σωτηρίας, 53–4). The audience can see the family and the house simultaneously, and thus the staging reinforces this division between the victims and their salvation. When Heracles returns, his first words are a greeting to the house (523–4); like many travelers, he assumes that the sight of home signals the end of his troubles (Bond 1981: ad loc.). Amphitryon convinces the enraged hero not to march against Lycus’ palace by noting that Heracles will find safety (ἀσφαλείᾳ) hiding inside his own home (604). Lycus is thus easily deceived by Amphitryon in believing that the family remains inside the house in a vain attempt to prolong their life (712–16). The chorus signals what they believe is the end of the family’s suffering by noting that “the house is silent” (σιγᾷ μέλαθρα) after Lycus’ death (761). Euripides allows these characters, and his audience, to assume that the household is a secure place: once the reunited family regains control of the home, it appears that they have averted all danger. The surprising entrance of the goddesses Iris and Lyssa, and the ensuing massacre committed by the deluded hero against his family, shatters this appearance of domestic safety. Cultural associations held by ancient audiences, and reinforced by characters during the play, are undercut again and again as Euripides transforms the household into a locus of slaughter. Even before the violence begins, the entrance of Iris subverts the fundamental distinction between household space and the outside world. The design of ancient houses reveals that Greeks considered the separation of inside and outside space as a priority: most homes had only a single entrance from the street and high, inaccessible windows; the guest areas were clearly marked by distinct decoration and potential isolation from other domestic space (Nevett 1999: 70–4). Amphitryon assumes that the house is a securely closed structure from which the powerful can bar the weak (ἐσφραγισμένοι, 53) and, conversely, in which the restored patriarch can confine

The “Bad Place”  133 a guilty trespasser (κεκλῄσεται, 729). The goddesses not only threaten the house itself (ἑνὸς δ’ ἐπ’ ἀνδρὸς δώματα στρατεύομεν, 825; καταρρήξω μέλαθρα, 864) but also reveal the building as something permeable and vulnerable to intrusion. Lyssa’s quiet entrance into the house (ἐς δόμους δ’ ἡμεῖς ἄφαντοι δυσόμεσθ’ Ἡρακλέους, 873) involved a descent from the skene roof through a trapdoor or stairway into the house (Mastronarde 1990: 268–9). The staging disrupts the visual pattern established in the first part of the play. The front doors of the skene had served as a prominent onstage feature; they represented a symbolic fulcrum of power, as only those in control had access to the home. But Lyssa bypasses this entrance entirely, and her surreptitious descent demonstrates how easily the home’s defenses can be penetrated. Her eventual destruction of the roof and structural supports confirms that the house can only offer its occupants limited protection against invasion from the outside. The account of violence found in the messenger-speech further illustrates how Euripides challenges the notion of the house as protected space. This speech includes an abundance of architectural detail, including descriptions of columns, door panels, orthostates, and altar-bases, among others (Rehm 1999: 369). Though we might expect the play’s mythical hero to dwell in an ornate palace, Euripides concentrates on common architectural features that would be identifiable to most members of his audience. Bond compares the messenger’s depiction of the house to the fifth-century pastas-style houses at Olynthus (Bond 1981: ad 1008). These houses contained a central open courtyard bordered on one or more sides by a roofed colonnade (pastas); all other interior rooms radiated from these central areas (Nevett 1999: 63–8). The descriptions of the hero’s movement are consistent with such houses: he begins at the altar of Zeus, a common feature of central courtyards, and the action revolves around this area as the hero enters connecting rooms such as the ἀνδρών and the inner chamber where Megara hides. By including realistic descriptions of familiar domestic space, Euripides makes the family’s experience more immediate and identifiable for an ancient audience. Unsettling contradictions within the messenger-speech undermine the comfortable familiarity of the home that Euripides has evoked. There are two significant areas of contradiction involving the house: the first involves the tension between the deranged hero’s hallucinations and his actual location. The messenger juxtaposes Heracles’ deluded impressions of the space around him with descriptions of the actual household geography. Though the messenger lucidly differentiates hallucination and actuality, his attention to mundane details and the specific contradictions arising from these details illustrate how confusing the domestic space has become. After entering his imaginary chariot, the hero claims that he has arrived in Megara though in reality he is within his own house (μέσον δ’ ἐς ἀνδρῶν’ ἐσπεσὼν Νίσου πόλιν, 954). The messenger generates confusion by introducing the two locations in the same line and postponing the clarification of the delusion (ἥκειν ἔφασκε) until the next one (955). The ἀνδρών, which was typically used to entertain guests, is a fitting location for the beginning of the hero’s delusional journey, as the room serves as a transitional space between the outside

134  Derek Smith Keyser world and the private residence of the family. But the contradictions between actual and imaginary locations become more exaggerated as Heracles moves into the interior of the house. The mundane details within the messenger’s account illustrate the extent of the hero’s distance from reality: he holds a communal feast (θοίνη) for himself alone, he dines in private quarters (δωμάτων τ’ ἔσω βεβὼς) rather than the designated guest space (ἀνδρών), and reclines on the floor (κλιθεὶς ἐς οὖδας) instead of on a couch (955–7). The hero’s delusions challenge familiar demarcations of the household, and the audience hears conflicting notions of domestic space. The second type of contradiction involves the family’s misappropriation of household architecture in their desperate efforts to survive. Heracles’ family does not share his delusions, but his deranged attacks compel them to treat familiar domestic space in unfamiliar ways as they search for refuge. The first child victim tries hiding behind a column (ὑπὸ κίονος σκιάν, 973), presumably part of the colonnade abutting the courtyard. The column is a narrow supporting structure and cannot adequately hide a human being, no matter how small. Consequently, the child’s only hope is to use the column as an ad hoc barrier as his father chases him in circles (977–8). Euripides’ attention to the circularity of movement here is striking; in less than two lines he employs three words that denote the cyclical nature of this chase (ἐξελίσσων, κύκλῳ, τόρνευμα). This emphasis on circularity illustrates the futility of the child’s attempt to flee. While there is continuous motion (ἐξελίσσων), the victim essentially stays in the same place and is stopped immediately when the father finally blocks his path (ἐναντίον σταθείς, 978). The child’s final movements demonstrate the inadequacy of the column’s protection. The vertical support remains (for the moment) standing upright and intact, but the slaughtered boy sinks downward against it and lies prone (ὕπτιος δὲ λαΐνους | ὀρθοστάτας ἔδευσεν, 979–80). The second child tries to hide at the base of the courtyard altar (974). Altars are traditionally places of refuge, and earlier in the play the family supplicated at a public altar outside of the house in the hope that Lycus would not violate the sanctity of this edifice (48–50). The courtyard altar, dedicated to the “Zeus of enclosure” (Ζεὺς ἑρκεῖος), was a familiar feature of ancient Greek homes believed to prevent outside threats from entering the home (Burkert 1985: 130); for this reason it served as the locus of ritual action immediately before the slaughter (922). But the child does not make any appeal to the altar’s sacred protective function in his pleas before his father; the boundaries between the internal domestic space and external threats are no longer applicable, as Heracles belongs in both categories. The young boy only hopes that he can avoid his father’s notice by crouching at the base of the domestic altar platform (ἀμφὶ βωμίαν | ἔπτηξε κρηπῖδ’ ὡς λεληθέναι δοκῶν, 984–5). The son’s feeble attempt to use the altar as hiding place thus does not depend on the structure’s symbolic significance, and its prominence in the center of the open courtyard renders the effort futile: his killer in fact finds that the child’s hiding spot has drawn him too close. Heracles cannot use his intended weapon, the bow, because of this proximity and so strikes the son with a club (991–4). The messenger compares this deadly stroke to the hammering of a

The “Bad Place”  135 blacksmith (μυδροκτύπον μίμημ’, 992), a vivid, realistic metaphor that simultaneously illustrates the brutal force of the blow and emphasizes the “close, grim, and ugly” nature of violence in contrast with the traditionally sacred space where it occurs (Barlow 1982: 120–1). The mother and third son, the final victims, attempt to find safety by bolting themselves within the house’s inner chambers (ἔσω δόμων, 996). This private section of the house should be the place furthest from dangers; one of the speakers in Xenophon’s Economics, for example, notes that he keeps his most valuable property in an inner chamber (θάλαμος, here designating the storeroom) “since it is in a position of security” (ἐν ὀχυρῷ ὤν, 9.3). Euripides does not specify the common function for the room in which Megara and her child hide, but the tragedian suggests that this chamber will provide greater security through its locked doors (κλῄει πύλας, 997). Megara, unlike the previous two victims, seems to be looking for protection in an appropriate place. Unfortunately, the locked doors prove to be insubstantial obstacles, ultimately no more effective against Heracles than the column or altar. The hero has already announced his plan to dismantle the Cyclopean foundations of Mycenae with levers (μοχλούς . . . Κυκλώπων βάθρα, 944). By locking themselves into the inner rooms, the mother and son inadvertently allow the hero, still believing himself in Mycenae (ὡς ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς δὴ Κυκλωπίοισιν ὤν, 998), to fulfill his vow by dismantling the door posts and door jambs (σκάπτει μοχλεύει θύρετρα κἀκβαλὼν σταθμά, 999). The contrast between the Cyclopean masonry of Mycenae and the ordinary architecture of the household doors demonstrates the fragility of the home’s defenses. Heracles was prepared to “shatter with a trident” (συντριαινῶσαι) the artfully constructed Mycenaean palace (945–6). But before the simple door posts and door flaps of the inner rooms in his own house, the hero’s incredible might is overwhelming and terrifyingly abrupt. His boast to dismantle the Mycenaean palace extends for four lines (943–6), while his destruction of the doors spans is limited to one line and opens with asyndeton (σκάπτει μοχλεύει) to emphasize the intensity of the action. In an instant, the deranged killer renders futile his wife’s attempts to lock him out, and his brutal slaughter of the mother and child confirms the family’s complete vulnerability within the domestic space. In addition to highlighting the inadequate protection found in individual areas of the house, Euripides also undermines the home as a safe space through the sequence of the murders. There is a dramatic crescendo as Heracles penetrates the building and invades the safest places in the house: the rampage begins in the courtyard and the ἀνδρών, common guest areas that mediate between internal domestic space and the outside world (Nevett 1999: 70–1); it ends in the most intimate areas of the house as Heracles dismantles the doors to its innermost chambers. But the killer’s penetration of the house also carries symbolic importance: each family member seeks shelter within the “symbolic cornerstones of Greek domestic life” (Rehm 2002: 107), and with each victim the symbolic significance of their hiding place grows. The first child hides behind a column, a generic structure that would be found in many types of buildings. The next

136  Derek Smith Keyser son, however, chooses to crouch at the family altar in the courtyard. As I noted above, this domestic altar to Ζεὺς ἑρκεῖος contrasts with the public altar that the family had previously supplicated. The latter edifice served as an accepted place of refuge for community members seeking protection against a political enemy; the domestic altar functions as a locus for family worship and protects the house by “walling it off” (ἑρκεῖος) from the outside world. Heracles’ failure to recognize its domestic significance complements his inability to accept his son’s appeal to their kinship. Finally, the remaining child cowers under the robe of his mother, and she in turn leads him into the inner chambers of the house. The final act of violence thus occurs within the most intimate areas of the home against a child still being held by his mother (δάμαρτα καὶ παῖδ’ ἑνὶ κατέστρωσεν βέλει, 1000). It is essentially an attack on the most basic conception of the house: a huddled family in a single room with only a locked door separating them from an external threat. The audience of the Heracles is thus confronted with a contradiction of the familiar intimacy of the household. Though the family and audience expect the house to protect its occupants from the dangers of the outside world, in this play it can only lock victims in as they vainly attempt to escape the horrors within. Euripides provides little assurance that the shattered house can be restored following this brutal slaying. Amphitryon and the other survivors continue to rely on household architecture as a source of safety following the massacre. They chain Heracles to a column broken as a result of the earthquake (1006–11). He has already circumvented an intact column (κίονος, 977), the raised platform of an altar (βωμίαν . . . κρηπῖδ’, 984–5), and bolted doors (κλῄει πύλας, 997). But now the survivors hope that he can be stopped by less secure analogues (1008–9). This column is broken (διχορραγής), its platform (κρηπίδων ἔπι) does not support a sacred edifice that might offer at least symbolic protection, and the “corded snares” (σειραίων βρόχων) that tie him to the column can hardly restrain a man who can dismantle Cyclopean masonry as well as a door frame. Amphitryon concedes that Heracles once awakened could easily escape such restraints (1055). Moreover, the staging of the hero tied to a broken column confirms the bleak depiction of the home found in the messenger’s report: iconographic sources frequently incorporate a single column as a symbolic representation of the home (Rehm 1999: 370 n. 21). The image of Heracles beside a broken column thus succinctly encapsulates the utter dismantling of the household resulting from this rampage. The presence of this broken column throughout the rest of the play served as a reminder to the original audience of the contradictions underlying the violence found in the messenger speech: the unstable boundaries and limited protective features of the home leave its occupants vulnerable to unexpected and overwhelming dangers.

Horror and the bad place The play’s depiction of the violation of a cultural “safe space” has an analogue in the modern horror genre, in which monsters and killers often strike while

The “Bad Place”  137 their victims feel secure but are in reality quite vulnerable. The chases in horror films often climax with the victim arriving at a presumably safe location that offers refuge from the threat lurking outside. Inevitably, the security of the location is compromised and the victim becomes trapped. In some cases, the killer’s relentless attacks against the outside structure of the building prevent the terrified occupant from leaving and force her to wait anxiously until the killer finally enters. In Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), for example, a murderous gang transforms a police station, a typically secure area, into claustrophobic nightmare as the officers and other workers wait in vain for outside support. In other cases, the killer is already inside the building and surprises the victim who thought she had escaped. In Clark’s Black Christmas (1974), sorority members are surprised to find that the disturbing phone calls that they continuously receive originate from their own house; in the final chase, the protagonist flees to the basement where she bludgeons the man she assumes is the killer. The trope most effectively generates horror when the safe space is the protagonist’s own home. Stephen King notes (1981: 281): Our homes are the places we allow ourselves the ultimate vulnerability: they are the places where we take off our clothes and go to sleep with no guard on watch . . . When we go home and we shoot the bolt on the door, we like to think we’re locking trouble out. The good horror story about the Bad Place whispers that we are not locking the world out; we are locking ourselves in . . . with them. Since horror fiction essentially deals with the violation of cultural categories and distinctions, the house presents an ideal location for horrific violence. Its boundaries seem well-defined and within the control of its inhabitant; she can lock the doors, pull down the blinds, and remove even the thought of the outside world and its dangers (Kawash 2000). The horror villain violates these boundaries, often in a slow and agonizing fashion: he can be heard from outside, he is visible through a window, he begins to turn the knob of the front door, and finally he shatters the door and enters. The killer’s invasion undermines the distinction between inside and outside, safe and unsafe space. This contradiction also involves a reversal of control, since by penetrating the house the villain reveals that he, not the victim, can determine who has access to it. This reversal is often prefigured before the killer enters; he may cut off the power supply or sever the phone lines, thus leaving the victim vulnerable and unable to contact outside help. He has completely subverted the function of the house: “the same walls that promise to keep the killer out quickly become, once the killer penetrates them, the walls that hold the victim in” (Clover 1992: 31). Violence within the house also horrifies because of the symbolic connection between the building and its inhabitant. It is a place of common activity, and for its occupants it is full of memories and meaning (Smuts 2003: 162–5). We identify with our homes and arrange them in ways that reflect our personalities.

138  Derek Smith Keyser The violation of this space is thus particularly disturbing and immediate. Anne Siddons, the author of the haunted-house novel The House Next Door, notes (King 1981: 287): [The house] is an extension of ourselves; it tolls in answer to one of the most basic chords mankind will ever hear. My shelter. My earth. My second skin. Mine. So basic is it that the desecration of it, the corruption, as it were, by something alien takes on a peculiar and bone-deep horror and disgust. It is both frightening and . . . violating, like a sly, terrible burglar. The hostile invasion of the house is in itself an act of horrific violence, a rupture of one’s “second skin” that in such fictions is often followed by the destruction of the inhabitant’s body. Horror fiction further exploits the connection between the victim and her home through depictions of corrupted household space after the killing. When the surviving characters discover the victim’s body, the surrounding area is similarly mangled and tainted by her blood. Episodes of horrific violence can corrupt the house permanently. Tales of haunted houses almost always involve what Stephen King calls “a supernatural provenance,” some previous horrific event that has converted the house into a “Bad Place” (1981: 277–84); that is, a place so defiled by violence that it can never return to being a place of peaceful habitation. King himself illustrates the concept in his novel The Shining, in which the ghost of a father who killed his family tries to convince the living protagonist to commit the same crime. The haunted house subgenre illustrates how horror fiction inverts traditional attitudes toward the home: we normally project fond memories of comfort and familiarity onto our houses, but the haunted house is marked by bad memories and the inability to recover from a past disruption. The motif of the corrupted house seems similar to Euripides’ treatment of the hero’s home in the Heracles. Yet Heracles’ destruction of the house is in some ways even more horrific than the invasion of the killer in modern horror fiction. It is not an alien intruder that gains control over the family’s home but a man they love and trust. The victims in horror fiction at the very least know that their house has been invaded and their security has been compromised. Heracles’ family cannot so easily distinguish the familiar patriarch from the deranged killer that pursues them. The father and his family also view the house itself in vastly different ways: for the mad Heracles it is an epic obstacle, a Cyclopean palace that he must raze to the ground; for the family it is a much more mundane dwelling, marked by ordinary architectural features that cannot protect them against the fury of an insane warrior. Euripides also establishes a symbolic connection between family and home, though it is a different type of connection from the one found in modern horror. The tragedian does not concentrate on sentimental or idiosyncratic details; there is no indication that this home is designed to reflect the particular personalities of its inhabitants. Instead, he draws on a more general and fundamental connection between the Greek house and the social identity of its occupants. In the Heracles, the family strongly identifies with their home. Even when they have lost control

The “Bad Place”  139 of the building, they do not doubt that it essentially belongs to them. Megara remarks: “Others control [the property] but the name is still ours (ἄλλοι κρατοῦσι, τὸ δ’ ὄνομ’ ἔσθ’ ἡμῶν ἔτι, 338). They similarly treat the house as an essential part of the family. The returning Heracles first addresses it before reuniting with his wife and children (523–4); Amphitryon instructs his son to “allow your paternal home to see your face” (δὸς πατρώιοις δώμασιν σὸν ὄμμ’ ἰδεῖν, 600). The destruction of the house during the massacre marks an irreparable loss of identity for Heracles. Not only has he slaughtered his children, whom he imagined would inherit his estate and his heroic reputation (460–75), he has destroyed the foundation of his γένος. The play presents the massacre as a kind of κατασκαφή, a razing of the house. The practice of κατασκαφή was considered one of the most severe punishments in the Greek world, reserved for acts of heinous murder and treason. It targeted not just the offender but his entire γένος: it was often accompanied by the denial of burial for the criminal and the disinterment of his previously buried kin. It therefore represented “the extirpation of the individual and his immediate kin from the society” (Connor 1985: 86). Heracles earlier vowed to raze Lycus’ house to the ground (κατασκάψω δόμους, 566); in his delusions he now similarly threatens to dismantle the palace of Eurystheus (943–6), though he ultimately dismantles (σκάπτει, 999) the inside of his own home. Following the massacre, the shattered house reflects the hero’s broken identity. He appears for most of the play beside a broken column, a symbolic representation of a broken home. He also uses architectural metaphors to explain the disaster: in describing Amphitryon’s pollution, he remarks that it is natural for offspring to suffer “whenever the foundation of the race is not rightly established” (ὅταν δὲ κρηπὶς μὴ καταβληθῇ γένους | ὀρθῶς, 1261–2); he compares himself to a building that Hera has overturned by its very foundations (αὐτοῖσιν βάθροις | ἄνω κάτω στρέψασα, 1306–7). In modern horror fiction, acts of horrific violence convert a home into a Bad Place, a permanently tainted location where the carnage is often repeated. The house of Heracles is similarly tainted by the gods and the deranged patriarch, but there is no threat of future violence. Instead, the implications of the massacre involve a destruction of agency and identity; a hostile force has invaded the house and its owner, and both the family and their home have been annihilated. Optimistic readings of the play’s ending see in the relationship between Theseus and Heracles the triumph of friendship and human virtue in the wake of destruction (Chalk 1962; Foley 1985: 192–200; Hartigan 1987), but the state of the house and the family at the conclusion of the play demonstrate that this horror cannot be completely erased. The drama ends with a separation of father and son in disturbing variations of their predicaments at the beginning of the play: Heracles leaves home pursuing his final labor, transporting Cerberus, but now the hero lacks any hope of benefiting his family; Amphitryon alone tends to his son’s house, now ruined, and provides proper burial to those he once protected. Euripides thus not only generates immediate horror through detailed depictions of domestic space corrupted by violence, but also captures the lingering effects such horrific violence has on its victims.

140  Derek Smith Keyser The bleak and disturbing nature of the play raises questions about how ancient audiences might have reacted and why Euripides amplified the horror to such a degree. It is impossible to answer these questions definitively, but it is possible that ancient audiences, like modern ones, enjoyed feeling horrified in the controlled climate of a fictional story, even if the same emotion would have been unpleasant if experienced in reaction to actual events (Carroll 1990: 158–214). In addition to creating emotional excitement, the horror in the play also could have invited audiences to reflect on tacit cultural assumptions. Stephen King has observed that horror fiction presents sudden and extreme disruptions of cultural conventions to help its audience “to understand what those taboos and fears are, and why it feels so uneasy about them” (King 1981: 139–40). Perhaps the audience of the Heracles saw their homes in a different light after leaving the theater, much like many viewers felt a little less safe in their bathrooms after seeing Psycho.

References Barlow, S.A. (1982), “Structure and Dramatic Realism in Euripides’ Heracles,” Greece & Rome 29.2: 115–25. Bond, G.W. (1981), Heracles, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Burkert, W. (1985 [1977]), Greek Religion, trans. J. Raffan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Carroll, N. (1990), The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart, London and New York: Routledge. Chalk, H.H.O. (1962), “ΑΡΕΤΗ and ΒΙΑ in Euripides’ Herakles,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 82: 7–18. Clover, C. (1992), Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Connor, W.R. (1985), “The Razing of the House in Greek Society,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 115: 79–102. Douglas, M. (1966), Purity and Danger, London: Routledge. Foley, H.P. (1985), Ritual Irony: Poetry and Sacrifice in Euripides, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hartigan, K. (1987), “Euripidean Madness: Orestes and Herakles,” Greece & Rome 34.2: 126–35. Kawash, S. (2000), “Safe House? Body, Building, and the Question of Security,” Cultural Critique 45: 185–221. King, S. (1981), Danse Macabre, New York: Simon and Schuster. Mastronarde, D.J. (1990), “Actors on High: The Skene Roof, the Crane, and the Gods in Attic Drama,” Classical Antiquity 9.2: 247–94. Nevett, L.S. (1999), House and Society in the Ancient Greek World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rebello, S. (2010), Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, New York: Open Road Media. Rehm, R. (1999), “The Play of Space: Before, Behind, and Beyond in Euripides’ Heracles,” Illinois Classical Studies 24–5: 363–75. —— (2002), The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Smuts, A. (2003), “Haunting the House from Within: Disbelief Mitigation and Spatial Experience,” in S.J. Schneider and D. Shaw (eds.), Dark Thoughts: Philosophic Reflections on Cinematic Horror, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, pp. 158–73.

9 The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83) and reasoning from resemblances Edwin Carawan

As they recall the prophecy of Calchas and the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, the chorus of Agamemnon call upon Zeus, “whoever he is,” and address to him this puzzling expression: οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι (Ag. 163). Before Peter Smith’s study of this passage, the object of wonder, for which the elders “cannot find the like,” was understood to be the god himself, despite the odd tautology that results.1 Fraenkel’s rendering is representative: “I have nothing whereto to liken him . . . nothing save Zeus” himself. But, as Smith showed, the referent is really the sequence of disastrous events, the sacrificial murder of the child and its aftermath: the meaning of προσεικάσαι is more like “find an identity (for it).”2 The Argive elders are wrestling with a problem in categorical thinking, and for them the only plausible character to put upon this chain of causation is Zeus. To find parallels for this expression, Smith’s study did not venture much beyond the proper bounds of archaic poetry, but in this essay I argue that it fits a persistent pattern in reasoning about agents and their actions, one more familiar from the later fifth century. The elders are trying to define the atrocity that looms over this story, a crime within the family for which justice seems elusive but retribution inevitable, and the only way they can make sense of it is by reasoning from “likeness” or “probability,” eikos. In order to follow the turn of thought, first we need to appreciate the role of this chorus. Here in the parodos, after all, they are speaking apprehensively but in the same voice that emerges so strongly in the denouement: they are the council of elders that must deliberate on dangers to the community. Second, to see how drawing likenesses, (προσ)εικάσαι, fits that role, we can follow the variations on that usage in drama and in early judicial reasoning. And finally, in order to understand the assumptions behind the elders’ conundrum, it will be helpful to consider a later parallel, the puzzle of “killing in anger” in Plato’s Laws.

The character of the chorus The problem begins with a prayer. The chorus recalls how Calchas interpreted the omen of the eagles and the hare as portending the destruction of Troy (146–55): he ended with a plea to Paian3 not to let Artemis thwart the expedition with cross winds, as she demands “a second sacrifice”4 that breeds conflict in the house; “for there waits a terrible treacherous housekeeper . . . rising up again, unforgetting

142  Edwin Carawan child-avenging Wrath.”5 Such, they conclude (156–7), was the outcry of Calchas (τοιάδε .  .  . ἀπέκλαγξεν) at the fate of the royal house (μόρσιμα .  .  . οἴκοις βασιλείοις). In response to that outcry, the Argive elders begin their “hymn to Zeus” with this strophe (lines 160–6, here printed with Smith’s translation, 1980: 17): Ζεὺς ὅστις ποτ’ ἐστίν, εἰ τόδ’ αὐτῶι φίλον κεκλημένωι, τοῦτό νιν προσεννέπω· οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι πάντ’ ἐπισταθμώμενος πλὴν Διός, εἰ τὸ μάταν ἀπὸ φροντίδος ἄχθος χρὴ βαλεῖν ἐτητύμως. Zeus, whoever he may be, if this name to him is proper and welcome when he is called by it, with this name I address him. I cannot find an identity (for it) (although) putting everything into the scales, save Zeus, if this pointless burden of concern I am truly to cast off. The elders speak now in their own proper voice, as the council that must deliberate upon any wrong or threat to the community.6 Indeed, just a few months before Smith’s study appeared, Kevin Clinton (1979) argued persuasively that the elders assume that role, as they pray to Zeus for Agamemnon’s guidance: may he live to learn from sin and suffering. That prayer carries on to the end of the parodos (256–7) where they address the altar and statue of Zeus as their singular ally, “this nearest bulwark, lone guardian of the land.” In the first strophe of the hymn, they speak of their “burden of concern” (as Smith called it), and that concern seems to be cued (I suggest) by the last menacing image from the prophet’s outcry: the “unforgetting child-avenging Wrath,” μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος. The mnēmon Erinys became a familiar phantom in tragedy.7 For the word mnēmon retained its functional meaning; it was not a dead metaphor. This mnēmon known to the Aeschylean audience was not one who memorized the rules or archived the binding text (like the recorders of a later era); his usual role was to recognize the parties to a transaction or the markers of a property when he was presented with them.8 From their familiarity with such proceedings, the Aeschylean audience would understand this μνάμων Μῆνις, who demands payment for the child, as a witness that will recognize the perpetrator of the crime when confronted with him. Meanwhile, this wraith abides in the home of the victim, on guard against the tainted killer’s intrusion. It is that confrontation that the elders dread, for it will inevitably require some judgment from them, whether to receive the killer, perhaps bringing defilement upon the community,9 or to hear the claim that Clytemnestra is bound to make in retribution for her child.

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  143 Thus, as they anticipate the reckoning to come, the elders are introduced in their proper role, to be developed more fully in the course of the play. Clytemnestra has begun some momentous sacrifice, and they have come to learn its meaning (83–103). These old and vigilant characters are not quick to reveal their suspicions, even when Clytemnestra seems to savor the dull hatred of the people against the Atreidai.10 But when the crisis comes, they must respond to it.11 It is their role of lord protector that Clytemnestra throws up to them when they first condemn her (1419–23): how could they welcome home the miasmaladen killer and now evict her for taking her righteous vengeance? She mocks them as rough judges (δικαστὴς τραχύς, 1421). The elders nonetheless demand strict retribution, “blow for blow,” sentencing her to exile (ἔτι σε χρὴ στερομέναν φίλων τύμμα τύμματι τεῖσαι, 1430). But Clytemnestra answers in proper form, with an asseverative oath: she has done what justice and the Erinys demand (καὶ τήνδ’ ἀκούεις ὁρκίων ἐμῶν θέμιν· | μὰ τὴν τέλειον τῆς ἐμῆς παιδὸς Δίκην, | Ἄτην Ἐρινύν θ’, αἷσι τόνδ’ ἔσφαξ’ ἐγώ). Thus, she claims, the ancient alastor is the real author of her vengeance, taking the guise of this mere woman (1500–4). To which the chorus, respecting the formalities, can only call for proof: the alastor may well be her partner in the crime, but who will bear witness to it? (τοῦδε φόνου τίς ὁ μαρτυρήσων; πῶ πῶ; πατρόθεν δὲ συλλήπτωρ γένοιτ’ ἂν ἀλάστωρ, 1506–8). They seem to assume that the avenging spirit is inherited (πατρόθεν) from the crime of Atreus, and when Clytemnestra insists that the killing was requital for the murder of Iphigeneia, the elders are again at an impasse (ἀμηχανῶ φροντίδος στερηθείς, 1530), as they were in the parodos. The killer must pay the price, so long as Zeus remains king of the world (1561–4).12 And that rule would seem to vindicate Clytemnestra, who has sent the murderous father to face his child. There is one last sentence for this jury to render, but let us leave that for the conclusion. Their professions thus far should be sufficient to show the essential character of this chorus: a venerable council who present themselves as feeble with age but nonetheless determined to defend the community. From that perspective, the quandary with which we began, οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι, is quite in character, foreshadowing the frustration they face in the end. It is the sort of decision that must have often confronted the juries in Athens and councils of elders in less litigious settings: in order to determine who is really responsible, they have to decide what kind of crime it is.

Fitting the crime When the witnesses for what a character did or intended prove inconclusive, the judges must reason from likenesses—eikazein.13 We naturally relate this way of thinking to our own reckoning of “probability,” in the sense that modern usage has constructed: a mathematical model of nondeterministic events, a technique embraced by game players and actuaries since the seventeenth century. In the history of rhetoric, of course, we use “probability” as a term of art that should be free of such connotations, but they are bound to creep into our assumptions; so let us be clear about what that ancient “likelihood” means. The litigants who resort to

144  Edwin Carawan eikos are not weighing the odds on unpredictable events—like gambling on a roll of the dice or insuring against an early death. The ancient adversaries are comparing categorical types whose behavior is considered quite predictable. They are not looking for a statistical average—there is no imagery of counting, say, “nine times out of ten”—but visualizing a match between the act in question and a familiar pattern of behavior: Does the one “look like” the other? This argumentative technique was attributed traditionally to the Sicilian pioneers of rhetoric,14 but the turn of thought is abundantly illustrated elsewhere and earlier. In Antiphon, to take the earliest of the Attic practitioners, insisting on what is likely or true to type seems already standard, from fairly casual usage in the speech Against the Stepmother, to critical arguments on the killing of Herodes. In the latter, indeed, we have a tour de force in this categorical reasoning. In this case (Ant. 5.63–74), the prosecutors have implicated the defendant in a plot with his countryman Lycinus, to do away with Herodes; but, the defendant insists, it was Lycinus who was in desperate straits, therefore the more likely to take the risk, κατά γε τὸ εἰκός (63). In other words, a man who was threatened by the victim looks more like the killer. As Herodes is missing, the prosecutors ask, who else but his fellow traveler could have done it? But if the defendant must offer a better theory (εἰ μὲν οὖν τοῦτο εἰκάζειν με δεῖ, 64), the prosecutors are as likely to be the culprits as he is. Let them put their questions to the ones who actually did the deed (not the one they accuse of planning it), for it is a difficult thing for one who took no part in the action to conjecture about what is hidden (or missing), τῷ δὲ μὴ εἰργασμένῳ χαλεπὸν περὶ τῶν ἀφανῶν εἰκάζειν (65). It is hard to find a likeness for what one has not seen. Thus far the defendant has wrestled with the burden of finding eikos, but here he casts it back upon the judges (66): I know that each of you, if asked what he does not happen to know, would say as much—that he (simply) does not know. But if someone demands more of an answer, I think you would be in great aporia. Don’t put that aporia on me, in a case where you would find yourselves at a loss. Don’t require my acquittal to depend on whether I contrive a plausible theory (or “put the likenesses well,” ἐὰν εὖ εἰκάζω). To justify this shifting of the burden, the defendant recites a list of examples, beginning with the notorious case of Ephialtes (68): the killer was never identified and, if the victim’s associates had been compelled to offer some plausible theory of who the killers were (εἰκάζειν οἵτινες ἦσαν οἱ ἀποκτείναντες) or take the blame themselves, it would have gone badly for them. Then there is the more recent case of a twelve-year-old slave who tried to murder his master and would have gotten away with it, if he had not panicked and run off. No one would have thought he was capable of such a crime, but he was later caught and confessed. Finally, the defendant recalls the case of the hellenotamiai, all but one of whom were put to death in a rush to judgment. These cases the judges themselves may recall; the elders among them must instruct the younger members (71). Do not decide rashly

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  145 in anger, he pleads (72): “You know that I deserve your compassion rather than punishment, for it is only fitting (eikos) for the guilty to pay the penalty and those who wrongly face jeopardy to be pitied.” And so on. The more recent examples—the mere child who stabbed his master, the officials who were condemned but proved innocent of corruption—show how fallible eikos reasoning can be, precisely because it relies on presumptive (stereo)types. And, as this exercise suggests, it is really the judges’ province to weigh such presumptions; theirs is much like that “burden of concern” that the Argive elders took on. We usually think of eikazein as a tactic for the litigants to exploit, but it is ultimately and perhaps originally a reckoning that the judges have to make. That task, I suggest, is precisely what the elders are wrestling with in the Hymn to Zeus: What kind of crime is this “daughter-slaughter,”15 and what will come of it? By any reckoning of likenesses (proseikasai), what can we make of that cruel concatenation? What else but the workings of Zeus, who overthrew his own father for a similar crime (as the elders ponder in the antistrophe, 168–75)? This reasoning from likeness is an ancient reflex, one familiar from the Homeric material. When Penelope insists that Odysseus in rags be given his chance at the bow, she argues that he is obviously not a likely suitor: οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδε ἔοικε— that is, “he does not, does not (at all) look the part” (Od. 21.319). That sort of response was common enough to inspire parody in the Hymn to Hermes (265), where the infant trickster insists that he does not “look like a cattle-rustler, a mighty man” (οὐδὲ βοῶν ἐλατῆρι κραταιῷ φωτὶ ἔοικα), as he is occupied with nursing and napping. Sansone (2012: esp. 171–2) marks a distinction between this sense of “propriety” and the “probability” that becomes familiar in later usage, and his distinction leads us in the right direction, I think, putting the early emphasis on proper roles or preconceived patterns of behavior. But, at least in the fifth century, I doubt that eikos ever became an abstraction such as we make of “probability.” At the level of ordinary language in a primarily oral culture, ἔοικε and εἰκός retained that immediate sense of what “looks like” or “looks the part.” Thus the basic process in εἰκάζειν is to study the character who stands before us and compare that figure with some exemplar: the suitor, the cattlerustler, or the murderer. Of course the term that the elders use to describe that reckoning is the compound, pros-eikasai, but, if there were any doubt about whether it means looking for resemblance, literally, or making some abstract calculation, the prefix reinforces the literal sense; for it emphasizes the “likening” of one figure to another (πρός τινι). This is illustrated in Euripides’ Electra, where Orestes faces wide-eyed recognition from the old servant who rescued him (trans. Kovacs 1998): “Why is he staring at me as if looking at the hallmark on silver? Does he think I look like someone else?” (ἦ προσεικάζει μέ τωι, 559). It seems natural to focus on persons, likening them to some familiar image; that reflex goes back to the primary forms προσ-έοικα, -εικέναι (which gave rise to προσ-εικάζειν). Thus in prompting Agave’s recognition, as she holds the head of Pentheus (Bacchae 1283–4), Cadmus asks, “Does he really seem to look like a lion?” (μῶν σοι λέοντι φαίνεται προσεικέναι). It is that turn of thought, matching

146  Edwin Carawan distinctive features against type, that is reflected in moments of self-recognition. Thus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes (902–3), Neoptolemos sees the disconnect between his actions and his moral profile: everything goes wrong when a man abandons his nature and does what is unlike him (ἅπαντα δυσχέρεια, τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν | ὅταν λιπών τις δρᾷ τὰ μὴ προσεικότα). Similarly, Sophocles’ Electra knows her own shame in doing what seems unfitting or unlike her proper role (ἔξωρα πράσσω κοὐκ ἐμοὶ προσεικότα, El. 618). It may seem odd that the Argive elders take this “likening” that readily characterizes persons and apply it to the impersonal object or situation, but that, too, appears to be a fairly common usage.16 So upon hearing Cassandra’s frantic warning, the elders resort to the same reckoning from likeness. Though they can claim no vatic skill, they see that these ravings portend disaster: “This I liken to some evil thing” (Ag. 1130–1).17 And in the prologue to Choephori (12–15), Orestes sees the procession of women and asks what disaster he should deduce or “liken” to the look of it (ποίαι ξυμφορᾶι προσεικάσω;), whether some new sorrow has befallen the house or he has happened upon a procession to his father’s tomb, “judging from what it looks like” (ἐπεικάσας). Much the same process may be glimpsed in the reasoning of modern judges, as they wrestle with novel questions of guilt or liability: “The category into which to place the situation presented to them for judgment, does not leap into their minds at once. On the contrary, several categories struggle in their minds for the privilege of framing the situation before them.”18 So, too, our chorus of elders instinctively struggle with categories, attempting to match the events with a character or pattern of a recognizable type. In order to determine “Who is responsible?” they must decide “What pattern does it fit?” In this regard, the discursive device was not about figuring “probabilities” in the conventional sense (calculating the odds) but assigning a certain course of action to its typical character.19 Even in Andocides and Antiphon, most of the examples in the court speeches (excluding Tetralogies, etc.) focus on the proper loyalties or duties of men in a particular role—what is likely or fitting for judges to suppose, what is proper for kinsmen to do when one of their family is murdered. This way of reasoning is crucial to the unconventional case, where assigning responsibility is most difficult because the circumstances are unusual (as in Ant. 5–6). And, it is especially clear in such cases, the likenesses are not invoked against rationality but in aid of it.20 This development in eikos reasoning comes into the debate about tragedy’s debt to rhetoric. Sansone has argued persuasively against the usual assumption that the dramatists learned this technique from the rhetoricians (2012: 147): at least it seems safe to say “the relationship between tragedy and rhetoric should not be thought of in terms of a direct dependency of one upon the other.”21 Both genres articulate traditional roles and assumptions that their audience would know from regular transactions and familiar models. Eikos reasoning is essentially an intuitive strategy for judging characters from their likeness to others of the same type. It is not something tragedy had to learn from rhetoric, or rhetoric from tragedy.

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  147

Anger and agency It is that familiar, categorical way of thinking that is tested in Plato’s disquisition on “killing in anger” in Laws 866d–69e. The philosopher is trying to assess the proper penalty or correction for each crime, according to the deeper wrong in the soul. In most cases, the killer’s “willingness,” whether he acted akōn or hekōn, may seem the obvious criterion.22 But the mind of a killer driven by wrath (ὀργῇ or θυμῷ) cannot be so easily defined; it is neither willful nor unwilling, but a “likeness” or semblance of one type or the other (εἰκὼν ἐσθ᾽ ἑκάτερος, 867a). A killing in passion of the moment, without premeditation (ἀπροβουλευτῶς) is not really an unintentional act but resembles it; conversely, a man who clings to his anger, plotting his vengeance “resembles the willing agent” (ἑκουσίῳ ἔοικεν).23 Plato’s distinction here (as elsewhere), based upon eikōn and other cognates of eikos, relies on a self-evident construction of similarities.24 Such reckoning of the guilt in an act of anger was (and is) often a difficult calculation; yet it is essential to the task that Plato has set for himself in sorting out the crimes of bloodshed. A hundred years after Agamemnon, the philosopher was dealing with a problem in categorical thinking much like the one that puzzled the Aeschylean chorus: if the killer is driven by relentless wrath, how do we define the crime that comes of it, and how do we deal with it? Plato’s parsing of intentionality, creating a special, hybrid category for acts in anger, is often set aside as his own innovative construction: he has set out to create a penal code based upon a more sophisticated psychology than we find in popular reasoning; he is determined to adapt as much as possible to a truly correctional regime (not merely retributive); and so he ventures upon prescriptions that should cure the wrong in the soul, if that is possible. His distinction here, in regard to killing in anger, obviously fits that agenda: the man who kills spontaneously, in a fit of anger, may reform with a relatively brief therapeutic exile and reconciliation. The one who plotted his vengeance, nursing his anger over time, will require a more extensive reformation. Even after the remedy, the character who killed from premeditated anger is likely to do so again; and then there is no prescription to cure him. But if the correctional regime is more sophisticated, the basic idea is traditional: some characters will live and learn—pathei mathos; others, not so much. And the distinction between spontaneous killing in anger and the more calculated kind is familiar from the orators themselves. Perhaps the most revealing testimony is Demosthenes’ comment on the case of Euaion in the speech Against Meidias (21.71–5): here the killer struck back in a moment of anger and the blow was fatal. Demosthenes describes Euaion’s action as a reflex. Such a violent response, he says, may be provoked by many things, and the person affected would find it difficult to pronounce any one of them the cause: the attacker’s stance or gesture, the look on his face, the tone of his words, the shock of his fist on your face: “These things stir people up, these things make them go crazy” (ταῦτα κινεῖ, ταῦτα ἐξίστησιν ἀνθρώπους αὑτῶν). Thus he describes the reaction in an almost mechanistic way, as though the man who strikes back is prodded into a

148  Edwin Carawan spasm of violence. He may be exaggerating this aspect of it,25 but his description is consistent with the distinctions we meet in Aristotle26 and elsewhere: there is no culpable intention in an act of impulse. In any event, Euaion, who struck back in anger, probably pleaded that the killing was justifiable, as the victim struck the first blow; and the justification seems strong. Yet this jury’s burden of concern was a difficult decision, whether the killer should face exile or death for his disproportionate response, or go free. Their ballots were almost evenly divided: Euaion was convicted by one vote. The bare majority found, in the end, that his reaction was indeed his own act, however much propelled by another. Euaion’s jury would not have been so nearly deadlocked if he had acted with clear premeditation: if he had pursued his victim or taken up a weapon.27 But even then, as Plato explained, in acts of anger it is often a difficult distinction. And that distinction seems to weigh heavily upon the elders as they take up the case of Clytemnestra.

Conclusion In the parodos, the elders seemed to sympathize with Agamemnon as one who acted unwillingly, as he labored under that “harness of necessity.” As Clinton (1979) understood them, the elders may have hoped that Agamemnon would survive the ordeal at Troy and return repentant, haunted by his decision, with the painful memory distilled in his heart. All these years he has been abroad, in a kind of exile; perhaps he would come home with a plea for purification and forgiveness, as any killer returning from exile must do. Meanwhile, the elders must be wary of Clytemnestra’s intentions, as she is driven by her “unforgetting Wrath.” When she acts upon it, her case will be an even more burdensome decision for them; for her crime is aggravated by long premeditation and perpetrated in the victim’s own house. Any such case pitting one family against another would be difficult enough. If the killer claims to have acted unwillingly, he would go voluntarily into exile and rely upon his family’s intervention. The victim’s kin must decide whether to treat the killer generously, to accept compensation from his family and allow him to return to them. That reconciliation was probably negotiated between the two families, and it may have required the victim’s kin to accept the killer’s action as something beyond his control, as akōn. Conversely, if they insist that he acted willingly, they would demand execution and, to that end, they would have to swear, in the language of the law, that he acted ek pronoias.28 If he dares to come to trial on that charge, they would argue that, even in anger, he had acted with a measure of premeditation, like the more serious killing in anger in Plato’s Laws. But one who kills another among his own family in his own house, however innocent of malice, may never return. That presumption was as familiar as the case of Patroclus (οὐκ ἐθέλων . . . χολωθείς, Il. 23.88), and such was the sentence of the elders (1430), before they heard Clytemnestra’s defense. In order to weigh the crimes of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the elders have resorted to a reckoning of likenesses, proseikasai: the father who sacrificed his

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  149 child was like a man who acts unwillingly; the mother has plotted revenge for many years, and yet she, too, seems driven by a force beyond her control. Her relentless anger has taken away her will. In the parodos, it was that demonic possession, that μνάμων Mῆνις (Ag. 155), that seems to have prompted the hymn to Zeus. Now, as though to verify that characterization, she claims that the alastor has driven her on, a constant force as irresistible as any spur of the moment. And so she swears by the Erinys, an oath that will be her doom if she swears falsely. Faced with that proof, the chorus can only acknowledge that they are, at last, at an impasse (ἀμηχανῶ, 1530). Then, on cue, as though he is the very witness they had demanded, Aegisthus confronts the elders and makes his defiant allocution (1604–11): “I am the rightful deviser of this murder . . . whom Dikē herself has reared, brought back from exile, and fixed upon the threshold of this man, to fashion in full a plan for his undoing!” And so, he says, he would die well, seeing his inveterate enemy in the snares of Justice. For him, the elders have no problem passing sentence, now with a clear focus upon the instigator (1613–16): “You say, you killed him willingly, and you alone planned the slaying (μόνος . . . βουλεῦσαι φόνον) that brings such sorrow. I say, with justice your head shall not escape the curse of public stoning.” Aegisthus’ confession seems to diminish Clytemnestra’s guilt insofar as it makes her the instrument of his design. The elders ask if she was “planning” or conspiring in her husband’s doom (τόνδ᾽ ἐβούλευσας μόρον, 1627), even as she betrayed his bed. But she is never given the chance to answer, as Aegisthus intervenes to intimidate the elders, and they put the charge upon him (ἐβούλευσας μόρον, 1634)—he plotted a crime he could not carry out. They are wrestling with the same distinction that figured so prominently in Draco’s law: to weigh the guilt of perpetrator and “planner,” the bouleusas (IG i3 104.12). In response, Aegisthus claims full responsibility, insisting that he used the woman as the fitting instrument of his deception (1636). He does not need to say that her anger made her all the more apt. In the end, the elders face a problem much like the one that puzzled Plato. A killing in anger is not easily reduced to comfortable categories, even if premeditation is plain. The mother who nurses for many years a rage that is inescapable, prodded by a man with his own ineluctable vendetta, may resemble the willful killer but, in fact, be no more in control than one who responds instantly. In the parodos that prefigured all this, it is that puzzle of guilt and motivation, overdetermined by the gods’ wrath and the victim’s Erinys, that the ancient audience would readily imagine, when the elders, like a hung jury, invoke the inscrutable authority of Zeus: οὐκ ἔχω προσεικάσαι . . . πλὴν Διός. The elders have humbly disclaimed any certainty about what to call him, but the riddle that prompted this turn of phrase is not how to identify Zeus but how to categorize the pattern of events. As Peter Smith concluded, Zeus is not the question; he is the answer to their perplexity. Like Odysseus in rags or the righteous son of Achilles resorting to deception, these figures—the father guilty of daughter-slaughter and the wife waiting to send him to his child’s embrace in the grave—are not easily

150  Edwin Carawan matched with proper likenesses. This clash of paradoxes calls for a reckoning that the elders dread. This is the “burden of concern” that they are anxious to resolve: how to assign each actor to his fitting fate when, “putting everything in the balance,” the only pattern for it all is Zeus.

