Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture: Volume 3 The Comparative Perspective 9783110428650, 9783110427431

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Andrea Ercolani, Manuela Giordano (Eds.) Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture The Comparative Perspective

Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture The Comparative Perspective Edited by Andrea Ercolani and Manuela Giordano

The book was published with the support of the project PRIN 2010-2011 ‘Trasmissione dell’antico: codificazione letteraria, tradizione manoscritta, ricezione’, funded by the Italian Ministry for Education, University and Research (MIUR – Ministero dell’Istruzione, Università e Ricerca).

ISBN 978-3-11-042743-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042865-0 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042871-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ∞ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the contributors to this volume for their patience, openness to discussion, and particularly for having met broadmindedly the challenge of confronting the issue of submerged literature in their own field of research. It was a privilege to work together on a common purpose. We are very grateful to Bar Zecharya for having discussed and improved this volume throughout with much care and generosity. We should also like to express our thanks to Elisabeth Kempf, Serena Pirrotta, and Florian Ruppenstein of de Gruyter, who have followed this volume with great attention. We thank Orla Mulholland for her painstaking care and competence. A.E. and M.G.

Credits Orla Mulholland translated the contributions of M. Bettini, R. Denaro, S. Monda, L. Pucci, E. Greco, V. Teti. The editing of the entire volume is also by Orla Mulholland. Bar Zecharya revised the ‘Introduction’.

Contents Andrea Ercolani, Manuela Giordano   Introduction | 1  Jonathan Ben-Dov   The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El in the Dead Sea Scrolls | 9  Margalit Finkelberg   Out of the Mainstream | 33  Robert L. Fowler   The Submersion of Mythography | 43  Manuela Giordano   The Emergence of Athens | 55  Luca Pucci   The Purification of Orestes at Troezen | 71  Andrea Taddei   Literacy and Orality in the Attic Orators | 95  Emanuele Greco   With Pausanias (and Others) in the Agora of Sparta | 113  Salvatore Monda   Beyond the Boundary of the Poetic Language: Enigmas and Riddles in Greek and Roman Culture | 131  Maurizio Bettini   Cantare cantilenae | 155  Guy G. Stroumsa   Modes of Scriptural and Personal Authority in Late Antique Religion | 169  Jonathan Cahana   Gnosticism and Radical Feminism | 183 

VIII | Contents

Pietro De Laurentis   Submerged Literature in China | 201  Roberta Denaro   Mapping Submerged Territories | 221  Vito Teti   Cultural Continuities | 235  Index Nominum | 251 Index Locorum  | 263  Index Rerum Notabilium  | 271  Contributors | 277 

Andrea Ercolani, Manuela Giordano

Introduction “Culture” is a finite segment of the meaningless infinity of the world process, a segment on which human beings confer meaning and significance M. Weber, The Methodology of Social Sciences, 81.

1 Background and Objective The first two volumes on ‘submerged literature’ set out to map the texts excluded – for the most various reasons – from mainstream transmission as well as from dominant cultural systems.1 Case-studies followed on a vast range of subjects, from ancient Greek music to archaeology, considerably widening the scope of the research to cover many aspects and types of ‘texts’ that construct the complex network of ancient Greek culture.2 In the present volume – and in the series of seminars from which it stems – we have launched a comparative venture, by which we submit that the meaning and questions elicited in the discourse on ‘submerged literature’ possess a heuristic capacity that goes beyond the domain of ancient Greek culture and classical studies in general. The present volume presents contributions by scholars from a wide range of disciplines, from early Christianity to modern China, from ancient Rome to contemporary southern Italy, as well as more contributions on ancient Greece. The comparative project aims to test the model and hermeneutics of ‘submerged literature’ and the degree to which it may be productively applied in other cultural systems.

2 Methodology ‒ hints for future development It is our contention that textual analysis can no longer be limited to traditional philological instruments but must integrate models and hermeneutic tools of

|| 1 Colesanti and Giordano 2014. On the genesis of the research project see Colesanti and Giordano 2014, ‘Introductory Notes’ to vol. 1 and Colesanti and Lulli 2016, ‘Introductory Notes’ to vol. 2. 2 Colesanti and Lulli 2016.