Notes   1 Smith 1980: 2–3, citing Fraenkel 1950 vol. 1: 101. In the years before Smith’s study, Gagarin 1976: 139–42 argued that the chorus is primarily concerned (at this point) with the prospect of Zeus’s vengeance at Troy. Clinton 1979 offered an important reappraisal but still assumed that Zeus is the object of προσεικάσαι (7): “Weighing everything other than Zeus in the balance, I cannot liken him to anything.”   2 Smith 1980: 17. Of course scholars continue to puzzle over the apparent oddity of the “hymn to Zeus” embedded in the narrative of Calchas’ prophecy. Dawe 1999 reprised his argument (1966) that the “hymn” (which he extends to line 191) be postponed after line 217, in order to resolve a host of incongruities. He acknowledged Smith’s correction on “a number of useful points made on matters of detail,” but reprinted Fraenkel’s translation rearranged to match his disposition of the text (70). Egan 2007 has reargued his theory (1979) that the “hymn to Zeus” is a continuation of the quote from Calchas, translating in line with Smith’s correction (182): “I have nothing to match it except for Zeus.” Schein 2009: 384 also translates in line with Smith’s reading (without citing him), simply “I have nothing to compare.” Hereafter translations are my own except as noted.   3 Presumably Apollo, though Egan 2007: 197–201 argues plausibly that Paian here (146) is Zeus.   4 The wrath of Artemis was inscrutable: here Calchas and the chorus assume that Artemis is angered at the coming slaughter of innocents in Troy (symbolized in the pregnant hare); in Cypria and Sophocles’ Electra, the provocation was Agamemnon’s boast that he was a better archer than the goddess. As Lloyd-Jones 1983 argues, Artemis really needed no justification: the blood offering was owed to her from the men’s group setting out (originally) upon the hunt and (thereafter) on the way to war; cf. Burkert 1985: 151–2 (= 1977: 237). For ritual linked to legends of girl-sacrifice, see Burkert 1983: 81–2 (= 1972: 77–8).   5 Translation from Denniston and Page 1957: ad loc.: ἰήιον δὲ καλέω Παιᾶνα, | μή τινας ἀντιπνόους Δαναοῖς χρονίας ἐχενῆιδας ἀπλοίας | τεύξηι σπευδομένα θυσίαν ἑτέραν ἄνομόν τιν’ ἄδαιτον, | νεικέων τέκτονα σύμφυτον, οὐ δεισήνορα μίμνει γὰρ φοβερὰ παλίνορτος | οἰκονόμος δολία, μνάμων Μῆνις τεκνόποινος.   6 Despite Egan’s argument (2007) that the “hymn” belongs to the quote from Calchas, both meter and diction signal a change, while the aporetic prayer seems out of character with the vatic utterance that precedes it. In all, it is perhaps best to imagine the chorus speaking with a “double voice,” as a mouthpiece for the poet who knows the outcome and then, again, in character (Fletcher 1999). For the singular convergence of narrative and choral song, see also Schein 2009.   7 PV 516: μνήμονές τ’ Ἐρινύες; Eum. 381–3: εὐμήχανοι | δὲ καὶ τέλειοι κακῶν | τε μνήμονες σεμναί; Soph., Ajax 1390: μνήμων τ’ Ἐρινὺς καὶ τελεσφόρος Δίκη.   8 See Carawan 2008, in regard to mnēmones at Halicarnassus, ca. 460 bc.   9 For the burden of collective guilt (at Thebes), see Carawan 1999: 195–204. 10 Esp. lines 437–74 (seeing an ally in the “slow anger . . . at Atreus’ sons and their quarrels . . . their voice dull with hatred” (Lattimore), as they call the debt due: φθονερὸν δ’ ὑπ’ ἄλγος ἕρπει προδίκοις Ἀτρείδαις (450–1) .  .  . βαρεῖα δ’ ἀστῶν φάτις σὺν κότωι, | δημοκράντου δ’ ἀρᾶς τίνει χρέος (456–7). For the wariness of the elders anticipating some clash of this sort, cf. Clinton 1979, esp. 9–11.

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  151 11 Hearing the death throes of Agamemnon, the elders take counsel (1346–71): Should they summon the astoi? Or break into the house to catch the killer with bloody sword in hand? They stand firm against tyranny, but in the end they decide to investigate, not to take the cries of an unseen victim as “proof.” 12 δύσμαχα δ’ ἐστὶ κρῖναι. | φέρει φέροντ’, ἐκτίνει δ’ ὁ καίνων· | μίμνει δὲ μίμνοντος ἐν θρόνωι Διὸς | παθεῖν τὸν ἔρξαντα· θέσμιον γάρ. 13 Conversely, when the facts are not disputed (arguably) the jury has no need to eikazein: the commonplace is practically unaltered from Antiphon 6.18 to Lycurgus, Against Leocrates 28. 14 See Gagarin 1994: 50–2; Sansone 2012: 151–84. On the Sicilian contribution, see esp. Cole 2007. Likelihood based on typical behavior is illustrated in common comparison, which claimant is the more credible (e.g., Ant. 5.50–1); and in the “reverse eikos” argument attributed to Corax (Aristotle Rhet. 1402a17–20) and illustrated in Tetralogy I (Gagarin 2014: 16–18): the defendant was not likely to do the crime because he was the obvious suspect. 15 The turn of phrase is borrowed from Dawe 1999: 70 (crediting West). 16 Cf. Eur., Helen 68: Πλούτωι γὰρ οἶκος ἄξιος προσεικάσαι. 17 Fraenkel’s translation, 1950 ad loc.: οὐ κομπάσαιμ’ ἂν θεσφάτων γνώμων ἄκρος | εἶναι, κακῶι δέ τωι προσεικάζω τάδε. 18 Radin 1925: 359, cited and discussed by Posner 2008: 183–7, in regard to “reasoning by analogy.” Modern judges resort to this technique on questions of law, in order to square the novel case with the relevant rule and precedent. Ancient litigants invoke eikos on questions of fact, whether the suspect is the more culpable (Ant. 5), or the witnesses the more credible (Ant. 6.29–31), but the two issues often seem inextricable. 19 Cf. Grimaldi 1980: 389–90: “an eikos, as relatively stabilized, is knowable and offers a solid base for reasonable inference to further knowledge. It is one of those realities which are ‘true, yet capable of being other than they are’ (An. Post. 88b32–3). From a correct eikos one can argue to what is quite probably, but not necessarily, the fact in a given situation.” On the Sicilian connection, cf. Gagarin 1994 with Phaedrus 273b–c; Sansone 2012: 159–61, with Aristotle’s testimony, Rhet. 1402a. 20 On rationalistic technique, see Carawan 1998: 20–4, 184–91 (on Tetralogies), 316–21; Gagarin 2014. 21 Cf. Sansone 2012: 163–6, on speeches of Hecuba and others, weighing motives for marriage. 22 Rickert 1989 shows that these terms only approximate “intention” (in the usual sense of acting with a particular aim), but seem more expressive of an “attitude” (as an actor may be “willing” to do what she does not want to do). 23 For detailed treatment of this categorization, see Saunders 1991: 225–8, and, for the underlying typology of motives, 187–207. 24 See Bryan 2014, esp. 21–4 on likeness and likelihood in Timaeus 29b5–c3, and Bryan 2012: 78–92, on forensic terminology in Parmenides, to which Plato’s eikon of the cosmos seems to respond. 25 After all, Demosthenes’ point here is to emphasize his own restraint. Herman 2006: 169–73 argues that this stance illustrates the norm. 26 NE 1135b19–25: “. . . as in cases of anger (διὰ θυμόν) and other conditions that affect human beings by nature and necessity. Those who injure and err in this way do wrong and their acts are adikēmata, but they are not unjust or corrupt (characters) on this account (οὐ μέντοι πω ἀδίκοι διὰ ταῦτα οὐδὲ πονηροί) . . . Therefore it is well decided that acts done in anger are not ἐκ προνοίας.” 27 Since Loomis’ study (1972), it is often assumed that akōn/hekōn is the primary distinction and ek pronoias had come to mean simple intent; followed by Gagarin 1981: 33–5; Phillips 2007 and 2008: 122–31; Wohl 2010. But cf. Wallace 1989: 98–106, defending premeditation = pronoia, as the criterion for trial at the Areopagus; Carawan 1998: 223–7. 28 On these practices and implications of the law, see Carawan 1998: 147–54.

152  Edwin Carawan

References Bryan, J. (2012), Likeness and Likelihood in the Presocratics and Plato, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (2014), “Eikos in Plato’s Phaedrus,” in V. Wohl (ed.), Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals, pp. 30–46. Burkert, W. (1983), Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, P. Bing trans. Berkeley: University of California Press (= Homo necans: Interpretationen altgriechischer Opferriten und Mythen, Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1972). —— (1985), Greek Religion, J. Raffan (trans.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (= Griechische Religion in der archaischen und classischen Epoche, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1977). Carawan, E. (1998), Rhetoric and the Law of Draco, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (1999), “The Edict of Oedipus,” American Journal of Philology 120: 187–222. —— (2008), “What the Mnemones Know,” in A. MacKay (ed.), Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World (Orality and Literacy 7). Leiden: Brill, pp. 163–84, with figure 4. Clinton, K. (1979), “The ‘Hymn to Zeus,’ ΠΑΘΕΙ ΜΑΘΟΣ, and the End of the Parodos of ‘Agamemnon,’” Traditio 35: 1–19. Cole, T. (2007) “Who Was Corax?” in E. Carawan (ed.), The Attic Orators, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 37–59. Dawe, R.D. (1966), “The Place of the Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,” Eranos 64: 1–21. —— (1999), “Aeschylus, Agamemnon 160–91,” Lexis 17: 63–81. Denniston, J.D. and D. Page (1957), Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Egan, R.B. (1979), “The Calchas Quotation and the Hymn to Zeus,” Eranos 77: 1–9. —— (2007), “The Prophecies of Calchas in the Aulis Narrative of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,” Mouseion 7: 179–212. Fletcher, J. (1999), “Choral Voice and Narrative in the First Stasimon of Aeschylus ‘Agamemnon’,” Phoenix 53: 29–49. Fraenkel, E. (1950), Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, 3 vols., Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gagarin, M. (1976), Aeschylean Drama, Berkeley: University of California Press. —— (1981), Drakon and Early Athenian Homicide Law, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. —— (1994), “Probability and Persuasion: Plato and Early Greek Rhetoric,” in I. Worthington (ed.), Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 46–68. —— (2014), “Eikos Arguments in Greek Oratory,” in V. Wohl (ed.), Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals, pp. 15–29. Grimaldi, W.M.A. (1980), “Semeion, Tekmerion, Eikos in Aristotle’s Rhetoric,” American Journal of Philology 101: 383–98. Herman, G. (2006), Morality and Behaviour in Democratic Athens: A Social History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kovacs, D. (1998), Euripides vol. III, Suppliant Women, Electra, Heracles, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lloyd-Jones, H. (1983), “Artemis and Iphigeneia,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 103: 87–102.

The “Hymn to Zeus” (Agamemnon 160–83)  153 Loomis, W.T. (1972), “The Nature of Premeditation in Athenian Homicide Law,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 92: 86–95. Phillips, D.D. (2007), “Trauma ek pronoias in Athenian Law,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 127: 74–105. —— (2008), Avengers of Blood: Homicide in Athenian Law and Custom from Draco to Demosthenes (Historia Einzelschriften 202), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Posner, R.A. (2008), How Judges Think, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Radin, M. (1925), “The Theory of Judicial Decision: Or How Judges Think,” American Bar Association Journal 11: 357–62. Rickert, G.-A. (1989), ἙΚΩΝ and ἈΚΩΝ in Early Greek Thought, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press. Sansone, D. (2012), Greek Drama and the Invention of Rhetoric, Chichester and Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Saunders, T.J. (1991), Plato’s Penal Code: Tradition, Controversy, and Reform in Greek Penology, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schein, S.L. (2009), “Narrative Technique in the Parados of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,” in J. Grethlein and A. Rengakos (eds.), Narratology and Interpretation: The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature, Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, pp. 377–98. Smith, P.M. (1980), On the Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (American Classical Studies 5), Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Wallace R. (1989), The Areopagos Council to 307 B.C., Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wohl, V. (2010), “A Tragic Case of Poisoning,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 140: 33–70. —— (ed.) (2014), Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Part III

Greek prose Reality and appearances

10 Stereotypes as faulty resemblance Humorous deception and ethnography in Herodotus Mark C. Mash

The complex relationship between resemblance and reality is reflected in Herodotus’ many tales involving deception and trickery. While scholars have long noted the role deception plays in the Histories,1 few have explored how and why Herodotus uses humor in many of these accounts. Donald Lateiner (1990: 230–1) discusses the Hellenes’ fondness for tales of deception, Herodotus’ admiration for “conspicuous exemplars of human wit,” and vocabulary related to deception and sophie as “keys to a storehouse of Herodotus’s humor and narrative art.” Carolyn Dewald (2006: 154), in her essay on humor and danger in Herodotus, argues that tricksters’ actions invite the audience to reflect on the nature of meaning itself, and thereby demonstrates the common phenomenon of Herodotus’ use of resemblance to encourage his audience to ponder reality. Andrew Hollmann (2005: 310), writing about the manipulation of signs in Herodotus, stresses the sophie tricksters demonstrate when they perform acts of deception. Furthermore, Hollmann argues for a connection between Herodotus’ presentation of the sophie of his tricksters and his own sophie as narrator in recounting these tales. When Herodotus presents tales involving humorous deception, he invites us to pay closer attention to the realities he is trying to convey because we are forced to reconcile how these logoi fit into the larger historical scheme of his Histories.2 Throughout his text, Herodotus warns us to be cautious about reveling in tricks and deceptions that victimize others. We never know how a situation will turn out for a character when a trick is involved, and we rely more than ever on Herodotus to guide us. We can find relief when characters are not fatal victims of humorous deception and in this way can enjoy the trick even more. Furthermore, as I will demonstrate, tales of humorous deception in the Histories are more clearly understood within their ethnographic contexts. Herodotus exploits the connection between appearance and reality both by employing stereotypical ethnic identities in his logoi, and then by exploding the very stereotypes he has presented. In this way, Herodotus manipulates our perspectives so that we become better readers of his Histories and more aware of our own faulty expectations based on appearances and stereotypes. This essay will discuss three important examples of humorous deception in the Histories that are inseparable from their ethnographic contexts: (1) Pisistratus’ and Megacles’ “most simple-minded scheme” (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον)3 to dupe the Athenians into welcoming back Pisistratus (1.60); (2) Amasis, his footbath, and

158  Mark C. Mash bow (2.172–3); and (3) Democedes, Atossa, and Darius (3.129–38). In each tale, Herodotus encourages us to enjoy the purposeful humor that, perhaps surprisingly, he uses to drive his historical narrative. At the same time, Herodotus shows us how ethnic stereotypes often belie reality, a reality that can, paradoxically, be revealed through deception.

Pisistratus, Phya, and the Athenians (1.59–64) Herodotus challenges the Athenians’ reputation for being the most intelligent of the Greeks by exposing the reality of their gullibility. As part of his discourse on Athens in the Croesus logos, we meet Pisistratus and learn of the many acts of deception that enable him to become or return as tyrant three different times (1.59–64). Pisistratus’ first rise to power begins with an act of deception and ends with a trick. He forms a third party of Attic uplanders in addition to Lycurgus’ plains peoples and Megacles’ coastal peoples, gathers his supporters together, and creates the appearance that he is their champion (τῷ λόγῳ τῶν ὑπερακρίων προστὰς, “in pretence being leader of the peoples of the Attic uplands,” 1.59.3). He then contrives (μηχανᾶται, 1.59.3) to win a private bodyguard from the Athenians by self-wounding, and is successful. Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were “completely deceived” (ἐξαπατηθεὶς, 1.59.5) and that Pisistratus, after he had started an uprising with the help of this private guard, came to rule Athens well (1.59.6).4 Here we find the first suggestion that the Athenians are susceptible to deception, and thus this trick serves as a precursor for Pisistratus’ most climactic act of deception of the Athenians, that involving Phya.5 Unlike his narration of the previous example, where he does not explicitly disparage the Athenians for being duped, Herodotus in the following example seems amused by the Athenians’ naïveté. After Pisistratus agrees to marry Megacles’ daughter, the two men devise a scheme to restore Pisistratus in a way that exploits the power of appearance to conceal reality (1.60.3): ἐνδεξαμένου δὲ τὸν λόγον καὶ ὁμολογήσαντος ἐπὶ τούτοισι Πεισιστράτου μηχανῶνται δὴ ἐπὶ τῇ κατόδῳ πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, ὡς ἐγὼ εὑρίσκω, μακρῷ (ἐπεί γε ἀπεκρίθη ἐκ παλαιτέρου τοῦ βαρβάρου ἔθνεος τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν ἐὸν καὶ δεξιώτερον καὶ εὐηθίης ἠλιθίου ἀπηλλαγμένον μᾶλλον), εἰ καὶ τότε γε οὗτοι ἐν Ἀθηναίοισι τοῖσι πρώτοισι λεγομένοισι εἶναι Ἑλλήνων σοφίην μηχανῶνται τοιάδε. After Pisistratus had received the message and agreed to the terms, they devised the silliest plan by far for his re-entrance, as I find, since the Greek race has long distinguished itself from the barbarian race as both more clever and more free from stupid nonsense, if even then these men devised such things among the Athenians, who are said to be the most intelligent of the Greeks. The trick involves dressing up a tall and beautiful Greek woman “just three fingers short of four cubits and especially shapely” (μέγαθος ἀπὸ τεσσέρων πήχεων

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  159 ἀπολείπουσα τρεῖς δακτύλους καὶ ἄλλως εὐειδής, 1.60.4) named Phya6 from the deme of Paeania as Athena, riding along in full armor in a chariot, and striking an appropriately goddess-like pose. The Athenians, who in contrast to the barbarians would usually be expected not to trust their eyes but instead to use their power of reasoning to judge that such a spectacle as this was ludicrous, are duped by this “most simple-minded scheme” (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον, 1.60.3) of Megacles and Pisistratus. Heralds are sent forward to announce the coming of Athena and the re-entrance of Pisistratus (1.60.5): Ὦ Ἀθηναῖοι, δέκεσθε ἀγαθῷ νόῳ Πεισίστρατον, τὸν αὐτὴ ἡ Ἀθηναίη τιμήσασα ἀνθρώπων μάλιστα κατάγει ἐς τὴν ἑωυτῆς ἀκρόπολιν. οἱ μὲν δὴ ταῦτα διαφοιτέοντες ἔλεγον, αὐτίκα δὲ ἔς τε τοὺς δήμους φάτις ἀπίκετο ὡς Ἀθηναίη Πεισίστρατον κατάγει, καὶ ἐν τῷ ἄστεϊ πειθόμενοι τὴν γυναῖκα εἶναι αὐτὴν τὴν θεὸν προσεύχοντό τε τὴν ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐδέκοντο Πεισίστρατον. “Athenians, kindly receive Pisistratus, whom Athena herself has honored most of men and brings back to her own acropolis.” They reported these things all about, and immediately word arrived to the demes that Athena was bringing back Pisistratus. Others in the town believed that the woman was the goddess herself and both prayed to the woman and received Pisistratus. By recounting the details of the deception, Herodotus re-enacts it for the audience and in this way offers evidence for his assertion that the Athenians were particularly foolish to fall for the trick.7 Although Herodotus does not say so explicitly, his comments about the Athenians seem targeted at their failure to learn the lessons from Pisistratus’ prior trick in which he wounded himself to win a private bodyguard. Indeed, as Menander says, “It is not characteristic of a wise man to make the same mistake twice” (Τὸ δὶς ἐξαμαρτεῖν ταῦτὸν οὐκ ἀνδρὸς σοφοῦ). While the Phya episode is especially important for the way it calls attention to the gullibility of the Athenians, Herodotus here also emphasizes the rarity of this sort of foolish moment for the Athenians and therefore makes his own judgment more ambiguous. Moreover, he expresses some doubt about the veracity of the account: εἰ καὶ τότε γε οὗτοι ἐν Ἀθηναίοισι τοῖσι πρώτοισι λεγομένοισι εἶναι Ἑλλήνων σοφίην μηχανῶνται τοιάδε (“if even then these men devised such things among the Athenians, who are said to be the most intelligent of the Greeks,” 1.60.3). Tim Rood (2006: 303) brings out the significance of the verb ἀπεκρίθη (“it is distinguished”) in this passage, which he notes is “the same verb . . . that cosmologists used for the separation of elements out from an undifferentiated mass. The implication is that Greeks have developed from the same basis as barbarians.”8 Thus, in light of Rood’s argument, we see how Herodotus further complicates the certainty of his message by actually narrowing the gap between barbarians and Greeks. Although Pisistratus and Megacles develop an effective trick that restores Pisistratus as tyrant, Herodotus never gives them any credit. In fact, he never

160  Mark C. Mash characterizes Pisistratus, Megacles, or the trick itself as clever, but instead he emphasizes the childish credulity (euethie) of the Athenians. By contrast, Herodotus does highlight Pisistratus’ sophie in his account of Pisistratus’ rise to his third and most lasting time as tyrant of Athens. Pisistratus immediately and correctly understands the “tuna fish” oracle declared by the seer Amphilytus before the battle of Pallene, an understanding that, as we will see, emphasizes his own sophie while also reinforcing Herodotus’ comments on the euethie of the Athenians (1.62.4): ἔρριπται δ’ ὁ βόλος, τὸ δὲ δίκτυον ἐκπεπέτασται, θύννοι δ’ οἱμήσουσι σεληναίης διὰ νυκτός. The cast has been made, the net has spread out, and the tuna fish will dart through the moonlit night. Brian Lavelle (1991: 321) argues that . . . the metaphorical equivalents and the meaning of [these] verses are as clear to us as they would have been to any Greek in Herodotos’ audience: the Athenians are the “tunnies”; Peisistratos and his forces are the “fishermen,” and Amphilytos, of course, is the “tunny-watcher” or “hooer” (θυννοσκόπος) whose instructions to the “fishermen” determine the success or failure of the enterprise. The comparison of the Athenians to tuna fish is not at all flattering, either, but instead suggests that they are witless and doomed, as Lavelle explains (1991: 321): The consensus among ancient authors was that the taking of the tunny was a thoroughly uncomplicated operation for Greek fishermen, entirely in their favour, owing partly to the unusually cooperative behaviour of the rather stupid and spiritless fish and partly to the intellectual superiority of their human hunters. Tunnies habitually swim straight for fishermen’s nets without altering course. . . .9 Pisistratus’ sophie is again on display when he devises a trick to keep the Athenians from regrouping after they have been scattered as a result of his and his allies’ surprise midday attack. Herodotus calls it a “most clever plan” (βουλὴν . . . σοφωτάτην, 1.63.2): Pisistratus instructs his men to tell the fleeing Athenians to go home, and they do. Such simple-minded behavior on the part of the Athenians—in combination with their association with tuna fish, as easy to trick and senseless—underscores the contrast between the fisherman, Pisistratus, and the prey, the Athenians. Rosaria Munson discusses the thematic juxtaposition of the Athenians’ sophie and euethie.10 In her view, the contradiction in the characterization of the Athenians’ paradoxical sophie and euethie serves a serious political message (2001: 210–11):

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  161 To the ambivalence of Athens in the ethical sphere corresponds a contradiction at the level of knowledge and intelligence. This factor cuts the image of Athens down to size. We are reminded of the besotted Demos in Aristophanes’ Knights or, more strikingly, of the assembly that in Thucydides deliberates on the Sicilian expedition—sovereign, vociferous, and ready to go, but not competent or truly in charge . . . When it comes to euethie, the people of Athens in the logos has much in common with the audiences Herodotus’ logos addresses, both Athenian and not (cf. 2.45.1). Other than communicating a more abstract moral message, the histor takes it on himself to display and to cure through his own, non-Aristagorean brand of speech this shared naïveté about the reality of foreign peoples and lands, the shape of the world, the motives of leaders, and the correct and falsified signs of divine support. Ignorance in these matters affects public decisions and brings about the “evil” of unnecessary wars. As Munson rightly emphasizes, Herodotus here challenges the stereotypical portrait of the Athenians and, more generally, communicates to his fifth-century audience about greater realities that emerge from his text. It is also worth noting occasions similar to the Phya episode where Herodotus, in his authorial voice, seems interested in using humor to correct and instruct. To realize this pattern, we have only to think of Herodotus’ tongue-in-cheek proem (1.1–5), laughter at other mapmakers (4.36.2), and authorial observation about the ridiculous nature of Xerxes’ attempt to conceal the Persian losses at Thermopylae (8.24–5).11 The Athenians have not learned to be cautious and have been duped by Pisistratus’ deception again. Herodotus addresses the need for the “most intelligent” of the Greeks to live up to their stereotype, and in this way points out how inaccurately the stereotype reflects the reality of their behavior.12 Moreover, Herodotus’ depiction of the Athenians’ naïveté at multiple points in his narrative about Pisistratus gestures towards a broader reality, a warning to his fifth-century audience to be vigilant concerning political leaders who may try to conceal their desire for tyrannical power (cf. Moles 1996).

Amasis, the footbath, and the bow (2.172–3) Resemblance and reality are particularly blurred in the complex figure of Amasis, who alternately seems Egyptian and Greek, ruler and commoner, jokester and wise man.13 He is described as a philhellene (φιλέλλην, 2.178.1) who gives the Greeks the city of Naucratis (2.178); marries the Greek woman Ladice, likely for the purpose of a political alliance with Cyrene (2.181); and dedicates several statues in Greece (2.182). Amasis’ many ties to Greece are significant because they remind the audience of a current historical reality: the growing dependence of Egypt on Greece in the face of the Persians, who occupied Egypt shortly after Amasis’ death in 525 bc.14 Amasis’ identity in the narrative is inseparable from that of his predecessor, Apries, through whose person we come to understand Amasis better. Herodotus

162  Mark C. Mash describes Apries as the “most fortunate” (εὐδαιμονέστατος, 2.161.2) of the earlier kings besides Psammeticus, but who was fated to suffer a bad end (οἱ ἔδεε κακῶς γενέσθαι, 2.161.3).15 To an alert audience, Amasis’ dealings with the fortunate Apries resonate with his dealings with the all-too-fortunate but ill-fated Polycrates later in the narrative (3.40–3). What is more, during the course of the narrative we see Amasis begin to resemble a Greek sage. Herodotus encourages this portrait when he links the Egyptian Amasis to the Greek Solon, who adopts a law Amasis introduced in Egypt that required citizens to account annually for their source of income or face the death penalty if they failed to do so or did not make their living honestly (2.177.2).16 In the famous Solon-Croesus episode (1.30–3), besides Croesus of course, Herodotus mentions only Amasis by name of the many peoples Solon visited (1.30.1).17 In all, these explicit proleptic and analeptic references to Amasis and Solon invite the audience to reflect on their connection to one another. Apries’ unsuccessful attack on Cyrene, in which he sends many Egyptians to their certain deaths, makes the Egyptians resentful of him. He sends Amasis to quell their rebellion, and the rebels subsequently interrupt Amasis’ attempts to negotiate with them and appoint him their leader by putting a helmet on his head (2.162.1). While seemingly insignificant, this event, when Amasis accepts the involvement of the people in his justification for rule, anticipates the way in which he will later interact with them as their king. As we will see in his demonstration with the footbath-turned-statue, Amasis learns the effectiveness of physical metaphor in dealing with the Egyptian people.18 We are first acquainted with Amasis’ witty and aggressive defiance as he sends a fart back in response to Apries’ request for his return and utters a menacing joke, that he will arrive “with some company” (παρέσεσθαι γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸς καὶ ἄλλους ἄξειν, 2.162.4), by which he means armed troops.19 Through his crude humor and machismo, Amasis solidifies his bond with the Egyptian rebels and makes the king Apries an Other to his own people. After Apries mutilates Patarbemis in punishment for his failure to bring back Amasis, the Egyptians flock to Amasis in horror at their king’s behavior. At the same time, Apries employs 30,000 Greek mercenary soldiers from Caria and Ionia for his ill-fated battle against Amasis and the Egyptian rebels (2.163). Leslie Kurke (1999: 92) calls this conflict an “agōn of the body” between Amasis and Apries, and points out that in the case of Amasis, he “chooses the bodily code of the message in this narrative . . . [and] valorizes the grotesque body and uses it to destabilize the existing hierarchy, challenging not his own claim to the throne, but that of the reigning pharaoh Apries.” Alan Lloyd (1988: 202) suggests that we should be cautious about accepting the reason for Apries’ defeat, which “could well have been inspired by [Greek] national pride as a facesaving explanation for the discomfiture of Carian and Ionian mercenaries.” No matter how historically accurate Herodotus’ account is here, it is interesting for his treatment of a mixed-up and topsy-turvy internal warfare that challenges who is really Egyptian and at the same time demonstrates that these ethnic distinctions are difficult to make. As Herodotus tells us, “Those around Apries went against

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  163 the Egyptians, and those around Amasis went against the strangers” (καὶ οἵ τε περὶ τὸν Ἀπρίην ἐπὶ τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ἤισαν καὶ οἱ περὶ τὸν Ἄμασιν ἐπὶ τοὺς ξείνους, 2.163.2). Amasis later experiences a struggle with the Egyptian people in which he, like Apries earlier, is recognized as an Other. Suddenly the Egyptians find Amasis’ kindly treatment of their former king in the palace intolerable. While this fact alone may not be striking, their subsequent treatment of Apries is startling, for once Amasis releases him into their custody, they strangle and bury him in his paternal tomb (οἱ δέ μιν ἀπέπνιξαν καὶ ἔπειτα ἔθαψαν ἐν τῇσι πατρωίῃσι ταφῇσι, 2.169.3). This divide between the Egyptian people’s vindictiveness and Amasis’ tolerance underscores how much of an Other Amasis is at this early point in his reign. It is not until Amasis develops a clever plan to demonstrate his leadership over the Egyptians that they seem to change their opinion of him. Amasis’ action with the footbath is a physical demonstration that he embodies the sophie that marks a true Egyptian king. We have only to think of Herodotus’ own declaration that the Egyptians are the “most learned” (λογιώτατοί, 2.77.1) people he has ever encountered to understand the identifying quality that their intelligence presents (2.172.2–5): τὰ μὲν δὴ πρῶτα κατώνοντο τὸν Ἄμασιν Αἰγύπτιοι καὶ ἐν οὐδεμιῇ μοίρῃ μεγάλῃ ἦγον, ἅτε δὴ δημότην τὸ πρὶν ἐόντα καὶ οἰκίης οὐκ ἐπιφανέος· μετὰ δὲ σοφίῃ αὐτοὺς ὁ Ἄμασις, οὐκ ἀγνωμοσύνῃ προσηγάγετο. ἦν οἱ ἄλλα τε ἀγαθὰ μυρία, ἐν δὲ καὶ ποδανιπτὴρ χρύσεος, ἐν τῷ αὐτός τε ὁ Ἄμασις καὶ οἱ δαιτυμόνες οἱ πάντες τοὺς πόδας ἑκάστοτε ἐναπενίζοντο· τοῦτον κατ’ ὦν κόψας ἄγαλμα δαίμονος ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἐποιήσατο καὶ ἵδρυσε τῆς πόλιος ὅκου ἦν ἐπιτηδεότατον· οἱ δὲ Αἰγύπτιοι φοιτῶντες πρὸς τὤγαλμα ἐσέβοντο μεγάλως· μαθὼν δὲ ὁ Ἄμασις τὸ ἐκ τῶν ἀστῶν ποιεύμενον, συγκαλέσας Αἰγυπτίους ἐξέφηνε φὰς ἐκ τοῦ ποδανιπτῆρος τὤγαλμα γεγονέναι, ἐς τὸν πρότερον μὲν τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ἐνεμέειν τε καὶ ἐνουρέειν καὶ πόδας ἐναπονίζεσθαι, τότε δὲ μεγάλως σέβεσθαι. ἤδη ὦν ἔφη λέγων ὁμοίως αὐτὸς τῷ ποδανιπτῆρι πεπρηγέναι· εἰ γὰρ πρότερον εἶναι δημότης, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῷ παρεόντι εἶναι αὐτῶν βασιλεύς· καὶ τιμᾶν τε καὶ προμηθέεσθαι ἑωυτὸν ἐκέλευε. τοιούτῳ μὲν τρόπῳ προσηγάγετο τοὺς Αἰγυπτίους ὥστε δικαιοῦν δουλεύειν. At first the Egyptians abused Amasis and held him in no great respect, since he was previously a commoner and was from an undistinguished family. Afterwards Amasis won them over to his side with cleverness, not with thoughtlessness. He had countless riches, and among these was a golden footpan, in which Amasis himself and all the invited guests washed their feet on each occasion. He then cut this up into pieces and made a statue of a divinity out of it and set it up where it was most suitable in the city. The Egyptians visited the statue frequently and worshiped it greatly. After Amasis learned what the townspeople were doing, he called the Egyptians together and revealed the matter saying that the statue had been made from the footpan, into which

164  Mark C. Mash earlier the Egyptians vomited and urinated and washed their feet, but which then they were greatly worshiping. He said that he was made like the footpan, for if earlier he was a commoner, at the present he was their king. And he bid them both to honor and respect him. In such a way he convinced the Egyptians that they should serve him. As the narrative suggests, Amasis had two options available to him to gain his subjects’ respect: he could use “thoughtlessness” (ἀγνωμοσύνῃ)20 or he could use his “cleverness” (σοφίῃ). The latter option, which he adopts, demonstrates well his tendency and willingness to interact with the people in a way that Apries did not, and at the same time recalls the physical demonstration by which the Egyptian rebels appointed him their king. We also see that Amasis reads the Egyptian people well in arranging this trick. He uses his sophie to stage his deception, which we might call a purposeful practical joke, and in this way is able to “win over” (προσηγάγετο) his Egyptian subjects. In addition, the motif about the unreliability of appearances resurfaces. As Dewald (2006: 155–6) puts it: Our wonderful golden religious statue too may turn out to have a most peculiar past, and we are better readers and actors in the present, more like Herodotus’ own trickster figures ourselves, if we recognise this—but we have to accept the lived realities of the present as well. When the Egyptian people worship the golden statue, they prove that their respect for Egyptian religious nomoi is greater than their consideration for the golden statue’s origin. Once the base object has been transformed into a religious object, its past is no longer important, only its present form and reality. Similarly and more broadly, this anecdote at the end of the long Egyptian logos invites the audience again to consider the mutability of fortunes and in particular that of Egypt itself. While the Egypt of Herodotus’ narrative was prosperous and independent, the Egypt of Herodotus’ day was weak, under Persian domination, and in disarray.21 In this way, we find in this tale an echo of the opening theme on the mutability of power and fortune (1.5.3–4). Although the Egyptian people come to accept Amasis after his demonstration with the footbath-turned-statue, they still do not fully accept him as king. Amasis has proven his sophie with the footbath, but it is now his behavior that causes some of his subjects to disapprove of him: after business is over, he drinks, jokes with his drinking buddies, is frivolous, and plays around (ἔπινέ τε καὶ κατέσκωπτε τοὺς συμπότας καὶ ἦν μάταιός τε καὶ παιγνιήμων, 2.173.1).22 When his Egyptian subjects tell him that he is not behaving like a king (νῦν δὲ ποιέεις οὐδαμῶς βασιλικά, 2.173.2), he presents them with another object, a bow, though this time not as a physical object, but as a metaphor (2.173.3–4): Τὰ τόξα οἱ ἐκτημένοι, ἐπεὰν μὲν δέωνται χρᾶσθαι, ἐντανύουσι, ἐπεὰν δὲ χρήσωνται, ἐκλύουσι. εἰ γὰρ δὴ τὸν πάντα χρόνον ἐντεταμένα εἴη, ἐκραγείη ἄν, ὥστε ἐς τὸ δέον οὐκ ἂν ἔχοιεν αὐτοῖσι χρᾶσθαι. οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἀνθρώπου

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  165 κατάστασις· εἰ ἐθέλοι κατεσπουδάσθαι αἰεὶ μηδὲ ἐς παιγνίην τὸ μέρος ἑωυτὸν ἀνιέναι, λάθοι ἂν ἤτοι μανεὶς ἢ ὅ γε ἀπόπληκτος γενόμενος. τὰ ἐγὼ ἐπιστάμενος μέρος ἑκατέρῳ νέμω. Those who have bows string them whenever they need to use them, and unstring them whenever they have used them. For if they were strung all the time, they would break, so that they would not be able to use them when there was need. This is also the condition of man. If he should wish always to be serious and not allow himself a measure of playfulness, he would, without noticing, become mad or crippled. Since I know these things, I grant a measure to each of the two pursuits. When Amasis compares human life to a bow, we see a transition from his physical demonstration with the footbath to a philosophical argument with which he justifies his fondness for joking and play that is reminiscent in its cerebral tone to the advice he gives to the too-fortunate Polycrates later in the text (3.40). Indeed, to balance out Polycrates’ excessive success, Amasis tells Polycrates that he should rid himself of his most treasured possession. When Polycrates decides this means his signet ring, he throws it into the open sea only to have it return in the belly of a fish brought to him by a proud fisherman. Upon hearing this news that Polycrates was so lucky he could not even lose what he intended to lose, Amasis breaks off his ties with Polycrates because he knows that Polycrates is doomed (3.43). Amasis’ anecdote with the bow presents a global message on the importance of humor and shows how it is not at odds with sophie. Rather, it offers an addendum to the wisdom of Solon’s advice to Croesus (1.32), which focuses on the human condition at the end of life, and instead offers us insight into the importance of playful humor to the human condition (ἀνθρώπου κατάστασις) during life.23 As we can see from Amasis’ wisdom here, humor is not frivolous, but is a necessary part of avoiding a subtle shift to madness and paralysis (λάθοι ἂν ἤτοι μανεὶς ἢ ὅ γε ἀπόπληκτος γενόμενος). While usually serious, our narrator, too, presents a measure of playful humor throughout his Histories (τὰ ἐγὼ ἐπιστάμενος μέρος ἑκατέρῳ νέμω).24 Even in his death, we find that Amasis provides proof of his sophie, for he outwits the mad Cambyses, who has his men attempt to exhume, desecrate, and finally burn Amasis’ corpse (3.16.1–4).25 According to the Egyptians, however, Amasis learned his fate from an oracle and had his son consequently hide his corpse. In this way, Amasis, not unlike the Babylonian queen Nitocris (1.187), posthumously dupes and mocks the mad king (3.16.4–7). As we have seen, Herodotus presents Amasis as a complicated and humorous trickster who defies easy categorization. Though king, Amasis must prove that he is not a commoner, and though Egyptian, he exhibits a Greek-like “wise-man” persona, as we find in his bow metaphor and in his Solonian advice to Polycrates.26 Indeed, Herodotus uses the character of Amasis to show how difficult it can be to distinguish resemblance from reality and therefore encourages us to be cautious readers of the characters in his Histories.

166  Mark C. Mash

Democedes, Atossa, and Darius (3.129–38) In the tale of Democedes and Atossa, we find examples of how strongly resemblance can drive reality, and specifically, how seemingly minor deceptions can lead to consequential actions. The episode also includes several instances of humorous deception that both characterize Greeks and Persians and highlight their interactions before the Persian Wars. Throughout Herodotus’ account, Democedes of Croton consistently demonstrates a sophie that increases his fame as a doctor as well as his fortunes. His rise in status is rapid, as the narrative emphasizes by the quick succession of his accomplishments. Democedes’ pay and reputation reach an apex during his time as doctor to Darius when he “had the grandest house” (οἶκόν τε μέγιστον εἶχε), became a close confidant of the king (ὁμοτράπεζος βασιλέϊ ἐγεγόνεε), and had “everything except for a passage back to Greece” (πλήν τε ἑνὸς τοῦ ἐς Ἕλληνας ἀπιέναι πάντα τἆλλά οἱ παρῆν, 3.132.1). In this last respect, Democedes embodies the Greek love for freedom and homeland, so that while he seems to have everything materially, he is eager to give up his comfortable position as soon as the opportunity to return home presents itself. After Darius badly sprains his ankle while dismounting from his horse during a hunting expedition, he first tries Egyptian doctors, whom he kept on hand and who were considered the best healers (τοὺς δοκέοντας εἶναι πρώτους τὴν ἰητρικήν, “they had the reputation as being the first in the art of healing,” 3.129.2). After wrenching his foot and applying force, though, the Egyptian doctors only make Darius’ foot worse (οἱ δὲ στρεβλοῦντες καὶ βιώμενοι τόν πόδα κακὸν μέζον ἐργάζοντο, 3.129.2). A report comes to Darius about the skill (τὴν τέχνην) of Democedes of Croton, and Darius has his men summon Democedes, who was at that time a slave to the Persian Oroetes. When Darius asks him whether he “knows the skill” (τὴν τέχνην εἰ ἐπίσταιτο), Democedes adamantly denies he is a doctor because “he feared he would be kept as far away as possible from Greece” (ἀρρωδέων μὴ ἑωυτὸν ἐκφήνας τὸ παράπαν τῆς Ἑλλάδος ᾖ ἀπεστερημένος, 3.130.1). While it is obvious to Darius that Democedes is a doctor, there is a certain humor that results when the king encourages him to remember by bringing out whips and spikes (ἐκέλευσε μάστιγάς τε καὶ κέντρα παραφέρειν ἐς τὸ μέσον), and suddenly Democedes “reveals” (ἐκφαίνει, 3.130.2) that, yes, he knows about medicine, but he is not quite a doctor!27 After Democedes cures Darius’ sickness by gentle (ἤπια, 3.130.3) Greek techniques, as opposed to the forceful Egyptian methods (στρεβλοῦντες καὶ βιώμενοι, “wrenching and using force,” 3.129.2), he cements his favorable relationship with the king through his wit (3.130.4): δωρέεται δή μιν μετὰ ταῦτα ὁ Δαρεῖος πεδέων χρυσέων δύο ζεύγεσι· ὁ δέ μιν ἐπείρετο εἴ οἱ διπλήσιον τὸ κακὸν ἐπίτηδες νέμει, ὅτι μιν ὑγιέα ἐποίησε. ἡσθεὶς δὲ τῷ ἔπεϊ ὁ Δαρεῖος ἀποπέμπει μιν παρὰ τὰς ἑωυτοῦ γυναῖκας. After this, Darius gave him two pairs of golden shackles as a gift. Democedes asked him if he purposefully bestows a double evil because he made him healthy! Darius was pleased with this saying and sent him to the royal wives.

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  167 Not only does Democedes single-handedly trump the established superiority of the Egyptian doctors over all others through his soothing treatment of Darius’ sprained ankle, but he also displays stereotypical Greek sophie with his witty remark about the golden shackles that increases his riches.28 As Herodotus describes, a house slave named Sciton grew wealthy from the staters that fell from the cups the royal wives had dipped into chests full of gold (3.130.5). The narrative presentation of this telling detail helps to memorialize the episode and particularly highlights the successful results of Democedes’ quick wit. Herodotus introduces the next apodexis of Democedes’ sophie in his scheme to win his way back to Greece. Since Herodotus in his authorial voice has told us that Democedes wants to return to Greece (3.130.1) and since he has already provided us with a glimpse of the doctor’s sophie through his winning wit (3.130.3), the narrative establishes our expectation for a clever trick from Democedes. The turning point for Democedes comes when he cures a growth on Atossa’s breast in exchange for a favor that, as he tells her, will not cause her any shame (αἰσχύνην, 3.133.2). Instead of spelling out the contents of the favor, however, the narrative immediately shifts to the bedroom of Darius and Atossa where we discover the essence of Democedes’ plan through the royal couple’s conversation.29 The combination of the bedroom setting and Atossa’s remarks to Darius that he should prove his manhood by increasing the size of the Persian Empire suggests a humorous context in which the queen manipulates the ideas of sexual and imperial conquest.30 When Darius answers briefly in agreement with the idea of imperial conquest but says he is going to attack Scythia first, we see Atossa play the role of the clever queen. She offers Herodotus’ external audience a humorous explanation for why Darius should invade Greece first (3.134.5): Ὅρα νυν, ἐπὶ Σκύθας μὲν τὴν πρώτην ἰέναι ἔασον· οὗτοι γάρ, ἐπεὰν σὺ βούλῃ, ἔσονταί τοι· σὺ δέ μοι ἐπὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα στρατεύεσθαι. ἐπιθυμέω γὰρ λόγῳ πυνθανομένη Λακαίνας τέ μοι γενέσθαι θεραπαίνας καὶ Ἀργείας καὶ Ἀττικὰς καὶ Κορινθίας. ἔχεις δὲ ἄνδρα ἐπιτηδεότατον ἀνδρῶν πάντων δέξαι τε ἕκαστα τῆς Ἑλλάδος καὶ κατηγήσασθαι, τοῦτον ὅς σευ τὸν πόδα ἐξιήσατο. Look now, forget about going to Scythia first. These people will be there for you whenever you wish. I think you should march against Greece, for I’ve heard stories and I have my heart set on getting Laconian and Argive and Attic and Corinthian handmaids. You have the most suitable man of all to teach all the details about Greece and to act as your guide, this man who made your foot all better. Atossa here demonstrates her sophie by rescuing Democedes’ plan, designed to entice Darius to expand his empire. We sense that Darius’ decision to invade Scythia first is unexpected. Equally unexpected and humorous especially because of its spontaneity and incongruity is Atossa’s outburst about her desire to acquire

168  Mark C. Mash Greek handmaids.31 Binyamin Shimron brings out the significance of Atossa’s remarks and at the same time suggests some reasons for the humorous tone of the scene (1989: 65): One may smile at the story of this curtain lecture, but if anybody is derided it is Darius, who in Herodotus’ opinion was certainly a great man. It is certainly a legitimate desire of a Persian queen—in a story as in reality—to get Spartan chambermaids, and the bedroom—in the story—is the appropriate place to ask for them; it is less certain that this is an αἰτίη or a πρόφασις for the greatest king on earth to initiate what he himself must have considered a major undertaking and what the readers knew to have been the climax of an age-long conflict and the greatest peril of Greece. It can be read either as a more or less innocent scoff at Darius or as a reminder, in a witty manner, that great and decisive events may—at least partly—originate from small and even frivolous beginnings; perhaps it hints that even as the greatest war of antiquity was fought because of a woman so the greatest war of the times had partly similar reasons. Shimron rightly notes that while Atossa’s desire to have Greek handmaids is not ridiculous, it is a surprising impetus for the Persian invasion of Greece.32 While Shimron suggests we read the scene as either a “more or less innocent scoff at Darius” or “a reminder, in a witty way, that great and decisive events may—at least partly—originate from small and even frivolous beginnings,” the complexity of the scene suggests that we consider both readings plausible. Because Atossa plays out Democedes’ trick, she represents Democedes’ sophie so that we see a contrast between the clever Greek Democedes and the manipulated Persian king Darius.33 At the same time, Atossa complicates the dichotomy because she embodies both Greek and Persian sophie by her effective use of Democedes’ trick and by her own clever argument that ultimately results in Darius’ decision to send a group to reconnoiter Greece.34 This humorous deception, as we discover, is anything but frivolous. As Henry Immerwahr (1956: 271 n. 60) eloquently says, “The Democedes story is of fundamental importance in connection with the Persian Wars, for without it the idea of total conquest of Greece (as opposed to a punitive expedition against Athens and Eretria only) hangs in the air and has no ἀρχή.” As we have seen in the Democedes and Atossa tale, resemblance can drive reality in unexpected but powerful ways. While Democedes displays a stereotypical Greek sophie in his ability to concoct a plan, the Persian queen Atossa displays Democedes’ cleverness through her scripted performance, but also trumps it with her own improvised save. She exposes how shortsighted Democedes’ strategy is because it seemed to assume that Darius would think of invading Greece rather than Scythia or some other land first. Democedes succeeds in his overall quest to return to Croton and punctuates his accomplishment with an Odyssean boast as the Persians are sailing away (3.137.5).35 Yet the ensuing events also complicate the portrayal of Democedes as wholly clever. For while Democedes does win his

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  169 return home, he invites the Persian Empire to attack his homeland. Moreover, the very real consequences of Atossa’s apparently trivial deception regarding her desire for Greek handmaids, expressed in the private context of the royal bedroom, become apparent later as the Persians invade Greece and war follows.

Conclusion In this essay, I have explored the complex relationship between resemblance and reality through the intersections of humor, deception, and ethnography. Specifically, Herodotus uses humorous deception in the Histories to highlight the conflict between cultures and nomoi, or to characterize particular peoples and their nomoi. Ethnocentric behavior and attitudes invite humor that focuses on attacking cultural arrogance, as seen with the Athenians in 1.60. Humorous deception calls attention to the sophie of characters who concoct deceptive plans, and at the same time exposes the euethie of the victimized parties or sometimes of the tricksters themselves. I discussed three important examples of humorous deception in the Histories that are inextricably tied to their ethnographic contexts: (1) Pisistratus’ and Megacles’ “most simple-minded scheme” (πρῆγμα εὐηθέστατον) to dupe the Athenians into welcoming back Pisistratus (1.60); (2) Amasis, his footbath, and bow (2.172–3); and (3) Democedes, Atossa, and Darius (3.129–38). In the first example, Herodotus challenges the stereotype of the Athenians as “the most learned of the Greeks” (τοῖσι πρώτοισι λεγομένοισι εἶναι Ἑλλήνων σοφίην) when they gullibly accept the disguised Phya as the goddess Athena. In the second example, the philhellene Egyptian king Amasis tricks his subjects by melting down a golden footbath, which had also served as a receptacle for vomit and urine, and fashioning it into a religious statue that the Egyptians then worship. Amasis revels in his purposeful trick as he openly instructs his subjects with the physical object as a prop. The same Amasis, later rebuked by his subjects for joking and acting in a fashion not befitting a ruler, again offers the Egyptians a lesson on the importance of playful humor with his metaphor of the bow (2.173.3–4). As the narrative proceeds, we find Amasis acting more like a Greek wise man than an Egyptian king, and Herodotus invites us to consider how Amasis challenges the notion of rigid ethnic boundaries. In the third example, we learn how the homecoming plan of the Greek physician Democedes is saved by the quick wit of his regal agent, the Persian queen Atossa. After Democedes heals a growth on the queen’s breast in exchange for her help in his quest to return to his Greek homeland, the scene shifts to the bedroom of Atossa and Darius. In accordance with Democedes’ plot, the queen urges the king to expand the Persian Empire. While Darius agrees with Atossa’s advice, he announces his intention to attack Scythia. Atossa immediately declares that she really wants some Greek handmaids, as she hears that they are the best. Atossa’s improvisation saves Democedes’ original plan and thereby puts into motion the entire Persian expedition against Greece. In each of these three tales, we witness an interplay of humor, deception, and ethnography that both exploits and challenges cultural stereotypes. Likewise,

170  Mark C. Mash Herodotus, as cultural relativist, destabilizes our notions of different peoples and their nomoi. Reality, as Herodotus presents it in his Histories, is not always what we might expect. We become better readers of his work when we learn to appreciate how commonly resemblance—through stereotyped expectations—conceals reality. Perhaps the Athenians are not as clever as they are purported to be, perhaps wisdom and humor are not at odds, and perhaps the greatest events in history are precipitated by seemingly inconsequential beginnings. In the Histories, to be sure, humorous deception signals that the reader should reflect most seriously on the realities thus conveyed.

Notes   1 For example, Immerwahr 1966: 243–4, where he focuses on deception and trickery in the context of battles and military sieges, and also notes the connection between Sophocles and Herodotus in their focus on human trickery as opposed to a Homeric divine trickery. Lateiner remarks that “Deception is thematic in Herodotus when Greek and oriental despots pursue power . . . Pisistratus, Gelon, the Magus, and especially Darius gain power by deceiving their fellows” (1989: 276 n. 32).   2 On the varied “truths” of Herodotus’ different personas, see Lateiner 1977: 175, Marincola 2007: 60–7, and Baragwanath 2008: 55–81.   3 All references to Herodotus’ text are taken from Carol Hude’s Oxford Classical Text.   4 Scholars have observed the positive portrait of Pisistratus’ tyranny here. Lateiner 1989: 155 notes Pisistratus’ unusually good behavior for a despot in 1.59.6 (though he also contrasts 1.61.1—a violation of custom that results in his exile and also brings to mind Otanes’ speech in 3.80 on the negative characteristics of monarchs). Nagy 1990: 293 n. 87 remarks here that “from the ostensible standpoint of Croesus the initial importance of Athens is viewed almost exclusively in terms of the achievements of the tyrant Peisistratos (1.59–1.64.3).” N.B. also Kallet 2003: 117–53.   5 Connor 1987: 42–7 discusses the richness and complexity of interpretations associated with this scene. He stresses the seriousness of the episode and the layers of archaic tradition, myth, religion, and visual portrayal of the chariot scene and argues this was a social ritual meant to welcome back Pisistratus. Forsdyke 2006: 236–7 supports Connor’s interpretation since, she argues, it is more plausible: “. . . we know that the Athenians of the archaic period did not revile tyranny as did their fifth-century descendants, and therefore had no need to be deceived into accepting Peisistratus. In this narrative, therefore, we see an example of how Herodotus and his oral sources preserve a feature of archaic politics, but reinterpret it to make sense in terms of their own political values and conditions.” Flory 1987: 127–8 brings out important parallels between the stories of Pisistratus and Deioces (1.96–7).   6 Scholars have noted the pun on the name of Phya (= “stature”). See, e.g., Flory 1987: 128 and Immerwahr 1966: 196, who suggests a punning play between Phya and Pisistratus, whose name he translates as “the Persuader of the People.” As justification for his translation of the στρατός element in “Pisistratus” not as “army” but as “people,” Immerwahr (ibid.) notes that “στρατός originally means ‘people.’”   7 Shimron 1989: 69: “In 1.60.2 Herodotus laughs at the Athenians—themselves the most intelligent ἔθνος on earth—who were taken in by a silly trick.”   8 Cf. the similar verb κεχωρίσθαι in 1.4.4 that is used to describe how the Greeks and barbarians became “separated off” from one another.   9 Elsewhere, in Aeschylus’ Persians 424–6, the reference is applied not to the Athenians but to the Persians when they are slaughtered at Salamis: “as (they would) tunnies or some other cast of fishes” (tr. Lavelle 1991: 322; ὥστε θύννους ἢ τιν’ ἰχθύων βόλον).

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  171 10 As supporting evidence for the sometime euethie of the Athenians in Herodotus, Munson 2001: 210 cites Miltiades’ deception of them in 6.136.1 and Themistocles’ in 8.110.1. 11 In his attempt to deceive sight-seeing members of the fleet in Euboea, Xerxes left about a thousand Persian corpses on the battlefield and buried the rest—approximately 19,000 Persian dead—in mass graves covered with dirt and leaves (8.24). 12 Lavelle 1991: 324 finds it hard to believe that Herodotus would preserve stories about the Athenians that make them look “ridiculous.” Rather, in his view (ibid.), these stories were purposefully preserved by the Athenians as a way of demonstrating their earlier ancestors were doomed to be “caught out by a cleverer, indeed divinely-inspired ‘angler.’” I think Lavelle’s argument slights Herodotus’ ability to present information in a meaningful way. Rather, Lateiner’s view that “Herodotus’ sardonic account of Peisistratus’ Athenian political strategies . . . [is] probably a relic of the tyrant’s own propaganda and policies as well as his opponent’s allegations” (1993: 184) seems more plausible. I also have problems with Lavelle’s characterization of Herodotus’ Histories as “markedly Athenocentric” (1991: 324). This evaluation, in my view, oversimplifies Herodotus’ aims and material. 13 In an article on practical jokes that involve the animation of the dead at Irish wakes, I. Harlow 1997: 156–7 helpfully argues the following on narrative responses to practical jokes: “Accounts of practical jokes praise those who violate the values, who are affectionately dubbed ‘the local character,’ a ‘clever fellow,’ a ‘blaggard,’ or a ‘fellow up for devilment.’ . . . The narratives encourage people to overlook feelings of victimization and to focus instead on the creative aspect of the prank and the characters who carried it out . . . the telling of such narratives is linked to the restoration of social relations temporarily disrupted by the victimization and potential alienation which accompany pranks. While the narrated event can be divisive, the narrative event can be unifying . . . The antics of practical jokers differ from the deceptive activities of tricksters. Tricksters often engage in their deceptive activities for purposes of personal gain and are usually just as happy if their victims never find out what has transpired (Tallman 1974: 240). But practical jokers revel in the revelation to the victims that they have been duped; part of the structure of the practical joke as a genre is for the victims to experience the violation of expectations.” As we will see, Amasis, Democedes, and Atossa perform deception that lies somewhere between a practical joke and a trick. 14 Herodotus alludes to events during the 450s bc when the Athenians unsuccessfully tried to help the Libyan king Inaros overthrow Persian rule (3.12). Cf. Thucydides 1.104, 1.109–10. 15 Cf. the phrase Herodotus uses in speaking of Gyges at 1.8.2: “it was bound to turn out badly for Candaules” (χρῆν γὰρ Κανδαύλῃ γενέσθαι κακῶς). 16 Dewald 1998: 630 notes that Amasis could not have inspired Solon’s laws (c. 594 bc) because his reign was too late for this to be true. Herodotus adds a rare authorial comment that this Egyptian-now-Greek law, originally devised by Amasis, should remain in place forever because it is a blameless law (τῷ ἐκεῖνοι ἐς αἰεὶ χρέωνται, ἐόντι ἀμώμῳ νόμῳ, “They should always use this law, since it is blameless,” 2.177.2). 17 αὐτῶν δὴ ὦν τούτων καὶ τῆς θεωρίης ἐκδημήσας ὁ Σόλων εἵνεκεν ἐς Αἴγυπτον ἀπίκετο παρὰ Ἄμασιν καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐς Σάρδις παρὰ Κροῖσον. 18 Leslie Kurke discusses the helmet in relation to the story of Psammeticus (2.151–2), and deduces from the parallel mention of helmets that Amasis’ must be bronze. “Whatever crowning with a helmet signifies within the native Egyptian tradition, to a Greek audience it represents a radical inversion of the symbolic meaning of gold and bronze. The bronze helmet, emblematic in form and substance of the warrior function, is here used as if it were a golden crown, to elevate Amasis to the status of a sovereign” (Kurke 1999: 91). 19 Plutarch is annoyed by this passage of Herodotus, which he cites as a means of characterizing Herodotus’ modus operandi, and I would say his humorous modus operandi:

172  Mark C. Mash “There would be no objection to these omissions [about the words of Leonidas] in another author, but this is Herodotus, who gave us Amasis’ rude retort to Apries (2.162.3), the thief and his donkeys and the wineskin (121), and lots of other such stuff, so that one can hardly think he omits noble deeds and noble sayings from carelessness and oversight: to certain people he is neither friendly nor fair” (de Malig. 866c–d; trans. Bowen 1992: 67). 20 Kurke 1999: 94 n. 62, translates ἀγνωμοσύνῃ as “stubbornness,” and notes that it is “a rare word in Herodotus, [and] always designates an action (regarded by the actors themselves as noble) from a hostile perspective that condemns it as ‘foolhardiness’ or ‘stubbornness’ (cf. Hdt. 4.93, 5.83.1, 6.10, 7.9b1, 9.3.1, 9.4).” She argues further (ibid.) that here the term “is a very negative way of describing the aristocratic cult of sameness and consistency.” For her analysis of this episode in terms of the language of metals, see Kurke 1999: 92–4. 21 See note 14 above. 22 Herodotus emphasizes Amasis’ unusual behavior as a king in 2.174 by making note of his similar behavior to an ordinary citizen (2.174.1): φιλοπότης ἦν καὶ φιλοσκώμμων καὶ οὐδαμῶς κατεσπουδασμένος ἀνήρ. In addition, we learn that he played the role of thief when he ran out of drink and supplies, and those oracles that had convicted him of theft, he honored once he was king; those that let him off he disregarded (2.174.2). Thus, we see a curious blend of trickster turned just ruler, where Amasis condemns his former self, perhaps his more “Egyptian” self, in favor of his Greek-loving new and just persona. 23 Indeed, How and Wells 1928 note that this saying is found as a proverb in Hor. Odes 2.10.19 (Neque semper arcum tendit Apollo), and that “Greek fancy wove a web of legends round Amasis, as round Croesus and many other historical persons of the sixth century . . . [though Herodotus] as usual avoids the exaggerations of later writers, e.g. that Amasis was a great magician.” I find Herodotus’ character Amasis similar to Herodotus in the varieties of humor he uses. In support of my assertion, I find striking Phaedrus’ fable (3.14) about an Athenian man who witnessed Aesop himself in a crowd of boys playing with nuts. The Athenian man laughed at Aesop as if he were crazy (quasi delirum risit), and when Aesop, “who was one to ridicule others rather than one to be ridiculed” (derisor potius quam deridendus), noticed this, he put an unstrung bow (arcum retensum) in the middle of the street and asked the Athenian, whom Aesop mockingly called a “wise man” (sapiens), to decipher his message. When the Athenian could not, Aesop told him that if his bow was always strung, it would eventually break, but if it stayed unstrung, it would be ready to use whenever he needed it. Thus, as a character in this fable, Aesop demonstrates the importance of playful humor. This fable, to me, suggests Herodotus’ own debt to the low Aesopic tradition that Kurke 2006 has discussed, for Phaedrus was likely working from traditions of Aesop that Herodotus also knew and perhaps is incorporating here through his Egyptian character Amasis. Plutarch also seems to acknowledge the influence of Aesop on Herodotus: “No more fictions now, in which Scythians and Persians and Egyptians are made to speak as Aesop uses crows and monkeys: he uses the Pythian god himself to put down Athens from pride of place at Salamis” (de Malig. 871c–d; tr. Bowen 1992: 87). 24 E.g., in the proem (1.1–5) and the story of Rhampsinitus’ treasury (2.121). See Halliwell 2008: 21 on Amasis’ bow metaphor as an example of “playful laughter” versus what he calls “consequential laughter.” 25 Cf. the episodes about the Babylonian queen Nitocris (1.187) and the builder in the story of Rhampsinitus’ treasury (2.121). While Amasis usually displays the greatest sophie, he is bested by the Halicarnassian Phanes (καὶ γνώμην ἱκανὸς καὶ τὰ πολέμια ἄλκιμος, 3.4.1), who finds some fault with Amasis and wants to escape Egypt in order to talk to Cambyses. We learn from the narrative that he accomplishes his escape because he outwits the trickster Amasis (σοφίῃ γάρ μιν περιῆλθε ὁ Φάνης, 3.4.2). Cf. the sophie of Phanes’ fellow Halicarnassian Artemisia, who ensures her escape by her

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  173 ramming trick at the battle of Salamis (8.87–8), and the thief in the story of Rhampsinitus’ treasury, who gets the guards of his brother’s corpse drunk and thereby escapes with the corpse (2.121). 26 Lloyd 1988: 211 argues that the footbath episode is likely of Greek origin and the other two stories are likely Hellenized versions of Egyptian tales. He (ibid.) also notes Herodotus’ skillful variation in his presentation of these stories: “in the first the lesson is given in indirect speech; in the second a dialogue in direct speech is used; in the third a narrative technique is employed.” Moreover, Amasis’ fame for his “wisdom, cunning and moral perception” is seen in later texts, such as D.S., 1.95; Plu., De Virtutibus Mulierum 25 (Mor. 261C ff.); Polyaenus, Strat. 7.4 (Lloyd: ibid.). 27 Thomas 2000: 41 notes a pun on techne in this passage: “The Persian king Darius calls Democedes to his presence, in the hope that he can cure Darius’ foot, and the question he asks Democedes is ‘Do you know the art?’ – τὴν τέχνην εἰ ἐπίσταιτο (III 130.1). Democedes at first evades the matter, but he seems to Darius to be ‘behaving artfully’ – τεχνάζειν, a wonderful pun on techne – and Darius produces the torturing equipment (130.2).” 28 Herodotus reminds us again of the superiority of Greek doctors over Egyptian doctors when he recalls how Democedes saved some Egyptian doctors, who had been bested by a Greek doctor, from being impaled (3.132.2). On Democedes’ witty remark about the “gift” of golden bracelets, compare the Ethiopian king’s laughter at the Persian golden collar and bracelets in 3.22.2. 29 While the narrative tells us that Atossa gave a speech that she had been “taught by Democedes” (διδαχθεῖσα ὑπὸ τοῦ Δημοκήδεος, 3.134.1), we get the strong impression that Darius does not react according to plan so that Atossa must then improvise. 30 For more on the connection between sexual and imperial desire, see Benardete 1969: 137–8, Hartog 1988: 330, and Munson 2001: 65 n. 67. Cf. Hera’s deception of Zeus in Il. 14.153–351. 31 Immerwahr 1956: 252–3 generally notes the humor here and compares it to other similar instances the text: “The importance of personal motivation accounts for the mention of women causing wars, as in the proem, for Cambyses’ Egyptian campaign (3.1 ff.), and in the Darius-Atossa scene (3.134 ff.). In each case the motivation is absurd, and the cause a ludicrous one.” 32 Thomas 2000: 108 n. 10 suggests that the handmaids offer further evidence of Persian poverty at the time before their invasion of Greece. 33 Though we might recall a clever trick that Darius used to win the kingship, we remember that it was not Darius who planned the actual trick, but his groom Oebares (3.85–7), whom he commemorates by name along with that of his horse in an inscription that accompanies a statue of a man on a horse (3.88.3). 34 Cf. Immerwahr 1956: 261, Waters 1966: 162–3, and Shimron 1989: 65. 35 Od. 9.502–5. Cf. also Cleomenes’ farewell quip to Crius in Hdt. 6.50.

References Baragwanath, E. (2008), Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Benardete, S. (1969), Herodotean Inquiries, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Bowen, A.J. (1992), Plutarch: The Malice of Herodotus, Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips. Connor, W.R. (1987), “Tribes, Festivals and Processions: Civic Ceremonial and Political Manipulation in Archaic Greece,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 107: 40–50. Derow, P. and R. Parker (eds.) (2003), Herodotus and his World: Essays from a Conference in Memory of George Forrest, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

174  Mark C. Mash Dewald, C. (1993), “Reading the World: The Interpretation of Objects in Herodotus’ Histories,” in Ralph M. Rosen and Joseph Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 55–70. —— (1998), Introduction and notes to Robin Waterfield’s translation of Herodotus’ Histories, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (2006), “Humour and Danger in Herodotus,” in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 145–64. Flory, S. (1987), The Archaic Smile of Herodotus, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University. Forsdyke, S. (2006), “Herodotus, Political History, and Political Thought,” in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 224–41. Hall, J.M. (2002), Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Halliwell, S. (2008), Greek Laughter: A Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harlow, I. (1997), “Creating Situations: Practical Jokes and the Revival of the Dead in Irish Tradition,” Journal of American Folklore 110: 140–68. Hartog, F. (1988, trans. J. Lloyd; French text published in 1980), The Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hollmann, A. (2005), “The Manipulation of Signs in Herodotus’ Histories,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 135: 279–327. How, W.W. and J. Wells (1928; first published 1912), A Commentary on Herodotus, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Immerwahr, H.R. (1956), “Aspects of Historical Causation in Herodotus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 87: 241–80. —— (1966), Form and Thought in Herodotus, Philological Monographs, no. 23, American Philological Association, Cleveland, OH: Press of Case Western Reserve University. Kallet, L. (2003), “Demos Tyrannos: Wealth, Power and Economic Patronage,” in K.A. Morgan (ed.), Popular Tyranny: Sovereignty and its Discontents in Ancient Greece, Austin: University of Texas Press, pp. 117–53. Kurke, L. (1999), Coins, Bodies, Games and Gold, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (2006), “Plato, Aesop, and the Beginnings of Mimetic Prose,” Representations 94.1: 6–52. Lateiner, D. (1977), “No Laughing Matter: A Literary Tactic in Herodotus,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 107: 173–82. —— (1989), The Historical Method of Herodotus, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. —— (1990), “Deceptions and Delusions in Herodotus,” Classical Antiquity 9: 230–46. —— (1993), “The Perception of Deception and Gullibility in Specialists of the Supernatural (Primarily) in Athenian Literature,” in R.M. Rosen and J. Farrell (eds.), Nomodeiktes: Greek Studies in Honor of Martin Ostwald, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 179–96. Lavelle, B. (1991), “The Compleat Angler: Observations on the Rise of Peisistratos in Herodotus (1.59–64),” Classical Quarterly New Series 41.2: 317–24. Lloyd, A.B. (1988), Herodotus Book II: Commentary 99–182, Leiden: Brill. Marincola, J. (2007), “Odysseus and the Historians,” Syllecta Classica 18: 1–79. Moles, J. (1996), “Herodotus Warns the Athenians,” Papers of the Leeds International Latin Seminar 9: 259–84.

Stereotypes as faulty resemblance  175 Munson, R. (2001), Telling Wonders: Ethnographic and Political Discourse in the Work of Herodotus, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Nagy, G. (1990), Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Rood, T. (2006), “Herodotus and Foreign Lands,” in C. Dewald and J. Marincola (eds.), Cambridge Companion to Herodotus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 290–305. Shimron, B. (1989), Politics and Belief in Herodotus, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Tallman, R. (1974), “A Generic Apporach to the Practical Joke,” Southern Folklore Quarterly 38: 259–74. Thomas, R. (2000), Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Waters, K.H. (1966), “The Purpose of Dramatisation in the Herodotus,” Historia 15: 157–71.

11 The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates David Johnson

Scholars hoping to find a good source for what “the Greeks” thought have often concluded that Xenophon is their man. Kenneth Dover’s magisterial Greek Popular Morality includes Xenophon as a source for popular views, while leaving out philosophers and dramatists as probable eccentrics. And since Xenophon has been regarded, ever since antiquity, as a particularly pious man, he has been seen as a particularly reliable source for standard religious views (Parker 2004; Bowden 2004). Jon Mikalson, while recognizing that Xenophon was not a “typical Athenian,” makes him a star witness for Athenian popular religion (Mikalson 1983: 12): His writings show him far removed from the intense rationalism of Thucydides, his predecessor in history, and from the intellectual metaphysics of Plato, his fellow student of Socrates . . . He was simply, as Diogenes Laertius (2.56) characterized him centuries later, “pious, sacrifice-loving, and able to interpret sacrificial victims.” But how, then, was the pious Xenophon going to handle the religion of Socrates? Whatever else Socrates may have been, he was no conventional religious figure; his execution on the charge of impiety ought to guarantee at least that much, even if one accepts a view of the trial that makes something other than religion the central element in Socrates’ conviction.1 Yet Xenophon’s admiration for Socrates is beyond doubt. Did a conventional Xenophon whitewash or repress Socrates’ religious ideas? Or do have we some reason to conclude that Xenophon represented Socrates’ actual religious views? Representation and reality are devilishly difficult to sort out in Socratic literature. This is not the place, thankfully, for another general disquisition on the Socratic Question.2 I will instead posit two “tests” to judge whether we have good reason to connect Xenophon’s representation with the historical Socrates: (1) Agreement between our main sources. Where Xenophon’s account agrees with Plato’s, we lose the most obvious reason to doubt its reliability, and thus gain some reason to take their shared account as reflecting the historical Socrates. Xenophon himself endorses this test at the outset of his Apology:

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   177 “Others have written about this [Socrates’ approach to his trial], and all of them have hit on his arrogance, which makes it clear that this is how Socrates really spoke.” (2) Unconventional thought in Xenophon. While Plato’s philosophical genius vastly complicates our efforts to sort out Plato’s philosophy from the thought of Socrates, we have no reason to believe that Xenophon, for all his other merits, was an original thinker, particularly about religious matters. It is thus likely that unconventional religious thought enunciated by Xenophon’s Socrates originated with Socrates rather than with Xenophon. Admittedly, neither of these tests is conclusive. Xenophon and Plato could attribute the same views to Socrates because Xenophon was reflecting Plato’s account, Plato reflecting Xenophon’s, or both of them reflecting some third party other than the historical Socrates. “Unconventional thought” is hard to define, and even if we assume, rather parsimoniously, that Xenophon was not capable of original unconventional thinking, it is entirely possible that Xenophon took views developed by a thinker other than Socrates and attributed them to Socrates. But when relevant passages pass one or both of these tests, this does at least provide us with some reason to believe they represent the historical Socrates. I will now consider two aspects of Socratic religion, and see how they fare by these tests. I will first turn to aspects of Socrates’ religious experience raised at his trial, the divine sign and the Delphic oracle. Here Plato and Xenophon have important disagreements, and Xenophon’s account is more conventional than Plato’s. Thus where Xenophon’s account of these matters differs from Plato’s, it does not pass either of the two tests set out above. At first glance, then, it certainly looks as though Xenophon was more interested in assimilating Socrates’ views to conventional religion than in revealing the structure and nature of Socrates’ religious thought. Xenophon’s account of the oracle and sign gives us nothing that is both not found in Plato and likely to be true of the historical Socrates. Xenophon’s first goal was, after all, to defend Socrates against the charges against him. As a result, while scholars of Greek religion may welcome Xenophon’s testimony, those interested in the religion of Socrates largely ignore him, assuming that all Xenophon has done is to conventionalize Socrates.3 I will argue, however, that the differences between the accounts of the divine sign and the oracle should not be allowed to overwhelm their fundamental similarities. Even after we subtract differences between our two main sources for the oracle about Socrates and his divine sign, considerable agreement remains about these unconventional elements in Socrates’ religious experience, and where the authors agree, we have some reason to believe that they accurately represent the historical Socrates. More importantly, Xenophon’s account of Socrates’ religion is not limited to matters raised at his trial. Xenophon also attributes to Socrates positive religious views that are not directly tied to the charge of impiety—and that are not to be found in Plato. We find in Xenophon the first extant version of the argument from

178  David Johnson design (Memorabilia 1.4 and 4.3),4 an argument that would have a tremendous afterlife in ancient and modern philosophy and remains a living force to this day.5 Xenophon also sketches the rudiments of a theory of divinely sanctioned natural law (4.4)—or so at least I will argue, though this is a more controversial claim. And while both of these ideas came to be incorporated into mainstream religious views, and are today associated with religious conservatives, this was not yet the case in Xenophon’s day. Such ideas could in fact undermine the ancient Greek religious worldview, in which the gods were expected to intervene on behalf of their favorites, at least in some circumstances; a more thoroughly rationalized religion could threaten conventional cult.6 Xenophon’s Socrates will thus emerge as an innovative thinker about religion, not just a watered-down version of Plato’s Socrates. As one recent study has well put it, Xenophon attributes to Socrates a sort of “super-piety” (Powers 2009); but superlative piety goes beyond the conventional, thus rendering Socrates liable to attack for his religious views. And with the argument from design and divine law Xenophon’s contribution is decidedly unconventional: it thus passes the second test above with flying colors. The first test does not obviously apply, as Xenophon here introduces religious ideas without clear parallels in early Plato. It would take more work on Plato than I can provide in an essay on Xenophon to show whether the innovative religious ideas Xenophon attributes to Socrates here are compatible with Plato’s account of Socrates.7 But I do hope to show that Xenophon’s Socrates advances more substantive theological views than he is normally credited with, and that these views have a good claim to be those of the historical Socrates.

Xenophon’s more conventional Socrates τὸ δαιμόνιον Socrates was charged, among other things, with introducing new daimonia—new divine things—into Athens, and, as Xenophon tells us, the charge was no doubt based in some large part on his habit of saying that τὸ δαιμόνιον provided him with guidance (Apology 12–13, Memorabilia 1.1.2; cf. Plato, Euthyphro 3b, Apology 31c–d). As Louis-André Dorion has demonstrated, in Xenophon τὸ δαιμόνιον is a substantive, referring to the divine in general, essentially equivalent to “the gods” (Dorion 2013: 275–81). In Xenophon, then, we are not dealing with an elliptical adjectival phrase, “the divine _____”, where “sign” (σημεῖον) or some other term is required to fill in the blank. Xenophon argues that Socrates’ way of characterizing his special form of communication with the gods was nothing strange, and was in fact the most pious way to speak of such things (Memorabilia 1.1.3–4): He didn’t introduce any innovation (οὐδὲν καινότερον εἰσέφερε) that differed from what is done by those who practice divination by making use of birds and voices and signs and sacrifices. For these people do not believe that birds or those they meet in chance encounters know what is beneficial to those who are using divination, but instead believe that it is

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   179 the gods who are giving signs through such things, and that’s just what he thought. But while most people say that they have been held back or urged on by birds or those they chanced to meet, Socrates said exactly what he thought: he said that the divine gave him a sign (τὸ δαιμόνιον . . . σημαίνειν). Xenophon elsewhere uses τὸ δαιμόνιον to refer to the generalized divinity responsible for the order of the world (1.4.2, 10; 4.3.14, 15). Xenophon can thus say that τὸ δαιμόνιον told Socrates not to prepare a defense speech (Apology 4) and later attribute the same message to “the gods” (Apology 8). While this usage is less common in Plato, who usually speaks of a sign (as at Apology 40b–d) or voice (as at Apology 31d) occurring to Socrates, Plato also appears to use τὸ δαιμόνιον as a generic term for the divine source of Socrates’ sign at Apology 40a. Only Xenophon, however, explains that this way of speaking is not heretical but in fact extraordinarily pious. It was, however, pretty clearly a decidedly unusual way of speaking, as otherwise Xenophon would not have needed to defend it. In Plato, the divine sign is limited in two noteworthy ways: it only provides Socrates with advice about his own situation, not that of anyone else, and it only warns Socrates not to do something, never urging him on to do something (Apology 31d). It is also generous in an unusual way: it comes to Plato’s Socrates so regularly that he is able to draw positive conclusions from its absence, as he does on the day of his trial, when the silence of the sign convinces him that he has suffered no harm by his conduct of his case (Plato, Apology 40a–b, 41d). Xenophon differs on all three counts. The sign gives Xenophon’s Socrates advice from his sign about what his companions should do.8 The sign’s reference to others is clearest in the Memorabilia (1.1.4), where Xenophon makes it clear that the sign’s advice benefited Socrates’ companions, but advice for others is also implicit in Xenophon’s Apology (13). Xenophon’s divine sign also gives Socrates direct positive advice. Xenophon simply reports that the sign informed Socrates, or even Socrates’ companions, not only of what they should not do, but also of what they should do (Apology 12; Memorabilia 1.4.15, 4.3.12, 4.8.1). And Xenophon’s Socrates, unlike Plato’s, never remarks that the sign comes to him regularly. Xenophon’s Socrates therefore has no good reason to take the silence of the sign as giving him implicit backing for an action, so this backing must be explicit; we must assume that Xenophon’s sign says “yes” as well as “no.” Each of these differences between Plato and Xenophon’s accounts of the sign render Xenophon’s representation more conventional than Plato’s. As Euthydemus remarks in the Memorabilia (4.3.12), the gods are particularly friendly to Socrates, as they give him signs even when he does not ask for them. While some forms of conventional divination were also fortuitous in this sense, like the dream that inspired Xenophon at the darkest moment of his campaign with the Ten Thousand in Asia (Anabasis 3.1.11–13) and the soldier’s sneeze that was taken to confirm Xenophon’s advice to the army (Anabasis 3.2.9), we do not hear of individuals

180  David Johnson who are regularly warned by dreams or sneezes, as Socrates was warned regularly by his sign. So if the sign had come unbidden to Socrates as regularly as Plato says it did, that pattern would have been decidedly unconventional. Next, most forms of traditional divination were also capable of directly giving either positive or negative responses: here too Xenophon’s account seems to lessen the divide between Socrates’ sign and conventional religion. And finally, most forms of divination were not restricted to one individual, unlike the Socratic sign in Plato, which only advises Socrates himself. Thus Xenophon makes the divine sign less problematic in at least three ways: it need not have been Socrates’ constant companion, it could say yes or no, and its advice was relevant not only to Socrates but to others.9 In addition to making the sign less troubling to a conventional prospective, Xenophon’s sign suits his goal of showing how beneficial Socrates was to his friends (1.3.1), who benefited directly from both the positive and negative advice of the sign. Plato’s version of the sign is more limited, in keeping with his famous disavowal of knowledge and inability to teach, neither of which plays a significant role in Xenophon’s portrayal of Socrates. Each author’s take on the sign, then, fits their overall representation of Socrates. So Xenophon’s account of the divine sign fails both tests I set out above: it differs from Plato’s account, and it differs in being more conventional. But we should be clear about just what this failure means and doesn’t mean: it means that we have no good reason to believe that Xenophon’s account gives us historical information about the sign in addition to whatever historically accurate information we find in Plato. The failure does not affect areas where Xenophon’s account agrees with Plato’s. And while Xenophon made the divine sign appear more conventional, Xenophon’s account reads as if he had been careful not to substantially alter the picture of Socrates offered by Plato. For while Xenophon repeatedly says that the sign could give positive as well as negative advice, and that its advice served Socrates’ friends as well as Socrates, he never shows Socrates receiving a positive sign, nor does Xenophon’s Socrates ever cite the sign on the numerous occasions he gives his friends advice. And Plato’s sign, as we saw, can give implicit positive advice simply by failing to appear. And while the sign itself never gives Plato’s Socrates explicit advice about other individuals, his Socrates is able to make prophecies about others (Isocrates at Phaedrus 278e–279a; Theaetetus at Theaetetus 142c–d), and his sign prevents him from taking on certain patients for his midwifery—advice that is at least as relevant for a potential interlocutor as for Socrates himself (Theaetetus 151a; cf. Xenophon, Symposium 8.5). In other words, even Plato’s Socrates also derives positive indications from his sign, and he too has some special divine insight into what is best for others. Thus it seems to me that once we correct for Xenophon’s apologetic agenda, we can see in his account of the sign, if not confirmation, then at least no substantial contradiction of Plato’s account of the sign. Socrates received special signals from the gods that gave him insight into what was best for him and others. These signs from the divine—τὸ δαιμόνιον—were clearly part of the basis for the charge that Socrates introduced new δαιμόνια at Athens.

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   181 The oracle Xenophon also presents a version of the oracle story that makes it less problematic in conventional religious terms than is Plato’s version. Plato’s Socrates introduces the tale of the Delphic oracle in order to explain the origin of the old prejudices against him. Socrates’ friend Chaerephon once asked the god whether any man was wiser than Socrates, and was told that no man was (Apology 20e–21a). Socrates’ attempts to find someone wiser, which resulted in his refuting and thus humiliating many a prominent Athenian, generated the hostility against him. Along the way, Plato’s Socrates learned that human wisdom consisted in understanding that no human knows anything of great importance (Apology 20c–23b). From this pursuit of the meaning of the oracle, Plato’s Socrates derives his divine mission, which requires him to question himself and others, regardless of the consequences (28d–29a). The oracle thus appears to have played a decisive role in Socrates’ development, and to make him not only a philosopher with a mission but something of a religious missionary. Socrates’ efforts to convert his fellow citizens to the examined life arguably have rather more in common with evangelizing Christianity than with traditional Greek religion. Xenophon’s Socrates, on the other hand, introduces the oracle story not to explain the prejudice against him (and thus presumably blunt that prejudice), but to provoke still greater disbelief among jurors at his claim to be honored by the gods. Xenophon does not tell us just what question Chaerephon asked, but reports that the oracle replied that no one was more free, more just, or more moderate than Socrates. The oracle says nothing specifically about wisdom, the one quality prized in Plato’s account. Xenophon’s Socrates then asks a series of rhetorical questions meant to show that he surpasses all men in the qualities named by the oracle, and then moves, without explicit transition, to questions about other qualities, among them wisdom (Apology 14–18). What Xenophon’s Socrates does not do is to speak of anything resembling the divine mission of Plato’s Socrates. The oracle here is just another proof of Socrates’ superiority; it does not lead to any change in his life. When Socrates’ jurors make their skepticism about the oracle story clear by raising an uproar about it, Xenophon has Socrates compare what the oracle said to him to what it said to Lycurgus; at least the oracle did not address Socrates as a god but as a man, albeit one superior to others (Apology 15). The tone—and the comparison to the founding father of Athens’ rival Sparta—would not have endeared Socrates to the jury, but the comparison does at least provide one historical or at least legendary antecedent for the sort of praise the oracle accorded Socrates. Xenophon’s Socrates is most pious, as was Plato’s, but unlike the Socrates of Plato’s Apology, he is no missionary. Rather than using the oracle to explain Socrates’ philosophical mission, the mission which led to his trial and execution, Xenophon uses the oracle story as opportunity to have Socrates boast about his exemplary virtues.10 In this case too, Xenophon’s account fails the tests I established above. He disagrees with Plato, and does so by making the oracle story more conventional, at least in failing to derive from it Socrates’ unique religious mission. Once again,

182  David Johnson though, there is a basic level of agreement: Socrates’ friend Chaerephon went to Delphi, and was told that there was no man better than Socrates. “Better” is however defined rather differently, and the impact of the oracle on Socrates’ subsequent life varies greatly. The first question about the historicity of the representations here would be which, if either, gives an accurate representation of what Socrates said at his trial; the larger question is whether Socrates in fact viewed his life as the sort of mission described in Plato’s Apology. But there is a major obstacle to accepting the historicity of Socrates’ Platonic mission: the absence of any explicit reference to it in any other Socratic text, including Plato’s texts other than his Apology. The absence of direct references to the mission outside of Plato’s Apology is one factor that has led some scholars to conclude that the divine mission is a Platonic invention.11 Perhaps Plato invented the divine mission in order to give an account of Socrates’ way of life that could have been intelligible and even justifiable to the Athenian jury and to a wide readership. While granting that his jurors doubted he was speaking truthfully about his divine mission, Plato’s Socrates says that still fewer would believe an alternative explanation for his way of life, that is, his claim that the best human life consists in discussing virtue and that the unexamined life is not worth living (Plato, Apology 37e–38a). Be that as it may, the absence of the mission in Xenophon is consistent with all Socratic texts outside Plato’s Apology. It is certainly not an argument against the historicity of Xenophon’s account of Socrates.

The argument from design (Memorabilia 1.4 and 4.3) Thus far I have largely been playing defense, considering well-known passages where Xenophon’s Socrates differs from Plato’s, and does so in a more conventional direction. I have endeavored to show that some of these differences are not as great as they seem (particularly regarding the divine sign), and that where there are major differences (particularly regarding the divine mission), Xenophon may provide us with the more historical representation of Socrates. I now go over to the offense, as it were, discussing passages where Xenophon provides Socrates with sophisticated and unconventional religious views. These passages have received rather little discussion, though that is starting to change; the major contribution I attempt to make here is to show how these religious ideas of Xenophon’s Socrates, particularly his concept of divine law, form a coherent whole that contributes to his ethical ends. I suggest as well that this sophisticated, rational religion likely originates with the historical Socrates himself. We turn first to the argument from design, the argument that our observation of purposeful design in the natural world reveals to us the existence and nature of the creator of that world. Xenophon first presents this argument in response to a powerful criticism of Socrates, that he could turn people toward virtue, but could not lead them to it (1.4.1). Socrates is shown to be an effective teacher through his confrontation with Aristodemus, a follower of his who does not sacrifice or use divination and mocks those who do. Xenophon will conclude the chapter by saying that this argument enabled Socrates to prevent his followers from doing wrong not only when other men would notice this, but when they were alone, as nothing

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   183 they did would escape the notice of the gods (1.4.19). In Xenophon, then, unlike in its most famous later incarnation, the argument from design primarily serves an ethical rather than a theological goal.12 The argument goes like this. Aristodemus agrees that we admire poets and sculptors, and hence should admire those who produced the creatures that are represented by such artists even more. But how do we know that living things were not the result of chance? Because the parts of animals, particularly their sense organs, are well suited to their purposes, and such purposefulness is a mark of intelligent design, not chance. The fine design of animals implies that their creator was wise and beneficent, and humans’ superiority to other animals implies that the gods are particularly concerned with mankind (1.4.2–14). Aristodemus does not object to this argument, but he wants still more: he would be convinced that the gods were concerned with him only if they sent him advice of the sort they provide to Socrates through his divine sign (1.4.15). Socrates responds by asking Aristodemus if public divination done by Athens does not include him. And to reassure him of the value of public divination, he points out that it is widespread, particularly among the most successful cities and peoples, and that it would have been unbecoming for the gods to foster the belief that they could help or harm us if they did not in fact intervene on our behalf. And the gods’ minds are capable of traversing the whole of the world at once (1.4.15–17). So if, just as by serving men you recognize those who are willing to serve you in turn, and by pleasing men you recognize those who please in turn, and by seeking advice you learn who is prudent, so too if you experiment on the gods by serving them (τῶν θεῶν πεῖραν λαμβάνεις θεραπεύων) to see if they are willing to advise you concerning those things unclear to men, you will recognize that the divine is so great and so potent that it can see all at once and hear all and be present everywhere and be concerned about all things (1.4.18). Socrates here seems eager to show two things: that the gods are able to help individuals, and that they are willing to do so. Xenophon’s Socrates is a strong believer in traditional forms of divination, so long as one recognizes their proper function, providing insight into the long-term results of actions, and does not consult the gods when human knowledge suffices. Briefly put, one should consult the gods about whether to do something, not about how to do it (1.1.6–9). He argues that individuals who are pious gain special benefits, in keeping with the general line that the gods help those with whom they are well pleased (as at 1.1.9). Thus while the gods have made the world in a way that benefits all mankind, they give certain benefits, particularly in the form of divination, only to the pious. Piety, for Aristodemus, would require, at a minimum, a newfound willingness to ask the gods for their advice. This would require participating in the traditional rites Aristodemus had mocked. So long as sacrifice aims at honoring the gods rather than bribing them, and so long as the only active divine intervention we expect comes in the form of divination, traditional religious practice need not conflict with Socrates’ other beliefs.13 But why should Aristodemus be willing to try this experiment? Presumably because he is already a follower

184  David Johnson of Socrates, and it is Socrates who is the clearest example of a man blessed with special treatment by the gods, in the form of the messages sent him via his extraordinary divine sign. Seen in this light, Socrates’ divine sign is not an embarrassing bit of mysticism or quackery, but the logical culmination of a coherent religious doctrine. A man of superlative piety will receive superlative treatment from the gods. The sign is a decisive proof of Socrates’ theology, at least for those who believe that Socrates was not only supremely pious but supremely blessed. To convince us that Socrates was blessed, Xenophon heaps praise on Socrates, and devotes his Apology to showing us that Socrates’ conviction was no defeat but rather the result of Socrates’ choice to proclaim his virtues in a way he knew the jury would find offensive (Apology 1–9; Memorabilia 4.8.5–10). Aristodemus could not expect to be as divinely favored as Socrates, nor would Xenophon’s readers. But perhaps they could hope to do as well as Xenophon himself did. Xenophon was, after all, pious enough to receive accurate signs from the gods in crucial moments during his campaign in Asia. In this light, Socrates’ divine sign is only a particularly intense example of a fundamental aspect of Greek religion. We have yet to see, however, how Socrates’ argument from design should lead his followers to be not only pious but virtuous in the fullest sense, as Xenophon claimed Socrates did at the beginning and end of Memorabilia 1.4. Socrates has suggested that the gods grant signs to those who serve them, but it is not at all clear what serving the gods entails. The only thing he calls on Aristodemus to do is to stop scoffing at conventional religion. This presumably is not enough in itself to win the favor of the gods, and so this passage in itself does not show that Socrates’ religious views have the ethical force Xenophon claims for them. Socrates returns to the argument from design at Memorabilia 4.3, another key point in the Memorabilia, as it marks the outset of his positive teaching to Euthydemus, Socrates’ model student in book 4. Once again the argument must show not only that the world follows a rational and divine order, but that the world is set up for the benefit of mankind in particular. This is of course in keeping with the ethical aim of Socrates’ theology, and 4.3, like 1.4, comes in response to an ethical challenge to Socrates, though here Xenophon leaves the challenge implicit by giving only Socrates’ response to it (4.3.1–2; cf. 4.1.3–4): He was in no hurry to make his companions skilled in speech and action and getting things done, but believed that it was necessary that they acquire moderation first. For those with these abilities who were not moderate he considered to be more unjust and more capable of doing harm. He first attempted to make his companions moderate concerning the gods. Various people who were present when he had such conversations have described them. I for my part was present when he had the following conversation with Euthydemus. Thus Socrates’ teaching about the gods is again put to an ethical end. Once again, the specter of a wayward student is raised, though here it is not the religious scoffer Aristodemus but the most controversial of all of Socrates’ students, Alcibiades,

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   185 whom Xenophon seems to have in mind, though Xenophon does not bring him on stage in this context. Socrates’ first conversation with Euthydemus, in 4.2, has many parallels with the accounts of his first conversation with Alcibiades in the Alcibiades I and the Alcibiades of Aeschines. It is impiety, of course, that landed Alcibiades in exile, and Alcibiades’ complete lack of moderation that made him so mistrusted in the first place. So this second account of intelligent design has an ethical goal, like the earlier passages, but there are certain differences. For the most part, the argument here supplements or builds on that before, rather than simply duplicating it, something made easier by the presence in 4.3 of a less skeptical interlocutor. Rather than discussing features of the bodies of humans and other animals, Socrates discusses features of the natural world, including the light provided by the sun and moon. In a rather fascinating precursor of what has come to be known as the “finetuned” universe argument, Socrates notes how carefully the gods have arranged for the sun, as it approaches the earth in summer and moves away in winter, to travel neither too close to scorch us, nor too far away to allow us to freeze, and to make all its movements at a slow enough pace to allow us to adapt to the seasons (4.3.8). Today such arguments have sometimes been taken to support intelligent design by a creator god, though nowadays the fine-tuning is observed in things like physical constants rather than geocentric astronomy.14 While Socrates previously discussed natural advantages men enjoy over animals, in 4.3 he adds the argument that animals and plants exist for the sake of mankind (4.3.10), and he more fully discusses the advantages we derive from our superior natures, including the ability to work together, under law, toward common ends (4.3.11–12). Where earlier Aristodemus had introduced Socrates’ special sign as the sort of thing he would need to see to be convinced of divine concern for individuals, here Socrates introduces divination as yet another divine gift to humanity. Euthydemus adds that the gods are evidently more friendly toward Socrates than to other mortals. Unlike Aristodemus, Euthydemus is no scoffer. The primary challenge he will pose to Socrates is not a demand for proof of the existence of a divine order, or even for proof that the gods care for humanity in general or Euthydemus in particular, but rather the worry that no human worship can be a due exchange for divine beneficence (4.3.15): “For my part, Socrates,” said Euthydemus, “While I’m sure that I will not in the slightest way neglect the divine, I lose heart because it seems to me that no person can offer any worthy response for the beneficence of the gods.” What response on our part could ever match the gods’ gifts to us, and thus merit some sort of divine response? Euthydemus’ question is a somewhat humbler version of the quandary raised in Plato’s Euthyphro (14e–15a), where our exchanges with the gods are problematic because the gods need nothing. Socrates’ answer to this problem is not clear at once. Socrates first cheers Euthydemus up by noting that one should favor the gods in accordance with the customs of one’s city (4.3.16; cf. 1.3.1). The custom everywhere is to honor the

186  David Johnson gods with sacrifice to the best of one’s ability, and Socrates immediately reminds Euthydemus not to fall short in this respect (4.3.16). If he acts in this way, he has good reason to be confident (4.3.17): For who else could one moderately expect greater things from, than from those who are able to profit one the most, especially if one pleases them? And how could someone please them more than by obeying them to the highest degree? In the immediate context, obeying the gods will only require sacrificing to the best of one’s ability. Socrates will use similar language in 4.6, where he says that one who knows how to honor the gods in accordance with the customs and laws is pious. And, as we have seen, he concluded 1.4 by advising Aristodemus to drop his scoffing for more conventional practice. But this advice is not terribly satisfactory. Surely traditional practice is not enough to justify the broad conclusion Xenophon draws about Socrates at the end of the chapter: “By saying things of this sort and himself acting in this way he made his companions more pious and more moderate” (4.3.18). Just what about participating in the religious rites of the city—sacrifice, prayer, divination and the like—makes one more moderate? As a conclusion to a rather grand account of divine cosmology, this conclusion seems banal. But there is more to come in Socrates’ theology: divine law.