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historical disciplines, cultural anthropology, and sociology in order to gain a global and interconnected vision of the relationship between a given society and the texts produced by its members. The production of ‘texts’ in its literal sense is only one of the elements that inform a cultural system. We employ a global approach that extends to iconographic codes, architectonic structures, ritual practices, and so on, each of which in its own right forms a type of text.3 By ‘text’ we therefore mean not only a text in its literal sense but also those ‘ensembles’ that Geertz suggested we read as part and parcel of a culture.4 Eschewing a century-old habit of viewing a ‘text’ as an object or an a priori in relation to the human beings who produced it, we intentionally highlight the agency of groups and individuals, each with their own functions and aims. The resulting ‘text’ is hence a dynamic product, a ‘text-in-context’.5 As a result, the hermeneutics and models in this volume pertain also to the sociology of culture, and many contributions in this volume deal with what may be better defined as cultural trends.6 For this concluding stage in our research on submerged texts and trends we chose to widen the lens to a comparative perspective in the belief that it may better test the dynamics under investigation and also highlight dynamics specific to each culture. Rather than limiting our enquiry to a comparativism of proximity, which investigates cultures on the basis of contact, exchange, and relationships geographical (for instance comparison between Greek and Anatolian civilization) or genealogical (e.g. Indo-European studies), we thought it more fruitful to open a form of constructive, polycentric comparativism, encompassing diverse cultural experiences, and productions far from each other in time and space, from medieval Arabic culture to ancient Rome, from Gnosticism to modern southern Italy.7 In doing so, our research has expanded its boundaries considerably, allowing us to embrace a richer complexity for every question we set out to ask.

|| 3 See in this respect the reevaluation of epigraphic material by De Laurentis in this volume. 4 ‘The culture of a people is an ensemble of texts, themselves ensembles, which the anthropologist strains to read over the shoulders of those to whom they properly belong’: Geertz 1973, 452. See Ercolani 2014 for a first discussion of the concept of ‘text’. On the multiplicity of ‘texts’ see e.g. Cahana, Giordano, and Teti in this volume. 5 See for the approach of reading ‘texts-in-contexts’, for example Carter 2011. 6 Notably Stroumsa, Cahana, Teti. 7 For the idea of comparatisme constructif, Detienne 2008. See also Anderson 2000, 123-132, and Tanner 2009. For a valuable example of what may be achieved by means of a constructive comparativism, see Tandy and Neale 1996.

Introduction | 3

We believe that besides shedding light on analogies and recurrent features, as Denaro puts it, ‘the effectiveness of a comparative approach lies in … its potential to bring out the peculiarities, the traits that cannot be explained by analogy’; and, as she argues further, ‘comparison should be conceived not as a search for analogies legitimizing other texts and cultures insofar as they can be assimilated to a single model, but rather as a contrastive approach to texts and cultures’.8

3 Main dynamics of submersion and emergence The first two volumes on submerged literature have singled out the following main dynamics of submersion and emergence: 1. canon formation9 2. centre–periphery 3. the weight of cultural and political geography 4. group influence (leading political factions, guilds, intellectual elites) 5. orality–literacy 6. authorship vs anonymity10 7. educational systems and institutions. Building on the first two volumes, additional case-studies related to ancient Greek culture are presented in this volume, leading to new and further focalization and integration of the Greek dossier. Finkelberg focuses on the circulation of epic poems and the emergence of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey in Athenian culture, testing further the category of submerged literature as applied to the epics. Fowler concentrates on mythography as the output of a long process starting with the wide diffusion of myth, mainly through oral myth-telling, and ending with the collection of myths in written form intended for a restricted public. Pucci deals with phenomena of emergence/submersion related to the myth of Orestes, and in particular discovers that most non-Athenian traits of the myth tend either to disappear or to be (mistakenly) marked as Athenian. Taddei investigates interactions of orality and literacy in the Attic orators, tracing lines

|| 8 Denaro in this volume, p. 222. 9 As Stroumsa shows, processes involving the constitution of models of authority bear upon the emergence/submersion of ideas and doctrines, with an effect of canonization/canonmaking, as in the case of Rabbinic tradition in opposition to Christian doctrinal texts. 10 See also ‘By Way of Conclusions’ in Colesanti and Giordano 2014.