Divine law (Memorabilia 4.4) In the very next chapter of the Memorabilia, Socrates outlines a doctrine of divine law that builds on the divine natural order he has sketched in 1.4 and 4.3. Memorabilia 4.3 is therefore incomplete without 4.4. And in fact by noting that it is everywhere the custom (nomos) to honor the gods to the best of one’s ability (4.3.16), Xenophon has Socrates foreshadow a key element in the doctrine of divine law he will outline in the next chapter: divine laws hold in all places. Obeying the gods will then mean not only sacrificing in accordance with the customs of one’s own city, but obeying the divine law which is in force everywhere. Divine law is introduced during a conversation on law and justice, where it appears to play a minor supporting role, but it becomes a major part of Socrates’ ethics—or at least so I argue. Xenophon begins the chapter by saying that Socrates did not conceal his views about justice. He next describes Socrates’ just actions, which he characterizes in terms of his obedience to the law. Socrates was lawful both in private and in public; he obeyed lawful orders both at Athens and while serving as a soldier, but opposed the unlawful trial of the Arginusae generals under the radical democracy, refused to take part in the judicial murders of the Thirty Tyrants, and rejected the illegal begging and flattery most defendants resort to when on trial (4.4.1–4). But the sophist Hippias, who replaces Euthydemus as interlocutor in this chapter, wants Socrates to do more than to say that he avoided unjust actions: he wants an account of what justice is. Socrates complies by saying that those who are lawful are just and indeed that being lawful and being just are the same thing (4.4.12; 4.4.18; 4.4.25). The laws at issue, Socrates and

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   187 Hippias agree, are the statutes agreed to by the citizenry (4.4.12–13). The citizen who lives his life in accordance with the demands of the law does what is just, Socrates proclaims, and therefore is just. When Hippias objects that the law cannot be anything very serious, given how readily citizens change the law, Socrates convinces him otherwise by noting that while war can change to peace, obedience in time of war is still highly praised, and by asking a stirring string of rhetorical questions that demonstrate the advantages of obedience to the law for both cities and individuals (4.4.13–18). At this point, then, we appear to have a striking variety of legal positivism, i.e., the notion that laws are simply what is posited by legislators, and require no further justification in nature, divine command, or abstract principles of justice. These positive laws are to be obeyed precisely because they have been adopted by the community. What makes the argument particularly striking here is that justice appears to be reduced to the dictates of the positive law. Not only are laws valid simply because they have been duly legislated by a government, with no consideration to other principles of justice or legality; such laws appear to encompass all that is just and unjust. All one needs to do to be just in Athens, apparently, is to obey the laws of Athens. But when Hippias grants that he cannot gainsay Socrates’ account of law and justice, Socrates, rather surprisingly, introduces another sort of law: unwritten laws. Has Hippias heard of such laws? Yes, he has; he identifies them as the laws recognized in the same way in every land. He agrees that such laws cannot be the work of men, who have never come together to pass them, and would not speak the same language even if they did. Thus the gods must have established such laws for men. Hippias volunteers that honoring the gods is such a law, and agrees that honoring parents is one as well. But he throws out an objection when Socrates suggests that sex between parents and children is forbidden by this sort of law, for Hippias knows that this law is sometimes broken. Socrates responds that Hippias has mistakenly assumed that divine laws are unbreakable. They can be broken, but if broken they necessarily entail punishment for those who break them (4.4.19–21). Socrates provides an argument to show the automatic punishment for parentchild incest: in such cases one of the partners will always be out of their prime, and hence have poor seed;15 so the offspring of such acts will always be poor. He also provides an argument to show why his fourth and last example of a divine law, that against ingratitude, always entails its own punishment. For persons who treat others well are sought out as friends, but those who fail to respond to good acts with good acts are hated, and find it difficult to find friends. This argument is very close to that Socrates made in favor of obedience to the law just above: the lawful man is recognized as the type likely to keep his agreements, and repay good deeds, but here the argument applies to acts beyond the scope of the written laws. Thus unwritten divine laws enjoin us to honor the gods and parents, prohibit parent-child incest, and bid us to return good deeds with good deeds. The gods surely pass laws which are just; so they too believe that the same thing is both lawful and just. The equation of the just and the lawful is secured, ultimately, by the gods (4.4.22–5).

188  David Johnson While Socrates is careful to close his argument with the same main point he began with—that the just is the lawful—he has been speaking of a rather different sort of law in the second part of this chapter. And there has been considerable controversy about his account of unwritten laws.16 There are two main issues, which overlap but can be considered separately. The first is the nature of the unwritten laws: are they best considered to be positive laws established by the gods? Or are they a form of natural law, that is, law rooted in the nature of things rather than laws which are simply a matter of divine decree? If they are natural laws, this passage should play an important role in the history of philosophy. But if these laws are divine decrees valid simply because they are commandments from the gods, the novelty and therefore the import of the ideas Xenophon attributes to Socrates here would be considerably lessened. The second question is whether or not the unwritten laws can conflict with the written laws, and thus call into question the apparent teaching of the first half of the chapter, that justice can be identified with obeying the laws of one’s own city. Divine laws that go beyond the written laws of the city would add rather more nuance to what appears to be a strikingly naïve version of legal positivism, and would again make these laws a more significant part of Socrates’ legacy. At stake here is the possibility that when we think of natural law we should not start with the Stoics, but Socrates, just as the history of the argument from design may begin with Socrates rather than Aquinas.

Positive law or natural law? Let us first consider the nature of the unwritten laws. The fact that they are unwritten itself means something. Though not all Greek laws were written down, many were, especially at Athens, so there may be something about the content of the unwritten laws that makes them unsuitable for inclusion among a set of written statues. Second, the unwritten laws are recognized everywhere. This shows Hippias that such laws cannot be of human origin, as all people could not come together or speak the same language—demonstrating by the way that “everywhere” does indeed include barbarians. Hippias concludes that these laws have been established by the gods for mankind, and he adds, perhaps a bit cynically, that the unwritten, universal belief that one should worship the gods is another indication that the gods established such laws. Finally, the unwritten laws can be violated, but those violations never go unpunished. This was something Socrates had to teach Hippias about the unwritten laws, and Hippias is presumably not alone in failing to understand this feature of the unwritten laws. So while all people recognize unwritten laws, many do not understand their true nature. Some features of these laws are positivistic. Hippias says the gods established them for mankind (θεοὺς οἶμαι τοὺς νόμους τοῖς ἀνθρώποις θεῖναι 4.4.19), and at the end of the passage Socrates and Hippias talk of the gods legislating them (via various forms of νομοθετεῖν, 4.4.25). But Socrates and Hippias must deduce that the unwritten laws are divine, and hence that they were posited by the gods, based on their observed characteristics, the fact that they are recognized everywhere,

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   189 and their uncanny ability to enforce themselves. Their divine status is in this sense secondary. The evidence we have for the divine origin of the unwritten laws is akin to the evidence we have for the divine origin of the natural world: superior design. Thus the divine laws are no less natural than the human body and the rest of the natural world—and it is because both were well designed that we know that both were established by the gods. It does not then make much sense to speak of these laws as positivistic as opposed to being natural—unless we are to come up with a positivistic explanation of nature. Rather, the distinction between positivistic and natural here seems to break down. Scholars have noted two problems with Xenophon’s attempt to explain how those who engage in incest are always punished, problems which threaten to render his account of unwritten laws here incoherent (Strauss 1972: 112–13, Narcy 1997: 27–8). Meeting them will help us sort out what is natural and what positivistic about these laws. First, Socrates’ argument does not apply to incest between siblings. But Socrates explicitly limits the unwritten law about incest to intergenerational incest; sibling incest is not included among the unwritten laws, and there is indeed some evidence (most famously in the sibling marriages among the Ptolemies), that sibling incest was not considered as problematic as incest between parents and their offspring. Second, Socrates’ argument shows that unhealthy offspring necessarily result from all couples of disparate ages, not just when parents mate with their children. Indeed, the same biological logic also ought to apply to all couples in which both partners are not yet in their prime reproductive years, or both are past their prime; depending on how narrowly one defines the prime breeding years, one could conclude that most sexual activity is condemned by this law, including the common marriages between older men and teenage women in Athens. But the inconsistency here is not so much within Xenophon’s account of unwritten law, as between his account and some later understandings of natural law.17 Xenophon does not have Socrates argue that all actions that are inevitably punished are outlawed by divine law, only the converse, that all those who violate divine law are punished: divine laws will condemn only some actions which result in unfailingly negative results. Divine laws must also be universally recognized; and there is no universal prohibition on sex between partners of widely different ages, much less a prohibition on partners who are the same age but too young or too old to produce the best offspring. Socrates’ argument therefore achieves what it sets out to do. If it also shows that any couple with at least one partner who is too old or too young will produce flawed offspring, that is no flaw in this theory, as Socrates does not argue that all actions that inevitably lead to negative results are forbidden by unwritten law. The unwritten laws do not, therefore, allow us to identify all actions which inevitably lead to negative results—there is no divine law against my jumping out my office window. But all actions outlawed by unwritten laws do inevitably lead to negative results. And those results follow without any need for direct divine intervention: they follow due to the nature of things—the nature of human seed (in the case of incest), or of human relationships (ingratitude)—a nature which is itself the result of divine design.

190  David Johnson The unwritten laws are thus both natural and positivistic. They are natural inasmuch as they enforce themselves, thanks to the natural order. They are positivistic inasmuch as the gods established that natural order. They are also positivistic in a more interesting sense, if I am right that we are to save the incest argument along the lines above. In later formulations, the natural law is knowable by nature, but in Xenophon’s account, the unwritten laws are universally recognized, not just rationally available, but actually known by all people.18 There are aspects of Xenophon’s unwritten laws that are not widely understood, most importantly the fact that such laws cannot be broken with impunity (a fact unknown to Hippias, and presumably to many others, as otherwise they would presumably not be broken). But the precepts themselves must be universally recognized, from which Hippias and Socrates conclude they must be divine in origin, given that the world’s peoples cannot all meet together, or speak the same language (4.4.19). So the gods are responsible for promulgating unwritten law. Xenophon’s unwritten laws thus cover a smaller scope than the laws in the more ambitious accounts of natural law that attempt to encompass all general principles of practical rationality. Finally, it is worth noting that Xenophon’s unwritten laws are, unlike subsequent natural law theory, consequentialist: his argument is not that certain actions are intrinsically evil, but that certain actions inevitably bring about negative consequences. This is fully in keeping with the tremendous importance Xenophon places on Socrates’ usefulness (1.3.1 et al.). Xenophon’s Socrates thus presents us not only with the first version of natural law, but one that differs in significant ways from subsequent theories.

Can the unwritten law conflict with written law? Just as it does not really make sense to argue about whether the divine laws are positivistic or natural, so too the argument about whether they can conflict with written law—an argument in which I have taken part—has also been posed rather too starkly. The argument is not about what the text says, for the text does not raise the issue of conflict between written and unwritten laws, but rather about whether it is legitimate for readers to ask what would happen, given what Xenophon tells us of Socrates’ views, in the event such a conflict arose. It is thus one of those interpretive debates that is more about the sorts of questions readers feel they can and should ask about texts than about the texts themselves. If we allow ourselves to speculate about the relationship between the unwritten laws and the written laws we can, I think, identify two extremes worth avoiding. The first is to assume that there was perennial conflict between these two sorts of laws, as one might assume from the famous lines about divine law in the Antigone (450–7).19 The Greeks, for the most part, did not think of sacred laws as rivals to the secular laws of the city. Most sacred laws were passed by and enforced by political bodies; Greek religion, to revert to the influential formulation of Christianne Sourvinou-Inwood, was polis religion, with the polis playing a role analogous to that of the church under Christianity—to the extent that there was any parallel for such a role.20 The gods did not provide a set of laws that could

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   191 come into conflict with secular law; nor did Greek priests, for the most part, view it as part of their task to represent the interests of the gods as something distinct from and potentially in conflict with the city. The assumption was instead that men and gods are on the same page. In a rather fulsome account of law, Demosthenes (25.16) outlines the various things he associates with law: But the laws want what is just, and noble, and advantageous, and seek this out. And when it is found, this is made a common command, equal and alike for all, which is a law. All ought to obey the law for many reasons, particularly because every law is a discovery and gift from the gods, and the view of prudent men, a correction of willing and unwilling wrongdoing, and a shared covenant for the polis, in accord with which all in the city should live.21 The default assumption is that divine laws do not conflict with human ones; laws are both gifts from the gods and in keeping with the views of wise men. The other extreme is to essentially elide the unwritten laws out of our account of Socrates’ beliefs on justice, legality, and religion. If we take this approach, we will conclude that the divine laws are mentioned only to show that the gods also equate justice with obedience to the law. As Xenophon makes no explicit contrast between the two sets of laws, neither should we; the laws of gods and men are in sync and that is all there is to it. Obey the laws of Athens, and you’ll be obeying the unwritten laws, and be just. But this cannot be all there is to it. The divine laws Xenophon lists are not included among the statutes of Athens. We have no evidence for a written law in Athens against incest (Harris 2004: 29 n. 42). And the unwritten law against failing to reciprocate good deeds was clearly not codified in writing; indeed, in the Cyropaedia (1.2.7), Xenophon credits the Persians with formally punishing ingratitude, something that all men hate but very few punish in court. Earlier in the Memorabilia, Socrates notes that the only form of ingratitude the city punishes is that toward parents (2.2.13). One can therefore obey the laws of Athens but break divine laws against ingratitude or incest—and infallibly be punished for doing so. Justice cannot simply be a matter of following the written laws of Athens; it must also be a matter of following unwritten, divine laws. Just what the unwritten laws add becomes clearer once one reads Memorabilia 4.4 as a continuation of and parallel to 4.3. Euthydemus had wondered what he could do to deserve divine beneficence. Socrates tells him that he needn’t worry, as he can follow the advice of Apollo at Delphi: act in accordance with the nomos of his city. This presumably means that he is to take part in traditional Athenian festivals and rites. But Socrates quickly adds that it is everywhere customary that one worship the gods to the best of one’s ability; he warns Euthydemus (who was apparently rather wealthy, wealthy enough to have accumulated a large library of books: 4.2.1) not to fall short in this regard (4.3.17). Here the universal law does not contradict Athenian norms but adds something to them. Euthydemus should take part in Athenian rites, and he should do so in keeping with his means. The divine law provides general guidance on what level of expense is required, while the laws (or customs) of Athens guide how one should make those offerings.

192  David Johnson Honoring parents is another helpful example. In Memorabilia 2.2, Socrates advises his eldest son Lamprocles to put up with his mother Xanthippe’s harsh words and deeds. Socrates argues that gratitude is due even to our enemies— gratitude not in the sense of friendly feeling, of course, but in the willingness to reciprocate good deeds with good deeds. For while we may enslave enemies, but not friends, we ought not be ungrateful even to enemies; this means that ingratitude is an example of injustice in its purest form (2.2.3). It is pure, presumably, because it is unjust regardless of whether one is dealing with friend or foe. Given that one owes one’s very existence to one’s parents, that mothers nourish children with their own bodies and risk their lives in childbirth, and that even Lamprocles does not doubt that his mother means him well, he had better treat her right. It is only after making this argument that Socrates adds that the city has seen fit to punish only this form of ingratitude, particularly by ruling out public office for anyone who failed to support his parents while living or to tend their graves after their deaths (2.2.13). The rationale for this law is that such children could not sacrifice piously on behalf of the city (one important duty of public officials), nor manage their other duties justly. Moreover, gods and men alike will regard a son who is ungrateful to his parents as unlikely to reciprocate any good deed, leaving him bereft of friends. This passage can nicely show the intersection between the written and unwritten law against ingratitude (though the notion of unwritten law had yet to be introduced in book 2 of the Memorabilia). Gratitude towards parents is justified on multiple counts, including the law. But it is not clear that the law codifies all that one must do for parents: Lamprocles’ failing seems to be that of his attitude toward his mother, rather than of any failure in providing her with material support, much less of tending her grave (as she is still among the living). The fact that the law singles out ingratitude toward parents helps Socrates show that this sort of ingratitude is particularly regrettable, but clearly there are other forms of ingratitude to be avoided, none of them covered by the written law. And the closing argument of the chapter is essentially the same as the argument in Memorabilia 4.4 to show that the unwritten law against ingratitude is self-enforcing: if Lamprocles does not reciprocate for his mother’s good deeds to him, no one will do him a good deed, as no one will expect a good deed in return. In saying that the just is the lawful, then, Socrates certainly does not limit it to the positive laws of the city. Unwritten, divine laws add to his moral vision.

Conclusion It will be helpful to step back from textual analysis and sum up Socrates’ positive teaching on religion in a more abstract form, in two parts—divination and divine law. I here try to present those two broad areas in parallel ways. Divination 1 2

The gods give signs to mankind. While it is madness to resort to divination where human reason suffices, so too it is mad to believe that one can foresee the ultimate results of one’s actions.

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   193 Hence divination is in order where human reason falls short (Memorabilia 1.1.6–9). 3 The gods are particularly apt to give signs to the pious, who recognize the gods’ beneficence, and who benefit through receiving such signs. 4 Socrates, as a superlatively pious individual, benefited from direct access to the divine via his divine sign. Divine law 1

Just as the gods designed the physical world in a way beneficial to mankind, so too they provided us with unwritten laws, which are known to all people; these laws can be broken, but violators inevitably pay the price for doing so. 2 Such unwritten laws provide us with vital guidance, but do not cover the entire sphere of human action. 3 Pious people who understand the force of these laws will never be tempted to violate them. 4 Socrates’ understanding of divine law aided him in avoiding injustice and impiety. So the gods benefit us both as a species and as individuals. They designed the natural world in a way that facilitates human well-being, and implanted in us shared notions of conduct, unwritten laws, that infallibly guide us to positive results, though these laws do not cover the whole range of human activity. Furthermore, those who are pious receive signs from the gods to aid them in making decisions not covered by those unwritten laws. To receive such signs we must, at a minimum, be open to them, rather than scoffing at such things. Socrates’ piety goes rather farther than that, as it must do if it is going to deliver the ethical lesson that Xenophon claims for it. Few people recognize the divine beneficence in creating the world, and while all people know the precepts of the unwritten law, not all of us know that violations of such laws are infallibly punished. The pious know that the gods have designed the world to infallibly reward humans who act in accordance with certain unwritten norms. Socrates’ teaching on the gods therefore promotes not only piety but moderation and justice, because it teaches us that certain universal ethical norms, including honoring the gods and parents, abstaining from incest, and rewarding gratitude with gratitude, are always beneficial. Socratic religion, according to Xenophon, thus provides us both with ethical norms and, via divination, with reliable predictions about future contingencies that go beyond human knowledge. We have reason to be just and moderate even when other humans won’t notice because certain sorts of injustice and immoderation—though not all of them—are infallibly punished. The positive religious teaching I have sketched here raises many questions. One is whether what Xenophon says here is consistent with Plato’s account of Socrates; this had better be left to studies of Plato. Another is whether Xenophon is best seen as articulating something he learned from the historical Socrates or from some other source. This hypothesis has been studied, and I will briefly

194  David Johnson address it here. The two alternative candidates are a Presocratic thinker (most often Diogenes of Apollonia) or popular tradition. But the most recent careful examinations of Diogenes show that he made very limited use of teleology—the idea that all in the world was designed for the best. Rather, the bulk of his explanations were mechanistic. There is no clear Presocratic source for the argument from design, then.22 There are indeed passages from fifth-century texts that show that popular tradition included important elements in the teaching Xenophon presents in Memorabilia 1.4 and 4.3, among them Herodotus 3.108, Euripides’ Suppliants 195–213, and Plato’s Protagoras 320d–323a. But none of these passages is quite as anthropocentric as Xenophon’s account, nor is any so thoroughly harnessed to ethical ends as Xenophon’s is. Thus both the Presocratics and popular theological tradition may have influenced Socrates and Xenophon, but it requires some fairly serious philosophical labor to get from these sources to the theology we see in the Memorabilia. These views are not simply conventional, and Socrates is the most likely candidate for the philosophical labor required to reach them.23 There has been less written about whether the unwritten laws of 4.4 are genuinely Socratic, presumably because many have not wanted to make much of those laws even in their Xenophontic context. But I have argued above that these laws are a coherent and indeed necessary part of the religious worldview that is embodied in the argument from design, because it is only these laws that give Socratic piety the ethical punch that Xenophon wants to attribute to it. Without the divine laws which address issues of ethics beyond piety—including reciprocity, a central theme in the ethics Xenophon attributes to Socrates—it is difficult to see why Xenophon would think that Socratic theology had such wide-ranging ethical consequences. It is of course possible that it was Xenophon who worked this all out, rather than Socrates. But given how much these unconventional views complicated Xenophon’s primary task, the defense of Socrates, and given that we do not otherwise see Xenophon being an innovative theoretical thinker, Socrates again seems the most likely source. Both the argument from design and the doctrine of unwritten, divine laws thus pass the second test I outlined near the outset of this essay, and we have some good reason to believe that Xenophon here accurately represents the historical Socrates. Plato’s Socrates, with his unique divine mission, is something of a religious outlier. Xenophon’s account of Socrates integrates Socrates’ views more firmly into the religious mainstream, but also reveals a deeper layer in Socratic theology, one Plato does not show us. Socrates becomes not just the man with the voice and the oracle, but a more innovative and influential thinker in religious matters than one would have guessed from limiting one’s reading to early Plato. Socrates could remain Xenophon’s idol, despite Socrates’ unconventional views, because Xenophon saw Socrates not as a heretic but as a man whose deeper understanding of religion put religion and ethics on a sounder foundation than conventional thinking ever could. If Xenophon’s account is historically accurate, and Socrates’ rational religion was at least one significant factor in his condemnation (both admittedly contentious claims), the case of Socrates would present us with one of the larger ironies in western intellectual history: Socrates will have been put to

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   195 death for impiety because he espoused arguments that today would be accepted only by religious conservatives. Xenophon himself, that paragon of religious conservatism, may well have been pious, sacrifice-loving, and able to interpret sacrificial victims, as Diogenes Laertius tells us, but he was more than that. He did sometimes make Socrates’ views out to be more conventional than Plato did. But if my account here is correct, Xenophon was also able to provide us with our fullest account of the religious views that led Athens to convict Socrates of impiety.

Acknowledgments I owe thanks to Nicholas D. Smith, who provided helpful comments on this as part of the wonderful NEH seminar he led on Socrates in the summer of 2014. And I am particularly happy to have this essay included in a collection inspired by my Doktorvater, Peter M. Smith. I know that Nick disagrees with my take on the trial, and I wonder whether Peter will suspect I’ve read too much into Xenophon, as he once argued (with good reason) that I had read Hesiod anachronistically. But wise mentors, even when they cannot convince their stubborn charges to say true things, train them in how to make their false claims seem like truth.

Notes   1 There are two such views. One holds that the trial was fundamentally political (e.g., Waterfield 2009), with Socrates attacked for his anti-democratic and/or pro-Spartan views. The other emphasizes the explanation Plato gives to Socrates in the Apology, in which Socrates argues that the “first accusations” were fundamental, and founded on widespread irritation and envy of Socrates’ skill in argument (e.g., Brickhouse and Smith 1989). This is not the place to enter into this perennial controversy. My point is simply that Socrates’ conviction and execution on the charge of impiety provides a rather good prima facie case that his religious views were unconventional in some important sense, whatever other issues were also in play at the trial.   2 For one recent effort to summarize work on the Socratic Question, see Waterfield 2013.   3 For example, the chapter on Socratic piety in Gregory Vlastos’ seminal 1991 book on Socrates cites 17 texts, 13 by Plato, one each from Thucydides, Aristotle, an anonymous thirteenth-century German, and Xenophon. McPherran 1996 is an important exception to the tendency to slight Xenophon’s evidence on the religion of Socrates.   4 All subsequent numerical references are to the Memorabilia unless otherwise noted.   5 While relatively little studied, these passages have certainly not gone unnoticed: see McPherran 1996: 272–91; Sedley 2007: 75–92 and 2008, and Powers 2009.   6 For divine intervention in popular religion, see Mikalson 1983: 18–38. The role of the Socratic reformation as a threat to conventional religion is contested: see Brickhouse and Smith 1994: 182–7; McPherran 1996: 83–174, and Parker 1996: 199–217.   7 For an argument that the “creationism” of Memorabilia 1.4 and 4.3 are in keeping with Plato’s thought, particularly in the Timaeus, see Sedley 2008.   8 The sign also provides advice for others in the Theages (128d–131a), one reason many argue the dialogue was not written by Plato.   9 Stokes 2012: 252 and Dorion 2013: 281–4 similarly argue that Xenophon’s sign is more conventional; contrast Bevilacqua 2010: 110–13. 10 On differences in how the oracle story is integrated in the two Apologies, see Vander Waerdt 1993: 31–8. 11 So Danzig 2010: 303–6; cf. Vander Waerdt 1993.

196  David Johnson 12 For the famous later incarnation, see Paley 1802. Powers (2009: 252–3) goes as far as to argue that we do not really have an argument from design here at all, as the gods’ existence is assumed. But Xenophon does not tell us the extent of Aristodemus’ doubting, which could have included doubts about the existence of the gods; and a proof that the divine creator is wise and beneficent can serve as an a fortiori proof that the divine creator exists. 13 For an effort to square much of traditional cult practice with Socraticism, see McPherran 1996: 144–60. 14 For a recent effort to analyze such arguments, see Bostrom 2002. 15 The context makes clear that σπέρμα must here be used of the mother as well as the father, a usage not recognized by LSJ. 16 Morrison 1995 argues that the unwritten laws are positivistic, but that conflict is possible and in such cases the unwritten laws prevail; Johnson 2003 argues that the unwritten laws are natural and trump written laws; Gray 2004 argues that the unwritten laws are natural but do not conflict with written laws (cf. Johnson 2004); Dorion in Dorion and Bandini 2011 argues that they are more positivistic than natural (34n1), and that they do not conflict with the written laws (33n5). Stavru 2008 provides a good summary of prior work on the passage. Differing evaluations of Leo Strauss’s interpretations of this passage have added a certain spice to the debate: contrast Dorion 2013: 51–92 with Johnson 2012. 17 A worthy account of later natural law theory is beyond the scope of this essay. For one readily accessible introduction, see Murphy 2011. It is perhaps worth noting that the criticisms of Strauss and Narcy appear to conflate natural law as it is understood in science and natural law as it is understood in ethics. Scientific natural laws ought to be of universal application: in this sense, all procreation by couples of disparate ages leads to bad results. But natural law theorists in ethics do not normally claim that natural law in itself provides one with a set of rules that allows one to make the correct choice in all circumstances: there is still some need for virtue to determine the right course of action in particular circumstances (see Murphy). A scientist, on the other hand, would hope to provide a comprehensive set of rules. Xenophon himself, however, contributes to this confusion between science and ethics by employing biological arguments to defend the incest taboo. 18 For Aquinas, at any rate, while the general principles of the eternal law are known by all, some know more and some know less about the eternal law otherwise (Summa Theologiae Iª–IIae q. 93 a. 2). And while in one sense, all virtuous acts are encompassed by the eternal law, there are some such acts which nature does not incline us toward, and which we must discover through rational inquiry (Iª–IIae q. 94 a. 3). 19 I made this error or at least came close to it in Johnson 2003. 20 Sourvinou-Inwood 2000 [1990]. For a more recent review of polis religion, see Kindt 2009. 21 The passage was brought to my attention in this context by Harris 2004: 26–7. Harris finds very little purchase for conflict between divine and secular law; I would, however, reject his argument to show that Antigone’s argument with Creon is about the relative status of decrees and laws rather than the relative value of divine and human law. 22 So Laks (1983: XXXVIII, 33–6, 250–7), Parker (1992: 90–1), and Sedley (2007: 75–8). For a different view, see Janko 2003 and 2006. 23 Robert Parker, whose account of the popular tradition is particularly valuable, concludes that “the identity of the first Pangloss remains a mystery” (1992: 94). But his decision to rule out Socrates from the outset, due to the tradition that denied Socrates an interest in cosmology, is questionable. That tradition, made famous with Cicero’s crediting Socrates with philosophia de caelo devocata (Tusculans 5.4.10) originates with Xenophon 1.1.11–16, where Xenophon says not that Socrates did not study the cosmos, but that he did not study it like the sophists do (i.e., like the Presocratics). For arguments to show Socrates was indeed interested in cosmology, see Vander Waerdt 1994, McPherran 1996, Sedley 2007: 75–92, and Sedley 2008.

The rational religion of Xenophon’s Socrates   197

References Bevilacqua, F. (ed.) (2010), Memorabili di Senofonte, Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese. Bostrom, N. (2002), Anthropic Bias: Observation Selection Effects in Science and Philosophy, New York: Routledge. Bowden, H. (2004), “Xenophon and the Scientific Study of Religion,” in C.J. Tuplin (ed.), Xenophon and His World. Papers from a Conference Held in Liverpool in July 1999, Franz Steiner: Stuttgart, pp. 229–46. Brickhouse, T.C. and N.D. Smith (1989), Socrates on Trial, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. —— (1994), Plato’s Socrates, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Danzig, G. (2010), Apologizing for Socrates: How Plato and Xenophon Created Our Socrates, Lanham, MD: Lexington. Dorion, L.A. (2013), L’autre Socrate: Études sur les Écrits Socratiques de Xénophon, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. —— and M. Bandini (eds.), (2011), Xénophon: Mémorables. Tome III: Livre IV, Paris: Les Belles Lettres. Dover, K. (1974), Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle, Oxford: Blackwell. Gray, V.J. (2004), “A Short Response to David M. Johnson, ‘Xenophon’s Socrates on Law and Justice,’” Ancient Philosophy 24: 442–6. Harris, E.M. (2004), “Antigone the Lawyer, or the Ambiguities of Nomos,” in E. Harris and L. Rubinstein (eds.), The Law and the Courts in Ancient Greece, London: Duckworth, pp. 19–56. Janko, R. (2003), “God, Science, and Socrates,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 46: 1–18. —— (2006), “Socrates the Freethinker,” in S. Ahbel-Rappe and R. Kamtekar (eds.), A Companion to Socrates, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 48–62. Johnson, D.M. (2003), “Xenophon’s Socrates on Law and Justice,” Ancient Philosophy 23: 255–81. —— (2004), “Reply to Vivienne Gray (Gray 2004),” Ancient Philosophy 24: 446–8. —— (2012), “Strauss on Xenophon,” in F. Hobden and C.J. Tuplin (eds.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, Leiden: Brill, pp. 123–59. Kindt, J. (2009), “Polis Religion—A Critical Appreciation,” Kernos [En ligne], 22 2009. URL: http://kernos.revues.org/1765; DOI: 10.4000/kernos.1765. Laks, A. (1983), Diogène d’Apollonie. La dernière cosmologie présocratique, Édition, traduction, et commentaire des fragments et des témoignages, Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille. McPherran, M. (1996), The Religion of Socrates, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. Mikalson, J.D. (1983), Athenian Popular Religion, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Morrison, D. (1995), “Xenophon’s Socrates on the Just and the Lawful,” Ancient Philosophy 15: 329–47. Murphy, M. (2011), “The Natural Law Tradition in Ethics,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2011 edition), E.N. Zalta (ed.). URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/ archives/win2011/entries/natural-law-ethics/. Narcy, M. (1997), “La Religion de Socrate dans les Mémorables de Xénophon,” in G. Giannantoni and M. Narcy (eds.), Lezioni Socratiche, Naples: Bibliopolis, pp. 15–28.

198  David Johnson Paley, W. (1802), Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity, Collected from the Appearances of Nature, London: R. Faulder. Parker, R. (1992), “The Origins of Pronoia: A Mystery,” in Apodosis: Essays presented to Dr W.W. Cruickshank to mark his eightieth birthday, London: St. Paul’s School Publications, pp. 84–94. —— (1996), Athenian Religion: A History, Oxford: Clarendon Press. —— (2004), “One Man’s Piety: The Religious Dimension of the Anabasis,” in R.L. Fox (ed.), The Long March: Xenophon and the Ten Thousand, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, pp. 131–53. Powers, N. (2009), “The Natural Theology of Xenophon’s Socrates,” Ancient Philosophy 29: 249–66. Sedley, D. (2007), Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity, Sather Classical Lectures 66, Berkeley: University of California Press. —— (2008), “Socrates’ Place in the History of Teleology,” Elenchos 29.2: 317–34. Sourvinou-Inwood, C. (2000), “What Is Polis Religion?” in R. Buxton (ed.), Oxford Readings in Greek Religion, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 13–37. [First published in O. Murray and S. Price (eds.) (1990), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 295–322.] Stavru, A. (2008), “Socrate et la confiance dans les agraphoi nomoi (Xénophon, Mémorables, IV, 4): réflexions sur les socratica de Walter F. Otto,” in M. Narcy and A. Tordesilas (eds.), Xénophon et Socrate : actes du colloque d’Aix-en-Provence (6–9 Novembre 2003), Paris: J. Vrin, pp. 87–110. Stokes, M.C. (2012), “Three Defenses of Socrates: Relative Chronology, Politics and Religion,” in F. Hobden and C.J. Tuplin (eds.), Xenophon: Ethical Principles and Historical Enquiry, Leiden: Brill, pp. 269–305. Strauss, L. (1972), Xenophon’s Socrates, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Vander Waerdt, P. (1993), “Socratic Justice and Self-sufficiency: The Story of the Delphic Oracle in Xenophon’s Apology of Socrates,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 11: 1–48. —— (1994), “Socrates in the Clouds,” in P. Vander Waerdt (ed.), The Socratic Movement, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, pp. 48–86. Vlastos, G. (1991), Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Waterfield, Robin (2009), Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths, New York: Norton. —— (2013), “The Quest for the Historical Socrates,” in J. Bussanich and N.D. Smith (eds.), The Bloomsbury Companion to Socrates, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 1–19.

12 Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers Phthonos and resemblance in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia Norman Sandridge

As we can see in the etymology, the Roman experience of invidia (whence our word “envy”) was conditioned heavily by perception, literally, “looking at someone,” an activity that assumes a sensitivity to the ways in which others may threaten our status in the community. The Greek phthonos does not derive from the act of looking,1 but appearance was just as important, especially in a leadership context. Here, both appearance and resemblance are at play. The leader must understand the world as it appears to others, including their own sensitivity to a perceived threat. In the case of Xenophon’s Cyrus in the Cyropaedia, one way a leader may diminish this threat is to try to make it resemble something benign. So, for example, a leader might try to resemble a “servant” of others rather than the “master.” Xenophon’s preoccupation with how a leader affects his followers’ perception of reality is touched upon throughout the Cyropaedia in a series of different relationships between Cyrus and his followers. The example that will be my main focus is the brief scene at Cyropaedia 3.1.38–40, a scene that does nothing to advance the plot but reveals a lot about Cyrus’ leadership. At a banquet celebrating his alliance with the Armenians, Cyrus asks about the sophist-tutor who had once taught the Armenian prince Tigranes the art of rhetoric. This tutor had been mentioned a few sub-chapters earlier to suggest how Tigranes received the training necessary to defend the Armenian king against charges of treason and why Cyrus was willing to entertain his arguments (Cyropaedia 3.1.14). In response to Cyrus’ inquiry about the tutor, Tigranes explains that his father had put the tutor to death for “corrupting” his son (διαφθείρειν, Cyropaedia 3.1.38.5). The king defends his decision to execute the tutor, saying that he felt phthonos toward him because the tutor had caused the son to feel more love (φιλία) and admiration (θαυμάζειν) for him (the tutor) than for his father. In effect, the king is saying that the tutor has come to resemble a father in terms of the feelings he elicited. Scholars have noted several similarities between this scene and the trial and death of Socrates as described in Xenophon’s Apology (see Gera 1993: 91–4 and n. 214). There, Socrates is put on trial for “corrupting the youth,” and he incurs the phthonos both of the Athenian jurymen, whom Socrates seems to have offended by refusing to “apologize” for his pursuit of virtue (Apology 14.3, 32.2), and of a father, Anytus, whose son Socrates had encouraged to become “something more

200  Norman Sandridge than a tanner” (Apology 29–30). But more than an allusion to Socrates, the treatment of phthonos at the Armenian banquet is crucial to our understanding of the prominent place of this emotion in the rest of the Cyropaedia. Arguably, phthonos is as important for understanding the ethics and politics of leadership as the other most popular emotion in the Cyropaedia, erôs.2 The first aspect of the Armenian king’s phthonos that Cyrus must consider is the fact that the king shows no regret for feeling it toward the tutor nor for behaving with hostility in response to that feeling (cf. πολεμίοις, Cyropaedia 3.1.39.7). By contrast, when English speakers admit to feeling “envy” or “jealousy,” typically we are admitting to some kind of moral failing (unless we are trying to pay a friend a compliment by saying that we “envy” his success). Similarly, we don’t treat envy as a mitigating emotion to a crime in the way fear or even anger might be. We could never imagine a defendant saying at the sentencing phase of a trial, “Yes, I killed the guy, but I did it out of envy!” Certainly if we ever admitted to killing someone out of envy, we would be admitting to a moral flaw. Yet the most that the Armenian king acknowledges, perhaps with regret, is that his feeling of phthonos was based on a resemblance rather than a certainty. He says that the tutor seemed to be causing Tigranes to admire him more than the king (μοι ἐδόκει τοῦτον ποιεῖν αὐτὸν μᾶλλον θαυμάζειν ἢ ἐμέ, Cyropaedia 3.1.39.8–9). This perspective seems to explain why the tutor, on the verge of being executed, advises Tigranes not to be angry with his father since the king acted not out of malice (kakonoia) but out of ignorance (agnoia). This point comes with greater poignancy when we realize that it was the tutor’s very rhetorical training that allowed Tigranes to defend his father against charges of treason. The logic of the Armenian king’s explanation of his behavior asks us to accept that a father’s phthonos is perfectly justified in cases where a tutor actually steals (or intends to steal) a son’s love and admiration, just as (according to the king) a husband’s phthonos is justified when an adulterer steals his wife’s love (cf. the similar argument at Lysias, On the Murder of Eratosthenes 33). Cyrus is aware of how phthonos is operating in this scene and validates the king’s perception by enjoining Tigranes to be understanding of his father’s action (συγγίγνωσκε τῷ πατρί), which Cyrus says seems to be a “human” mistake (ἀνθρώπινά μοι δοκεῖς ἁμαρτεῖν, Cyropaedia 3.1.40.2–3). Tigranes follows Cyrus’ command and the two are reconciled in friendly affection. To appreciate Xenophon’s interest in phthonos and the leader’s responsibility to manage it, it is helpful to examine the history and evolution of the emotion in other Greek authors, some of whom do not share Cyrus’ humane spin on phthonos. Aristotle defines phthonos as “a kind of pain, in respect to one’s equals, for their apparent success in things called good, not so as to have the thing oneself but [solely] on their account” (Rhetoric 1387b23–5, translation Konstan 2006: 112–13). Aristotle says further that phthonos is unsuited to a decent person (Rhetoric 1387b33–4). Konstan (2006: 113 and n. 1) provides several examples of ancient and modern thinkers who hold a low estimation of those inclined to feel phthonos or envy, on the grounds that those who feel the emotion do not tend to take into account (1) that the successful person (i.e., the object of phthonos) deserves to be

Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers  201 successful, or (2) that the behavior conducive to the prosperity of the successful person could, if adopted, actually benefit the envious person. For example, we might say that Person A feels badly (i.e., phthonos or “envy”) when he fails to win the affections of Person C (even though Person A has no real interest in Person C), whereas Person B justifiably wins the romantic affection of Person C through kindness, charm, and devotion. This scenario is familiar enough, but it does not capture the phthonos of the Armenian king.3 First of all, before the tutor seemed to threaten the Armenian king’s relationship with his son, the father seemed already in possession of Tigranes’ love and affection; so it was not regarded as something open for competition as though a prize in an athletic or romantic contest. Second, Tigranes’ love and affection is something highly prized by the Armenian king; it is not of secondary significance: kings need the devotion of their sons in order to ensure that their legacy, and indeed their kingdoms, will be preserved after their deaths. Thus from the Armenian king’s perspective, it does not seem to matter whether a tutor deserves to have the love and admiration of a son more so than a father. Similarly, the king’s example of the adulterer who steals the affection of someone’s wife does not leave open the possibility of a “worthy” seduction. If the Armenian king’s phthonos is not obviously immoral, if it does not take into consideration the justness of whether he is more lovable and admirable than Tigranes’ tutor, and if the object under dispute (i.e., a son’s love) is not a possession insignificant to the real interests of the king, then Aristotle’s definition of phthonos in the Rhetoric, even though it agrees more or less with our common understanding of envy, is not our best aid to understanding the emotion of this scene. What then is the Armenian king feeling when he feels what he identifies as phthonos? To get a better sense of the term it is helpful to look at its earliest usage. There are no known cognates of the phthon- stem in other Indo-European languages. In Homer, the phthon- stem always appears in verbal forms. Most (2003: 129–30) argues that phthoneo means “to wish to forbid” in all but one place (where he argues that it means “to envy”). I believe, however, that there is an emotional component to this “wish,” which derives from a feeling of possessiveness or territoriality. Characters in Homer feel phthonos either at the act or the thought of someone using one of their possessions or violating a space they have dominion over. We could say that the emotion is based on an underlying notion of rights, authority, or entitlement. Of course, in any situation where phthonos has arisen, people may also debate the validity of someone’s claim to certain rights, authority, or entitlement. One person may perceive that a right has been violated, while another claims it has not. In such disputes, it becomes the leader’s responsibility to read and then manage these perceptions.4 As such, phthonos is the word we might use today to describe the feeling we have when a stranger at the gym decides to use our towel (or deodorant) without asking our permission; or when a parent enters a teenager’s room without knocking. We feel violated and then hostile, to varying degrees, toward the violator. In response to this violation, we say things like, “that was mine” or “you had no right!”

202  Norman Sandridge A good example of this use of phthonos occurs in book 1 of the Odyssey when Penelope tells the singer Phemius to stop singing about the grievous return from Troy that the Achaeans faced (Odyssey 1.325–59). Telemachus, who has just been filled with courage and daring by Athena, asks Penelope why she feels phthonos at the fact that Phemius gives delight to his listeners in whatever way his mind compels him (μῆτερ ἐμή, τί τ’ ἄρα φθονέεις ἐρίηρον ἀοιδὸν | τέρπειν ὅππῃ οἱ νόος ὄρνυται; Odyssey 1.346–7). He asserts that Zeus is instead responsible for the choice of song. Moreover, he says that it is not Penelope’s place to speak, but rather the place of men, especially Telemachus, who now has authority over the house (μῦθος δ’ ἄνδρεσσι μελήσει | πᾶσι, μάλιστα δ’ ἐμοί· τοῦ γὰρ κράτος ἔστ’ ἐνὶ οἴκῳ, Odyssey 1.358–9). Note again that phthonos is not per se based on an irrational judgment, pace Aristotle. Telemachus seems to mean that Penelope is not entitled to feel phthonos but that he himself is. His speech, though addressed to his mother, employs a “rhetoric of phthonos” to communicate to the suitors that, contrary to appearances, he has dominion over the household (cf. Odysseus’ phthonos over his dominion of the sacrificial blood pool in the underworld, Odyssey 11.149). Other examples from Homer illustrate the range and contexts in which a character might experience phthonos. Hera entertains feeling phthonos at the idea of Zeus destroying her three favorite cities, but then acknowledges that the feeling is useless since Zeus is stronger (εἴ περ γὰρ φθονέω τε καὶ οὐκ εἰῶ διαπέρσαι, | οὐκ ἀνύω φθονέουσ’ ἐπεὶ ἦ πολὺ φέρτερός ἐσσι, Iliad 4.55–6). One may also feel phthonos over a physical possession. Alcinous tells Nausicaa that he feels no phthonos at the idea of her using his mules to carry clothes to the river, nor does he feel phthonos for any of his other possessions as far as she is concerned (Odyssey 6.68). In each of these cases, phthonos has two dimensions: first, it is about an object or some dominion, and second, it is felt toward a particular person. It is thus conceivable that Alcinous might actually feel phthonos toward someone else for using his possessions. Not feeling phthonos can be a mark of generosity, as when Telemachus says that he does not feel phthonos if someone in his palace should give food to a beggar (Odyssey 17.400; cf. Odysseus at Odyssey 18.16). This seems to give rise to the alpha-privative adjective aphthonon, meaning “generous” or “abundant,” said of someone or some divinity who gives ungrudgingly (cf. Homeric Hymn to Apollo 536; Homeric Hymn to Gaia 8, 16). Homer also has one example of phthonos felt by someone who does not technically possess the object in question but feels entitled to it nevertheless. Odysseus tells the beggar Irus that there is no need for him to feel phthonos toward the possessions of another beggar since there is enough to go around (Odyssey 18.18; cf. the “good” phthonos between beggars in Hesiod, Works and Days 26). It is here that phthonos becomes explicitly competitive and dependent on perception, that is to say, part of one’s feeling of phthonos is tied up in convincing others in the community that one is indeed entitled to some particular possession. Thus, Odysseus and Irus must box one another in public for the right to beg in the palace.

Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers  203 After Homer, phthonos is felt for plenty of things whose ownership is disputed, and thus we see humans complaining, often irrationally, that another’s ownership or entitlement has been reached unfairly. More often, phthonos is felt not for objects themselves but for reputation, status, or office. Here we have the familiar understanding of phthonos as envy in the pejorative sense, where the feeler of the emotion reasons, “You have something I want and in order to establish my entitlement to it, I will work to discredit you and promote myself using arguments that seem valid to me,” even where these arguments are not justified. Pindar mentions several times that communities feel phthonos when one member excels in politics, warfare, or athletics (see Most 2003: 133–41). Isocrates complains that people find fault with his speeches out of phthonos for the reputation they win him (Saïd 2003: 218–34). These previous examples show that phthonos assumes a range of feelings, including desire, hostility, violation, and entitlement. Phthonos may be felt for things one already possesses or for things whose possession is contested. When it does involve contested areas, we may speak of “justified” or “unjustified” phthonos. It may also be felt for things that have no intrinsic value or interest, but whose possession nevertheless confers status, esteem, or glory on the possessor. In most instances, it is attended by feelings of hostility when any of these forms of possession is threatened or taken away. I return now to the Armenian king’s phthonos toward the tutor of Tigranes and Cyrus’ management of it. As I noted above, the king feels phthonos for something he already feels entitled to, namely his son’s love and admiration. It seems that Xenophon is emphasizing the Homeric aspect of phthonos, i.e., a feeling one has toward one’s possessions or territory that they might be taken away. There is no consideration of whether the father deserves his son’s devotion; it is his. This sense of entitlement is reinforced by the analogy to the husband, wife, and adulterer. The only disputed point is whether the tutor, by winning the son’s favor, is actually or only apparently depriving the father of his son’s devotion. The father mistakenly believes that, yes, this is happening, but, as Cyrus says, he made a “human” mistake. As if to drive home the point that phthonos is a human and perhaps even heritable feeling, Xenophon concludes the banquet scene by giving Tigranes a taste of his own medicine (Cyropaedia 3.1.41). As everyone departs the banquet, the Armenians marvel at Cyrus’ beauty, stature, gentleness, and wisdom. Tigranes, however, shows signs of feeling threatened by this praise for Cyrus, turning to his new bride and asking her if she, too, finds Cyrus attractive (kalos). The roles have now been reversed, as Tigranes goes from being the contested object of phthonos to someone who feels it. Fortunately for him, the Armenian princess says that she never even looked at Cyrus but was focused on Tigranes for his devotion to her. In this case, Cyrus might have resembled a rival groom, especially since it is not uncommon in ancient literature for leaders to engage in mate-poaching. Before leaving this scene, I want to raise one major problem about resemblances: is it possible that Cyrus takes a more ethically generous stance toward the Armenian king’s phthonos simply for political ends, i.e., for the sake of appearance? The

204  Norman Sandridge king did in fact kill someone out of phthonos. Nevertheless, by encouraging Tigranes to forgive his father’s “human” mistake, Cyrus brings his two allies closer together and wins additional gratitude, a situation which has the immediate effect of supporting his campaign against the Assyrians. Thus, does political expediency trump ethics here? Is Cyrus more concerned with appearances than reality? One way to answer this question is to investigate whether or not Cyrus maintains the same ethical stance toward phthonos throughout the Cyropaedia. There is reason to doubt that he does indeed maintain this stance in other examples. I move now from the Armenian kingdom to the Assyrian one, and to two other acts committed by another king out of phthonos. At Cyropaedia 4.6.2–7, Cyrus meets an Assyrian nobleman named Gobryas whose son has been killed by the current Assyrian king because he had excelled the king on a hunt, bringing down first a bear and then a lion. Gobryas explains that the king murdered his son out of phthonos (Cyropaedia 4.6.4) and treated him as a personal enemy (ὥσπερ ἐχθρὸν, Cyropaedia 4.6.5). In contrast to the example of the Armenian king, neither Gobryas nor Cyrus tries to construe the Assyrian king’s behavior as a “human” or forgivable mistake, even though Cyrus had shown understanding for the Armenian king’s phthonos and shows understanding elsewhere for other forms of “human” weakness, including his own (cf. Cyropaedia 5.4.17, 7.2.5, 8.2.20). In fact, Gobryas gives several reasons why the Assyrian king’s phthonos is not forgivable: the Assyrian king showed no change of heart and did not compensate for his wicked deed by honoring Gobryas’ son, whereas the king’s own father pitied Gobryas and showed sympathy for his misfortune (Cyropaedia 4.6.5). For his part, Cyrus vows to avenge Gobryas’ loss and he does so in a way that seems calculated to minimize phthonos: rather than being superior to Gobryas, he will be his own avenging “son” (Cyropaedia 4.6.8). And yet the Assyrian king’s behavior resembles the Armenian king’s in several important ways. Both kill out of phthonos and neither shows remorse or regret. The Armenian king, moreover, had a history of lawless behavior, given his refusal to pay tribute to the Medes (the basis for Cyrus’ attack on him) and his decision to plot a revolt from them. He is clearly no angel. Why is his phthonos forgiven and the Assyrian king’s not? Is Cyrus merely passing judgment on phthonos as it suits his political interests, in one case forgiving it to make allies and in another avenging it (also to make allies)? To answer this question, we should consider the different realms in which each king feels phthonos. As I noted above, the Armenian king feels phthonos when he fears losing the love and admiration of his son Tigranes. The king likens this feeling to how a husband feels possessive of his own wife’s love in the presence of a suitor. We may take a further cue from Xenophon that the father-son relationship is important for preserving the wisdom of leadership from one generation to the next. The Cyropaedia is full of such relationships, e.g., Cyrus and his father Cambyses, Cyrus and his son Cambyses, the Armenian king and his son, Gobryas and his son. We may ask then if there is similar basis for the Assyrian king to feel entitled to what is presumably his reputation as a hunter and thus a warrior-king.

Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers  205 A fragment is preserved of Ctesias’ (F14.43) story of the Persian noble Megabyzus, who killed a lion and thus ran afoul of Artaxerxes II, presumably because it was the royal prerogative to slay lions (see Llewellyn-Jones and Robson 2010: 60). For his offense, Megabyzus was ordered to be beheaded, but he escaped into exile. Thus there would have been some precedent for Xenophon to “humanize” the Assyrian king’s phthonos and subsequent murder of Gobryas’ son, if not for the fact that Xenophon shows clearly that the Assyrian king not only invited Gobryas’ son to excel in the hunt but did in fact make the first (failed) spear-cast himself (Cyropaedia 4.6.3). Elsewhere, Xenophon indicates clearly that a leader must prove his moral and martial excellence in competition with others. Cyrus competes with his peers in the Persian educational system (agôgê) and surpasses them in everything from hunting to justice (dikaiosune), self-restraint (sôphrosunê), and self-mastery (enkrateia)—despite the temptations of Median luxury (Cyropaedia 1.5.1). When he goes to Media as a young man, he challenges his Median contemporaries to contests of horseback riding (Cyropaedia 1.4.4). Most importantly for our understanding of the Assyrian king’s phthonos, when Cyrus goes on a hunting expedition in Media, he insists that his comrades be allowed to compete with him on equal terms, even though his grandfather Astyages tries to institute a rule that Cyrus must make the first kill (Cyropaedia 1.4.14). During the hunt Cyrus cheers on his comrades without the slightest hint of phthonos (οὐδ’ ὁπωστιοῦν φθονερῶς, Cyropaedia 1.4.15). By this implicit contrast between Cyrus and the Assyrian king, Xenophon seems to be making the point that feeling phthonos over a son’s love is more understandable (even justifiable) than phthonos for one’s reputation on the hunt. What of the Assyrian king’s phthonos toward Gadatas, the Assyrian nobleman made into a eunuch for catching the eye of one of the king’s harem women (Cyropaedia 5.2.28)? Is this emotion forgivable on the grounds that it is “human” for a king to feel threatened in this situation? According to Gobryas, who relates the story, the Assyrian king tries to rationalize his feeling by claiming (falsely) that Gadatas intended to woo his harem woman. This would create a rationalization similar to what the Armenian king describes of the husband’s hostile feelings toward an adulterer (and indeed Tigranes’ feelings toward Cyrus when he believes Cyrus has caught the loving eye of his wife). The key distinction here seems to be between a wife, whom it is acceptable to feel phthonos over, and a harem women, whom it may not be. Again, we have a point of contrast between the Assyrian king and Cyrus. Cyrus not only abstains from amassing a harem or preying on other men’s wives and daughters (e.g., Pantheia, the Armenian princess, and the daughter of Gobryas), but he also reunites husbands and wives and creates opportunities for romantic bonds to be forged and strengthened. He reunites Abradatas with Pantheia, and Croesus with his wife (Cyropaedia 6.4.7–9, 7.2.26–8). He dubs himself an “accomplice” (sunergos) in matchmaking, giving the daughter of Gobryas to Hystaspas and humorously offering to find a wife for Chrysantas (Cyropaedia 5.2.12, 8.4.13–22). Cyrus is, as it were, a “generous” (aphthonos) giver, whereas the Assyrian king seems to hoard privileges and women.

206  Norman Sandridge Having looked at two extreme cases of phthonos in the Armenian and Assyrian kings, in which a murder that arises from phthonos is forgiven in the former case and avenged in the latter, we should look now at a case that seems to fall somewhere in between: the phthonos that Cyrus’ uncle Cyaxares feels toward Cyrus. Cyaxares is not explicitly said to feel phthonos toward Cyrus until Book Four, but all the symptoms show up early in the work and intensify over the course of the narrative. The boy Cyrus succeeds at hunting despite great personal risk, for which the ever-watchful Cyaxares ironically dubs him a “king” (Cyropaedia 1.4.9), even though Cyaxares is himself heir to the Median throne. When Cyrus pursues some Assyrians in a skirmish, Cyaxares joins the chase out of the shame he feels in front of Astyages (cf. αἰσχυνόμενος, Cyropaedia 1.4.22). On campaign against the Assyrians, Cyrus contradicts Cyaxares’ orders and proposals (Cyropaedia 2.4.5, 2.3.31, 2.3.47, 2.3.56). Cyaxares feels phthonos at Cyrus’ eagerness to wage war on the Assyrians, but is too risk-averse and too drawn to luxury to continue the campaign with him (ὑπεφθόνει, 4.1.13). As their rivalry comes to a head, Cyaxares refuses to allow Cyrus to give him a kiss of greeting. He then tries to rationalize his feelings toward Cyrus on the grounds that Cyrus had left him in a vulnerable position while pursuing personal glory. The more accurate reason for Cyaxares’ phthonos eventually comes to light, though: by doing so many good deeds for the Medes, Cyrus has stolen their affection from Cyaxares, as one might steal the affection of someone’s most beloved companions. Cyaxares asks Cyrus how he would feel if someone were to take his dogs and make them more friendly to himself than to Cyrus (Cyropaedia 5.5.28).5 Perhaps more compellingly, like the Armenian king before him, Cyaxares draws on the analogy of the husband whose wife has been seduced by a suitor. He says to Cyrus (Cyropaedia 5.5.30, my translation): What if someone were to show so much attention to your wife as to make her love him more than yourself? Would you then delight in this benefaction? Far from it, I think. But I think that in treating you this way he would be doing the greatest injustice of all. Even if Cyaxares seems ungrateful, invidious, or petty, his perspective is morally defensible according to Cyrus’ own prior judgments about the Armenian king, and according to Cyrus’ frequent sympathy for “human” mistakes. Moreover, Cyrus himself later shows concern for the possibility that his own followers might revolt against him, presumably around an outstanding leader like himself. Xenophon says that Cyrus sought to elicit phthonos among his followers by having them compete for special honors (Cyropaedia 8.2.26–8). Xenophon also makes it clear that Cyrus worked very hard to compete for the affections of his followers rather than take them for granted. Nevertheless, he (along with Cyrus) does seem to believe that a king is entitled to the loyalty of his people (cf. Cyrus’ exhortations to his son Tanaoxares to be loyal to Cambyses, Cyropaedia 8.7.16). Thus one could argue that it is “human” for a leader to feel threatened when followers seem to stray and to feel hostile toward those who seduce them. Without such implicit loyalty, it might be difficult for a leader to avoid becoming paranoid.

Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers  207 For his part, Cyrus insists that he has done nothing but strive to benefit Cyaxares, yet he acknowledges Cyaxares’ seniority (calling him uncle) as well as his entitlement to the Medes’ affection, even though Cyaxares does not “deserve” it by any metric of leadership ability. Cyrus’ interpretation of the situation is neither a condemnation nor a sanction of Cyaxares’ phthonos. And while his understanding of Cyaxares is ethically consistent with other treatments of phthonos in the work, Cyrus here, too, benefits politically. In the short term, he keeps the Medes and Persians allied for the campaign against the Assyrians (cf. the troops’ anxiety at a potential rift at Cyropaedia 5.5.37). In the end, he is able to marry Cyaxares’ daughter and win the Median empire as his dowry (Cyropaedia 8.5.28). Danzig (2009: 292–3) calls Cyrus’ success in his management of Cyaxares “the crowning example of the redistribution of offices during peacetime by means of persuasion and threat.” Having explored these three places where Cyrus, as leader, is called upon to treat the phthonos of leaders, we may wonder how Cyrus himself handles situations where he might feel phthonos. As noted above, Cyrus tries to cultivate phthonos in his own followers by generous and strategic gift-giving. The logic seems to be that the fewer possessions Cyrus has, the fewer chances there are for others to feel phthonos toward him (cf. Simonides’ formula for Hieron, εὐδαιμονῶν γὰρ οὐ φθονηθήσῃ, Xenophon, Hieron 11.15.4). Finally, Cyrus seems to minimize feelings of phthonos by excelling at everything. One of the prerequisites of feeling phthonos is some claim (however irrational) on the possessions of another person. Yet Cyrus is indisputably the best at everything he does. And, at least in the Persian education system and among his peers in other nations, there seem to be objective standards at what is good and bad behavior. Despite being good at discouraging others from feeling phthonos toward him, Cyrus, as a boy, grapples with his own feeling of phthonos toward Astyages’ cupbearer Sacas, who controls all access to the king. Xenophon does not actually say that Cyrus felt phthonos; instead, perhaps as a clever touch of child psychology, he has Cyrus identify his feeling of phthonos as “hatred” (μισῶ αὐτόν, Cyropaedia 1.3.11). Sacas is not an actual enemy of Cyrus but he resembles one, because he prevents Cyrus from visiting his grandfather whenever he wants to (Cyropaedia 1.3.10-11). To justify his phthonos, Cyrus attempts to show that he can pour wine as well as Sacas and claims that he will not poison his grandfather (Cyrus mistakenly believes that the intoxicating effects of the wine are the result of poisoning). While this argument is not initially persuasive to the king, Cyrus eventually wins Sacas over by taking counsel with him on the proper times to visit his grandfather and thus becomes “his own Sacas” (αὐτὸς ἤδη Σάκας ἑαυτῷ ἐγίγνετο, Cyropaedia 1.4.6). As a general rule, it seems that Cyrus avoids feeling phthonos because he knows how to get what he wants and feels minimally threatened by the excellences of others. How different would the situation have been if Cyrus were not demonstrably as intelligent, beautiful, brave, clever, skilled, or eloquent as one of his peers? How different would Cyrus’ phthonos have been if Cyaxares had had a less competent son (instead of a lovely daughter) with a legitimate claim to the Median throne?6

208  Norman Sandridge The closest we come to an answer is Cyrus’ treatment of the (potential) phthonos of Hystaspas toward Chrysantas. The two are Cyrus’ closest Persian comrades and have been with him throughout his entire campaign. At a banquet, after Xenophon has made it clear that Cyrus assigns rotating seats of honor, Hystaspas approaches Cyrus to ask why Chrysantas has received the greater honor (Cyropaedia 8.4.10). Cyrus explains that Chrysantas is not only obedient, but that he also serves as a good counselor and is always watchful of how to benefit Cyrus further. Being a good man, Hystaspas accepts this explanation and vows to do better, but, perhaps as consolation, Cyrus offers him the daughter of Gobryas to wed (Cyropaedia 8.4.13–26). Thus Xenophon shows how phthonos may be managed in situations where the excellence of two good characters is in close dispute; but his solution still requires a wise leader good at managing perceptions. Cyrus gives Hystaspas the very public honor of a marriage, lest he be perceived as having been slighted. It is not as clear, though, what would have happened if Chrysantas and Hystaspas had contended for high honors with no one above them to adjudicate. The extensive treatment of phthonos in the Cyropaedia brings with it questions of what human beings (and leaders especially) are entitled to. In tackling these questions, Xenophon emphasizes the roles and relationships that are important to him for a healthy political system (e.g., relations between fathers and sons, husbands and wives, leaders and followers). At the same time, Xenophon highlights much of what is great about Cyrus’ leadership: he does not hoard prizes on the hunt (or in any other venue) and he does not hoard women. Instead, even as his authority continues to grow, he creates opportunities for others both to pursue romantic relationships without predation from their king and to demonstrate their virtues in different arenas without fear of being punished for it. Nevertheless, the value of Xenophon’s treatment of phthonos for leadership theory, or political theory, is I believe open to question. Yes, Cyrus does seem to hold ethically consistent views on phthonos, particularly whether it should be forgiven or avenged. And he does this in a way that does not compromise his own ambitions or (seemingly) the prosperity of his community; if anything, he benefits his community and himself by a judicious treatment of phthonos, both his own and that of others. Nevertheless, Cyrus’ success in these areas seems predicated on two conditions that are seldom found in practical politics. First, Cyrus is not just a good or exceptional leader, he is exceptional at everything. As such, he gives his followers virtually no rational grounds for their own latent feelings of phthonos; and he himself can operate largely without phthonos, secure in the belief that no one’s talents pose any real threat to him. Second, Cyrus lives in a meritocratic world, specifically, an idealized Persia and a society of peers from other nations, where what it means to be excellent is agreed upon and easily identified. If, by contrast, he operated in a world of competing values or insufficient information, his excellence may have been much more in dispute. (One might argue that the Babylon Cyrus conquers is such a world, and it is for this reason that Cyrus adopts less than honest ways of appearing excellent, like wearing the Median style of dress to impress his followers with more stature and beauty than he actually possesses.) In this regard, we may say that Xenophon

Wives, subjects, sons, and lovers  209 was as much of an idealist as Plato, though his leader is very different from the Philosopher King. The lesson, as with Plato, seems to be that good leadership can only flourish in the company of a following that is educated broadly in the intellectual and moral virtues. In this survey of phthonos in the Cyropaedia and other Greek literature, I have attempted to show that the emotion is heavily dependent upon appearances, specifically the extent to which the object of phthonos is an actual threat to the subject or merely the resemblance of one. This emotion takes on greater complexity in the context of leadership, where a leader is often called upon to manage these resemblances. As we have seen, Tigranes’ tutor resembles a father who in Cyrus’ characterization “resembles” a human. Cyrus’ himself resembles a suitor in Tigranes’ eyes; but because Cyrus creates an opportunity for Tigranes to win his wife’s affections, this resemblance becomes minimized. Cyrus also resembles a son to two Assyrians (Gobryas and Gadatas) even as he would lead them against their former king. Cyrus also plays up his resemblance to a nephew even as he is surpassing his uncle Cyaxares in his standing with the Medes. Perception and resemblance, then, play a dual role in the mind of Xenophon’s leader. Cyrus must both be aware of how his followers are processing the world, especially in terms of their potential for phthonos, and he must in turn manage their perceptions by emphasizing the interpretation of reality that will best satisfy their needs and maintain his political ambitions.

Notes 1 See Chantraine 1968 and Beekes 2010 on phthon- for conjectures. 2 My discussion of phthonos here seeks to complement other works on phthonos that have left the Cyropaedia out of the discussion and indeed omitted much from Xenophon (see Konstan and Rutter 2003: 111–28, and Konstan 2006); for an interesting and recent neurological account of envy, see Takahashi et al. 2009. 3 See Konstan 2006: 126 for examples of favorable interpretations of envy and phthonos. 4 Konstan 2006: 120 and 122 explores the association of phthonos with entitlement in Demosthenes and Aristotle. 5 While this metaphor of followers-as-puppies may seem condescending and presumptuous, Isocrates uses it too in advising Nicocles in his regard for his followers (cf. Isocrates, To Nicocles 15). 6 Cf. Cyrus the Younger’s situation vis-à-vis his elder brother Artaxerxes II in the Anabasis.

References Beekes, R. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Leiden: Brill. Chantraine, P. (1968), Dictionnaire Etymologique De La Langue Grecque: Histoire Des Mots, Paris: Klincksieck. Danzig, G. (2009), “Big Boys and Little Boys: Justice and Law in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Memorabilia,” in D. Gish and W. Ambler (eds.), The Political Thought of Xenophon (Polis 26.2), pp. 271–95. Gera, D.L. (1993), Xenophon’s Cyropaedia: Style, Genre, and Literary Technique, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

210  Norman Sandridge Konstan, D. (2006), The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature, Toronto: University of Toronto Press. —— and N. Rutter (eds.) (2003), Envy, Spite and Jealousy: The Rivalrous Emotions in Ancient Greece, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Llewellyn-Jones, L. and J. Robson (eds.) (2010), Ctesias’ History of Persia and Tales of the Orient, London and New York: Routledge. Most, G. (2003), “Epinician Envies,” in D. Konstan and N. Rutter (eds.), Envy, Spite and Jealousy, pp. 123–42. Saïd, S. (2003), “Envy and Emulation in Isocrates,” in D. Konstan and N. Rutter (eds.), Envy, Spite and Jealousy, pp. 217–34. Takahashi, H. et al. (2009), “When Your Gain Is My Pain and Your Pain Is My Gain: Neural Correlates of Envy and Schadenfreude,” Science 13: Vol. 323.5916: 937–9.

13 Performing Plato’s Forms Patrick Lee Miller

Plato’s theory of Forms is, if nothing else, an attempt to solve the problem of the one and the many, identity and diversity, sameness and difference. Two couches, for example, are different: they are in different places; they are made from different material; when you are sitting on one you cannot sit on the other, and so on. But they are also the same: they are both couches, after all. Plato thought this problem could be solved by positing a Form. In this silly example, which is his own, the Form would be the Real Couch: something immaterial, upon which no body could sit; something eternally a couch, without any possibility of change; something nowhere in space, yet capable of being imitated in many places. Those two couches upon which you may sit, the ones that can be seen and touched, the ones that will eventually fall apart—they are Its imitations, appearances, or resemblances.1 Plato’s solution to the problem of sameness and difference, in short, is a theory of resemblance and reality. This solution is taught in every university every semester; it is known by everyone with a minimal education in the liberal arts; but it is almost never taken seriously as something that might matter to us now. Why not? There is a rival answer to this problem that seems to work without indulging fantasies of eternal realities. The two different couches are both couches, says this rival answer, because that is simply what we agree to call them. What makes things the same is that we treat them as such—in language, in our cultural imaginary, in our shared conceptual scheme, or whatever we wish to call the way we carve up our experience of the world into diverse things. Plato thought this answer inadequate, for reasons I shall explore in this essay, but most people who consider this problem nonetheless find it convincing. It suits the temperament of our times, which are anti-metaphysical. Philosophies that invoke immaterial and eternal beings may be charming pieces for our intellectual museums—academic books and departments that preserve the history of ideas—but they are not considered relevant to us now. We are concerned with problems of this world, such as the oppression of women, people of color, and other disempowered groups.

Performing gender Even if Plato’s solution appears dead, his problem of sameness and difference is very much alive. Debates about it are determining the course of our culture.

212  Patrick Lee Miller This essay will begin and end with one, the debate about sex and gender, for if Elizabeth Grosz is correct, “sexual difference is the question of our age” (Grosz 2011: 103). Allowing for some exaggeration, we can see the question debated with increasing frequency in the popular politics of the last century. The question has certainly occupied academics of all sorts in recent decades. “Difference is,” she writes, “the greatest philosophical concept of the twentieth century.” Sameness, not so much. This was true of the French scene, where the concept of difference animates the philosophies of Bergson, Deleuze, Derrida, and Irigaray, who focuses on sexual difference (Grosz 2011: 144–8). The elision of differences between women and men, according to Irigaray, “is the way in which all other (human) differences are also elided or repressed, covered over, and represented through singular norms” (Grosz 2011: 103). Male philosophers have presented themselves as neutral subjects—as thinkers without gender, as practitioners of pure reason, in the manner of Kant, Descartes, or most traditional philosophers—and have thereby effaced women’s difference. This effacement has compelled women to assimilate masculinity in order to count as rational, as philosophical, as subjects at all. This effacement and assimilation is the template for the subordination of every other marginalized group. Grosz agrees and elaborates Irigaray’s argument with an account of sex and gender that relies on Darwin (Grosz 2011: 115–42) to conclude that sexual difference is natural (167). This appeal to biology puts Grosz (and Irigaray) into direct conflict with several prominent feminist theorists, most notably Judith Butler, who argues that sex and gender are “performative” (Butler 1999: xiv–xv; cf. Grosz 2011: 107). Butler is often misunderstood as claiming that gender is a choice, but she very clearly notes that the performance of gender includes multiple elements that are beyond any individual’s control. Rather, she means that gender and sex are a ritual, created by a whole community, past and present. “In this sense,” she writes, “the initiatory performance, ‘It’s a girl!’ anticipates the eventual arrival of the sanction, ‘I pronounce you man and wife’” (Butler 1993: 232). The performance of gender and sex thus begins with birth, if not before, and involves medicine, politics, and religion, along with all the other discourses and practices which take an interest in the regulation of human bodies. Although these discourses often speak of nature, human nature, and the natural differences between men and women, Butler refuses to do so. Indeed, she rejects even those discourses that deploy the concept of nature—as Grosz deploys Darwin—for feminist purposes. “The return to biology as the ground of a specific feminine sexuality or meaning,” she writes, “seems to defeat the feminist premise that biology is not destiny” (Butler 1999: 39). There is a long tradition, beginning with Aristotle, of biology being used to legitimate the subordination of women, and Butler is wary of adding to this tradition.2 But her rejection of biology is more than strategic, for in her view no effort to step outside discourse in order to reach reality can possibly succeed. “There is an ‘outside’ to what is constructed by discourse,” she argues, “but this is not an absolute ‘outside,’ an ontological thereness that exceeds or counters the boundaries of discourse” (Butler 1993: 8).

Performing Plato’s Forms  213 By refusing to make an appeal to nature or reality, Butler is avoiding hypocrisy and deception, however helpful such an appeal might be to the accomplishment of her political goals. In political debates over gender, however, this rhetorical move that she will not make is often made by others in terms of “sex,” that is, the supposedly natural material with which different societies, rituals, or discourses work to form their particular versions of gender. But if Butler is right, and even sex is within the very discourse that posits it as its “outside,” we should expect supposedly natural sexual differences to be no more natural than cultural. They will be “formed through a series of contestations over what ought to be [the] decisive criterion for distinguishing between the two sexes” (Butler 1993: 5). Yet notice: whether she is right, and there are no really natural sexual differences, or whether Grosz is right, and there really are, to debate this question is to return, whether one recognizes it or not, to Plato’s problem of sameness and difference. Are the differences between men and women natural or not? If some of them are natural and others are not, which are which? And do these natural differences suit men and women to different functions (social, economic, or political), or are these differences irrelevant for the performance of such functions? These questions are controversial enough within feminist theory, where the debate remains largely theoretical, but they are far more so between feminists and social conservatives (e.g., John Finnis and Robert George), where the debate becomes practical and urgent.3 In both arenas, the academy and the public square, no progress can be made without answering such questions. If Butler is right, after all, every such debate is but a contest of power in which every move is rhetorical and political, including the appeal to a nature or reality outside rhetoric and politics. For Butler and Grosz to come to an agreement, let alone for either of them to come to an agreement with a social conservative, there would have to be a redistribution of power, winners and losers. Plato, as we shall see, thinks there is an alternative: dialectic, in which every participant wins to the extent that she approaches closer to reality. One aim of this essay is to show what this alternative requires: a theory of that reality, the Forms. This theory emerges in Republic quite naturally from a discussion of sex and gender prompted by the prurient interest of Socrates’ friends (5.449b6–450a5). And why not? We begin as children with curiosity not about abstract philosophical problems but about human beings, especially men, women, and the ways they are different but also the same. Discovering these patterns of sameness and difference, let alone understanding their cause, is a difficult, lifelong task—as the existence of specialists studying human sex and gender testifies. Humans are among the things of the natural world, and Plato depicts every thing in this world as inherently ambiguous: “Is each of the many things any more what one says it is than it is not what one says it is?” (5.479b9–10). His brother, Glaucon, answers that they are not: they are all as much what one says they are as they are not what one says they are. In other words, they are indeterminate. He compares these many things to the elements of “the children’s riddle about the eunuch who threw something at a bat” (5.479b11–c2). The riddle plays upon several ambiguities: a bat was supposed to be a bird that was not really a bird,

214  Patrick Lee Miller the intended projectile seems to have been a stone (pumice) that was not really a stone, and above all its thrower, the eunuch, was thought to be a man who was not really a man. “These things,” Glaucon adds, “are ambiguous, and one cannot understand them as fixedly being or fixedly not being, or as both, or as neither” (5.479c3–5). This is why the riddle works so well as an analogy for the natural world. Just as the riddle contains many ambiguous words, so too is the natural world populated by many indeterminate things, including its human beings. To understand them as such, let alone to direct their love toward the best objects, Plato argues that we must see them as resemblances of our real selves, immortal souls, whose proper home is not among the unstable things of nature, but rather among the Forms. These conclusions are alien to Butler and most other champions of queer sexualities and genders, who usually dismiss Plato as one of the patriarchs of “the Western” or “the Judaeo-Christian” tradition. This portrait of Plato is dear to conservatives (e.g., George 2001: 12–13) because it lends the authority of Plato to criticisms of these sexualities and genders. Champions of queer sexualities and genders (e.g., Butler 1993: 36–55) tend to adopt this same portrait in order to subvert its authority. When they tell the intellectual history of human diversity, “Plato appears as a central arch-villain, repeatedly depicted as a relentless champion of unity understood as uniformity” (Kosman 2007: 132). But this portrait of Plato is a caricature, as this essay aims to show. What this caricature elides is that, according to Plato, every human—whether appearing bodily as male, female, or some other gender—is already a sort of eunuch. Our real selves have no gender at all. In fact, we are not even really human. Neither gender nor humanity has a stable nature; both are performances. To this extent, Butler is right. To underwrite her success, however, she must answer two questions that remain unintelligible within the ambit of her philosophy. First of all, how is it possible for her to be right, as opposed to being merely the winner in a contest of power (with Irigaray, George, or anyone else)? Secondly, who is the actor who makes gender a genuine performance, as opposed to some meaningless event? For his part, Plato can answer both of these questions, as this essay ultimately concludes, but only by invoking his queerest doctrines.

Philosopher-queens At the beginning of Republic’s Book 5, Socrates’ interlocutors interrupt him to demand clarification of his earlier comment that when it comes to sexual relationships among the guardians, “it will be a case of friends sharing everything in common” (5.449c5; cf. 4.424a2). Their prurience, if not also their curiosity, has been provoked and must be satisfied. Even Thrasymachus, whose spirited performance in Book 1 gave the whole discussion its impetus, speaks up for the first time since then, and for the last time in the whole dialogue, asking Socrates rhetorically, “Don’t you think these people have come here now to listen to arguments, not to smelt ore?” (5.450b3–4). Socrates responds with an argument that satisfies his audience, although it was not taken seriously by readers of Plato, beginning with Aristotle, until recent decades, because it claims that some women

Performing Plato’s Forms  215 are capable of rule and should be given the same education for it as the best men (Bluestone 1994: esp. 121). Thanks to the arrival of women in classical scholarship, not to mention politics, this argument is now taken seriously. Nevertheless, its importance for Platonism has still not been generally recognized.4 The argument starts by returning to the analogy between political guardians and guard-dogs that introduced the education of the rulers in Book 2 (2.374e4–376d2). In this more specific version of the analogy, Socrates observes that female dogs, although they are usually smaller and weaker than male dogs, can nonetheless guard as well as them, so long as they are given the same training. Following the analogy upon which he based the education of rulers, therefore, he concludes that female humans can be rulers as well as male ones, despite the fact that they are usually smaller and weaker, so long as they are given the same education. No one who laughs at the analogy will be persuaded by this argument, but it makes a serious point: one cannot judge females (whether canine or human) unfit for a task by nature, unless they have first received an equal training for that very task. Whether or not his analogy is serious, Socrates is asserting that women should be given the full training of rulers—this turns out to be an education in philosophy—before anyone can soundly judge their natural aptitude for that office. One barrier to full educational equality is the natural inequality of reproduction. Plato recognizes that the traditional Greek family, in this respect like the traditional family of our own times, is a special burden for women. Within it, they alone not only bear the children but nourish and raise them. His Socrates thus proposes the dissolution of this sort of family, with its traditional sexual strictures, replacing it with another, administered by the state, whose strictures are different, as are its goals: to free talented women from the labor of parenting, while also giving them, like the talented men with whom they mate, a shared interest in the successful nurture of all the best children born during their reproductive years (5.457c10–464d5). My goal here is neither to explain nor to defend this sexual revolution—which involves eugenics and infanticide as well as abortion and promiscuity—but only to specify Plato’s point that until women have received full educational equality, with all the moral and economic changes that make this possible, one should give them the benefit of the doubt when it comes to their natural aptitude for rule. Accordingly, he shifts the burden of proof onto those who would deny or ridicule this aptitude prematurely (Farrell Smith 1994: esp. 30–1). Anticipating a more serious critic, Socrates next imagines someone using his own most basic political premise against him. To begin building his utopia, everyone present agreed that “each one had to do the one job for which he was naturally suited” (5.453b4–5; cf. 2.370a6–c5). Yet they all now agree that women and men have different natures—women give birth (5.454d9–10), at the very least—which should render the sexes unsuited to do the same jobs. “How is it,” the objector protests, “that you are not making a mistake now and contradicting yourselves, when you say that men and women must do the same jobs, seeing that they have natures that are most distinct?” (5.453c2–5). Contemplating this objection, Socrates quakes; not altogether in jest, he casts himself as a swimmer in a sea of argument, hoping for rescue from a magical dolphin (5.453d10).

216  Patrick Lee Miller As it turns out, his response to this practical objection introduces his most important set of theoretical distinctions, both in epistemology and ontology. He seems to recognize that resolving this dispute will require his most peculiar doctrine: the theory of Forms. First he warns against disputation that occurs on the merely verbal level, calling this “eristic” (5.454a5–8). Women and men differ by nature, yes, but anyone who stops there shows himself content merely to score a point in some debate about gender and politics. This disputant is content, in other words, with merely appearing to know. What is required for a discussion that aims to achieve real knowledge—not eristic but dialectic—is that we “examine what has been said by dividing it up into kinds” (5.454a5–9; cf. Phaedrus 265e1–266c8).5 Bald men and hairy men differ by nature, in one way, but not in any way relevant to becoming a cobbler and fixing shoes (5.454b11–c5). The same could be said for becoming a surgeon or a ruler. Whether or not a man is bald would not determine his fitness for any of these occupations. “We did not have in mind every kind of difference and sameness in nature,” Socrates observes, “but were keeping our eyes only on the kind of difference and sameness that was pertinent to the pursuits themselves” (5.454c7–d1; cf. Phaedrus 262a6–8). To determine which similarities and differences were pertinent, we would have to know first the kind of person who makes a good surgeon; and in order to know this, we would have to understand thoroughly the craft of surgery and its proper object—the human body. The same goes for the other crafts and their objects, including the craft of ruling and its proper object, the city-state. Considering it, and the only salient difference between women and men (their reproductive roles), Socrates declares that “there is no pursuit relevant to the management of the city that belongs to a woman because she is a woman, or to a man because he is a man” (5.455d6–8). With less confidence, perhaps, he leaves some room for disproof and suggests that “if it is apparent that they differ in this respect alone, that the female bears the offspring while the male mounts the female, we will say it has not yet been demonstrated that a woman is different from a man with regard to what we are talking about” (5.454d9–e3; my italics). In any case, we know what demonstration for this matter would be: (i) knowing the sameness and difference of women and men (in a word, their natures), (ii) knowing the sameness and difference of the state and its rulers (their natures), and (iii) determining whether the nature of women is (or is not) suited to the nature of someone fit to rule a state. The discipline of the first task would be a science of sex and gender, the discipline of the second would be political science, and the determination of the third would involve them both. But before anyone considers the specifics of these sciences, especially that of sex and gender, she should recognize their shared presumption: that there are natures. Readers of Republic are often surprised to find Socrates turning in Book 5 from the sociological details of his utopia to his metaphysical theory of Forms. His pretext is that there are three practical obstacles to the implementation of his politics: from the revolutions in sex and gender, which he discusses at the beginning of the book, he turns to the revolutionary appointment of philosophers as kings (and of course queens) at the end of the book. But what is a philosopher?

Performing Plato’s Forms  217 “One way of thinking of philosophy, introduced by Socrates at this very moment in the dialogue,” writes Kosman, “is as the ability to understand principles of sameness and difference” (2007: 134). Explicitly, Socrates takes an etymological route: philosophy is the love of wisdom. But this amounts to the same thing as Kosman’s understanding, because wisdom is knowledge, as opposed to mere belief or opinion, and is thus of the natures of everything. These, as we shall see, are the principles of sameness and difference. They are more commonly referred to as Plato’s Forms.

Appearance and reality Plato explains these realities through a contrast with the things of everyday sensible appearance. For if philosophers are lovers of learning—learning, specifically, through dialectical discussion—they are easily confused with those who also love to learn but focus their attention instead on the things accessible through their senses. “Lovers of seeing are what they are,” Glaucon observes, “because they take pleasure in learning things” (5.475d2–3). In our day, these would include the travelers and the art aficionados: they are driven to see it all, less for the prestige or the thrill, so much as for the knowledge of autopsy. The same is true of lovers of listening, who “would never willingly attend a serious discussion,” Glaucon adds, “yet, just as if their ears were under contract to listen to every chorus, they run around to all the Dionysiac festivals, whether in cities or villages, and never miss one” (5.475d5–8). Such lovers of listening seek direct acquaintance with beauty. But their search is doomed to fail, according to Plato, because they cannot distinguish the beautiful things that appear to our senses from the nature of beauty itself. In other words, they cannot distinguish resemblances of beauty from the real beauty they resemble. This is what philosophers—the lovers of true learning—seek. Let us consider what is at stake in this disagreement. Consider some of the things that have seemed beautiful to people: Niagara Falls and Halong Bay, Helen of Troy and Alcibiades, the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the Trinity nuclear test, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will, Gaudi’s Sagrada Família and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series and Norman Rockwell’s Saying Grace. You might travel to see some of these, contemplate others in a portrait or a gallery, listen to a concert of one, or view the moving images of another. To be appreciated, in sum, all must be perceived in one way or another. At one time or another, moreover, they have each had their detractors as well as their fanatics. Each one exemplifies beauty to someone, ugliness to others. Debates over their beauty could be an opportunity for dialectic. I could try to show you that you have overlooked the beauty in one thing; you could try to do the same for another. Our disagreements might provoke us to define beauty and would probably reveal that we have different definitions. Our discussion—now dialectic—could become an effort to secure the correct definition. This would be an investigation, in words, of beauty itself: what is it?

218  Patrick Lee Miller Appearance as reality: The Sophists If there were no real thing, beauty, our attempts to define or represent it would be a charade. This was the view of Protagoras, that “human being is the measure of all things—of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.”6 If you, your culture, or your species finds some set of things beautiful, they are beautiful; those that do not seem so to you are not so. There is no one thing, real beauty, that could appear in so many different guises, at so many different times, in so many different places.7 This is implicit in the answers of several Socratic interlocutors, notably Sophists and their students, when they are asked to explain virtue. Protagoras himself, for example, claims that although there are virtues—courage, temperance, wisdom, piety, justice—they are not manifestations of one thing, virtue, but instead distinct things collected under one name (Protagoras 329c2–330b7). Similarly, when Socrates asks one of Gorgias’ students what virtue is, Meno enumerates the different virtues of different sorts of people: man, woman, child, and slave. Indeed, he is so attuned to virtue’s different appearances that he claims “there is a virtue for every action and every age, for every task of ours and every one of us.”8 Probing no further into this infinite list, Socrates jokes that he has found a swarm of virtues rather than the one nature of virtue itself. Indeed, he compares Meno to someone who has been asked about the nature of bees and answers by enumerating the different types of bees, rather than identifying the one thing that makes bees bees. “Even if they are many and various,” as various as human individuals, “all of them have one and the same form which makes them virtues” (Meno 72c5–6). Not only in this dialogue, but throughout Plato, this is an assumption of Socratic dialectic. Whatever the subject of the discussion— whether it be beauty, virtue, or one of the types of virtue—he seeks the one reality that would unite its diverse resemblances. In some moods, the Sophists and their students—as portrayed by Plato— accepted Socrates’ assumption by agreeing to forego their habitual demonstrations of eloquence to converse with him on his terms.9 Thrasymachus, for example, is not afraid to say that all the many diverse appearances of justice—from democracies to oligarchies to tyrannies—are united by one reality: “justice is nothing other than what is advantageous for the stronger” (Republic 1.338b9–c1, 339a3). His definition does not fare well under Socratic scrutiny, however, because he wants to say two contradictory things: on one hand, that “justice” is merely a convention, whatever the stronger in a city (its rulers) think to be to their advantage, and thus call by that name; but also, on the other, that there is some reality, some nature of justice, something that is truly to their advantage, such that rulers could be wrong about what it is.10 In other words, he is torn between the purely Sophistic view that appearances of justice are its only realities, and the Platonic view that these diverse appearances are all in fact resemblances of one true justice itself. Plato seems to think that all Sophists are doomed to stumble upon this very contradiction. Not all of them said explicitly that human being is the measure of all things, yet they seem to assume this in their practice. Gorgias’ Encomium of

Performing Plato’s Forms  219 Helen demonstrated his rhetorical brilliance by arguing that Helen was innocent of betraying her husband because she was forced to do so, whether by deeds or by words. Even if Paris did not carry her off, even if the necessity of Fate did not make her leave, even if Aphrodite did not dominate her mind with lust, she was nonetheless forced by the persuasive speech of Paris. “The effect of speech upon the condition of the soul,” Gorgias says, “is comparable to the power of drugs over the nature of bodies.”11 Does he really think Helen innocent? To his expertise, it doesn’t matter whether she was or wasn’t. All that matters is that he can make her seem so. Human being, especially when it is gathered in a crowd, is the measure of all things—of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not. Sophists assume Protagorean relativism, then, yet they also advertise themselves as experts. Experts are those who know not only how things really are (unlike non-experts, who must rely on how things seem), but also how to teach others, the non-experts, to know this reality. This is the objection with which Socrates imagines refuting Protagoras in one dialogue (Theaetetus 161c2–162a3); it is the same objection with which he defeats Thrasymachus in another. Other participants in that discussion wonder why Thrasymachus admits any reality at all (Republic 1.340a1–b9). As a Sophist, he himself cannot be so candid. His income depends on the appearance of expertise, and this appearance of expertise depends on his victory in contests of words such as this one. Although his blush betrays his shame at losing it (1.350d4), he nonetheless protests that Socrates has cheated. The Socratic claim to be seeking the truth, in his estimation, is only a disguise for his desire to win.12 “Dialectic” is a subtle trick of eristic. From his first eruption into the discussion, in fact, Thrasymachus declares his suspicion of Socrates: “Don’t just ask questions and then indulge your love of honor by refuting the answers” (336c2–4). Similar challenges to his method are made by other Sophists in Plato, who soon find themselves tangled in the same web of contradictions that snared Protagoras and Thrasymachus. Socrates keeps saying the same things (Gorgias 490e8, 505d4), most of it nonsense (489b9, 490e2, 494d1, 497a11), and is above all ironic, using the pretense of a search for truth to hide his true desire, which is to win the debate (489e1, 492c3–4, 499b3–7; cf. 515b6–7). Or at least, this is how it must seem to the Sophists. Aspirations to absolute truth would be pretentious, after all, if appearances are the only realities. Appearance of reality: The theory of Forms Let us return to our imaginary debate about beautiful things. You count some things as beautiful that I exclude, and vice versa. As before, an impasse might provoke us to discuss beauty itself: what is it? Unless there is an answer to that question, unless there is some real thing which our examples of beautiful things resemble, our discussion could not be a dialectic. Perhaps it would not devolve into eristic; perhaps it could become a benign occasion to share our peculiar tastes and feelings, considering their relation to our backgrounds, perspectives, and so

220  Patrick Lee Miller on. That is often valuable, expanding our horizons, when the need for a collective decision does not weigh upon us. But when it does, if it is also possible for us to have a dialectic, common pursuit of the absolute truth of beauty, there would have to be a real thing, Beauty, for us to seek. This argument will apply to any of our concepts, many of which have social or political implications: beauty, goodness, justice; woman, man, human; gay, straight, bisexual; Greek or Jew, slave or free; animal, plant, mineral; democracy, oligarchy, tyranny; large, equal, small, and so on. Plato does not make the argument for all of these concepts, but he does so for a representative sample. In the dialogue that portrays Socrates as an old man, about to die, his argument for Forms focuses on equality. Examining those things we call ‘equal,’ such as two sticks or two stones, we notice that none is perfectly equal. Each pair is deficient in some way. But to judge them so, if our judgment is not arbitrary, we must be comparing them with some standard—equality—which is perfectly equal (Phaedo 74d3–5; cf. Republic 6.504c2–3). “We must then possess knowledge of the Equal,” Socrates argues, “before that time when we first saw the equal objects and realize that all these objects strive to be like the Equal but are deficient in this” (74e6–8). Two conclusions follow in this case: one ontological, about the nature of being; the other epistemological, about our knowledge. Whenever we judge anything equal, if our judgment is not arbitrary, (1) there must be some one thing, Equality, whose equality is perfect, and (2) we must be familiar with it somehow, familiar enough to use it as our standard of judgment. But “our present argument is no more about the Equal than about the Beautiful itself, the Good itself, the Just, the Pious and,” as Socrates adds, “about all those things to which we can attach the word ‘itself,’ both when we are putting questions and answering them” (75c6–d2). In sum, whenever there is dialectic—a conversation, of questions and answers, in pursuit of the absolute truth about something—the same two lessons apply: (1) there must be one real thing for each that somehow appears in some of its many resemblances in our lives, whether these resemblances are perceptible directly through our bodily senses or indirectly through art, literature, and popular convention; and (2) we must be familiar with this one real thing somehow, antecedent to these perceptible resemblances. From the dialogue in which Socrates is oldest to the one in which he is youngest, the argument for Forms is roughly the same. In Plato’s Parmenides, the title character, who seems to understand Socrates’ theory better than does Socrates himself, makes a straightforward argument for a Form of largeness (Parmenides 132a2–5).13 But unlike other dialogues, where such arguments produce crucial conclusions for Socrates (e.g., Phaedo 100b5–6), here it serves Parmenides to introduce several serious criticisms and allude to a “host of others besides,” predicting that when it comes to Forms, “whoever hears about them is doubtful and objects that they do not exist, and that even if they do, they must of strict necessity be unknowable to human nature” (135a3–5). We have already seen why a contemporary of Socrates (a Sophist) would remain doubtful. In the distant future, the most powerful doubter would be Nietzsche;

Performing Plato’s Forms  221 in the near future, though, this doubter would be close to home: Aristotle.14 Parmenides says of any such doubter: “in saying this he seems to have a point, and, as we said, he is extraordinarily hard to win over” (135a5–6). With that endorsement in mind, serious Platonists must take this doubter and his criticisms very seriously. Appearance vs. reality: Trouble for the theory of Forms This is not the occasion to raise and meet all of Parmenides’ criticisms, but one of them is central to our overall argument, and cannot be ignored: even if Forms exist, he said, “they must of strict necessity be unknowable to human nature.”15 If true, that would be decisive against them, inasmuch as the main reason for positing them was epistemological: we cannot distinguish dialectic, which pursues knowledge, from eristic, which does not, unless knowledge is possible; and knowledge is possible only if it has real objects (the Forms) independent of their appearances. To appreciate the precise challenge of this criticism, however, a little more must be said by way of introducing the Forms. For although we have seen what role they must play—unitary realities behind infinitely diverse resemblances—we have not considered what they must be like in order to play this role. Consider again the Form of Beauty. Plato writes more about it than any other Form. “It is not beautiful this way and ugly that way,” he says, because its beauty is not relative to anyone or anything; “nor is it beautiful here but ugly there, as it would be if it were beautiful for some people and ugly for others” (Symposium 211a3–6). In order to be beautiful in this non-relative, absolute way, its beauty must be independent of the beautiful resemblances of it scattered throughout space and time. Separate from them, “itself by itself with itself” (211b2), it must nonetheless be distributed among them. “All the other beautiful things,” he adds, “share in that” (211b3). So it must (somehow) appear wherever and whenever they do. Indeed, it must be able (somehow) to appear wherever and whenever they can appear. Where and when, therefore, is its one reality? It cannot be in any particular place and time, for then it could not be represented in all the many diverse places and times where it can appear. Consequently, it must be outside both space and time. “It always is and neither comes to be nor passes away” (211a2), nor will it be “anywhere in another thing, as in an animal, or in earth, or in heaven, or in anything else” (211a10–b2). The Form of Beauty, like all the other Forms, is thus non-temporal and non-spatial. Here is where the criticism introduced by Plato’s Parmenides becomes acute. How can something non-temporal and non-spatial explain the nature of things in space and time? And how can we humans know, seeing things in space, hearing things through time, and generally inhabiting a material world where nothing matching to that grand description of Beauty is perceptible? This is how Parmenides himself phrases the problem: “I think you, Socrates, and anyone else who posits that there is for each thing some being, itself by itself, would agree, to begin with, that none of those beings is in us” (Parmenides 133c2–4;

222  Patrick Lee Miller my italics). Not only are they not in us, they do not even have anything to do with us: “all the Forms that are what they are in relation to each other,” he adds, “have their being in relation to themselves but not in relation to things that belong to us”16 (133c6–d1; my italics). Take the political relation, here in space and time, between master and slave. If you were a master, the theory of Forms would have you sharing somehow in the Form of Master, if there were such a Form. As for your slave, he would share in the Form of Slave, with the same proviso. But what about the relation between these two Forms themselves? The Form of Master, for instance, is not master to a human slave, whether yours or any other, but instead to the Form of Slave (133d9–e5). The Form of Slave, likewise, is slave to the Form of Master. These Forms are related to each other, not to their instances. Each relation occupies its own plane of existence, one eternal and immaterial, the other temporal and spatial. This poses a problem for knowledge, if indeed it involves Forms, because knowledge is also a relation, between knower and known. “Wouldn’t knowledge that belongs to us,” Parmenides asks, “be of the truth that belongs to our world?” A knower in our world of space and time, then, will have to be related to something temporal and spatial, not something eternal and immaterial. “Each particular knowledge that belongs to us,” he therefore concludes, “is in turn knowledge of some particular thing in the world” (134a10–b2; my italics). As a result, “none of the Forms is known by us, because we don’t partake of knowledge itself” (134b7–8). Knowledge itself is of the Known itself, and the Known is known only by Knowledge itself, which resides in an immaterial eternity beyond our corporeal station. The Forms are too “other-worldly” to be of any use to us. If we humans have any knowledge at all, it would not be of eternal and immaterial realities, but instead of material and temporal things. Yet these things were said to be only appearances so there could be no (absolute) knowledge of them. If this criticism were to stick, dialectic would prove an illusion; just as the Sophists complained, it would be but a clever disguise for eristic. “Parmenides” sees this, and so too does his creator: Plato. If we discuss anything, and our discussion presumes there is a way it really is, our dialectical effort must be directed toward a Form, because a Form, whatever else it may be, is the reality behind the resemblances of it that appear either directly to our bodily senses or indirectly in our cultural and artistic products. “If someone,” by contrast, “having an eye on all the difficulties we have just brought up and others of the same sort, won’t allow that there are forms for things and won’t mark off a form for each one,” Parmenides adds, “he won’t have anywhere to turn his thought, since he doesn’t allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same.” Aside from sharing viewpoints with a benign curiosity—a luxury we enjoy whenever we need not reach collective decision—our alternative, when collective action is required, is eristic: an effort directed not at Forms but instead at intimidating or seducing an audience into seeing something as we do. “In this way,” Parmenides concludes, “he will destroy the power of dialectic entirely” (135b8–c2). To preserve the power of dialectic, consequently, one must save the theory of Forms from this objection.