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of submersion that generally resulted in the omission of certain speech and ritual acts from the written record of the orally performed text. The extension of the analysis on a comparative basis has suggested new factors, dynamics, and perspectives that determine and impact upon the condition of submersion/emergence of both texts and cultural trends. Many of these aspects overlap, to be sure, and some contributions touch upon several of the following topics: 1. Emergence and submersion over the longue durée The longue durée perspective allows us to consider cultural emergence and submersion of texts, ideas, and more generally of cultural trends with attention to the varied and various dynamics by which they are conditioned. In this respect Ben-Dov investigates the emergence and submersion of a cultic expression together with its theological counterpart in the ancient Levant from the second millenium, in Ugaritic texts, to the first centuries of our era, in the community of Qumran. The contribution of Stroumsa deals with cultural dynamics and trends involving authority and charismatic leaders: in the three Abrahamic religions these stand in a dialectic of either dialogue or opposition with canonical and structured milieux, specifically when observed over the longue durée. Teti analyses the centuries long persistence of practices concerning water in their ritual and textual dimension, in southern Italy. The contribution of Giordano also demonstrates the benefits of the longue durée perspective, even if not directly, by illuminating the very outset of the Athenian military, political, and therefore cultural hegemony – which triggered the conditioning of many cultural phenomena of ancient Greece – in terms of transmission, submersion, and generally marginalization of whatever does not bear the mark of ‘Athenianness’.11 In the same vein, the contribution of Greco points out how the ancient emergence of Athenian culture at the expense of Sparta produced a perception that has continued into very recent times, for example the assimilation of Sparta to Nazi Germany and Athens to the Anglo-American victors. As a result, the Agora of Sparta is still unknown archaeologically while its Athenian counterpart has been almost entirely excavated. 2. Individual agency and enjoyment The contribution of Bettini concentrates on practices involving the term cantare in its ritual and textual aspects, which have only occasionally found a reception

|| 11 In this respect see Sbardella 2014 and Finkelberg in this volume

Introduction | 5

in erudite circles. It thus illuminates the wide scope and importance of the private, individual dimension in the reception, enjoyment, and production of both texts and practices, particularly when they belong to a collective and traditional lore. The importance of individual agency is further demonstrated by Stroumsa in relation to charismatic leaders whose authority may clash with that of ‘routinized’ religious representatives. 3. Interplays between different cultural groups Interplays between different cultural groups have determined the transmission and fate of corpora, at times causing a phenomenon of ‘external’ emergence, as in the case treated by Stroumsa regarding Jewish apocryphal texts of the Old Testament which were doomed to submersion by Jewish culture but were recuperated by Christian groups. A similar phenomenon is highlighted by Denaro for The Book of the Thousand and One Nights, which was considered a trivial work in Arabic literate culture but was reevaluated by modern European culture. A differently relevant case is illustrated by Cahana, who draws a comparison between two phenomena, one modern (radical ‘second-wave’ feminists), and one ancient (Gnosticism). He shows how the Gnostics as a group elaborated a critical theory of culture, transcribed in mythical terms, vis-à-vis the dominant Christian group, which ultimately marginalized the Gnostics as a heretical sect. Cahana further applies the same hermeneutic grid to radical feminists, as an equally cultural-critical group, pathologized and submerged by mainstream cultural groups. 4. Different levels of ‘literacy’ De Laurentis offers a picture of the linguistic and cultural significance of writing in traditional medieval China, showing in particular its absolute predominance as the authoritative expression of the culture of the literati. A case-study dealing with funerary inscriptions further articulates this thesis. By analysing different categories of submerged texts in Islamic literature, Denaro shows how the diglossia characterizing Arabophone societies conditions emergence and submersion. This creates not only a social divide but also constructs and supports an opposition between texts felt to be literate (a sort of ‘high-brow’ literature) and texts perceived as less literate or illiterate. The latter are characterized by ‘the low social prestige of the public to which they were addressed and the places and modalities of their circulation, but it is their linguistic register in particular that turns them into “mistreated” texts.’ In the same vein Monda investigates riddles and enigmas as folklore motifs in their different contexts of production

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and reception, down to their literate elaboration into structured literary genres in Greek and Roman ‘educated’ erudite milieux.

4 The ‘tip-of-the-iceberg taxonomy’ The results of the first two volumes have allowed us to correct a major bias in modern reception and interpretation, as far as Greek studies go, namely a ‘tipof-the-iceberg taxonomy’ according to which we reconstruct a whole (textual) culture by means of what is extant as if it were the entire and/or most outstanding production, thus neglecting whatever is not transmitted – i.e. the remaining, submerged part of the iceberg – along with its context. The present volume demonstrates how this kind of approach is (often unintentionally) conducive to two main hermeneutical pitfalls. Firstly, the failure to take into account the whole production of texts – even if only with the help of imagination – leads to a partial reconstruction that is often mistaken for the whole picture, underestimating thereby other texts and types of texts that were no less fundamental in the social life of a given community. Secondly, if we accept a priori the categories used to construct a cultural or textual canon, we inadvertently and unknowingly foster and adhere to the tenets and to the agenda that led to canonization, with the effect of collapsing that most sound Weberian divide between knowledge and evaluation.12 Coming to terms with the tip-of-the-iceberg taxonomy enables us to dismiss a hierarchic vision of the texts and productions of a given culture, as has already been argued in the case of ancient Greece, and at the same time to extend our attention and investigation to a vast pool of texts that ended up being submerged.13 In this framework, reconstructing the experiential networks that produced certain types of texts, as well as the social practices that were deeply interrelated with textual production and performances, is of special importance.14

|| 12 See Weber 1949, passim. 13 For instance, as far as dramatic and ritual performances in Athens and in Greece are concerned, we can no longer limit our reconstruction to Attic tragedy and comedy, but should also take into account cult song and performances of various sorts, texts connected to processions and sacrifices as well. See Giordano 2014 and Sonnino 2014. 14 See for example Bettini and De Laurentis in this volume.

Introduction | 7

5 New perspectives This volume inscribes itself in the longstanding epistemological dialogue between literary studies and social sciences, which have lent to the former a more inclusive conception of culture.15 By widening the scope of our investigation to submerged trends, groups, texts, and values throughout different societies in different times we have been able to recognize and better understand a plurality of voices and ways of life (as in the case of Qumran texts and community, or in the rural population of southern Italy), adhering to the emphasis of Cultural Studies on cultures rather than culture.16 This may prompt future research to take a fresher look at traditional perspectives: what if we venture to interpret the Gnostics or the members of the Yahad community of Qumran as groups of ‘cultural resistance’, mutatis mutandis, no less than the youth of contemporary Britain?17 We would like to suggest in a similar vein that submerged trends and groups acted as subcultures in conscious opposition to and tension with centralized, mainstream cultural forms and discourses, as could apply for example to heretical leaders and their followers in late antiquity, forming a sort of subculture in opposition to the routinized authority of bishops that was ultimately pushed out of the stream of transmission but whose voice we may consciously and intentionally recuperate.18 The authors of this volume pose new questions, which may lead us not necessarily to new truths, but certainly to new points of view, ancient and modern.19 To a certain extent, the Submerged Literature project would also like to invite awareness on the part of scholars, to rethink and revise the often inadvertent use of categories, ideas, and, especially, well-established taxonomies, either overt (as in the case of canons) or hidden (as in the case of orthodoxy vs heresy). It is noteworthy that the use of such taxonomies is itself a scholarly practice of submersion, in which the object of research is evaluated rather than interpreted and described.20 With the Submerged Literature project we intend therefore to foster nonconforming approaches and perspectives

|| 15 See Williams 1958. 16 See Sewell 1999. 17 On cultural resistance see Hall and Jefferson 1976. 18 See Stroumsa in this volume. On subcultures see Hebdike 1979. 19 Two main fields of analysis still await a thorough investigation from the point of view of submerged literature, namely censorship and female authors/literature. 20 This is the blatant example of 5th-century Athens, more or less openly and consciously idolized as the ideal democracy and therefore a privileged object of study.