Performing Plato’s Forms  223

Engendering good: Saving the theory of Forms Salvation comes, as one might expect, from the Good. Socrates compares this mysterious Form to the sun, which “not only gives visible things the power to be seen but also provides for their coming-to-be, growth, and nourishment” (Republic 6.509b2–4). Material things appear to our vision because of the sun; thanks also to it, he thinks, they come into existence and become whatever they are. But the sun is not the ultimate cause either of visibility or of becoming, because it itself is an effect, an “offspring of the Good, which the Good begot as its analogue.”17 The Good, too, causes existence and our appreciation of it. But just as the sun is the immediate cause of visibility and becoming among material and changeable things, the Good is the immediate cause of intelligibility and being among immaterial and eternal things—namely, the Forms. “Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the Good,” Socrates declares, “but their existence and being are also due to it” (6.509b6–8). The Good thus engenders the Forms, makes them knowable, and produces material and temporal appearances of them. So reality and appearances are related, for Plato, as images more or less immediate of the Good. To know beauty, as we have seen, one’s object must be Beauty—the one immaterial and eternal Form. One cannot know Beauty through beautiful things in space and time; our access to them is always mediated in one way or another. Any one of Monet’s paintings of Rouen Cathedral, for example, will appear one way under the lighting of one museum, otherwise in other museums, let alone in direct sunlight, or on a postcard. Indeed, there are an infinite number of conditions that would alter how it appears to us. Which set of conditions would give us access to how that painting really is in itself? Even if there were one perfect set of conditions, the painting would still appear differently to everyone since the painting itself plays with light, and the play continues with the light that reflects off the painting. No one could perceive the painting as it really is, because each perceives it only as it appears relative to him, not as it is in itself. Such relativity is the nut of Plato’s critique of imitative art, which he compares to holding a mirror up to the world (10.596d9). The same critique touches all things sensible, which are like “images of letters reflected in water or mirrors” (3.402b4–5). This relativity jeopardizes any epistemology that tries to produce the gold of knowledge from the dross of appearances, whether those appearances be perceptions or the beliefs formed on their basis. In Theaetetus, Socrates relentlessly criticizes three such epistemologies: that knowledge is perception (151d–186e), that knowledge is true belief (187a–201c), and finally that knowledge is true belief with an account (201c–210d). In brief, knowledge cannot be perception because perceptible appearances can be mistaken, whereas knowledge never can. Nor can it be true belief, because believable appearances, however true, cannot be certain, whereas knowledge must be. The attraction of the third theory, after the failures of the first two, is that its addition of an account promises to bridge the chasm between appearance and reality into which the others had fallen. If an account were capable of this, it could convert

224  Patrick Lee Miller appearances to infallible and indubitable knowledge. But an account could not fulfill this promise unless it were known to be true, and how could its truth be known? This would require an additional account, which would suffer the same shortcoming, requiring another account, and so on ad infinitum.18 Despite such serious problems, these epistemologies of appearance have repeatedly attracted adherents because of recurring anti-metaphysical sentiment.19 When ages reject immaterial reality, for whatever reason, their epistemologies must account for knowledge as material bodies perceiving material things. Anyone who believes that knower and known are both physical things, after all, must allow a gap between them, as between any two physical things.20 The only way for the object of knowledge to enter the subject of knowledge, when both are material, is as an appearance in one of the other. This is why materialist philosophies, and the ages that find them so attractive, are always haunted by skepticism. To answer the skeptical challenge, as a materialist, one straightforward solution is to reconceive knowledge as appearance. In antiquity, this was the approach of the Sophists; in recent times, it has been adopted by Deconstructionists, among whom Butler counts herself. Shortly I shall revisit her gender theory with this lineage in mind. In the meantime, we should appreciate how Plato can avoid the skeptical challenge altogether. With his metaphysics, he can preclude any gap between subject and object of knowledge by making them the same. The object of knowledge, the Form, is immaterial and eternal; so too, then, is its subject. “When the soul investigates by itself,” says Socrates, “it passes into the realm of what is pure, ever existing, immortal and unchanging, and being akin to this, it always stays with it whenever it is by itself and can do so” (Phaedo 79d1–3). As knower of immaterial Form, moreover, the soul is not merely akin to its object. If it were akin to it while divided from it, a gap would yawn between them, and this chasm would preclude knowledge. Subject must be one with its object, if there is to be knowledge. Nevertheless, they must also somehow be different, inasmuch as one is the object of knowledge and the other its subject. One, yet two; same, but different. This is one of the highest mysteries of Plato’s philosophy. Notice, however, that this mystery reprises at a higher register the problem with which we began: sameness and difference. We should not be surprised to find the solution is also a reprise. If so, there would have to be some one thing, more real than both the Forms and the knowing self, some one thing of which both Forms and soul would be resemblances. For Plato, this is the Good. The quest for knowledge terminates here, with the ultimate object of desire. Knowing the Form of Health, or the Form of Courage, or any other Form for that matter, would require some further unity, an ultimate One of which all the Forms (realities, beings) would be images. “The good is not being,” then, “but something yet beyond being, superior to it in rank and power” (Republic 6.509a7–8). Beyond being, the object of knowledge, It should therefore be unknowable—even ineffable—although every being would, however indirectly, resemble It. Through them, accordingly, must we approach It. “Only the god knows whether it is true,” Socrates therefore admits, “but this is how these phenomena seem to me: in the knowable realm, the last thing to be seen is the Form of the Good” (7.517b6–8).

Performing Plato’s Forms  225 “Seeing” It with the eye of one’s soul, reason, “one must infer that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything.” The whole cosmos—eternity and time, immaterial and material, being and becoming—would be a cascade of images caused by this One. “In the visible realm it produces both light and its source,” says Socrates, reminding us of his analogy with the sun, and “in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding” (7.517c1–4). To know something, then, is not to believe it truly, nor to believe it truly with an account. Beliefs are but appearances of knowledge. To know is not to represent reality to oneself in any way at all, whether in sense-perception or in believing propositions about it. Knowledge is not about reality. Knowledge, according to Plato, is communion with reality. To know anything is for the knower to commune with the cause of everything—including the knower herself. Knowledge is not a going out to something foreign. It is a return to oneself. To know, in sum, the self must recollect itself as Good. “And if we do not know It,” Socrates argues, “you know that even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us, any more than if we acquire a possession without the Good” (Republic 6.505a5–7). This is the straightforward argument of Meno—that without wisdom, neither health nor the virtues could guarantee benefit—transposed into the theory of Forms (88b1–5). Besides metaphysical extravagance, which puts Plato beyond the pale for many philosophers nowadays, what does he gain by this difficult transposition? If nothing else, he can explain Socrates’ peculiar conviction that knowledge of what’s best is necessarily effective: “no one goes willingly toward the bad or what he believes to be bad” (Protagoras 358d1; see also Meno 77b7–78b1). To know what’s best—to really know that, not merely believe it truly, nor even to believe it truly with an account—is to recollect oneself as the Good. To know the Good, in other words, is to be It. And to be the Good is to do as It does. It engenders the Forms, making them knowable; it engenders selves, granting them the power to know; through both, It projects appearances of a material and temporal world. Like “an overflowing treasury” (6.508b7), It spends rather than saves. It gives birth to everything. In this generative ontology there is also, now, a solution to the problem Plato’s Parmenides had with the Forms. Knowledge is related to eternal Form, as he objected, for it “deals with what is,” “the things themselves that are always the same in every respect” (5.477a8, 479e8). This ethereal relation makes Knowledge seem irrelevant to inhabitants of the material world. “Belief has been assigned to deal with one thing,” appearances, “and knowledge another,” the Forms (5.477b7–8). Our beliefs are nonetheless reminders of a knowledge that is properly ours (Phaedo 72e2–77a5, especially 73c2–6; cf. Meno 81a7–82e3), for our perceptions and beliefs bear a specific relation to our knowledge, and this is the same relation that obtains between their respective objects: resemblance to reality. The objection of Parmenides fails because appearance and reality are not two independent levels. The Good projects sensible appearances through the realities It engenders, the Forms, but it also projects beliefs about them through Knowledge.

226  Patrick Lee Miller Flickering before our embodied minds, the trouble with these appearances is that they turn out “both to be and not to be at the very same time” (5.478d5–6). This is most troubling with the worldly matters we desire, such as those that appear beautiful or just, for “of all the beautiful things, is there one that won’t also seem ugly? Or any just one that won’t seem unjust?” (5.479a5–6). Socrates imagines posing these troubling questions to the “lover of seeing,” the empiricist whom he next calls a philo-doxer (lover of belief) rather than a philo-sopher (5.480a6–12). The Sophist may also be a target here, as well as the person who seeks wisdom in the arts, but his point concerns more generally the anti-metaphysical temperament of someone “who cannot bear to hear anyone say that the beautiful is one thing, or the just, or any of the rest” (5.479a3–4). There is nothing wrong with belief, as such, so long as one recognizes its limitations. Developing true beliefs about sensible, material, and changeable things is a worthy endeavor, one the philosopher will share, but the philodoxer goes astray when he mistakes these apparent things for real objects of knowledge. Human being is not, in sum, the measure of all things.

Performing humanity Saving the theory of Forms from Parmenides’ objection has the immediate advantage of making dialectic possible, permitting some discussions to avoid eristic. But it also has dramatic consequences for our understanding of who we are, we who eschew verbal contests of power in order to pursue truth together in words. For if we do so, we cannot do so as human beings, embodied creatures, inhabiting space and time. They use their bodily senses to perceive appearances of other material things, and they develop beliefs by comparing and assessing these appearances. The immaterial and eternal Forms are thus of strict necessity unknowable to human nature, exactly as Parmenides said (Parmenides 135a5). But it does not follow that we cannot know Forms. That would follow only upon the assumption that we are human beings. Are we? What is Plato’s view of our selfhood? As embodied humans, on one hand, we seem to inhabit the level of material and temporal things. As immortal souls, on the other, we are akin to the immaterial and eternal realities through which those appearances have been projected. Which are we: human beings or immortal souls? We are both, according to Plato, though not in the same way. Our real selves are immortal souls, the subjects of knowledge; our apparent selves are projections of these souls into time as embodied human beings who perceive and believe. In other words, the same relation that obtains between our belief and our knowledge, not to mention their respective objects, also obtains between our humanity and our real self. In every case, this is the relation of resemblance to reality. To illustrate this queer doctrine, Socrates resorts to another image, that of the sea-god Glaucus, “whose original nature cannot easily be made out by those who catch glimpses of him” (Republic 10.611b8–d7). Although a radiant divinity, in reality, he appears otherwise because he has been submerged in the depths for so long. “Some of the original parts of his body have been broken off,” says Socrates, “others have been worn away and altogether mutilated by the

Performing Plato’s Forms  227 waves.” He has been disfigured, then, but he has also become encased in foreign matter: “other things—shells, seaweed, and rocks—have grown into him, so that he looks more like any wild beast than what he naturally was.” This, we learn, “is the condition of the soul when we see it beset by myriad bad things.” In reality, however, each of us is a pure soul, an immaterial and eternal knower, which is “maimed by its partnership with the body.” Rather than knowing, we believe. Rather than loving the Good, we develop attractions to its offspring. There is nothing inherently wrong in desiring bodies, any more than there was fault in believing. The danger is in the temptation to confuse our bodies with our selves, our beliefs with knowledge, our attraction to flickering appearances with our deepest longing for the only real Good. Plato prescribes a cure for the soul’s ubiquitous temptation: “its love of wisdom” (10.611d9), its continuous yearning for the Good. “No one is satisfied to acquire things that are believed to be good,” Socrates declares, but “everyone seeks the things that are good” (6.505d6–8). This longing for real good, this love of wisdom, is philosophy. If the soul “followed this longing with its whole being,” Socrates assures us, “then you would see its true nature” (10.611e3–612a3). Philosophy, then, is not a theory, not even a true one embellished with a sophisticated account; it is a total surrender to the soul’s deepest love. Plato is most explicit about this love and its object in Diotima’s speech in Symposium. There the love is of Beauty, which plays the supreme role in this dialogue that the Good plays in Republic. The lover of Beauty she imagines has at last reached the perfect Form he sought in vain among the many imperfectly beautiful things. “Do you think it would be a poor life for a human being,” asks the priestess from Mantineia, “to look there and to behold it by that which he ought,” namely the immortal part of his soul: reason (211e4–212a2). He not only beholds this supreme Beauty, however, he gets “to be with it” (sunontos, 212a2). The verb (suneimi) has sexual connotations, which makes sense of what she says next: “only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he’s in touch with no images), but to true virtue (because he’s in touch with the true Beauty)” (212a5–8). This lover of Beauty is the philosopher again, a male in this dialogue as in all the others except Republic, but when he communes with the object of his love, after gazing upon It, he too becomes fecund, like the Good he ultimately seeks. Assuming Its generative power, the immortal reason of the philosopher— which has been imagined as male—gives birth to true virtue. Images of it in light, or sound, or words may follow, but the philosopher “would be much more eager to be the subject of a eulogy than the author of one” (Republic 10.599a6). True virtue will be his, or hers, or whichever gender this philosopher performs on the stage of the material world. For in eternity, where immortal reason is at home, there is no gender, because there are no human bodies. Nevertheless, when it comes to play a role in time, it must put on a mortal coil, with all the instability and indeterminacy that involves. The riddle about the material world with which Socrates introduces his theory of Forms, recall, compares everything here to a eunuch. Our bodies are eunuchs, however distinct their genders appear upon superficial inspection, because they are flickering images of our true selves, which

228  Patrick Lee Miller have no gender at all. To live a life in such a body is to perform—within all the constraints Butler recognizes—but it is not only to perform gender, it is more fundamentally to perform humanity.

Deconstructions Butler is therefore right, if Plato also is, to argue that gender is performative. Unlike Plato, however, she cannot make sense of either notion (performance or argument) without resorting to eristic. “Gender,” as a performance, “is an identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior space through the stylized repetition of acts” (1999: 179). You might think such a performance must have a performer, for which the natural candidate would be the body: “The effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which the bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self” (1999: 179). But if there is an agent beneath (or above) the acts—as the performance requires—it will also be beneath (or above) the body, stylizing it, fashioning it, sustaining its corporeality as well as its gender. As we have seen, this is exactly Plato’s theory: an immortal and immaterial soul projects itself into time and space as the image of a material body, immersing itself in the appearances or illusions of a material world (including gender). Butler rejects anything of the sort, however, for three reasons. First of all, she finds it misogynist: “In the philosophical tradition that begins with Plato, the ontological distinction between soul (consciousness, mind) and body invariably supports relations of political and psychic subordination and hierarchy” (1999: 17). This is quite true, as Republic openly demonstrates. Its doctrine that the soul (specifically reason) is superior to the body supports the subordination of the individual’s inferior psychic elements, and the city’s inferior political classes. Platonic psychology and politics mirror Platonic ontology, above all in their hierarchies. But this is not hierarchy and subordination as we commonly understand them, since material wealth and comfort belong to the ruled while the political rulers must do all the fighting, have no private property, and receive only a subsistence wage (4.419a1–420a7). More importantly, there is in Plato’s utopia no gender hierarchy; on the contrary, women and men are equally entitled—even expected—to become rulers. Butler may be right that “the cultural associations of mind with masculinity and body with femininity are well documented within the field of philosophy and feminism,” but it does not follow that Plato’s distinction “ought to be rethought for the implicit gender hierarchy that the distinction has conventionally produced, maintained, and rationalized” (1999: 17). Quite the opposite is the case, as this essay has argued. Plato’s distinction between soul and body is what motivates his critique of Greek misogyny, for it allows him to minimize the apparent bodily differences between the genders, and to select his rulers instead upon the merits of their souls, which in reality have no gender at all.

Performing Plato’s Forms  229 The soul as a genderless subject raises a second, deeper problem for Butler: “There is no ‘one’ who takes on a gender norm,” no subject to perform gender, because “subject-formation is dependent on the prior operation of legitimating gender norms” (1993: 232). Her objection here relies upon her broader theory of gender and sexuality, which argues that subjects are constructed by norms of both, inextricably intertwined in the rituals of a culture. “The incest taboo and the prior taboo against homosexuality,” according to this theory, are “the generative moments of gender identity” (1999: 172). These taboos do not take a pre-existing subject and compel it to desire or behave a certain way; they act more fundamentally, from the beginning of human life, to make the child into a subject who can desire or behave as such. She therefore rejects “humanist conceptions of the subject,” including the “humanist feminist position,” which “might understand gender as an attribute of a person who is characterized essentially as a pregendered substance or ‘core’” (1999: 14). Instead, she believes that “what a person ‘is,’ and indeed what gender ‘is,’ is always relative to the constructed relations in which it is determined” (1999: 15). Yet she has in mind only embodied subjects, so her theory corroborates rather than rejects Plato’s view. He likewise sees embodied humans coming to be subjects in social matrices, and tells an elaborate story of how the political constitutions of different sorts of city produce the psychological constitutions of correlative types of individual human (8.543a1–9.576d1). He does not give gender a leading role in this story, but he mentions it, and what he says fits rather well with Butler’s theory. Ignorant of the utopia’s gender-relations, the son of a ruler in a degenerate city hears his ambitious mother’s perpetual complaints that “his father is unmanly” (8.549c8–e1). Men, in this mother’s discourse, seek money and power, while their wives achieve the same goals by marriage to a real (“manly”) man. Sex and gender are thus intertwined. To be a man is to achieve these goals directly; to be a woman is to achieve them indirectly. Sex is the means of indirection for both genders. Through it, the woman gets power and money in exchange for the son she gives the man—so long as she is a “real” woman (i.e., fertile). This is exactly the sort of “heteronormative” discourse Butler has in mind when she argues that the gender binary of man and woman is intertwined with ritual heterosexuality: “The internal coherence or unity of either gender,” she writes, “thereby requires both a stable and oppositional heterosexuality” (1999: 30). But even if Plato agrees with Butler that such discourse creates gendered human subjects, he must add that these gendered human beings are not real subjects. Butler now agrees with Plato: “as a shifting and contextual phenomenon,” the gendered subject “does not denote a substantive being, but a relative point of convergence among culturally and historically specific sets of relations” (1999: 15). Translated into Plato’s idiom, the human subject, as a flickering appearance, is not a pure soul, but one engendered in space and time, born as a body into a specific political constitution that will construct him or her in its image. The difference, of course, is that whereas Plato argues there are immortal souls, Butler believes there are no “substantive beings.”

230  Patrick Lee Miller So her second problem with the doctrine of immortal souls leads to a third: it is not only that there is no genderless subject to perform gender; there is no subject at all, if a subject must be a substantive being. Were this being to exist, it would be an agent who acts, a doer who does, a performer who performs. But according to Butler, there is no performer, there is only the performance. “If the subject is constructed,” others have objected, “then who is constructing the subject?” (1993: 6). She is not troubled by this objection because she thinks its only appeal comes from “the seductions of grammar.” With this reply she reveals her philosophical inspiration: Nietzsche. “The challenge for rethinking gender categories outside of the metaphysics of substance,” she writes, “will have to consider the relevance of Nietzsche’s claim in On the Genealogy of Morals that “there is no ‘being’ behind doing, effecting, becoming; ‘the doer’ is merely a fiction added to the deed—the deed is everything” (Butler 1999: 33). In the passage she quotes (1.13), however, Nietzsche sees far more than the seductions of grammar at work in the supposition of substantive subjects. Weak and resentful people (“slaves”) posit an agent behind actions, a subject in the sense of a substantive being, in order to defeat strong and free people (“masters”) in a contest of power. Lacking the strength they would need to defeat their rivals in an open struggle, they trick them with words, devising a set of values to make the masters feel guilty for their power and renounce it. This slave morality— epitomized by Christianity, its doctrine of sin, and its promise that the meek shall inherit the earth—demonizes everything powerful people do, while lionizing everything weak people suffer. A crucial component of the trick requires the slaves to convince their masters that they, the masters, could do otherwise. “The strong are free to be weak,” they say, but this makes sense only if the doer is distinct from his deeds. The grammatical distinction between subject and predicate testifies to this distinction, which is why Nietzsche calls grammar “the metaphysics of the people” (Gay Science 5.354). Seduced by language as if it revealed the nature of things, the strong willingly surrender to the weak. The story Nietzsche tells about language is thus Sophistic: the weak use words eristically, because everyone seeks power, and words are the weapons of people incapable of deeds. In Nietzsche’s estimation, Socrates is the best example of this fact because his wish to engage in dialectic is really a clever sort of eristic (Twilight of the Idols, “The Problem of Socrates”). Like the slavish types whose victory he represents, he defeats the strong because they have never had much use for words, except as poetic celebrations of their deeds. By alluding to this Nietzschean story, Butler presumes the Sophistic view that every discussion is eristic. But we don’t have to situate her in this ancient tradition to see her rejection of dialectic because she considers it pretentious. It is evident in her interpretation of the modern activity that prides itself on its dispassionate pursuit of truth: the study of nature.21 Even “the return to biology as the ground of a specific feminine sexuality or meaning,” recall, is doomed in her eyes to disguise traditional gender norms in the speciously objective discourse of science (Butler 1999: 39). If Butler and Nietzsche are right, the study of nature, like every discourse, is necessarily eristic. There is no escaping the struggle, the ubiquitous will to power,

Performing Plato’s Forms  231 not even in philosophical conversation. “There is no greater evil one can suffer,” warns Plato, “than to hate reasonable discourse (logos)” (Phaedo 89d2–3). On his diagnosis, this hatred arises when someone without knowledge trusts another to be truthful, only to find later that his account is unreliable. Yet this is inevitable if every pretense of reasonable discourse were in fact a clever disguise for the will to power. What presents itself as truthful will not only be unreliable, it will be designed to exploit the credulous. Dialectic will in fact be a power grab. Consequently, one should approach every pretense of it with suspicion, as Butler does, if not the hatred Plato warns against. If Butler is right, then so too was Nietzsche’s favorite philosopher, Heraclitus: “eris is justice” and “war is the father of all” (DK 22B80 and 22B53).

Transmigrations In Theaetetus, Socrates objects that the Sophists undermine the notion of expertise and wisdom (161c2–162a3), for if each human being is his own measure, then each is master of his own, idiosyncratic science. Yet in the same dialogue Protagoras, too, wishes to maintain the status of expertise and thereby preclude the ridiculous possibility that “pig is the measure of all things” (161c5). He insists that he does “not deny the existence of both wisdom and wise men” (166d6), but claims they are not wise for knowing some objective truth because there is no such thing. Instead, “the man whom I call wise is the man who can change the appearances— the man who in any case where bad things both appear and are for one of us, works a change and makes good things appear and be for him” (166d7–10). The physician, for example, is an expert in bodies whereas the rest of us are not. Between their sickness and health, he is able “to make a change from the one state to the other, because the other state is better” (167a4–5). He is able to do this reliably because symptoms and treatments appear to him in a way they do not to the rest of us, who cannot make these helpful distinctions and connections. Things appear to the physician this way because of what he learned in his medical training, knowledge that he has refined in his clinical experience. But his success does not make this expertise true, although “the things which appear to him are what some people, who are still at a primitive stage, call ‘true’” (167b5–6). When Protagoras compares the appearances of this expert to those of us who do not know, his sophisticated, relativist position “is that the one kind are better than the others, but in no way truer” (167b6–8). By replacing the notion of truer with the notion of better—the notion of truth, in short, with the notion of good—Protagoras thinks he can preserve a role for experts while avoiding the distinction between appearance and reality. “Human being” can remain “the measure of all things,” yet he can also remain the sort of wise man (sophistēs) worthy of a hefty fee (167d1). But Protagoras’ response works only when there is agreement, as in his example of health, about the purpose to be achieved. To nearly everyone, health appears better than sickness. Few would wish to contest this appearance and argue that health is not better than sickness. Were anyone to do so, however, Protagoras would have to grant that the

232  Patrick Lee Miller physician who is able to exchange sick appearances for healthy ones only seems an expert to the majority. This concession may seem trivial, inasmuch as the vast majority deem health better than illness without qualification. But the concession seems far from trivial when there is a heated, painful, even violent dispute about the appearances of goodness, and this is often the case in politics. “The wise and efficient politician,” Protagoras says, “is the man who makes wholesome things seem just to a city instead of pernicious ones” (Theaetetus 167c2–4). He emphasizes that there is no justice in itself, adding that “whatever in any city is regarded as just and admirable is just and admirable, in that city and for so long as that convention maintains itself” (167c4–6). The wise politician is merely able to change how things appear to his citizens; he “replaces each pernicious convention by a wholesome one, making this both be and seem just” (167c6–8). Yet his answer begs the question. What are wholesome things for a city? What are the pernicious ones? This evocation of health and illness is not coincidental. The politician, as Protagoras imagines him, is a physician of the city. In our own “city” with its political controversies (e.g., marriage law), progressives have their ideas of what is best for it, as do social conservatives, each motivated by their opposing notions of what is wholesome or pernicious. Yet if Butler were correct, and the Protagorean approach were the only one available to political questions such as this, there could be no subsequent dialectic.22 Dialectical discussion requires a true answer sought by all participants, for success would resolve the dispute so long as each participant could understand and heed this truth. But for the Sophists or Deconstructionists, this possibility has been precluded from the beginning. “Sharing” their alternative accounts of the good and wholesome, the bad and pernicious, would remain possible—until a decision must be made. And a decision must always be made, even simply to maintain the status quo, for in politics the status quo is never neutral. With his Forms, and especially his Good, Plato offers an escape from this impasse. Despite their differences, according to Plato, feminists such as Butler and social conservatives such as George share something more fundamental than their commitment to rival discourses: “No one is satisfied to acquire things that are believed to be good,” because “everyone seeks the things that are good” (Republic 6.505d6–8). Like the Sophists in their speeches, Butler in her theory rejects the distinction between belief (or discourse) and reality (that which is absolutely outside discourse). “There is an ‘outside’ to what is constructed by discourse,” we have seen her protesting, “but this is not an absolute ‘outside,’ an ontological thereness that exceeds or counters the boundaries of discourse” (Butler 1993: 8). That said, this is a theoretical protest. She seems more open to Plato’s approach in her own practice. When Socrates pushes Protagoras to make sense of his own expertise without the notions of absolute truth or reality independent of appearances, Protagoras turns openly to the better, the wholesome, the good. Perhaps he means what is believed to be good, but he seems to mean what is good. For her part, Butler seeks “to open up the field of possibility for gender” (1999: viii). Why? Presumably open fields of possibility appear better to her than do hierarchical social worlds

Performing Plato’s Forms  233 that exclude some human possibilities as “impossible, illegible, unrealizable, unreal, and illegitimate” (1999: viii). But how does the appearance of goodness present itself to her? Is she satisfied merely to believe that inclusion is good, or does she care to know whether it is? If it is knowledge she seeks, eristic—simply winning an argument—will not be enough. She will have to engage in dialectic by first acknowledging that there is a true answer and then seeking it. The values Butler professes are among those Plato attributes to the democratic soul—hardly surprising given the constitution of the society in which her identity has been constructed. “I imagine it is in this constitution,” says Socrates, “that diverse people come to exist.”23 Citizens of the democracy receive the freedom necessary for this diversity to flourish (Republic 8.557b4–6), and all these diverse people are treated equally (8.558c4–6). It shows great tolerance, Socrates adds, but demonstrates “utter disregard for the things we took so seriously when we were founding the city” (8.558b1–2). He is referring to the education of philosophers, which was abandoned when leaders began “neglecting the true Muse, the companion of discussion and philosophy” (8.548b7–8). This Muse, as we saw, leads “the best part of the soul upward until it sees the best among the things that are,” namely the Good (7.532c5–6). But the democratic soul rejects these metaphysical “realities,” and above all the transcendent “Good.” It seeks to flatten hierarchies, whether political or ontological. When pushed to define its values, it prefers instead the immanent good of freedom, as well as equality and tolerance (8.562b11–12). Together, these values promote the diversity it cherishes. This democratic ideal, symbolized nowadays by the rainbow flag, is “just like an embroidered cloak embroidered with every kind of ornament,” because “it is embroidered with every sort of character, and so would appear to be the most beautiful” (8.557c4–5). Such an ideal would appear to be the most beautiful, according to Plato, but would not really be so. According to his hierarchical analysis of constitutions, the democratic is several removes from the ideal, its appearance of goodness several removes from the Good. Needless to say, Butler disagrees. If she were to try to show that these values were neither personal prejudices, nor products of democratic ideology, let alone products of “the slave revolt in morality,” but instead the right ones, the true ones, the best ones, she would thereby begin a dialectic. But by beginning a dialectic with anyone—Grosz, George, whomever—she joins Plato right where we did. Speaking of his philosopher-queens, Socrates says confidently “they will be doing what is best, not something contrary to the natural relationship of female to male, and the one they are most naturally fitted to share in with one another” (Republic 5.466d2–4). Underwriting that confidence required his theory of Forms, outside space and time, where the natural relationship of the different genders turns out to be the sameness of the rational soul. Uniting the diversity of this knowing subject and its known objects, we saw, was the Good outside of discourse. It engenders both realities—knower and known, reason and Forms—and through them projects a material world of resemblances. Nietzsche famously calls Plato’s “invention of pure spirit and of transcendent goodness” the “most grievous, protracted, and dangerous” error of all time (Preface,

234  Patrick Lee Miller Beyond Good and Evil). This critique—only the most scathing of Nietzsche’s many—follows the puzzling question with which he begins the book: “Assuming truth is a woman—what then?” Although he does not quite conceive his Good as a woman, Plato does develop a whole philosophy around this fertile principle. In this philosophy, as my essay has argued, gendered bodies are resemblances of transcendent goodness, as is everything else. But these bodies are special because they are animated by immortal souls, capable of directing themselves toward the Good, imitating Its creative power in their own imperfect way, through procreation (Symposium 207d1–5, 208e3–6). The common goal of the souls that animate them, however, is to purify themselves of sex, gender, and embodiment altogether (Phaedo 67a1–b1, 81b1–8, 83d7–e2, 114c3–5). Apparently one life is not enough to achieve this purification.24 Comprehending the cosmic drama seems to require playing many supporting roles—animal and human, slave and free, man and woman—before attempting the lead, that of philosopher.25 Succeeding in this final role, however, souls abandon the stage to join the Playwright. This mysticism goes against the grain of our anti-metaphysical age, but it can nonetheless be appreciated as a description of Plato the human writer. Few are more inaccessible, but if we knew nothing about him aside from the fact that he wrote the dialogues cited in this essay, we could appreciate something quite profound about him (Anderson 2014: 162–9). In these dialogues, I have argued, is a theory of Forms that answers questions of sameness and difference that preoccupy us now as much as they did his contemporaries. The answers given by this theory are remarkably similar to the answers of a recent thinker (Butler) who imagines it nevertheless to be hostile. Only with this theory, in fact, can answers to these perennial questions be sought (let alone found) in a way that is not guaranteed to devolve into a contest of power. For the sake of convenience, I have called this theory Plato’s, but that is not altogether accurate. Speaking more precisely, I should say instead that the theory of Forms is expressed by characters in Plato’s dialogues. “Socrates” often takes the lead, of course, getting help from “Parmenides” on one occasion. Additionally, some of the details of this theory become clearest in debate with other characters who would deny it (the Sophists). Plato scripts them all, presenting us with a dialectical drama that brings each of them to life. Whoever Plato was, then, he must have been an “overflowing treasury.” Containing multitudes, he transcended the many voices of his own creation, giving us a drama that we too perform—at this very moment, for example—whenever we strive to understand and imitate him. Plato, accordingly, is a special resemblance of the Good. It is from such resemblances that we must begin our own individual ascents to the reality. So whether or not we accept pure spirit and transcendent goodness, we are already underway.

Acknowledgments I would like to thank two friends who have helped me get under way: Peter Smith, who taught me Greek, and especially the Greek of Plato, and Arum Park, whose patience in waiting for this essay was exceeded by her patience in editing it.

Performing Plato’s Forms  235

Notes   1 Republic 10.596a5–c8. All quotations of Republic are from Reeve 2004. All other quotations of Plato are from Cooper 1997.   2 See, e.g., Generation of Animals 737a28 (also 775a15–16 and 784a5). For an account of the medieval reception of Aristotle’s views of women, particularly in Pseudo-Albertus’ De Secretis Mulierum, see Miller 2010: 3, 6, 60, 67, 85, 87.   3 See Finnis 1997 and George 2001, 2013, but especially George et al. 2012c.   4 A notable exception is Kosman 2007.   5 The Greek translated here as “eristic” is erizein (5.454a5) and eris (5.454a8); for “dialectic,” correlatively, it is dialegesthai (5.454a5) and dialektos (5.454a8).   6 Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 7.60 = 80B1, from Reeve and Miller 2015: 35.   7 For a powerful iteration of this critique, see Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, “The Problem of Socrates.”   8 Meno 71e1–72a3. Nietzsche, as so often, elaborates the Sophistic approach (e.g., Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part 1, “On the Passions of Pleasure and Pain,” and “On a Thousand and One Goals”; Twilight of the Idols, “Morality as Anti-Nature” 6).   9 Republic 1.344d1–5; Protagoras 328d4–329b6, 334a4–338e5; Gorgias 461c6–462b2. 10 Socrates elicits the problem at 1.339b7–e7. Thrasymachus commits himself to the view that there is a reality at 1.340c6–341a4, when he posits a craftsman of rule—someone who never errs in his beliefs about what is really to his own advantage. 11 Reeve and Miller 2015: 37. 12 See also 1.337d11–e2, 338d2–3, 340c10, 341a5–c3, 343a4, 350d9–e3, 351c6, 352b2–4, and 354a10. 13 Gerson (1990: 33–40) argues that this ontological version of the argument from Parmenides (132a2–5) is the most fundamental, whereas the epistemological and ethical arguments from other dialogues (e.g., Phaedo and Symposium) ultimately rely on it. 14 Nietzsche’s doubts about Platonism occur throughout his published work, but he expresses them most forcefully in the Preface to Beyond Good and Evil. For Aristotle’s criticisms of the theory of Forms, see Metaphysics 1.9. Gerson (1990: 82–9) provides a systematic account of these criticisms. 15 For a more complete discussion of Parmenides’ criticisms and the responses available to a Platonist, see Gerson 1990: 40–9. 16 As before, Cooper 1997 favors “character” rather than “Form” as its translation of idea. Here “Form” has been substituted to make the thread of this argument easier to follow. 17 6.508b12–13. “Good” has been capitalized here, as throughout this essay whenever a Form has been discussed, in order to mark it as such. 18 A fuller version of this interpretation of Theaetetus can be found in Gerson 2003: 194–238, and 2009: 44–55. 19 The Stoics and Epicureans were anti-metaphysical materialists, sharing an epistemology of appearances (or “representations”) which made them an easy target for Skeptics. Sextus Empiricus multiplied objections like the ones introduced above (see, e.g., Outlines of Skepticism 1.16). Early modern philosophers revived Hellenistic epistemology (e.g., Locke), and with it the specter of Skepticism (e.g., Hume). Richard Rorty (1981) showed how influential this flawed approach to knowledge (“representationalism”) was on philosophers in the twentieth century. Gerson brings together the critiques of both ancient and modern representationalism in his explanation and defense of the Platonic approach (see, e.g., 2009: 1–13, 152–65). 20 They can touch, of course; and they can be interspersed, as one fluid mixed with another; but they cannot interpenetrate, the way immaterial Forms promise to do (e.g., Odd and Three). Plotinus devotes a whole tractate to establishing this point (Enneads 2.8, “On Complete Transfusion”). 21 Nietzsche’s own critique of science is sharpest in the third essay of On the Genealogy of Morals, especially 3.25.

236  Patrick Lee Miller 22 Republic’s distinction between dialectic and eristic recurs in the midst of the debate between Socrates and Protagoras at Theaetetus 164c8–d1. 23 Republic 8.557c1–2. “Diverse” has been substituted for Reeve’s “multifarious,” which translates pantodapoi. 24 For a fuller account of purification in Plato, see Miller 2011: 78–94. 25 Republic 10.619e6–620c2, Phaedo 81d5–82a8, Phaedrus 248c10–249c5, and Timaeus 90e1–92c4.

References Anderson, M. (2014), Plato and Nietzsche: Their Philosophical Art, London: Bloomsbury. Bluestone, N.H. (1994), “Why Women Cannot Rule: Sexism in Plato Scholarship,” in N. Tuana (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Plato, pp. 109–30. Butler, J. (1993), Bodies That Matter, London: Routledge. —— (1999), Gender Trouble, London: Routledge. Cooper, J.M. (1997), Plato: Complete Works, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Farrell Smith, J. (1994), “Plato, Irony, and Equality,” in N. Tuana (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Plato, pp. 25–48. Finnis, J. (1997), “Law, Morality, and Sexual Orientation,” in J. Corvino (ed.), Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 31–43. George, R.P. (2001), The Clash of Orthodoxies, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. —— (2013), Conscience and its Enemies: Confronting the Dogmas of Liberal Secularism, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. ——, S. Girgis, and R.T. Anderson (2012), What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, New York: Encounter Books. Gerson, L.P. (1990), God and Greek Philosophy: Studies in the Early History of Natural Theology, London: Routledge. —— (2003), Knowing Persons: A Study in Plato, Oxford: Oxford University Press. —— (2009), Ancient Epistemology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grosz, E. (2011), Becoming Undone, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kosman, A. (2007), “Justice and Virtue: The Republic’s Inquiry into Proper Difference,” in G.R.F. Ferrari (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato’s Republic, Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, pp. 116–37. Miller, P.L. (2011), Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy, London: Continuum. Miller, S.A. (2010), Medieval Monstrosity and the Female Body, New York: Routledge. Reeve, C.D.C. (2004), Plato: Republic, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. —— and P.L. Miller (2015), Introductory Readings in Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy, 2nd edn., Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. Rorty, R. (1981), Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tuana, N. (ed.) (1994), Feminist Interpretations of Plato, University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Epilogue Echoes of resemblance and reality in Latin literature

14 Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil Cultural reality and literary metaphor D. Felton

Introduction The epic poems of Homer and Vergil provide many detailed descriptions of wounds and death blows, particularly in combat scenes. Various characters are struck by swords, spears, arrows, and even boulders in nearly every imaginable body part, many of them astoundingly specific: belly, liver, back, buttock, chest, nipples, shoulder, neck, jaw, eyes, ears, and so on. Yet despite a high incidence of such varied and gruesomely detailed injuries, wounds specifically to the thigh occur only rarely in epic and are inflicted almost solely upon major characters, including Menelaus, Sarpedon, Mezentius, Turnus, and Aeneas. This is particularly surprising given the vulnerability of the thigh, the only crucial area of the body other than the neck commonly left exposed by ancient armor. Their scarcity notwithstanding, thigh wounds have been noted as “traditional in epic” (Harrison 1997: 162), though this tradition has received little attention in classical scholarship.1 Thigh wounds in classical literature, however, especially in early epic, exemplify how a cultural reality—a significant war injury—can become a literary metaphor for impotence or castration. When employed in this way, such wounds comprise a folkloric motif known as the “mutilated hero.”2 In fact, many heroic characters not only in classical epic but also in literature worldwide suffer thigh wounds that are euphemistic for castration (Dundes 1962: 108).3 Such wounds, moreover, frequently symbolize not only physical but also political or spiritual impotence, and can represent a loss of heroic status for the wounded individual as well as a crisis for his entire community (Jobes 1961: 1556; de Vries 1973: 461). Often, the thigh wound foreshadows the end of a hero’s family line: his metaphorical castration signals an imminent loss of male heirs. In attributing thigh wounds to several of their most significant characters, Homer and Vergil demonstrate this traditional folkloric symbolism. Whereas Homer, drawing so strongly from oral tradition, probably included the imagery unconsciously, Vergil may have deliberately manipulated femoral injuries to heighten the significance of Aeneas’ destiny.

Background of the thigh-wound motif The association of thigh wounds with impotence traces its roots to a widespread ancient belief that semen was produced in several places in the body, including in

240  D. Felton the marrow of the thigh bone. The thighs’ proximity to the testicles resulted in a cultural association between the thighs and male genitalia, with the two anatomical regions considered as metaphorically equivalent. Consequently, any kind of wound to the thigh could represent a blow to a man’s physical and spiritual virility, though a penetration of the thigh by a spear, sword, or arrow is (unsurprisingly) the most significant type. Many heroic characters in world literature suffer thigh wounds that symbolize such weaknesses. This motif of the mutilated hero appears most famously in the Arthurian Grail legend cycle, where the Fisher King, one of the central characters, is maimed by a spear thrust through his thigh. The fields around his castle become symbolically barren—a waste land—and only when a Grail Seeker heals him do his lands become fertile again.4 As in this case, thigh wounds are usually not fatal. Rather, they have two possible and contrasting outcomes: in one, the thigh wound signals an impending fatal wound of another sort, thus portending doom for the character and the people he represents; in the other, the wounded character recovers not only from his physical wound but also from any emotional or spiritual crisis he might have had, and this recovery also signals future prosperity for his people. The Greeks shared in this cultural association of the thighs with a man’s virility; they were one of the many ancient cultures that believed semen was produced in the thigh bone. Whereas Hippocrates wrote that semen flowed to the testicles via the arteries behind the ears, Aristotle and various anatomists believed that semen arose from the brain and traveled to veins that ran from the genitals through the thigh to the heel. In their view, the testes were not essential, and castration, by preventing the emission of semen, preserved it in the body.5 This belief that semen resided largely in the thigh probably influenced the myth of Dionysus’ birth from Zeus’s thigh, which becomes the male equivalent of the womb.6 Consequently, the connection between lameness and barrenness appears frequently in Greek literature, and nearly any wound that resulted in lameness could represent a lack of virility and a corresponding literal or metaphorical barrenness, particularly for heroes. Oedipus, for example, lamed because of his mutilated feet, committed sexually transgressive acts that resulted in the drought at Thebes, providing the motif of barren lands related to an unfit king—as later in the Grail cycle.7 The “drought” at Thebes afflicted not only crops, but livestock and even women, all struck barren (Soph., OT 25–7). Oedipus’ emasculation, in other words, affected the fertility of everything around him. Moreover, Oedipus’ metaphorical castration (further emphasized by his gouged-out eyes) foreshadows the end of his family line: his four children—products of incest—all perish.8 In Greek and Roman literature, the connection between impotence and wounds in the thigh or groin manifests very early, perhaps most prominently in myths involving Aphrodite. In Hesiod’s account, the goddess arose from bloody sea foam surrounding the severed genitals of Ouranos, whose power disappears almost entirely following his emasculation (e.g., Hesiod, Theog. 570–2, 927–9, 945–6). Subsequent myths about Aphrodite contain many instances of lameness, thigh wounds, and other metaphors for impotence, as in her relationships with Hephaestus, Adonis, and Anchises. She was married to Hephaestus, whose

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  241 lameness suggests impotence—at least regarding his union with Aphrodite, who cuckolded her husband by having affairs with various gods (including Ares and Hermes) in addition to several mortals. Hephaestus and Aphrodite had no children together, although he did father several sons by other consorts, and his semen produces Erichthonius when he tries to rape Athena. That is, the god remained impotent only in his relationship with Aphrodite. The myth of Adonis, fatally wounded in the thigh during a boar hunt, also associates Aphrodite with thigh wounds and impotence.9 Similarly, Aphrodite’s affair with the mortal Anchises results in symbolic castration:10 the goddess warns him not to boast about their union, but he apparently cannot restrain himself, as sources outside the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite tell us that Zeus strikes Anchises in the thigh with a thunderbolt, crippling him for life.11 Despite such mythological awareness of the connection between thigh wounds, lameness more generally, and impotence in myths such as these, and although some ancient authors explicitly draw a connection between the thighs and male genitalia (e.g., Artemidorus 1.46; see also Gillis 1983: 90), these wounds are, as noted above, only infrequently discussed in classical scholarship. Yet such injuries appear not only in epic but in Greek historical writing, which contains many instances of thigh wounds inflicted upon well-known characters. For example, four significant characters in Herodotus—Cambyses, Histiaeus, Cleomenes, and Miltiades—receive femoral injuries that either cause or presage their deaths and precipitate crises for their people (Felton 2014). The thigh wound also recurs in the works of Ctesias of Cnidus (late fifth century bce), the Greek doctor who wrote a history of Persia: Cyrus the Great, Cambyses, and Megabyzus suffer thigh wounds.12 Additionally, Plutarch describes how Alexander the Great, fighting at Issus, was injured in the thigh, though not seriously (Life of Alexander 20.4–5; cf. Arrian 2.12.1; see also Hammond 1993: 37), and Salazar discusses the importance of scenes of wounding in the narratives about Alexander as a historical figure and as a literary creation.13 Notably, in both historical fiction and non-fiction, it is nearly always kings and other persons of high status (such as generals) who incur thigh wounds, and often, as with Cambyses, these injuries precede their political downfalls if the wound is serious and causes major disability, illness, or (of course) death. As in epic, only infrequently do minor characters receive such injuries, and this dearth seems unusual given the hundreds of wounds in classical historiography. In the rare cases where minor individuals are wounded in the thigh, the authors may be intentionally assigning to them traits usually attributed to major characters (Salazar 2000: 155),14 as discussed below.