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about literature and culture and to offer fresh contributions to rethinking and investigating texts and cultures. It is perhaps not altogether otiose to remind ourselves of Weber’s insight: that what renders an object culturally, socially, and historically relevant and worth investigating rests, ultimately, on the value we bestow upon it. The contributions are ordered chronologically: no other criterion seemed to us as neutral. In the index rerum notabilium we have listed those items that are specifically and particularly relevant to the disciplinary fields covered in the contributions as well as those inherent to the investigation on submerged literature. The index is however intentionally selective and does not aim at exhaustiveness.

Reference List Anderson, G., Fairytale in the Ancient World, London and New York 2000 Carter, D. M., ed., Why Athens? A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics, Oxford 2011 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014 Colesanti, G., and Lulli, L., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. Case-studies, Berlin and Boston 2016 Detienne, M., Comparing the Incomparable, Stanford 2008 (orig. edn Paris 2000) Geertz, C., The Interpretation of Culture, New York 1973 Giordano, M., ‘Out of Athens. Ritual Performances, Spaces, and the Emergence of Tragedy’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 151–177 Hall., S., and Jefferson, T., Resistance through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-war Britain, London 1976 Hebdike, D., Subculture: the Meaning of Style, London 1979 Sbardella, L., ‘The Trojan War Myth: Rhapsodic Canon and Lyric Alternative’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 61–75 Sewell, W. H., ‘The Concept(s) of Culture’, in Bonnell, V. E., and Hunt, L. A., eds, Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture, Berkeley 1999, 35–61 Sonnino, M., ‘Comedy outside the Canon: from Ritual Slapstick to Hellenistic Mime’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 128–150 Tandy, D. W., and Neale, W. C., Hesiod’s Works and Days. A Translation and Commentary for the Social Sciences, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London 1996 Tanner, J., ‘Ancient Greece, Early China: Sino-hellenic Studies and Comparative Approach to the Classical Wolrd. A Review Article’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 129, 2009, 89–109 Williams, R., Culture and Society: 1780–1950, London 1958 Weber, M., The Methodology of Social Sciences, Glecoe, Il. 1948 (orig. edn 1922)

Jonathan Ben-Dov

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El in the Dead Sea Scrolls The late Luigi Enrico Rossi has taught us the importance of submerged literature.1 His method is an efficient way to bypass the tyranny of Canon and of the mechanisms that made this canon persist through the ages. By tracing the threads of the ‘mainstream’ tradition, one is able to detect fine threads of earlier traditions, which had once existed in a full-fledged literary and social environment before being stripped of their context and absorbed into a different milieu. In this work of literary archaeology, a professional excavator can achieve much by tracing early relics and reconstructing the mythology, theology, or narratives that had once been woven around them.2 This idea is as relevant to ancient Near Eastern literature or the Hebrew Bible as to classical literature. In the present paper I wish to depict the long and elaborate life of the mythological tradition about the divine assembly and its master.3 The basic scene is that of the master sitting among the multitude of gods, most of them his progeny. There are many possible plots to attach to this basic scene: the gods may convene for judgment, for feasting, or for declaring war, but the core is always the assembly. Naturally, such a mythological picture will raise objections among those who conceive of their god as a single god, as we shall see below. This tradition, well rooted in West Semitic texts, serves to explain various facets of politico-theological reality. In the biblical tradition, the members of the divine assembly were conceived quite early on as representing the various nations of the world, and hence as mirroring political relations on earth. Lay readers of the Hebrew Bible will be deterred by such an explicitly mythological tradition and indeed, as we shall see, an objection took shape already within the Hebrew Bible itself.

|| 1 Colesanti and Giordano 2014. I would like to express my sincere thanks to the group working on ‘Submerged Greek Literature’, and especially to Manuela Giordano, for inviting me to present this paper in Rome. The sense of cooperation and interdisciplinary thought achieved in that session is much appreciated. 2 For the metaphor of threads, see Reeves 1994. For the metaphor of literary archaeology see Zakovitch 1999, 429–439 and especially Shinan and Zakovitch 2012. 3 For the basic formulation of this entity see Mullen 1980; Niehr 1990, 71–94.