The reality of thigh wounds Certainly not every literary thigh wound symbolizes castration.15 Some of the injuries described in historical accounts must have been genuine, considering the armor that men wore in battle, which, over the centuries, usually consisted of greaves and corselets that left the thighs largely unprotected to facilitate movement.16 Quintilian even provides an anecdote about this: discussing the use of irony,

242  D. Felton he says, “A witness asserted that the accused attempted to wound him in the thigh . . . whereupon Caesar replied, ‘What else could he have done, when you had a helmet and breastplate?’” (Quid enim faceret, inquit, cum tu galeam et loricam haberes? 6.3.91). In many descriptions of thigh wounds, however, the narratives specify that the arrow or spear penetrated several layers of a shield and sometimes even a corselet as well before striking the thigh.17 Clearly, considerations of armor alone do not account for such literary patterns. Another practical consideration is medical reality: a cut to the femoral artery can cause death from blood loss in the space of just a few minutes. Yet quick deaths from thigh wounds are extremely rare in Greek and Roman literature,18 suggesting that most of these wounds do not involve severed femoral arteries. Somewhat more commonly, deep thigh wounds become seriously infected and turn fatal; evidence indicates, for example, that the Egyptian king Tutankhamun died from an infection that spread when he broke his left thigh severely enough for the bone to puncture the skin,19 and the British poet Sir Philip Sidney died of infection three weeks after being shot in the thigh during combat.20 The deadly gangrene that sometimes accompanies thigh wounds in significant historical figures such as Cambyses and Miltiades, however, is unusual. Various ancient medical treatises clearly state that the majority of patients suffering from such infections survived.21 Salazar (2000: 126), in her discussion of “wounding as a code,” explains: Even when the authors were rendering actual events—as we can sometimes assume for the material regarding Alexander the Great—the writing down of such descriptions was the result of a conscious choice between a large number of actual happenings . . . The inclusion of scenes of wounding in works of essentially non-medical literature was based on the idea that these scenes were a way of representing a heroic ideal. In short, the practical aspects of armor and anatomy do not explain the literary motif. Moreover, Homeric and Vergilian thigh wounds, which are seldom fatal, often foreshadow doom for their recipients and their people. Only rarely do heroic warriors recover from their thigh wounds and prosper.22 The long-term outlook for characters receiving femoral injuries is bleak; their roles as community leaders are compromised, endangering those communities, and very often their own family lines die out. Occurrences of the mutilated hero motif in Homer and Vergil demonstrates a significant difference between the physiological realities of thigh wounds and metaphorical literary interpretations of such injuries in literature.

Thigh wounds in Homeric epic One feature of Homer’s style is his anatomical precision when describing both fatal and non-fatal wounds (Adams 1980: 59). Yet, suspiciously, very few of the injuries the poet describes are located in the thigh.23 Such wounds in Homer seem reserved almost solely for major characters and usually signal a serious loss of individual and group status for the heroes involved.24 In Iliad 4.135–40, for example,

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  243 the Trojan Pandaros’ arrow injures the Greek Menelaus near the groin after first passing through his corselet and belt: διὰ μὲν ἂρ ζωστῆρος ἐλήλατο δαιδαλέοιο, καὶ διὰ θώρηκος πολυδαιδάλου ἠρήρειστο μίτρης θ’, ἣν ἐφόρει ἔρυμα χροὸς ἕρκος ἀκόντων, ἥ οἱ πλεῖστον ἔρυτο· διὰ πρὸ δὲ εἴσατο καὶ τῆς. ἀκρότατον δ’ ἄρ’ ὀϊστὸς ἐπέγραψε χρόα φωτός· αὐτίκα δ’ ἔρρεεν αἷμα κελαινεφὲς ἐξ ὠτειλῆς.25 And the arrow was driven through his engraved belt, and was thrust through his elaborate corselet and metal thigh-guard, which he wore as a defense for his flesh, as a barrier against missiles, and which was his main protection; but the arrow pierced even this, and grazed the surface of his skin. Immediately dark blood flowed from the wound.26 Despite the fact that the arrow causes only a flesh wound and does not nick a major artery, the narrative describes an impressive blood flow, the origin of which implies that the wound is in Menelaus’ thigh/groin region (Il. 4.146–7): Μενέλαε μιάνθην αἵματι μηροὶ εὐφυέες κνῆμαί τε ἰδὲ σφυρὰ κάλ’ ὑπένερθε. Menelaus, your supple thighs were stained with blood, and your calves and ankles below them. The attack, a breach of the ceasefire between the Greeks and Trojans, causes the fighting to resume. This superficial wound does not foreshadow Menelaus’ death, but he has the dubious honor of being the first hero in the poem whose blood is spilled (Neal 2006: 46), and his virility suffers in light of the gender reversal in the imagery, as Simms notes: “Menelaus has a flow of blood that is compared to that of a woman’s; in other words, menstrual blood,”27 as the blood pours over his thighs, shins, and ankles, and the simile in this passage compares the blood to the purple stain applied by an Asian craftswoman to an ivory cheek-piece for a horse—an extremely odd comparison that juxtaposes Menelaus with female work. Simms (2005) observes that this scene can also be interpreted as a mock castration: When Menelaus’s bloody wound is properly observed, it calls attention to itself as a mock castration or circumcision. The joke from Athena is to push the arrow down below his belt and then make it protrude as though he were sexually aroused, at the same time as it makes him bleed like a woman. Simms may be generalizing too much, as the simile does not explicitly compare Menelaus’ blood to menstrual blood. Nevertheless, Simms rightly notes that this passage feminizes Menelaus, diminishing his heroic status.

244  D. Felton Conversely, some scholars interpret Menelaus’ wound as a symbol of his importance, not impotence. Kirk, opining that the simile of the Asian craftswoman is “one of the most striking and unusual” in the Iliad, suggests that Menelaus’ “wellformed thighs and beautiful ankles reinforce the high valuation of Menelaus and the outrage of defiling him” (Kirk 1985: 245, 247). Similarly, Neal believes that “the simile accompanying the wound is suggestive of honour rather than disgrace . . . Menelaus’s blood is compared with an object of beauty and its colour invites comparison with, and evokes, royalty and heroic objects” (Neal 2006: 46–8). In short, Neal sees Menelaus’ blood functioning as a sort of military decoration.28 Neither Kirk’s nor Neal’s interpretation considers the physically significant location of Menelaus’ wound, however. Given the literary and folkloric context of thigh wounds, it is difficult not to see this particular injury as a reflection of Menelaus’ unfortunate status as the cuckolded husband of Helen. Also significant is the immediate dismayed reaction among the Greeks as a group: Agamemnon, for example, is convinced that Menelaus is dying, and imagines that despite his personal wish to take vengeance upon Troy, he will end up leading the Achaeans home while the Trojans dance about in triumph on Menelaus’ grave. This imagined reversal of fortune for the Greeks (in a self-pitying speech that says more about Agamemnon than about the actual situation) is temporary, lasting barely thirty lines (Il. 4.153–82) once Menelaus perceives that his wound is not fatal. He recovers sufficiently to continue fighting,29 but following the war he and Helen have no more children, and he never did produce a male heir with her—another aspect of the symbolic castration that is characteristic of the mutilated hero motif. Whereas Menelaus’ thigh wound does not anticipate a later, fatal injury, the next occurrence of such a wound apparently does. Second only to Hector as a warrior on the Trojan side, Sarpedon receives a grave injury to his left thigh (Il. 5.660–2): Τληπόλεμος δ’ ἄρα μηρὸν ἀριστερὸν ἔγχεϊ μακρῷ βεβλήκειν, αἰχμὴ δὲ διέσσυτο μαιμώωσα ὀστέω ἐγχριμφθεῖσα.30 Tlepolemus struck Sarpedon’s left thigh with his long spear, and the quivering tip pierced through, driven to the very bone. Physically, this wound is much more serious than Menelaus’. Sarpedon, though he manages to fatally spear Tlepolemus through the neck, is wounded so badly that his companions have to carry him off the field with the spear still stuck through his thigh, since they dare not take time to remove it. Much to his dismay, they leave him to rest under a tree, where he nearly dies. Spared on this occasion by the intervention of his father Zeus, he recovers (if very slowly), while his wound causes a crisis for the Trojan allies. Odysseus, furious at the death of Tlepolemus, turns his anger specifically against Sarpedon’s men, the Lycians. He quickly (in the space of two lines, Il. 5.677–8) kills seven of them in succession. He would have killed more had not Hector arrived and forced the Greeks back. In this case,

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  245 Sarpedon’s thigh wound, in addition to causing a crisis for his people, also presages his death at the hands of Patroclus (Il. 16.480 ff.). By Iliad 5, two major characters in the Iliad suffer significant thigh wounds. Aeneas, too, is wounded in the thigh, as discussed below. But why aren’t more major characters wounded in the thigh during all the fighting, and what happens to the minor characters in the Iliad who receive such wounds— Eurypylus (11.662), Amphiclus (16.313–16), and Areilycus (16.308)? Their cases, too, illustrate the Homeric treatment of this folkloric motif. Regarding Eurypylus, Salazar suggests that he has been given characteristics usually ascribed to major heroes “in order to make him significant enough for his role” (155), an important observation given that Eurypylus indeed figures more significantly in the narrative than most minor characters. Introduced as an Achaean ally and leader of the Thessalians (2.734–6), Eurypylus provides forty ships to the Achaean effort, a solid (if average) contingent. He appears among the foremost warriors of the Greeks on more than one occasion, being mentioned in the same breath with Diomedes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, the Ajaxes, and Idomeneus, all on the attack (8.265). Eurypylus appears again in the list of the greatest Achaeans already injured in battle, including Diomedes, Odysseus, and Agememnon (11.662; 16.27), having been wounded in the thigh by an arrow: βέβληται δὲ καὶ Εὐρύπυλος κατὰ μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ (“Eurypylus, too, [has been injured,] struck in the thigh by an arrow,” 11.662). Eurypylus’ thigh wound receives more attention in the narrative than any of the others and consequently seems particularly severe. The arrow has lodged deep in his thigh, causing him to limp haltingly from the battlefield, sweating from the pain, blood flowing (11.809–13): ἔνθά οἱ Εὐρύπυλος βεβλημένος ἀντεβόλησε διογενὴς Εὐαιμονίδης κατὰ μηρὸν ὀϊστῷ σκάζων ἐκ πολέμου· κατὰ δὲ νότιος ῥέεν ἱδρὼς ὤμων καὶ κεφαλῆς, ἀπὸ δ’ ἕλκεος ἀργαλέοιο αἷμα μέλαν κελάρυζε. There Eurypylus, the noble son of Euaemon, wounded in the thigh by an arrow, met him [Patroclus]. Eurypylus was limping off the battlefield, and streaming sweat poured from his shoulders and his head; from his painful wound gushed dark blood. Shortly afterward, Patroclus helps Eurypylus off the field and confers with him about the Greek losses, which have become severe in the face of Achilles’ absence and Hector’s onslaught. Eurypylus asks Patroclus to help treat his wound (11.829–31): μηροῦ δ’ ἔκταμ’ ὀϊστόν, ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ δ’ αἷμα κελαινὸν νίζ’ ὕδατι λιαρῷ, ἐπὶ δ’ ἤπια φάρμακα πάσσε ἐσθλά.

246  D. Felton Cut out the arrow from my thigh, and wash the dark blood from it with warm water, and sprinkle upon it gentle healing herbs. Patroclus complies, cutting the exceedingly sharp arrow from Eurypylus’ thigh with a knife (ἐκ μηροῦ τάμνε μαχαίρῃ | ὀξὺ βέλος περιπευκές, 11.844–5). Patroclus continues tending to Eurypylus’ wound (12.1–2, 15.390–4), and to a certain extent his friend’s grim injury seems to have been the last straw for Patroclus: sitting with Eurypylus and hearing the Trojans storming the Greek defensive walls, he has had enough of the Greek losses and determines to confront Achilles (15.395–404; 16.2ff.).31 In short, Eurypylus plays a small but crucial role in driving Patroclus to act. Holmes comments of Eurypylus that “his wound signals his own failure as one of the aristoi to protect the people” (Holmes 2007: 68), an interpretation that reflects the mutilated hero motif (if unintentionally; Holmes does not comment on the wound’s physical location). Eurypylus’ wound also has long-term consequences for the war, as his injured state inadvertently causes the death of Patroclus and the subsequent dire events. Perhaps for these reasons the thigh wound of a relatively minor character receives an unusual amount of attention in the narrative. Eurypylus himself recovers from his wound and survives the war. The Trojans Areilycus and Amphiclus, on the other hand, provide examples of minor characters whose thigh wounds probably reflect reality rather than metaphor. Areilycus, wounded in the thigh by Patroclus, falls to the ground (16.307–11): Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς αὐτίκ’ ἄρα στρεφθέντος Ἀρηϊλύκου βάλε μηρὸν ἔγχεϊ ὀξυόεντι, διὰ πρὸ δὲ χαλκὸν ἔλασσε· ῥῆξεν δ’ ὀστέον ἔγχος, ὃ δὲ πρηνὴς ἐπὶ γαίῃ κάππεσ’. The brave son of Menoetius struck Areilycus with his sharp spear, just as the fellow was turning to flee, and drove the bronze all the way through; the spear broke the bone, and Areilycus collapsed on the ground. The text implies that Areilycus dies. His thigh wound may represent the failure of his virility in the face of Patroclus’ attack, but as the character appears only here, and Patroclus cuts down many dozens of Trojans during his aristeia, we need not overthink this minor individual’s demise. The same applies in the case of Amphiclus, fatally injured when the Greek Meges spears him at the thigh-hip joint (16.314–16): ἔφθη ὀρεξάμενος πρυμνὸν σκέλος, ἔνθα πάχιστος μυὼν ἀνθρώπου πέλεται· περὶ δ’ ἔγχεος αἰχμῇ νεῦρα διεσχίσθη· τὸν δὲ σκότος ὄσσε κάλυψε. [Meges] anticipated [Amphiclus’ attack], hitting the joint of his leg, where a man’s muscles are thickest; and around the spear-point the sinews were severed; and darkness covered his eyes.

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  247 Saunders analyzes this wound in anatomical detail, pointing out the difficulties in identifying the unspecified muscles, but agrees that for a wound like this to cause death the femoral artery would have to be severed (Saunders 1999: 359–61). The same was probably true for Areilycus: when his femur broke, the bone must have sliced the femoral artery. The apparent “sudden death” of Amphiclus has bothered a number of scholars, who note that it would have taken a few minutes to bleed out from a peripheral wound like this, but nothing in the text indicates that Amphiclus died immediately from this injury—only that he died.32 (Moreover, such exsanguination still happens quite quickly in comparison with many other battle deaths.) Unlike Areilycus, Amphiclus meets his death at the hands of another minor character.33 Of course, given the vast number of wounds inflicted during the fighting in the Iliad, some of them will not be metaphorically significant, even for major characters. When Agamemnon, during his own aristeia, is wounded in the arm (11.251–3), the injury does not seem particularly meaningful. Coön’s spear pierces him below his elbow, but Agamemnon ignores the damage, fighting even as his blood flows. He feels no pain until the wound dries—at which point we might wonder why the king’s wound was in his arm rather than his thigh (11.267–70, 72): αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ τὸ μὲν ἕλκος ἐτέρσετο, παύσατο δ’ αἷμα, ὀξεῖαι δ’ ὀδύναι δῦνον μένος Ἀτρεΐδαο. ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ἂν ὠδίνουσαν ἔχῃ βέλος ὀξὺ γυναῖκα δριμύ, τό τε προϊεῖσι μογοστόκοι Εἰλείθυιαι . . . ὣς ὀξεῖ’ ὀδύναι δῦνον μένος Ἀτρεΐδαο. But when the wound dried, and the bleeding stopped, jabbing pains struck Agamemnon’s strength. Just as when a sharp shaft pierces a woman during childbirth, a piercing torment that the goddesses of birth-pangs send, . . . so keen were the agonies afflicting the strength of Agamemnon. The simile of giving birth is surprising in this context, akin in this respect to the one comparing Menelaus’ blood to the purple stain used by an Asian craftswoman. Hainsworth suggests, “The immediate point of the simile is to affirm that Agamemnon’s body is racked with pain, but there is an inescapable irony at several levels of the description. The great effort of the King of Men ends with his being rushed off to his surgeons like a woman to her accouchement—but like a woman none the less” (Hainsworth 1993: 254–5). Agamemnon’s injury notably has little effect on the action: Hector sees an opportunity to slaughter the Greeks, but they rally quickly, and Agamemnon’s wound bears little significance compared to so many others. Agamemnon is one of the few major characters who does not suffer a thigh wound in the Iliad. Hector is another. Given that Neoptolemus later wipes out Hector’s family line (by killing Astyanax) along with most of the Trojans, it might seem surprising that, if the mutilated hero motif is so important for an individual and his community, the greatest Trojan warrior dies from a neck wound without even incurring a preliminary thigh injury. Achilles’ spear pierces Hector just

248  D. Felton above the collar bone (22.326–7).34 As noted previously, the neck was the only part of the body, aside from the thigh, that was unprotected by armor. Exposed between the helmet and shield, the neck was a very frequent site of fatal wounds in battle (especially decapitation). In fact, next to torso injuries (including the gut, chest, back, and side), injuries to the neck and head occur most frequently in Homeric epic. Hector’s particular neck wound, though, allows for a drawn-out and dramatic death: the text specifies that Hector’s windpipe was not cut (22.328), so he can still gasp out a few last words to plead (in vain) for a proper burial. Thus, not every major character must suffer a significant thigh wound—even when his circumstances and those of his group might relate to the mutilated hero. Moreover, the oral tradition that produced the Iliad was probably less conscious of this folkloric motif than literary tradition would become, allowing for more realism regarding the frequency of thigh wounds to minor characters. Overall, however, thigh wounds in the Iliad are suggestive more often than not. Consider, for example, Iliad 5.305–7, where Diomedes hurls a boulder at Aeneas that crushes his hip-thigh joint:35 τῷ βάλεν Αἰνείαο κατ’ ἰσχίον ἔνθά τε μηρὸς ἰσχίῳ ἐνστρέφεται, κοτύλην δέ τέ μιν καλέουσι· θλάσσε δέ οἱ κοτύλην, πρὸς δ’ ἄμφω ῥῆξε τένοντε.36 He struck Aeneas’ hip, where the thigh-bone turns in the pelvis–what men call the “cup” or hollow hip-socket—and crushed the joint there, and also both tendons. In an episode that diminishes Aeneas as a hero, he faints from the extreme pain and would have died then and there (5.311) if his mother Aphrodite had not rescued him. It is embarassing for him to be carried off the battlefield by his mother, a disgrace compounded when Aphrodite clumsily (and perhaps even humorously) drops him after Diomedes stabs her hand (5.343). Three deities, Apollo, Leto, and Artemis, care for Aeneas while Aphrodite tends to her own wound, and he remains absent from the narrative for some time. No immediate crisis arises for the Trojans, and this thigh wound presents fewer of the characteristics of the mutilated hero motif than several of the others, but this may relate to the fact that he was struck by a boulder rather than pierced by a spear or arrow.37 When Vergil modifies Homer, he chooses an arrow to wound his central character in an extended episode that centers on Aeneas’ destiny as father of the Roman people.

Thigh wounds in Vergil’s Aeneid Although he drew heavily on Homeric epic for the Aeneid, Vergil rarely indicates the site of a wound in the same level of detail as Homer. Sometimes, in a catalogue of slayings “the wounds are not described at all.”38 This reticence suggests that when Vergil specifies thigh wounds in the poem we should take notice: femoral injuries occur almost solely to major characters. Perhaps the

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  249 most important example comes when Aeneas himself is hit by an arrow during the battle with the Rutulians (12.319–23), though Vergil never explicitly states where the arrow strikes.39 At 12.386, however, Vergil describes Aeneas as limping, leaning on his spear for support (alternos longa nitentem cuspide gressus).40 Later, Aeneas has trouble running after Turnus because his knees are slowed by the arrow wound (tardata sagitta genua . . . impediunt, 12.746–7). Many scholars assume that the arrow struck Aeneas in the thigh, a conclusion supported by a wall painting from Pompeii showing the wounded Aeneas being treated by the doctor Iapyx (Figure 14.1).41 Thus, at least one painter (and/or his client) believed Aeneas’s wound was in the thigh. This is a reasonable conclusion based on the text. But why didn’t Vergil specify the site of such an important wound, especially when he did not hesitate to indicate the exact location of significant wounds inflicted on other major characters in his epic, such as Mezentius and Turnus (as discussed below)?

Figure 14.1  The doctor Iapyx tending to Aeneas’ thigh wound, with Aeneas’ son Ascanius and Venus looking on. Fresco from Pompeii, first century ce; ©Alfredo Dagli Orti/The Art Archive at Art Resource, NY, used with permission.

250  D. Felton Scholars generally interpret Aeneas’ wound and its treatment as being modeled on Iliad 4.190ff. where Machaon, a battlefield surgeon, treats the wounded Menelaus (Noonan 1997: 374; Nadeau 2004: 127–41). Menelaus’ wound, however, was superficial, whereas the significantly more serious injury Diomedes inflicts on Aeneas at Iliad 5.305–7 provides a better model for Aeneas’ wound in Aeneid 12. Along with 4.190ff, Iliad 5.305–7 helps explain why Vergil omits mention of the thigh as the site where Aeneas was struck: the poet expected his readers to recognize the Homeric model. Several Greek vase paintings illustrating the fight between Diomedes and Aeneas also support the parallel with 5.305–7, as they show the former wounding the latter not with a boulder but with a spear aimed at the Trojan’s thigh.42 Homer provides the only known literary description of this fight, so such visual depictions suggest that another tradition existed alongside Homer’s, one in which the more common battle wound—a spear thrust—prevailed.43 Vergil may also have modeled Aeneas’ wound on the injury inflicted upon the hero’s father Anchises, lamed by one of Zeus’s thunderbolts after boasting of his union with Aphrodite (as discussed above). The description of the anonymous arrow that wounds Aeneas underscores the parallel: the hissing arrow comes through the air out of nowhere, like a lighting bolt. Vergil emphasizes the fact that no one comes forward to claim the victory and implies that divine interference was partially responsible for where the arrow landed (casusne deusne, 12.321).44 Aeneas’ injury is not the only thigh wound in the Aeneid. Two other major combatants also receive such wounds, and in these instances the non-fatal femoral wounds precede death blows.45 The first case, that of Mezentius, makes clear the symbolic connection between thighs and virility. At 10.785–6, Aeneas hurls a spear that strikes Mezentius in the groin (the Latin inguen). At 10.856–7, Mezentius raises himself onto his “injured thigh” (aegrum femur), his progress slowed by the deep wound (alto vulnere, 857). In this case, as in examples from the Iliad, the spear passes through multiple layers of his shield—bronze, linen, and ox-hide— before piercing his groin.46 Mezentius drags himself to rest under a tree, paralleling the Sarpedon episode in Iliad 5. Although not fatally wounded, Mezentius soon becomes symbolically barren: his son Lausus rushes in to fight Aeneas, who easily kills the young man, ending the family line (10.796 and 814–20). Mezentius, at times called “despiser of the gods” (contemptor divum, e.g., 7.648), next suffers mixtoque insania luctu, indicating both physical and mental distress (10.871).47 Vergil emphasizes the father’s agony, lending Mezentius a sympathy the reader did not previously feel for him: he cries that killing his son “was the only way you could destroy me” (haec via sola fuit qua perdere posses, 10.879). Soon after, Aeneas kills Mezentius with a sword blow to the throat.48 Mezentius’ grief for his son and courage when facing death allow the reader to admire him as Book 10 comes to a close, while also demonstrating the metaphorical power of the thigh-wound motif. The pattern of Mezentius’ death scene repeats in even greater complexity at the end of Book 12 (Harrison 1997: 284), where we find the other noteworthy thigh wound in the Aeneid: the one Aeneas inflicts on Turnus. In a scene that both parallels and inverts Iliad 5.305–7, Turnus casts a huge boulder at Aeneas but, unlike Diomedes in the Homeric scene, misses his target (12.896-902).49 In response,

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  251 Aeneas throws his spear, which—as with Mezentius—passes through several layers of Turnus’ shield before penetrating the middle of Turnus’ thigh (per medium stridens transit femur, 12.926).50 This wound, like that of Mezentius, is not instantly fatal, but cripples Turnus. Previously positioned to marry Lavinia and engender the Italian race, Turnus now realizes and tries to mitigate his situation, conceding “tua est Lavinia coniunx” (12.937). His concession comes too late. Aeneas kills Turnus, who himself had ended Evander’s line by killing Pallas, the king’s only son.51 Significantly, Aeneas wounds Turnus in the thigh before killing him, symbolizing the failure of Turnus’ sexual aggression and the end of his family line.52 In the cases of Mezentius and Turnus, the thigh wounds preceding their fatal injuries indicate a crisis for the people they represent. These individual men do not merely die; they leave no progeny.53 This contrasts with the circumstances surrounding Aeneas’ mysterious (thigh) wound, which, treated in vain by Iapyx, heals instead with help from his mother Venus and in the company of his son Ascanius. Aeneas remains as the only main character in a position to continue the population of Italy.54 The presence of his family and the miraculous healing of a sexually symbolic wound bode well for his future as the father of Silvius and, through him, of the Roman people. In the Aeneid, we see the pattern of a longstanding folklore motif involving sexually suggestive thigh wounds, and in the context of this tradition Vergil did not need to specify the site of Aeneas’ wound.

Conclusion Both the Iliad and Aeneid reflect an awareness, however subconscious, of the mutilated hero motif, and both employ the motif for dramatic effect. Vergil’s Aeneid especially demonstrates a deliberate manipulation and subversion of this folkloric theme, which the author uses to fortify Aeneas’ reputation and qualifications as the ancestor of Rome. The multiple examples discussed here suggest that most thigh wounds in these epics, while not fatal in and of themselves, metaphorically indicate physical, political, or spiritual impotence, even when the injured party recovers and no permanent crisis overtakes the group of people he represents. When the thigh wounds portend fatal injuries, as in the cases of Sarpedon, Mezentius, and Turnus, we find that their people, as a community, suffer serious, irreparable blows as well. Although thigh wounds were clearly a reality, especially during war, even as early as Homeric epic such wounds often symbolized loss of virility and all that the word encompasses—manliness, strength, leadership, fertility. By Vergil’s time, the metaphorical use of thigh wounds to signal a man’s weakness, impotence, and infertility was well entrenched in literary tradition.

Notes   1 The two main works that discuss thigh wounds in classical literature are Gillis’ 1983 Freudian study on the Aeneid and Felton’s 2014 paper on the mutilated hero in Herodotus.   2 Though generally referred to as a “motif,” it has not been formally incorporated in specific motif indexes (such as Uther’s 2004 revision of Thompson). Intentional self-mutilation of the thigh carries the same symbolism. See Jobes 1961: 1556; also de Vries 1974: 461.

252  D. Felton   3 Burkert observes, “The thigh wound stands in relation to castration and death,” but emphasizes this relationship specifically in the context of initiations (1985: 165). Hays provides the most complete treatment of the symbolism of thigh wounds in literature, noting that “a disproportionate number of figures in Greek mythology were either lame, like Hephaestus and Oedipus, or met death through a leg wound, as did Achilles, Paris, Cheiron, and Eurydice” (Hays 1971: 3). Hays focuses on modern literature, however, and his discussion of characters from classical antiquity is limited. For another study of the motif in modern literature, see Fledderus 1997.   4 Other characters in the Grail legends receive thigh wounds at moments of spiritual crisis: Sir Perceval, for example, after nearly succumbing to Satan, pierces his own left thigh in the belief that he is unworthy in the sight of God, while Sir Lancelot receives a thigh wound because he has transgressed sexually by having an affair with Guinevere, the wife of his king. See Matarasso 1969: 12; also Hays 1971: 17–21 and 64–6. Jessie Weston hypothesized that the Grail legend arose from pagan vegetation rituals, and that the Fisher King and his barren land were originally related to the Greek cults of Adonis and Attis (Weston 1920: 48), but her theory has not been widely accepted among medievalists. Nevertheless, both Adonis and Attis, associated with the Great Goddess, are wounded in the groin—Adonis in a boar hunt and Attis via self-mutilation—and the barrenness of these characters is sometimes also associated with the change of seasons (see below). Other Grail scholars believe that the character of the Fisher King was derived from the biblical Jacob (Holmes and Klenke 1959: 102–3; Jung and von Franz 1971: 211): an example of the connection between a wound to the thigh and a loss of virility appears in the story of Jacob and the angel, Genesis 32:24–32. The angel “touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.” Jacob is crippled (the text does not specify whether his limp is temporary or permanent), and the incident shows Jacob that his strength lay in faith and prayer, not physical force (see also Hays 1971: 24). Other examples from Semitic literature include Samson, who smites the Philistines “hip and thigh” (Judges 15:8); Burkert mentions a Hebrew idiom “sprung from my thigh” meaning “my son” (1985: 413); and, in general, in the Old Testament swearing with the hand placed “under the thigh” means swearing by one’s progeny, a connection reflected in Indo-European examples as well, such as the etymology testis = > both “testicle” and “testimony” (see, e.g., de Vries 1974: 461; Hays 1971: 11–12).   5 See Hays 1971: 15–16, Daniels 2006: 34, Dean-Jones 1991: 128, and Giacomelli 1980: 12–13. Such theories might have arisen in part trying to explain the birth of Athena from Zeus’s head. But regarding impotence and castration, wounds to the head have not carried the same symbolic significance as thigh wounds with their physical proximity to the male reproductive organs.   6 Onians 1951: 182–5, also noting the significance of “smiting” one’s thigh. For the importance of thighbones as a main part of the sacrificial animal especially reserved as an offering to God/the gods, see Hays 1971: 11–14. Euripides, Bacchae 96, κατὰ μηρῷ, provides an example of the Dionysus tale. For an in-depth discussion, see Leitao 2012: 58–99, esp. 93–4. Lucian mocks the “pregnant male” myth when describing the anatomy and physiology of the Moon Men in his Vera Historia, explaining that the Selenites (who are all men and do not even know what women are) conceive and carry their children in the calves of their legs (ἐν ταῖς γαστροκνημίαις, 1.22); see also Georgiadou and Larmour 1998: 123–31).   7 See Slattery 2000: 52–4; Hays 1971: 64. The Mysian king Telephus’ life in some ways paralleled that of Oedipus, as Telephus, too, was exposed as a child and, in some versions of the myth, commits a sexual transgression by unintentionally marrying his mother. Achilles injures him in the thigh, and only rust from the spear that wounded Telephus can cure him (Apollodorus, Bib. 2.54 and Epit. 3.17–20; Gantz 1993: 23). See also Majno 1975: 371; Vernant 1982: 19–25; and Ginzburg 1991: 226–38, on LéviStrauss’s analysis of mythic and ritual lameness.

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  253   8 Eteocles and Polynices kill each other, and Antigone is buried alive by Creon. Ismene’s fate is less clear; what little ancient evidence exists suggests that she was killed before having a family of her own.   9 Adonis’ fate also associates Aphrodite with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth connected with the change of seasons, because (among other things) he is changed into an anemone (life from death); see Ovid, Met. 10.519–59 and 708–39. Cybele, Aphrodite’s eastern counterpart, causes the self-castration of Attis (e.g., Catullus 63; also Gillis 1983: 90 n. 8). Burkert remarks, “The myths tell over and over of the favorite of the Great Mother being wounded in the thigh” (1972: 160). Other characters from Greek myth wounded in boar hunts include Ankaios (Philostratus the Younger, Imagines 15), Eurytides (Ovid, Met. 8.371), and Odysseus. Rubin and Sale 1983 argue that Odysseus’ wound is a mark of valor, not weakness, given that Odyssey 19.449–50 describes his injury as part of his initiation into manhood. Yet it is also the scar from this wound that later betrays Odysseus, allowing Eurykleia to recognize him. In this context, the wound might be seen as a liability, but it is also possible—since Homer does not use the word “thigh” to describe Odysseus’ wound—that the poet intentionally wanted to avoid describing a thigh wound because of its symbolic connection with impotence. The phrase in the Odyssey is γουνὸς ὕπερ, whereas in all the other cases under discussion here the Greek μηρός or the Latin femur is used; but see Onians 1951: 174–86 and Hays 1971: 16–17 on the relationship of knees to thighs in this context. Similarly, compare the Homeric loosening of the knees in description of sex and of dying. Also, unlike most of the other characters wounded in boar hunts, Odysseus does not die of his injury. See also Slattery’s detailed discussion of Odysseus’ scar as the embodiment of his identity (2000: 21–49). From a practical point of view, it is not surprising that a hunter wounded by a boar would be wounded in the groin, given that a wild boar would be just below a man’s waist level. 10 In the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Anchises fears he will be left impotent: “No man stays strong who sleeps with immortal goddesses” (οὐ βιοθάλμιος ἀνὴρ γίγνεται, ὅς τε θεαῖς εὐνάζεται ἀθανάτῃσι, 189–90). At 188, Anchises asks Aphrodite not to leave him living ἀμενηνὸν among men; Giacomelli, in her extended discussion of μένος, argues that in doing so Anchises is “voicing a fear of lifelong impotence” (1980: 16). 11 The story may have been told in the Iliupersis of Arktinos, according to Smith 1981: ad 129, but the evidence is actually quite scanty. The earliest surviving source to say that Anchises was struck by lightning is Sophocles (in a fragment of the lost Laocoön) and Vergil ascribes Anchises’ physical disability to a thunderbolt from Zeus (Aen. 2.648–9). Hyginus specifies the connection between the thunderbolt and Anchises’ boast about having had sex with Aphrodite (Gantz 1993: 102). 12 Weerdenberg 1985: 467, without discussion of the possible significance of the wounds’ location. 13 Salazar 2000: 184–208; on the medical and thematic aspects of Alexander’s thigh wound in particular, 193–4. 14 Not until Nonnos’ Dionysiaca do we see a plethora of minor characters wounded in the thigh (e.g., 29.76ff., 30.45ff., 32.204ff.). 15 And not every type of wound symbolizes castration, though there are certainly other wounds and mutilations that can be interpreted as such. Eye-gouging, for example— particularly self-inflicted eye-gouging—has been connected with sexual guilt and seen as metaphorical for castration, as in the case of Oedipus. 16 See Salazar 2000: 231. The neck, which was also unguarded between the helmet and shield, was a much more frequent site of fatal wounds in battle. See discussion below. 17 See, for example, Herodotus 9.22.2, where the Athenians have difficulty killing Masistius because of his corslet, so one soldier aims for his face instead. 18 See Saunders 1999: 359–602, citing even ancient skepticism about the “sudden deaths” in Homer, such as Amphiclus’ thigh wound (Il. 16.313–16). See below. 19 See Youssef 2005; Tutankhamun died ca. 1323 bce.

254  D. Felton 20 At the Battle of Zutphen, Netherlands, 1586. Sidney was not wearing his cuisses (plate thigh defenses). The unfortunate fashion at the time was to discard non-essential armor components on the battlefield, according to Thom Richardson, Keeper of Armour and Oriental Collections, Royal Armouries, Leeds, UK (personal correspondence, August 5, 2013). Death from infected thigh wounds still occurs occasionally: in 2005, a woman on Maui died from a combination of staphylococcus and streptococcus bacteria that had infected a scratch on her thigh (Kutoba, June 1, 2005). 21 E.g., the Hippocratic On Joints (69) and On Fractures (19), which describe how a fracture of the thigh bone can cause abscesses and necrosis if not properly treated. But see Salazar 2000: 30–4; also Majno 1975: 152 and 400—the latter analyzing a case history from Galen about a gladiator wounded in the thigh. 22 Vernant 1982: 26–34 discusses the significance of lameness in relationship to bad rulers in Herodotus, but does not specifically discuss thigh wounds. 23 Neal 2006, in her study on non-fatal wounds in the Iliad, does not discuss the possible significance of the location of the wounds. 24 This is also significant because most of the wounds in the Iliad are fatal (Friedrich 2003: 134; also Salazar 2000: 129). Most of them result from spear or sword thrusts to various parts of the torso (gut, chest, back, side), with a large number of fatal wounds also delivered to the head and neck. As Neal notes, most of the victims of grisly injuries are Trojan (Neal 2006: 206 n. 49). 25 Kirk 1985: 344 notes, “Neither the ζωστήρ (belt or girdle) nor the μίτηρ . . . are well understood;” that is, it remains unclear as to which parts of the torso and/or upper legs they might have protected. My translation of μίτηρ as “thigh-guard” reflects the theory that it might have been an early form of metal apron hanging down from the belt to protect the upper leg (Kirk 1985: 345). 26 All Greek text is quoted from the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Latin quotations are from www.perseus.org. Translations are my own. 27 Simms 2005. On the literary effect of descriptions of bleeding, see also Holmes 2007: 60, though she does not comment specifically on thigh wounds. 28 In this respect, Menelaus’ wound can be compared to Odysseus’ (n. 9, above). 29 Menelaus’ aristeia comes much later, in Book 17, when he retrieves Patroclus’ corpse from the battlefield. 30 Both this and Aeneas’ thigh wound, discussed below, are considered medically problematic (Friedrich 2003: 158; also Salazar 2000: 143). 31 It is worth noting that, in his moment of decision, Patroclus slaps both of his thighs with the palms of his hands (15.397–8), a gesture of virility (cf. n. 6 above). 32 As Saunders 1999: 361 points out, “Homer’s victims seem to expire immediately or almost so. It is a convention, and another price he pays for rapidity,” and the apparent suddenness should not bother us. But this episode is also an example of how narratives must sometimes be condensed: not every single warrior’s death can be explicated in minute detail. Note that the word μηρός does not figure in the description of Amphiclus’ wound, whereas it appears prominently in the other cases under analysis here: possibly the author (consciously or not) did not intend to connect this minor character with the mutilated hero motif. 33 Another fatal injury along these lines is that incurred by the Greek Leucus, speared in the groin (βουβών) by Antiphus (4.492). 34 There may be sexual undertones here. De Jong 2012: 139 comments only, “The place of Hector’s fatal wounding much resembles that of Teucer at 8.325–7, who is, however, merely hit by a stone (thrown by Hector) and survives.” 35 A particularly unrealistic episode, given the size and velocity of the rock needed to cause such an injury (Friedrich 2003: 17, 135, and 157). 36 Cf. Kirk 1990: 92. 37 Neal argues that the circumstances in which Aeneas sustains his injury are noble and may actually highlight his heroic worth rather than indicating a loss of virility, given

Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  255 that he was defending Pandarus’ corpse and challenging Diomedes at the time (2006: 133–4). But Neal does not sufficiently address Aeneas’ post-injury status. 38 Adams 1980: 59, continuing, “Alternatively, they may be located by a single (often blanket) term (the chest, head, flank, and throat are favoured sites).” 39 Tarrant 2012: 169 observes only that, “By offering no details of A.’s wound, V.’s narrative exercises a suppression parallel to that of the name of the perpetrator in the following lines,” i.e., the focus is on the arrow’s flight rather than on the shooter or where the arrow lands. 40 Tarrant 2012: 187–9 suggests that the reader cannot deduce or should not assume where Aeneas’ wound was located, despite acknowledging the painting from Casa di Sirico that depicts Aeneas’ wound as being in his right thigh; see below. 41 Greenwood (1989), for example, assumes Aeneas’ wound is in the thigh. Interestingly, at 10.778, Mezentius aims at Aeneas, but the arrow deflects off his helmet and pierces Antores between his side and his groin (latus inter et ilia figit). On this, Anderson 2006: 162 remarks, “Antores dies of the wound, but Vergil has no interest in emasculating him, just killing him in a vivid manner.” Although medical writers specifically thought of the ilia as arteries in the lower abdomen, the word was frequently used more loosely than inguen and often indicated the sides of the lower belly (Adams 1982: 50–1). The painting, in the fourth Pompeiian style from the Casa di Sirico, first century ce, now resides in the Museo Nazionale Archeologico in Naples. Salazar 2000: 223 notes that the detail of having Aeneas stand while Iapyx attempts to extract the arrow from his thigh is “hardly a likely position for having a leg wound treated in real life,” which also supports a more symbolic interpretation of the episode. Compare Il. 11.844, where Patroclus makes Eurypylus lie down for medical treatment of his thigh wound, and see also Majno 1975: 150–3. 42 For example, the red-figure vase by the Tyskeiwicz Painter, ca. 480 bce (Boston MFA 97.368, ARV 2, 290, 1). See Carpenter 1991: 202 for further examples. Also on the artistic representations of this duel, see Galinsky 1969: 15, 28–9, and 127; Snodgrass 1998: 121–2 and 131. Pasquier 1992: 128 notes that the episode from the Aeneid is rarely illustrated, as opposed to the scene from Iliad 5.305–6. 43 It may also, of course, simply reflect a tradition in art that heroes fought with spears, not boulders. The latter was characteristic of the Giants, as in Gigantomachy scenes. Other giant-like beings such as the Cyclops and Laestrygonians also hurl boulders (e.g., in the Roman frescoes known as the Odyssey Landscapes, ca. 60–40 bce, currently housed in the Vatican museums). But cf. Carpenter 1991: plate 305, which depicts the duel between Ajax and Hector from Iliad 7.224–71, including the boulder Ajax hurls at Hector. 44 The scene also has descriptive parallels with the Pandaros episode described above, as Tarrant 2012: 169 also notes. Tarrant points out that the anonymity of the shooter deprives anyone of the ability to boast of the deed, and keeps the spotlight on Turnus as Aeneas’ main adversary. 45 As with Sarpedon in the Iliad. 46 Cf. Aen. 10.588–9, where Aeneas’ spear passes through the lowest rim of Lucagus’ shield and pierces the left side of his groin: subit oras hasta per imas | fulgentis clipei, tum laevum perforat inguen. Lucagus dies from this wound (10.590); the spear must have severed his femoral artery. Aeneas also kills Lucagus’ brother Liger (10.601). The implication in line 600 is that Aeneas kills the only two male offspring in this family. 47 Madness is also associated with the thigh wounds of Cambyses and Cleomenes (Felton 2014: 52 and 55; Pafford 2011: 27). On the death of Mezentius, see also Thome 1979: 83–93. Harrison 1997: 277 notes that insania “is used of anger like furor, on the lines of the common and particularly Stoic view that anger is madness.” 48 iugulo, 10.907. This death wound thus relates to other fatal neck wounds as discussed above, but also, as Harrison 1997: 283 notes, has a “gladiatorial flavour: the severing of the iugulum is the classic method of dispatch in the arena.”

256  D. Felton 49 Gillis 1983: 100 points out that Roman boundary stones, such as the one Turnus throws, were “frequently phallic in shape,” and that Turnus’ missing his target may represent his sexual incompetence and “inadequacy to found a new race.” 50 Tarrant 2012 does not comment on the location of Turnus’ wound. 51 And gloated about it. See Gillis 1983: 101. 52 This concept is also implied in lines 12.932–5 (miseri te si qua parentis | tangere cura potest, oro (fuit et tibi talis | Anchises genitor), Dauni miserere senectae | et me). Gillis 1983, too, points out the significance of Turnus’ dying unmarried (98), and on the thigh wound inflicted by Aeneas remarks with great Freudian enthusiasm, “Aeneas, seizing his opportunity in Turnus’ hesitation, fires his mighty shaft; it penetrates all resistance and wounds him in the thigh—symbol of his genitalia . . . Aeneas’ ejaculation surpasses its military and cosmic opponents; and the challenge of his sexual rival is over in this sinking, in the wilting of Turnus’ weaker manhood” (101). On the death of Turnus, see also Thome 1979: 251–9, with parallels to the death of Mezentius. Gillis’ analysis of the thigh-wound imagery from a Freudian point of view includes a discussion of Vergil’s use of phallic imagery, comprising not only the boundary stone mentioned above, but Turnus’ brandishing his “trembling spear” (hastam . . . trementem, 12.93–4) and the comparison of various characters to bulls, pointing out that “The bull is, of course, the prime symbol of masculine vigor and sexual potency in many cultures” (Gillis 1983: 92–4). 53 This pattern also appears in the myth of Heracles and Cycnus, for example. Cycnus, son of Ares, made a living robbing travellers. When he attempted to rob Heracles, the hero killed Cycnus with an instantly fatal blow to the neck. Ares tried to avenge his son, but Heracles wounded Ares in the thigh and he limped away, unable either to save or avenge his son (Hesiod, Aspis 457–62). 54 See Aen. 6.763–6 and 781–4. Gillis 1983 remarks that the duel between Turnus and Aeneas is “over sexual-territorial rights, Lavinia and her kingdom” (92) and points out, “Dido was cheated of a son; Pallas and Turnus, of both marriage-bed and progeny. Aeneas is the only winner; when he consummates his marriage to Lavinia, his son Silvius will be born” (107). Hays 1971: 24 notes that Aeneas goes on to become the father of Rome, just as Jacob was the father of Israel.