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The centrality of this scene in the biblical tradition, however, is hard to deny, even as it has been refined or suppressed in it. While the Hebrew Bible alternates between accepting and rejecting the divine assembly, the scene ultimately found much popularity in post-biblical Jewish literature. The suppression of this tradition in the Hebrew Bible is already a commonplace of current scholarship, but its post-biblical revival is often overlooked. I will therefore dwell briefly on the biblical life of this tradition, and then expand on its later life in post-biblical Judaism. The present article is really about the participation of Hebrew literature in the culture of the ancient Near East. The prophet Ezekiel is the right person to assess the measure of indebtedness of Judah and the Judaeans to these neighboring cultures. Born and raised in Jerusalem, this junior priest was exiled to Babylon in 586 BCE and began his prophetic career in the glorious shadow of imperial Babylon. Ezekiel, sometimes called ‘an encyclopaedist’ by modern scholars, was keen to absorb the rich Babylonian culture surrounding him while at the same time lending an eager ear to the vibrant cultural amalgam of other exiled communities – Phoenicians, Edomites, Egyptians, Elamites, Aramaeans, and many others – who were living in contemporary Babylonia.4 Ezekiel (chapter 16) casts his version of the ‘biography’ of Judah and the Judaeans in the form of a story about a female foundling collected by a senior patron, YHWH. In that account, the prophet chose to underscore Judah’s connection with the Levantine cultures surrounding it (16:3): … Your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite5

Although Ezekiel knew the Babylonian culture quite well, he characterized the Judaeans as descendants of the Levant. Relying on Ezekiel’s testimony we may learn, first, that the Judaean culture was part and parcel of the Levant of the First Millennium BCE, and should be considered as an active agent in that milieu rather than as a secluded cultural island. Second, while mainstream biblical studies would seek ‘parallels’ for Judaean literature in Mesopotamia – as

|| 4 For the linguistic and cultural amalgam of Babylonia in the early 6th century BCE see Beaulieu 2006. On Ezekiel’s absorption of Babylonian lore see most recently Vanderhooft 2014; Ganzel and Holtz 2014 (with earlier bibliography cited there). 5 Translations of biblical texts follow the NJPS version with slight modifications: Tanakh: the New Jewish Publication Society Bible.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 11

best preserved in cuneiform tablets – we should take Ezekiel’s word and seek these shared regional patterns rather in the Levant.6 Religions in the Levant, as far back as we can trace their origins, conceived of a pantheon of gods headed by a revered, aged god, who sits surrounded by a company of minor gods. While there is little agreement about the constitution of the pantheon, the image of the divine council is widely accepted. In the words of Herbert Niehr:7 Für die syrisch-kanaanäische Religion ist grundsätzlich horvorzuheben, daß es ein gemeinsames semitisches Pantheon nicht gibt. … Vom Pantheon zu unterscheiden ist der himmlische Thronrat. … Das motiv der himmlischen Thronrats kann als eines der spezifischen Elemente des Kultes der syrisch-kanaanäischen Stadtstaaten betrachtet werden.

In Ugaritic sources of the 2nd millennium BCE, the head of the pantheon is called by the personal name ʾIlu. His other name, or perhaps, rather, a frequent epithet, is ʿlyn, (Hebrew ʿelyon, ‘the elevated one’ usually translated into Greek as ὕψιστος). The mythical past knew glorious struggles among ʾIlu’s progeny for primacy in the pantheon, but regardless of the identity of the winner the assembly still retains its name and character as the circle of ʾIlu, leaving the old god as the professed head of the family. Thus, while Ugaritic myths depict a competition for the position of ‘the One’, the standard epithets commemorate the Many and their leader. 8 ʾIlu is called ʾab bn ʾil, ‘father of gods’ (lit. father of the sons of ʾIlu’);9 and both warrior gods ym ‘sea’ and mt ‘death’, the opponents of Baal, retain the epithet mdd ʾil ‘the beloved of ʾIlu’. Epithets which include ʾIlu’s name often refer to the totality of the gods, thus dr bn ʾil, ‘the circle of the gods’. Other titles referring to the assembly are: ʾilm, ‘gods’, bn ʾilm, ‘sons of gods’ (i.e. junior gods with respect to the senior head of the assembly), dr ʾil, ‘the circle of ʾIlu’, ʿdt / pḫr ʾilm, ‘the congregation/ assembly of gods’, pḫr kbkbm, ‘the assembly of stars’ (equating ‘stars’ with