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Thigh wounds in Homer and Vergil  257 Dundes, A. (1962), “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Grail,” Literature and Psychology 12: 101–12. Felton, D. (2014), “The Motif of the ‘Mutilated Hero’ in Herodotus,” Phoenix 68.1–2: 47–61. Fledderus, B. (1997), “‘The English Patient Reposed in His Bed Like a [Fisher?] King’: Elements of Grail Romance in Ondaatje’s The English Patient,” Studies in Canadian Literature 22.1: 19–54. Friedrich, W.-H. (2003), Wounding and Death in the Iliad, translated by P. Jones and G. Wright, London: Duckworth. Galinsky, G.K. (1969), Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gantz, T. (1993), Early Greek Myth, Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Georgiadou, A. and D.H.J. Larmour (1998), Lucian’s Science Fiction Novel True Histories: Interpretation and Commentary, Leiden: Brill. Giacomelli, A. (1980), “Aphrodite and After,” Phoenix 34.1: 1–19. Gillis, D. (1983), Eros and Death in the Aeneid, Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider. Ginzburg, C. (1991), Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath, New York: Pantheon Books. Greenwood, M.A. (1989), “Venus Intervenes. Five Episodes in the Aeneid,” Liverpool Classical Monthly 14: 132–6. Hainsworth, B. (1993), The Iliad: A Commentary, Volume III: Books 9–12, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hammond, N.G.L. (1993), Sources for Alexander the Great: An Analysis of Plutarch’s Life and Arrian’s Anabasis Alexandrou, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrison, S.J. (1997), Vergil: Aeneid 10, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Hays, P.L. (1971), The Limping Hero: Grotesques in Literature, New York: New York University Press. Holmes, B. (2007), “The Iliad’s Economy of Pain,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 137.1: 46–84. Holmes, U.T., and M.A. Klenke (1959), Chrétien, Troyes, and the Grail, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Jobes, G. (1961), Dictionary of Mythology, Folklore, and Symbols, Vol. 2, New York: Scarecrow Press. Jung, E. and M.-L. von Franz (1971), The Grail Legend, translated by A. Dykes, London: Hodder and Stoughton. Kirk, G.S. (1985), The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. I: Books 1–4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —— (1990), The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. II: Books 5–8. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kutoba, G.T. (2005), “Staph and Strep Led to Death on Maui,” Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 1. Leitao, D.D. (2012), The Pregnant Male as Myth and Metaphor in Classical Greek Literature, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Majno, G. (1975), The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Matarasso, P.M. (1969), The Quest of the Holy Grail, New York: Penguin Books. Nadeau, Y. (2004), Safe and Subsidized: Vergil and Horace Sing Augustus, Brussels: Latomus. Neal, T. (2006), The Wounded Hero: Non-Fatal Injury in Homer’s Iliad, Bern: Peter Lang.

258  D. Felton Noonan, J.D. (1997), “The Iapyx Episode of Aeneid 12 and Medical Tales in Myth and Mythography,” Phoenix 51.3-4: 374–92. Onians, R.B. (1951), The Origins of European Thought about the Body, the Mind, the Soul, the World, Time, and Fate, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pafford, I. (2011), “Madness, Self-Mutilation, and the Body Politic in Herodotus,” The Ancient World 42: 24–33. Pasquier, B. (1992), Virgile illustré de la renaissance à nos jours en France et en Italie, Paris: Touzot. Rubin, N.F. and W.M. Sale (1983), “Meleager and Odysseus: A Structural and Cultural Study of the Greek Hunting-Maturation Myth,” Arethusa 16.1–2: 137–71. Salazar, C.F. (2000), The Treatment of War Wounds in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Leiden: Brill, Studies in Ancient Medicine, Vol. 21. Saunders, K.B. (1999), “The Wounds in Iliad 13–16,” Classical Quarterly New Series 49.2: 345–63. Simms, N. (2005), “The Healing of Aeneas and Menelaus: Wound-Healers in Ancient Greek and Classical Roman Medicine.” http://www.geocities.com/psychohistory2001/ Healing_of_Aeneas.html. Accessed September 21, 2015. Slattery, D.P. (2000), The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh, Albany: State University of New York Press. Smith, P. (1981), Nursling of Mortality: A Study of the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite, Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Snodgrass, A. (1998), Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tarrant, R. (ed.) (2012), Virgil Aeneid Book XII, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thome, G. (1979), Gestalt und Funktion des Mezentius bei Vergil—mit einem Ausblick auf die Schlußszene der Aeneis, Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Uther, H.-J. (2004), The Types of International Folktale: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antii Aarne and Stith Thompson, Helsinki: Academia Scientiarum Fennica. Vernant, J.-P. (1982), “From Oedipus to Periander: Lameness, Tyranny, Incest in Legend and History,” Arethusa 15.1–2: 19–38. Weerdenberg, H.S. (1985), “The Death of Cyrus: Xenophon’s Cyropaedia as a Source for Iranian History,” Acta Iranica 24.11: 459–71. Weston, J. (1920), From Ritual to Romance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Youssef, M. (2005), “Pharoah’s likeness recreated,” The Republican (Springfield, MA) May 11.

General index

Aegisthus 149 Aeneas 239; in Homer 245, 248, 250, 254 nn. 30 and 37; in Vergil 249–51, 255 nn. 40–1, 44, 46, 256 nn. 52 and 54 Aeschylus, Hoplon Krisis 120 Agamemnon 98, 102, 103–5, 148, 150 n. 4, 151 n. 11 Agave 145 agency: destruction of 139; of female characters 65–6, 69, 73, 75–6, 77 n. 20; of sphere 47, 51; see also akōn/hekōn Ajax 116–17, 119–27 and n. 2, 128 nn. 13–14 akōn/hekōn 147, 148, 151 n. 27 Alcinous 2, 37, 202 ambiguity 213–14 anatomy, ancient and modern 239–40, 242, 246–7 anti-metaphysical 211, 224, 226, 234, 235 n. 19 Antiphon 144, 146, 151 n. 13 Aphrodite 65, 240–1, 248, 250, 253 nn. 9–11; and Helen 69, 77 n. 21, 219 aporia 132, 144 appearance 47, 130–2, 203–4, 211, 217–19, 221–9, 231–3, 235 n. 19; see also Athena: and Odysseus’ appearance, clouds, stereotypes Arcadia 80, 84–8 passim, 91 n. 24 Arcadians 80–1, 82–3 passim, 87–9, 90 nn. 11 and 17 Arcas 80, 82–3 passim, 87, 88–9, 90 n. 17, 91 n. 27 argument from design see intelligent design Argus 33, 37 arms, armor 239, 241–2, 248, 254 n. 20; of Achilles 116–23, 127 and n. 2 Artemis 26 n. 4, 86, 90 n. 13, 91 n. 26, 248; in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 141,

150 n. 4; in Callimachus 82–3 passim, 91 nn. 19 and 29 Athena: in Aeschylus’ Eumenides 101–2, 106; and Odysseus’ appearance 33, 34, 36, 38, 41; see also mētis: and Athena authorship of Prometheus Bound 97, 98, 106–12, 112 n. 1 Autolycus 39, 40, 44 n. 31 ball 46, 47, 48–9, 50–2 passim bath 81, 84–9 passim, 90 n. 14, 91 nn. 24 and 27 beauty, Beauty 217–21, 223, 227 biē 11, 13–19 passim, 24, 26 biology 212, 230 birth 80–3 passim, 85, 86–7, 88–9 passim and nn. 2 and 4–5, 91 nn. 24–5 and 27–8, 92 n. 34 body 211–12, 214, 216, 219, 226–9, 231, 234 Butler, Judith 212–14, 224, 228–34 Cadmus 100, 145 Callisto 89 n. 1, 90 nn. 10 and 16–18, 91 nn. 28–9, 92 n. 34; as bear 80, 82–9, 90 nn. 12–13, 91 nn. 26–7; catasterism of 87–8 passim, 90 n. 16, 91 n. 30 castration 239–41, 243–4, 252 nn. 3 and 5, 253 nn. 9 and 15 catalog 18, 37, 68, 83–6, 90 nn. 15–16, 92 n. 33, 248 clouds 65–6, 70–6, 77 nn. 6 and 23 Clytemnestra 97, 98, 102–6, 114 n. 16, 142–3, 148–9 colonization 24–5, 29 n. 26 constellation 84–5, 88, 90 n. 18, 92 n. 34 cunning see mētis Cyclopes 15–21, 22–3, 26 nn. 3 and 5, 27 nn. 8–11 and 16, 28 nn. 23–4 and 26

260  General index daughter of Actor 35, 40 death 130, 132; see also murder deception 157–8, 169–70, 170 n. 1, 171 n. 10, 173 n. 30; and Amasis 164; and the Persians 166–9, 171 n. 13, 172 nn. 22 and 25, 173 n. 33; in Pindar 72–4, 75; and Pisistratus 158–61, 170 n. 7 Detienne and Vernant 12–13, 19, 23–4, 25, 26 n. 7 dialectic 213, 216–22, 226, 230–4, 235 n. 5, 236 n. 22 difference 211–17, 224, 228, 234 disguise and recognition 32–4, 37–8, 43 n. 2 disputation see eristic diversity 211, 214, 233 divination 178–80, 182–6, 192–3 divine sign 177, 179–80, 182–4, 193 Douris 120, 121 Fig. 7.1, 127 n. 2 Draco’s law 149 education 211, 215, 233 Eighth-Century Revolution 11, 24–6 eikos 141, 144–7, 151 nn. 14 and 18–19; see also likeness, probability Elders of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 141, 142–3, 145, 146, 148–50, 150 n. 10, 151 n. 11 Electra 146 embedded focalization 32, 41, 44 n. 28 Erinys 142, 143, 149 eristic 216, 219, 221–2, 226, 228–31, 233, 235 n. 5, 236 n. 22 Eros/eros 46, 50, 51, 53, 59 nn. 9–11, 200 eternity 211, 222–7 ethics 182–6, 193–4, 196 n. 17 Eumaeus 33, 38, 41, 42 Eurycleia 31–5, 37, 38–42, 44 n. 25, 44 n. 29 exclusion 81–3, 85–6, 87–8, 91 n. 23 false Hera 66, 70–6 family 17, 23, 100, 146, 148, 215; of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra 104–5, 141; family line 239–40, 242, 247, 250–1, 253 n. 8, 255 n. 46; of Heracles 130–1, 132–6, 138–9; of Odysseus 37–8, 41, 43 n. 7 flashbulb memories 32, 35, 41 folklore 239, 244–5, 248, 251 force see biē Form(s) 211, 213–14, 216–17, 219–21, 223–7, 232–4, 235 n. 20; criticisms of 221–2, 235 n. 14

gape see khaskō gender 49, 57, 59 n. 14, 212–14, 216, 224, 227–30, 232–4; and truth 68, 75–6 Goat Island 15–16, 18–20, 25, 27 nn. 12–13 and 16 Gorgias 218–19 gratitude 187, 189, 191–4 Griffith, Mark 97, 109, 112 and n. 1 Grosz, Elizabeth 212–13 hamaxa (ἅμαξα) 84–5 passim, 90 n. 15 hapax legomenon 48, 81–2 passim, 89 n. 7 Helen, duality of 66–70, 76 n. 5, 77 nn. 16 and 20, 78 nn. 27 and 30 Hera-cloud see false Hera Heracles: in Euripides’ Heracles 130–1, 132, 133–7, 138–9; in Sophocles’ Philoctetes 122–5, 126, 128 n. 18 Herodotus, thigh wounds in 241, 251 n. 1, 253 n. 17, 254 n. 22 herpeton (ἕρπετον) 81–2, 85–9 passim and nn. 6–8, 91 n. 21 Homer’s audience 11, 22–5 passim, 28 nn. 24–6, 29 n. 28 horror 130–2, 136–40 house 130–1, 132–9 humanity, human being 212–16, 218–22, 226–9, 231, 233–4 humor 157–8, 169–70; and Amasis 162, 165, 171 n. 19, 172 n. 23; and Athenian gullibility 158–61; and the Persians 166–9; 173 n. 31 hybris 12, 14, 19–22 passim, 26 and n. 4, 28 nn. 18 and 20 identity 141–2, 211, 228–9, 233; in horror 131, 138–9; of speaker of Anacreon 358 PMG 47, 49, 53; see also Odysseus: identity of image 76, 77 n. 14, 136, 142, 145, 217, 223–9; see also appearance immortality 214, 224, 226–30, 234 intelligent design 177–8, 182–5, 188–90, 193–4, 196 n. 12 Io 110–12, 114 nn. 17 and 21 Iphigenia 104–5, 141, 143 irony 11, 13, 21–2, 24, 26 n. 3 Ixion 66, 70–4 judgment of arms 116, 117, 119–21, 127 justice 28 nn. 18 and 23, 105, 141, 220; in Aeschylus 143, 149; of Cyclopes

General index  261 18–20; definition of 186–8, 191–3, 218, 231, 232; and Odysseus 121; and Socrates 181–2, 184, 186–8, 191–3; in Sophocles’ Philoctetes 117, 125–7 passim; in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia 205, 206; of Zeus 22, 109, 113 n. 15 khaskō (χάσκω) 46, 47, 53, 54–7, 60 n. 19 kinōpeton (κινώπετον) 84–5 passim, 90 n. 15, 91 nn. 20–1 Lacan, Jacques 47, 57, 58, 60 n. 20 Laertes 32, 34, 36–7, 38, 40–2 passim law: divine 178, 182, 186–8, 189–94; natural 178, 188–90, 196 n. 17; positive 187–90, 192, 196 n. 16; unwritten 187–94, 196 n. 16; written 187–8, 190–2, 196 n. 16; see also Draco’s law legal positivism see law: positive Lesbos 46–8 passim, 50, 52, 53, 54–7, 59 nn. 13 and 15 likeness 141, 143–8, 150, 151 n. 24; see also eikos Little Iliad 120, 127 n. 2 love 4, 57, 60 n. 16, 214, 217, 219, 226–7; see also phthonos: and love (φιλία) and admiration (θαυμάζειν) Lycaeus 80, 82–3, 87, 90 nn. 9, 11, and 17, 91 n. 24 Lycaon 80, 82, 84, 87–9 passim, 90 n. 16, 91 nn. 18 and 27–8, 92 n. 35 material 211, 213, 221–8, 233, 235 nn. 19–20 Menelaus: in Homer’s Iliad 65, 239, 243–5, 247, 250, 254 nn. 28–9; in Homer’s Odyssey 38, 44 n. 30, 76, 78 no. 30 mētis 16, 17, 19–23 passim, 24–6; and Athena 11–14, 19, 26 and nn. 7–8, 59 n. 10 Mezentius 239, 249, 250–1, 255 nn. 41 and 47, 256 n. 52 miasma 143 mnēmon 142, 149, 150 nn. 7–8 moderation 181, 184–6, 193 murder 141, 143, 144–5, 146, 149; in Euripides’ Heracles 130, 131–2, 135; in Pindar 72–3 myth and reality 70, 74 narrative tension 80, 83–8 narrative voice see irony natural 212–15, 227–8, 233

Neoptolemus 146, 120–2, 124, 125–7; false tale of 116–18, 127 nn. 3–5, 128 n. 6 Nietzsche, Friedrich 220, 230–1, 233–4, 235 nn. 7–8, 14, and 21 Odysseus: in Aeschylus’ Philoctetes 128 n. 11; and Athena 12–14, 26 n. 8; in Dio Chrysostom 128 n. 16; in Homer’s Iliad 244, 245; identity of 27 n. 16, 28 n. 18, 32–4, 36–8, 42, 43 nn. 3, 6–7, 44 n. 22, 122, 149; in judgment of arms 121, 122; in Little Iliad 120, 127 n. 2; mission of 17, 20–2, 23, 27 n. 8, 28 n. 19; morality of 28 nn. 21–2; as narrator 11, 15–19, 26 nn. 5 and 7, 27 nn. 9–13; in Odyssey 8 122; in Odyssey 11 119; in Pausanias 120–1; and Phaeacians 48, 202; in Pindar’s Nemean 8 120; scar of 31–2, 39–41, 44 nn. 25 and 31, 253 n. 9; in Sophocles’ Ajax 119, 121–2, 124, 126; in Sophocles’ Philoctetes 116–19, 122–5, 126–7 and n. 5; in vase painting 120, 121 Fig. 7.1, 128 n. 7; see also hybris, Laertes, Penelope, phthonos: in Homer, shared memory Oedipus 126, 240, 252, 253 n. 15; children of, 253 n. 8 oracle 177, 181–2, 194, 195 n. 10 Orestes 103, 105–6, 113 n. 11, 114 n. 16, 145, 146 Paian 141, 150 n. 3 Parnassus 39, 40, 42, 44 n. 31 Parrhasiē (Παρρασίη) 81–2 passim, 87 Penelope 26 n. 3, 32–8 passim, 40–2 passim, 43 nn. 4, 11, 13, and 17, 44 n. 21, 145 performative, performance 211–14, 226–30, 234 perspective 32, 36, 39–40, 41, 44 nn. 26 and 30 phantom-Hera see false Hera Philoctetes 116–18, 121–7 and n. 3, 128 nn. 6 and 17 Philoetius 33, 41, 42 phthonos 200–1, 209 nn. 1–4; in Aristotle 200, 201, 209 n. 4; and envy 199, 200–1, 203, 209 n. 3; in Homer 201–2; and love (φιλία) and admiration (θαυμάζειν) 199–201 passim, 203–5 passim; in post-Homeric literature 203; in Xenophon 199–201, 203–9 piety 176–9, 181–6, 192–5 and nn. 1 and 3

262  General index Plato’s Laws 141, 147–8 play 46, 48–51 passim, 53, 54, 56, 59 n. 8 polis 11, 17, 23–5, 29 nn. 26–7 Polyphemus 12, 13–14, 15–17 passim, 19, 20–3, 28 nn. 20 and 22–3 Poseidon 11–14, 19, 22, 23, 26 n. 7 power 211, 213, 214, 224–5, 226–7, 229–31, 234 probability 141, 143, 145; see also eikos, likeness prohibition 90 n. 12, 91 n. 29; see also exclusion Prometheus 106–12, 113 n. 15, 114 nn. 17 and 21 Protagoras 218–19, 231–2, 236 n. 22 pseudo-Hera see false Hera reciprocity 72–3 religion 177–8, 180–4, 190–1, 192–5 and nn. 1 and 6, 196 n. 20 reproduction 215–16 resemblance see appearance Rhea 80–1, 82–8, 91 nn. 24–5, 92 n. 34 rhetoric 2; of gender theory 213; history of 143–4; of Odysseus in Homer 11, 13, 15–21, 22–3 passim, 27 n. 11; of Odysseus in Pindar 120; of the Parthenon 25; in Xenophon’s Cyropaedia 199–200, 202; see also tragedy and rhetoric river 80, 84–6, 88 Sappho 49, 50, 55, 58 n. 7 sarcasm 105 sarōnis (σαρωνίς) 84, 90 n. 15 self 224–6, 228 sema (semata) 34–8, 40–2, 43 nn. 14–15 and 18 sex 212–16, 227, 229, 234 shared memory 32, 35–8, 40–2 ships 12, 13–14, 18–19, 23, 25–6 similes 11, 13 Socrates: and convention 176–8 passim, 180–6, 191, 194–5 and nn. 1, 6, and 9, 196 nn. 13 and 23; divine mission of 181–2, 194; historical 176–8, 180, 181, 182, 193–4; in Plato 214–21, 223–7, 230–4, 235 n. 10, 236 n. 22; see also justice: and Socrates Sophists 218–20, 222, 224, 226, 231–2, 234

soul 214, 219, 224–30, 233–4 space, spatial 211, 221–3, 226, 228–9, 233 speech 219, 227, 232 sphaira (σφαίρα) 46, 49, 50; see also ball sphere see ball, sphaira stereotypes 157–8, 169–70; Athenian 158, 161, 169, 170 n. 7, 171 n. 12; and Atossa 167–9; and Democedes 166–8; Egyptian vs. Greek 161–3, 165, 173 n. 28 structure of Cyclopes episode 11, 15–16 Telemachus 31, 34, 35, 38, 43 n. 9, 44 n. 22, 76, 122, 202 theology 184, 186, 194 Thrasymachus 214, 218–19, 235 n. 10 time, temporal 221–3, 225, 226–9, 233 tradition in conflict 80, 81–3, 85–9 and n. 1, 90 nn. 13 and 16–17, 91 n. 26, 92 nn. 35–6 tragedy and rhetoric 146 trickery see deception Turnus 65, 239, 249, 250–1, 255 n. 44, 256 nn. 49–50, 52, and 54 violence 130, 131–2, 133–6, 137–9; see also biē virtue 218, 225, 227 women 211–16, 228, 235 n. 2; see also gender xenia 14–16, 19–22, 27 n. 8, 28 n. 19, 28 n. 21 Xenophon: and Plato 176–82, 193–5, 195 n. 1, 195 n. 7 Zeus 75, 125, 240, 241, 250, 252 n. 5; in Aeschylus 98, 101, 102, 112, 113 n. 14, 114 n. 16; Zeus: in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon 140–2, 143, 145, 149, 150 and nn. 1 and 3; altar of 133, 134; and Anchises 241, 250, 253 n. 11; in Callimachus 80–5, 87–9 and n. 5, 90 nn. 9–10, 13, and 17, 91 nn. 24–5 and 30; and Hera 65, 66, 71–3, 74, 202; and Helen 70; in Homer’s Iliad 244; in Homer’s Odyssey 14, 17, 21–2, 27 n. 12, 28 nn. 20–1, 202; in Prometheus Bound 106–10, 112, 113 n. 15

Index locorum

Aelian Various History (Varia Historia) 1.24: 92 nn. 35–6 Aeschylus Agamemnon 83–103: 143 146: 150 n. 3 146–55: 141 155: 149 156–7: 142 160–6: 142 163: 4, 141 168–75: 145 256–7: 142 191: 150 n. 2 217: 150 n. 2 338: 103 338–42: 102 342: 103 362: 113 n. 10 437–74: 150 n. 10 450–1: 150 n. 10 456–7: 150 n. 10 874–9: 103 879: 105 927–30: 98 1130–1: 146 1310: 103 1346–71: 151 n. 11 1415–20: 103–4 1419–23: 143 1420–5: 104 1421: 143 1430: 143, 148 1500–4: 143 1506–8: 143 1530: 143, 149 1551–9: 104 1556: 103 1561–4: 143

1566–76: 105 1604–11: 149 1613–16: 149 1627: 149 1634: 149 1636: 149 1657–60: 105 Choephoroi 12–15: 146 106: 113 n. 10 297: 106 434–8: 106 899: 106 900–3: 106 904–7: 105 929: 106 930: 106 Eumenides 381–3: 150 n. 7 483: 113 n. 10 680: 113 n. 10 683–4: 102 690–3: 102 707–10: 101 717–18: 72 734: 102 743: 102 906–12: 102 938–48: 102 976–87: 102 Persians 424–6: 170 n. 9 527–8: 100 809–12: 99 816–22: 99 Prometheus 1–6: 107 16–17: 107 93–100: 108 103–5: 107

264  Index locorum 160–7: 109 171–2: 109 181–9: 108–9 484–92: 109 497: 110 516: 150 n. 7 659: 114 n. 17 700–4: 110 709–23: 111 729–31: 111 995–6: 112 Seven Against Thebes 1–16: 100 4–6: 113 n. 7 10: 101 14–15: 101 1005: 113 n. 6, 115 Suppliants 478: 113 n. 10 641: 113 n. 10 724–6: 99 Anacreon 346 PMG 59 n. 9 357 PMG 4: 59 n. 11 358 PMG 1: 48 1–4: 50–2, 59 nn. 10–12 1–8: 46–7, 49, 52, 58 n. 7 3: 48 5: 48 5–8: 52–8 8: 49, 50, 59 n. 15 385 PMG 58 n. 7 396 PMG 59 n. 9 398 PMG 59 n. 9 432 PMG 58 n. 7 Antiphon 1: 151 n. 14 5: 151 n. 18 5–6: 146 5.50–1: 151 n. 14 5.63–74: 144–5 6.18: 151 n. 13 6.29–31: 151 n. 18 Apollodorus Bibliotheca 2.54: 252 n. 7 3.8.1: 92 n. 35

3.8.2: 84, 86, 90 nn. 13 and 16, 91 n. 26 3.9.1: 90 n. 17 3.17–20: 252 n. 7 5.11: 127 n. 2 Apollonius Argonautica 1.1144: 91 n. 22 3.132–41: 59 n. 9 4.1240: 89 n. 7 Aquinas Summa Theologiae Iª-IIae q. 93 a. 2: 196 n. 18 Iª-IIae q. 94 a. 3: 196 n. 18 Aristophanes Frogs 1080: 89 n. 4 Lysistrata 742–3: 89 n. 4 Aristotle Generation of Animals 737a28: 235 n. 2 775a15–16: 235 n. 2 784a5: 235 n. 2 Metaphysics 1.9: 235 n. 14 Nicomachean Ethics 1135b19–25: 151 n. 26 Poetics 1449b24–8: 131 1455a: 37 Posterior Analytics 88b32–3: 151 n. 19 Rhetoric 1382a21–2: 131 1387b23–5: 200 1387b33–4: 200 1402a: 151 n. 19 1402a17–20: 151 n. 14 Arctinus Iliupersis: 253 n. 11 Arrian 2.12.1: 241 Artemidorus 1.46: 241 Callimachus Aetia Fragment 17.9–10 Harder: 85, 88 Fragment 110.65–6 Harder: 90 n. 18 Fragment 192.6–7: 82 192.6–12: 91 n. 21

Index locorum  265 192.10: 82 192.11: 82 192.12: 82 336: 82 632 = Iliad 18.487: 83, 91 n. 26 659: 82 Hymn 1 (To Zeus) 3: 91 n. 32 4: 82 8–9: 80, 83 10: 82, 88, 92 n. 33 10–11: 86, 88 10–14: 80, 81, 87 10–41: 80 11–12: 90 n. 11 11–14: 88 12: 83, 88, 91 n. 29 12–13: 88 13: 85, 86, 88, 92 n. 33 13–14: 82 14: 88, 92 n. 13 15: 83 15–32: 80 16: 91 n. 24 16–17: 84 18–27: 84 18–21: 84 19: 85 21–2: 84 22: 84, 90 n. 15 23: 85, 90 n. 15 24: 90 n. 15 25: 85, 90 n. 15 25–7: 92 n. 33 28: 86 28–32: 86 37: 88 37–8: 88 37–41: 80, 87 38: 92 n. 33 38–41: 88 40: 88, 92 n. 33 40–1: 92 n. 33 41: 80, 82, 88, 89, 91 n. 18, 92 n. 37 60–5: 83 60–7: 80 65: 80 70–2: 91 n. 31 Hymn 3 (To Artemis) 20–2: 91 n. 19 20–5: 91 n. 29 Hymn 4 (To Delos) 132: 89 n. 2 257: 89 n. 2

Catullus 63: 253 n. 9 66.65–6: 91 n. 18 66.66: 92 n. 37 Cicero Tusculans 5.4.10: 196 n. 23 Conon FGH 26 F 1.18: 77 Contest of Homer and Hesiod (Certamen 9 West): 91. n. 26 Ctesias F14.43: 205 Demosthenes Against Meidias 21.71–5: 147 Against Aristogiton 25.16: 191 Dio Chrysostom Orations 52.10: 128 n. 11 52.16: 128 n. 16 Diodorus Siculus 1.95: 173 n. 26 Diogenes Laertius 2.56: 176 Dionysius Periegetes 414: 92 n. 33 552: 48 Ps.-Eratosthenes Catasterismi Fragment 1 = Hesiod, fr. 163 M-W: 82, 86, 90 n. 16 Euripides Bacchae 96: 252 n. 6 1283–4: 145 Electra 559: 146 Helen 34: 76 n. 3 68: 151 n. 16 Heracles 48–50: 134 53: 132 53–4: 132 338: 139 460–75: 139 523–4: 132, 139 566: 139 600: 139 604: 132 712–16: 132

266  Index locorum 729: 133 761: 132 825: 133 864: 133 873: 133 922: 134 943–6: 135, 139 944: 135 945–6: 135 954: 133 955: 133 955–7: 134 973: 134 977: 136 977–8: 134 978: 134 979–80: 134 974: 134 984–5: 134, 136 991–4: 134 992: 135 996: 135 997: 135, 136 998: 135 999: 135, 139 1000: 136 1006–11: 136 1008–9: 136 1055: 136 1261–2: 139 1306: 139 Suppliants 195–213: 194 Genesis 32:24–32: 252 n. 4 Gorgias Encomium of Helen: 218–19 Heraclitus DK 22B80: 231 22B53: 231 Herodotus 1.1–5: 161, 172 n. 24 1.30–3: 162 1.30.1: 162 1.32: 165 1.4.4: 170 n. 8 1.5.3–4: 164 1.59–1.64.3: 170 n. 4 1.59–64: 158 1.59.3: 158 1.59.5: 158

1.59.6: 158, 170 n. 4 1.60: 157, 169 1.60.2: 170 n. 6 1.60.3: 158–9 1.60.4: 159 1.60.5: 159 1.61.1: 170 n. 4 1.62.4: 160 1.63.2: 160 1.8.2: 171 n. 15 1.96–7: 170 n. 5 1.187: 165, 172 n. 25 2.45.1: 161 2.77.1: 163 2.121: 172 nn. 24–5 2.151–2: 171 n. 18 2.161.2: 162 2.161.3: 162 2.162.1: 162 2.162.4: 162 2.163: 162 2.163.2: 163 2.169.3: 163 2.172–3: 158, 169 2.172.2–5: 163 2.173.1: 164 2.173.2: 164 2.173.3–4: 164, 169 2.174: 172 n. 22 2.174.1: 172 n. 22 2.174.2: 172 n. 22 2.177.2: 162, 171 n. 16 2.178: 161 2.178.1: 161 2.181: 161 2.182: 161 3.1 ff.: 173 n. 31 3.4.1: 172 n. 25 3.4.2: 172 n. 25, 3.12: 171 n. 14 3.16.1–4: 165 3.16.4–7: 165 3.22.2: 173 n. 28 3.40: 165 3.40–3: 162 3.43: 165 3.80: 170 n. 4 3.85–7: 173 n. 33 3.88.3: 173 n. 33 3.108: 194 3.129–38: 158, 166, 169 3.129.2: 166 3.130.1: 166, 167. 173 n. 27 3.130.2: 166, 173 n. 27

Index locorum  267 3.130.3: 166, 167 3.130.4: 166 3.130.5: 167 3.132.1: 166 3.132.2: 173 n. 28 3.133.2: 167 3.134 ff.: 173 n. 31 3.134.1: 173 n. 29 3.134.5: 167 3.137.5: 168 4.36.2: 161 4.93: 172 n. 20 5.83.1: 172 n. 20 6.10: 172 n. 20 6.50: 173 n. 35 6.136.1: 171 n. 10 7.9b1: 172 n. 20 8.24: 171 n. 11 8.24–5: 161 8.87–8: 173 n. 25 8.110.1: 171 n. 10 9.3.1: 172 n. 20 9.4: 172 n. 20 9.22.2: 253 n. 14 Hesiod Shield of Heracles 457–62: 256 n. 53 Theogony 26–32: 75 27: 80 27–8: 1 570–2: 240 927–9: 240 945–6: 240 Works and Days 26: 202 Hippocratic Corpus On Fractures 19: 254 n. 21 On Joints 69: 254 n. 21 Homer Iliad 1.5: 128 n. 18 2.494–759: 68 2.592: 48 2.608: 82 2.734–6: 245 3.121–8: 76 3.139–40: 69 3.156–60: 69 3.158: 69 3.178–242: 68 3.381: 65

3.395–8: 69 3.399–420: 77 n. 21 4.55–6: 202 4.135–40: 242–3 4.146–7: 243 4.153–82: 244 4.190 ff.: 250 4.492: 254 n. 33 5.305–6: 255 n. 42 5.305–7: 248, 250 5.311: 248 5.343: 248 5.449–50: 65 5.660–2: 244 5.677–8: 244 6.344–51: 77 n. 21 7.224–71: 255 n. 43 8.265: 245 8.325–7: 254 n. 34 9.128–30: 56 11.251–3: 247 11.267–72: 247 11.662: 245 11.809–13: 245 11.829–31: 245–6 11.844: 255 n. 41 11.844–5: 246 12.1–2: 246 14.153–351: 173 n. 30 14.343–4: 65 15.390–4: 246 15.395–404: 246 15.397–8: 254 n. 31 16.2 ff.: 246 16.27: 245 16.187–8: 89 n. 2 16.307–11: 246 16.308: 245 16.313–16: 245, 246, 253 n. 18 16.480 ff.: 245 17: 254 n. 29 18.487 = Call. fr. 632: 83, 91 n. 26 18.487–9 = Od. 5.273–5: 85, 88 19.103–5: 89 n. 2 22.326–7: 248 22.328: 248 23.72: 65 24.607: 26 n. 4 Odyssey 1.213–20: 38 1.216: 38 1.325–59: 202

268  Index locorum 1.346–7: 202 1.358–9: 202 3.366: 88 4.417–18: 81 4.235–95: 44 n. 30 4.239: 76 4.240–64: 78 n. 30 4.266–89: 78 n. 30 5.273–5 = Il. 18.487–9: 85, 88 6: 48 6.5–8: 23 6.42–4: 27 n. 15 6.68: 202 6.120–1: 28 n. 17 8.219–20: 122 8.372–3: 48 8.521–86: 37 9.19–20: 37 9.105–7: 16 9.105–15: 15 9.106: 15 9.106–15: 17, 27 n. 9 9.107–9: 17 9.116: 27 n. 13 9.116–41: 15, 25 9.125–30: 18 9.131: 18 9.142: 16 9.147: 27 n. 14 9.166: 16 9.171: 19 9.172–6: 20 9.175–6: 28 n. 17 9.228: 14 9.228–9: 28 n. 19 9.229: 20 9.231: 22 9.259–71: 12, 19, 20 9.262: 21 9.273–8: 28 n. 20 9.280: 14 9.281: 14 9.283: 14 9.317: 13 9.322–3: 13 9.502–5: 173 n. 35 9.550–5: 22 11.149: 202 11.150–224: 42 11.367–8: 2 11.548–51: 119 11.618–21: 122

13.201–2: 28 n. 17 13.397–403: 33 15.351–79: 42 16.194–5: 38 17.290–327: 37 17.291–3: 37 17.400: 202 17.485–7: 28 n. 18 18.16: 202 18.18: 202 19.203: 1, 116 19.353–6: 40 19.386–507: 31 19.388–96: 39 19.390–466: 31 19.391: 39, 25 n. 25 19.392: 44 n. 28 19.392–3: 33 19.393: 40 19.393–8: 40 19.399–412: 40 19.413–62: 41 19.449–50: 253 n. 9 19.462–6: 41 19.473–98: 41 21.124–9: 38 21.217–24: 42 21.219–20: 44 n. 31 21.221–6: 34 21.319: 145 22–4: 38 23.94–5: 34 23.97–103: 34 23.104–10: 34 23.113–16: 34 23.152–63: 34 23.166–72: 34 23.173–230: 34, 35 23.177–8: 35 23.183–204: 35 23.188: 35 23.202: 35 23.206: 35 23.215–17: 44 n. 21 23.225: 35 24.205–360: 36 24.281: 34 24.333: 36 24.337–9: 36 Homeric Hymns To Aphrodite 188: 253 n. 10 189–90: 253 n. 10

Index locorum  269 To Apollo 97–119: 89 n. 2 423: 48 536: 202 To Gaia 8: 202 16: 202 To Hermes 265: 145 Horace Epodes 15: 27 n. 15 Odes 2.10.19: 172 n. 23 Pseudo-Hyginus Astronomica 2.1: 82, 88, 90 nn. 13 and 16, 91 n. 26 Ibycus 282.5: 78 n. 26 Inscriptiones Graecae i3 104.12: 149 Isocrates Helen 64: 66–7 To Nicocles 15: 209 n. 5 Judges 15:8: 252 n. 4 Lucian True History 1.22: 252 n. 6 Lycophron Alexandra 480: 90 n. 17 Lycurgus Against Leocrates 28: 151 n. 13 Lysias On the Murder of Eratosthenes 33: 200 Nicander Fragment 74.46: 82 Theriaca 27: 85 195: 85 488: 85

Nonnus Dionysiaca 1.167–8: 82 29.76 ff.: 253 n. 14 30.45 ff.: 253 n. 14 32.204 ff.: 253 n. 14 Ovid Fasti 2.154–6: 84 2.173: 90 n. 16, 91 n. 28 2.173–4: 91 n. 27 2.174: 91 n. 28 2.175–6: 91 n. 28 Heroides 18.152: 82 Metamorphoses 2.453: 91 n. 28 2.460: 82 2.464–5: 91 n. 27 8.371: 253 n. 9 10.519–59: 253 n. 9 10.708–39: 253 n. 9 Palatine Anthology 5.214.1: 59 n. 9 12.44.1–2: 59 n. 9 Pausanias 1.35.4: 121, 127 n. 2 3.19.11: 77 4.1.5: 92 n. 35 4.20.2: 91 n. 24 5.5.4: 92 n. 36 8.3.6: 89, 90 n. 13, 91 n. 26 8.3.7: 87, 88 8.4.2: 90 n. 17 8.35.8: 87 8.38.2: 90 n. 11 8.38.6: 82, 90 n. 12 8.38.7: 91 n. 24 Phaedrus 3.14: 172 n. 23 Philostratus the Younger Imagines 15: 253 n. 9 Pindar Fragment 106.3: 82 Nemean 8.23–33: 120 Olympian 9.95–6: 90 n. 9

270  Index locorum Pythian 1.15–24: 90 n. 8 1.25: 82 1.26: 90 n. 8 2.4: 74 2.15–20: 74 2.21–48: 71–2 2.24: 73 2.32: 73 2.35–43: 66 2.37: 72, 73 2.38: 73 2.41: 74 Plato Apology 20c–23b: 181 20e–21a: 181 28d–29a: 181 31c–d: 178 31d: 179 37e–38a: 182 40a: 179 40a–b: 179 40b–d: 179 41d: 179 Euthyphro 3b: 178 14e–15a: 185 Gorgias 461c6–462b2: 235 n. 9 489b9: 219 489e1: 219 490e2: 219 490e8: 219 492c3–4: 219 494d1: 219 497a11: 219 499b3–7: 219 505d4: 219 515b6–7: 219 Laws 866d–69e: 147 867a: 147 Meno 71e1–72a3: 235 n. 8 72c5–6: 218 77b7–78b1: 225 81a7–82e3: 225 88b1–5: 225 Parmenides 132a2–5: 220, 235 n. 13 133c2–4: 221 133c6–d1: 222

133d9–e5: 222 134a10–b2: 222 134b7–8: 222 135a3–5: 220 135a5: 226 135a5–6: 221 135b8–c2: 222 Phaedo 67a1–b1: 234 72e2–77a5: 225 73c2–6: 225 74d3–5: 220 74e6–8: 220 75c6–d2: 220 79d1–3: 224 81b1–8: 234 81d5–82a8: 236 n. 25 83d7–e2: 234 89d2–3: 231 100b5–6: 220 114c3–5: 234 Phaedrus 243a2–b3: 66 248c10–249c5: 236 n. 25 262a6–8: 216 265e1–266c8: 216 273b–c: 151 n. 19 278e–279a: 180 Protagoras 320d–323a: 194 328d4–329b6: 235 n. 9 329c2–330b7: 218 334a4–338e5: 235 n. 9 358d1: 225 Republic 1.336c2–4: 219 1.337d11–e2: 235 n. 11 1.338b9–c1: 218 1.338d2–3: 235 n. 11 1.339a3: 218 1.339b7–e7: 235 n. 10 1.340a1–b9: 219 1.340c6–341a4: 235 n. 10 1.340c10: 235 n. 11 1.341a5–c3: 235 n. 11 1.343a4: 235 n. 11 1.344d1–5: 235 n. 9 1.350d4: 219 1.350d9–e3: 235 n. 11 1.351c6: 235 n. 11 1.352b2–4: 235 n. 11 1.354a10: 235 n. 11 2.370a6–c5: 215

Index locorum  271 2.374e4–376d2: 215 2.377c–e: 2 2.377d–e: 2 2.378a: 2 3.402b4–5: 223 4.419a1–420a7: 228 4.424a2: 214 5.449b6–450a5: 213 5.449c5: 214 5.450b3–4: 214 5.453b4–5: 215 5.453c2–5: 215 5.453d10: 215 5.454a5: 235 n. 5 5.454a5–8: 216 5.454a5–9: 216 5.454a8: 235 n. 5 5.454b11–c5: 216 5.454d9–10: 215 5.454c7–d1: 216 5.454d9–e3: 216 5.455d6–8: 216 5.457c10–464d5: 215 5.466d2–4: 233 5.479b9–10: 213 5.479b11–c2: 213 5.479c3–5: 214 5.475d2–3: 217 5.475d5–8: 217 5.477a8: 225 5.477b7–8: 225 5.478d5–6: 226 5.479a3–4: 226 5.479a5–6: 226 5.479e8: 225 5.480a6–12: 226 6.504c2–3: 220 6.505a5–7: 225 6.505d6–8: 227, 232 6.508b7: 225 6.508b12–13: 235 n. 17 6.509a7–8: 224 6.509b2–4: 223 6.509b6–8: 223 7.517b6–8: 224 7.517c1–4: 225 7.532c5–6: 233 8.543a1–9.576d1: 229 8.548b7–8: 233 8.549c8–e1: 229 8.557b4–6: 233 8.557c1–2: 236 n. 23 8.557c4–5: 233

8.558b1–2: 233 8.558c4–6: 233 8.562b11–12: 233 9.586c: 73 9.586c3–5: 67, 77 n. 18 10.596a5–c8: 235 n. 1 10.596d9: 223 10.599a6: 227 10.611b8–d7: 226 10.611d9: 227 10.611e3–612a3: 227 10.619e6–620c2: 236 n. 25 Symposium 202b: 4 203e–204a: 4 207d1–5: 234 208e3–6: 234211a2: 221 211a3–6: 221 211a10–b2: 221 211b2: 221 211b3: 221 211e4–212a2: 227 212a2: 227 212a5–8: 227 Theages 128d–131a: 195 n. 8 Theaetetus 142c–d: 180 151a: 180 151d–186e: 223 161c2–162a3: 219, 231 161c5: 231 164c8–d1: 236 n. 22 166d6: 231 166d7–10: 231 167a4–5: 231 167b5–6: 231 167b6–8: 231 167c2–4: 232 167c4–6: 232 167c6–8: 232 167d1: 231 187a–201c: 223 201c–210d: 223 Timaeus 29b5–c3: 151 n. 24 90e1–92c4: 236 n. 25 Plotinus Enneads 2.8: 235 n. 20 Polyaenus Stratagems 7.4: 173 n. 26

272  Index locorum Quintilian 6.3.91: 242 Quintus Smyrnaeus 7.445: 127 Sappho Fragment 1.15: 50 1.16: 50 1.18: 50 31: 58 n. 7 58: 50 Semonides 13.1: 82 Sextus Empiricus Against the Mathematicians 7.60 = 80B1: 235 n. 6 Outlines of Skepticism 1.16: 235 n. 19 Solon 13.36: 59 n. 16 Sophocles Ajax 381–2: 124 441–6: 120 955–60: 124 970: 124 1135: 120 1137: 120 1336–41: 119 1390: 150 n. 7 Antigone 450–7: 190 Electra 618: 146 Laocoön 253 n. 11 Oedipus at Colonus 394: 126 Oedipus Tyrannus 25–7: 240 Philoctetes 6: 118, 125 64–7: 118 191–200: 125 344: 117 371–82: 117 377: 118 378: 118 379: 118 385: 118 410–15: 117 902–3: 146

1123–39: 123 1140–5: 124 1365–1365b 1390–1: 126 1415: 128 n. 18 1418–22: 122, 126 1425: 122 1471: 122 Statius Thebaid 7.8: 82 7.163: 90 n. 10 Theocritus 15.118: 89 n. 7 24.13: 89 n. 8 24.55: 90 n. 8 24.57: 82, 89 n. 8 Thucydides 1.21: 2 1.104: 171 n. 14 1.109–10: 171 n. 14 3.94.4–5: 23 Vergil Aeneid 2.648–9: 253 n. 11 6.763–6: 256 n. 54 6.781–4: 256 n. 54 7.648: 250 10.588–9: 255 n. 46 10.590: 255 n. 46 10.600: 255 n. 46 10.601: 255 n. 46 10.636–7: 65 10.639: 65 10.640: 65 10.641–2: 65 10.656–7: 65 10.778: 255 n. 41 10.785–6: 250 10.796: 250 10.814–20: 250 10.856–7: 250 10.857: 250 10.871: 250 10.879: 250 10.907: 255 n. 48 12.93–4: 256 n. 52 12.319–23: 249 12.321: 250 12.386: 249 12.746–7: 249

Index locorum  273 12.896–902: 250 12.926: 251 12.932–5: 256 n. 52 12.937: 251 Georgics 1.118–59: 27 n. 12 Xenophon Anabasis 3.1.11–13: 179 3.2.9: 179 Apology 1: 176–7 1–9: 184 4: 179 8: 179 12: 179 12–13: 178 13: 179 14.3: 199 14–18: 181 15: 181 29–30: 200 32.2: 199 Cyropaedia 1.2.7: 191 1.3.10–11: 207 1.3.11: 207 1.4.4: 205 1.4.6: 207 1.4.9: 206 1.4.14: 205 1.4.15: 205 1.4.22: 206 1.5.1: 205 2.3.31: 206 2.3.47: 206 2.3.56: 206 2.4.5: 206 3.1.14: 199 3.1.38.5: 199 3.1.38–40: 199 3.1.39.7: 200 3.1.39.8–9: 200 3.1.40.2–3: 200 3.1.41: 203 4.1.13: 206 4.6.2–7: 204 4.6.3: 205 4.6.4: 204 4.6.5: 204 4.6.8: 204 5.2.12: 205

5.2.28: 205 5.4.17: 204 5.5.28: 206 5.5.30: 206 5.5.37: 207 6.4.7–9: 205 7.2.5: 204 7.2.26–8: 205 8.2.20: 204 8.2.26–8: 206 8.4.10: 208 8.4.13–22: 205 8.4.13–26: 208 8.5.28: 207 8.7.16: 206 Economics 9.3: 135 Hieron 11.15.4: 207 Memorabilia 1.1.2: 178 1.1.3–4: 179 1.1.4: 179 1.1.6–9: 183, 193 1.1.9: 183 1.1.11–16: 196 n. 23 1.3.1: 180, 185, 190 1.4: 178, 182, 184, 186, 194, 195 n. 7 1.4.1: 182 1.4.2: 179 1.4.2–14: 183 1.4.10: 179 1.4.15: 179, 183 1.4.15–17: 183 1.4.18: 183 1.4.19: 183 2.2: 192 2.2.3: 192 2.2.13: 191, 192 4.1.3–4: 184 4.2: 185 4.2.1: 191 4.3: 178, 182, 184, 185, 186, 191, 194, 195 n. 7 4.3.1–2: 184 4.3.8: 185 4.3.10: 185 4.3.11–12: 185 4.3.12: 179 4.3.14: 179 4.3.15: 179, 185 4.3.16: 185, 186

274  Index locorum 4.3.17: 186, 191 4.3.18: 186 4.4: 178, 186, 191, 192, 194 4.4.1–4: 186 4.4.12: 186 4.4.12–13: 187 4.4.13–18: 187 4.4.18: 186 4.4.19: 188, 190 4.4.19–21: 187 4.4.22–5: 187 4.4.25: 186, 188 4.6: 186 4.8.1: 179 4.8.5–10: 184 Symposium 8.5: 180

Plutarch On the Bravery of Women (De Virtutibus Mulierum) 25 (Mor. 261C ff.): 173 n. 26 Life of Alexander 20.4–5: 241 The Malice of Herodotus (De Malignitate Herodoti) 866c–d: 172 n. 19 871c–d: 172 n. 23 Roman Questions (Quaestiones Romanae) 92: 90 n. 17 Stesichorus 192 PMG (Palinode): 66–70, 74, 76 n. 5, 77 nn. 16–17 and 20 and 22, 78 n. 27 193 PMG = P. Oxy. 2506 fr. 26 col. i: 67, 76 n. 5