|| 6 For the Levantine environment – rather than an Assyrian imperial one – of the Book of Deuteronomy see Cogan 1974, and more recently Crouch 2014. For a reconfiguration of earlier Syro-Canaanite traditions and their relations with biblical myths see Ayali-Darshan 2012; AyaliDarshan 2014. 7 Niehr 1990, 71–94. Further literature on this motif is vast and I will only name some notable studies: L’Heureux 1979; Mullen 1980, 111–284; Smith 2002, 32–43; Parker 1999, 204–208. 8 For divine epithets in Ugaritic literature see recently Rahmouni 2007. 9 Idem, 12–13.

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‘gods’).10 In several places one encounters the parallelism ‘gods / sons of qdš’ (ʾlm / bn qdš), the latter word meaning ‘holy’ in Semitic languages, being most probably an epithet for ʾIlu.11 This picture is by no means characteristic of the 2nd millennium only. It is prevalent also in Phoenician and Aramaean sources throughout the 1st millennium BCE and through the domination of the Achaemenid empire.12 In Phoenician, members of the assembly are often referred to as qdš, ‘holy one’ or more freely ‘god’, or in the plural qdšm. Thus we encounter: ʾlnm qdšm, ‘holy gods’ (KAI5 14:9); dr kl qdšm, ‘circle of all holy ones’ (KAI5 27:12); and mpḫrt ʾil gbl qdšm, ‘assembly of the gods of Byblos, the holy ones’ (KAI5 4:4–5); dr kl qdšn, ‘the circle of all the gods’ (KAI5 27:12).13 Similarly, a god is often designated qdš (later with the vowel indicated qdyš) also in Aramaic, with this title usually appearing in the plural: qdšn. Thus for example in the Proverbs of Ahikar, probably from the Achaemenid period, (parag. 95): bʿl qdšn, ‘Lord of the holy ones’. Generally in Aramaic, however, the god El (corresponding to 2nd millennium ʾIlu) functions as the head of the divine council.14 The god ʾIlu, together with the family descended from the primordial god Ἑλιοῦν (‫ )עליון‬appears as late as the account of Philo of Byblos in the 1st century BCE, where his name is transcribed as Ἦλος, equated with Kronos.15 The picture in West Semitic is thus rather stable. Hebrew sources of roughly the first half of the 1st millennium BCE share the same picture of the Levantine pantheon while maintaining their own religious uniqueness. We thus find in the Hebrew Bible similar titles for the divine assembly to those found in Ugaritic or Phoenician: ‫ בני אלהים‬,‫‘ בני אלים‬sons of gods, sons of god’ (Ps 29:1, Job 38:7);16 ‫ קהל קדשים‬,‫‘ קדשים‬Holy Ones, community of Holy ones’ (Ps 89:6–8); ‫‘ עדת אל‬Congregation of El’ (Ps 82:1);‫יחד כוכבי בקר‬ ‘assembly of morning stars’17 (Job 38:7, cf Ugaritic pḫr kbkbm).

|| 10 For an elucidation of these designations see Mullen 1980. 11 See Van Koppen and Van der Toorn 1999, 417; previously Xella 1982. 12 Niehr 1990, 71–94; see Xella 2014, 525–535. 13 For an analysis of the term qdš in Phoenician see the dictionary entry in Hoftijzer and Jongeling 1995, 996 as well as Van Koppen and Van der Toorn 1999, 417. 14 See Kottsieper 1997, 40–42. The title bn ʾlm appears also in Ammonite, in the Amman citadel inscription (KAI5 307:6). 15 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1. 10. 1–16 (Baumgarten 1981, 180–192). On Philo’s treatment of his sources see for example Baumgarten 1981, 63–93; Ribichini 1986, 41–52. 16 For the reading in Deut 32:8, 43 see below. Greenstein 2013, 70–71 claims that Job 38:7 is an allusion to the earlier version of Deut 32:43, as preserved in Qumran. 17 For this meaning of yḫd as a noun see Talmon 1953.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 13

Most notable for the present purposes are the following sources which depict the divine assembly in its capacity as a choir singing the praise of its chief. The first, Ps 89: 6–8, comprises a relic from an ancient hymn which was merged into a classical Hebrew poem:18 Your wonders, O YHWH, are praised by the heavenly beings (‫)שמים‬, Your faithfulness, too, in the assembly of holy beings (‫)קהל קדשים‬. For who in the skies can equal YHWH, can compare with YHWH among the divine beings (‫)בני אלים‬, a God greatly dreaded in the council of holy beings (‫)סוד קדושים‬, held in awe by all around Him?

The second, post-classical Hebrew source is in the book of Job 38:7. The book was written during the Achaemenid period and reflects a religious identity which is not particularly Judaean, but is rather attuned to the Aramaic-Edomite background of Job and his friends:19 When the assembly of morning stars sang, and all the divine beings shouted for joy.

According to the parallelism in this poetic line, the ‘assembly’ of stars (corresponding to Ugaritic and Phoenician dr or pḫr) corresponds to ‘all the sons of gods’ (‫ )בני אלהים‬as they praise their master. Another non-Judaean speaker with a similar background to that of Job is ʾAgur bin Yakeh, possibly of Edomite origin, who reports (Prov 30:2–3): I am brutish, less than a man; I lack common sense. I have not learned wisdom, Nor do I possess knowledge of the Holy Ones.

The speaker contrasts his ignorance with the wisdom of the Holy Ones (‫)קדושים‬. The latter beings bear outstanding wisdom, due to their proximity to God. Many biblical authors, especially those of the Psalms, view YHWH, the god of Israel, as a master of the assembly of minor gods. An example is Psalm 82, where his ascent to power is recounted.20 In addition, several formulaic hymnic

|| 18 For ancient hymns embedded in biblical communal laments as in Psalms 74 and 89 see Avishur 1994, 234–206. 19 For the date of Job and the Aramaic-Edomite affinity see in general Greenstein 2003, 651– 666. 20 Goldstein 2010; Parker 1995.

14 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

statements summon the divine beings to praise their lord. However, while the classical summons formula is quite clear, as in Ps 29:1 and 47:7, biblical literature sometimes reveals a certain amount of objection to it, submerging it under more refined monotheistic reasoning. Compare Ps 29:1–2 with Ps 96:7–8.21 29:1–2

96:7–8

Ascribe to YHWH, O divine beings, ascribe to YHWH glory and strength. Ascribe to YHWH the glory of His name; bow down to YHWH, majestic in holiness.

Ascribe to YHWH, O families of the nations, ascribe to YHWH glory and strength. Ascribe to YHWH the glory of His name, bring tribute and enter His courts.

Both psalms share essentially the same hymnic formula, but the divine beings in the original formula (Psalm 29) are replaced by ‘the families of nations’ in Psalm 96 as the object of the call for praise. The replacement is based on the notion that while each of the gods has responsibility for one of the nations, YHWH alone is responsible for Israel. Calling upon the nations to praise, rather than upon the Sons of gods, is intended to avoid the mythological scene of the divine family. The verse thus maintains its universalistic connotation but with a less offensive tone. Indeed, the prophet known as Second Isaiah (40:13–15) expresses dissatisfaction with the association of YHWH with the divine council and with the gods of foreign nations, underscoring him alone as the potent agent.22 The animosity towards traditions of the divine assembly continues in a wellknown passage of Deuteronomy, this time not in the formation stage of biblical literature but rather in its transmission. A clear-headed reading of the song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32 reveals how much it depends on the scene of the divine assembly. After a short proem, the poem records the way YHWH won the people of Israel as his ‘share’, at the stage when he had been a junior part of the divine assembly and when the nations of the world were divided among the members of the assembly (32:8–9). The division is carried out by ʿlywn, a conspicuous epithet of the chief of the assembly, who assigns to each minor god a share in the world.23 Once YHWH gains hold of his ‘inheritance’, a long drama of loyalty and betrayal unfolds, through which the Lord expresses love to his people, is then enraged by them, and ultimately is reconciled with them, slaughters

|| 21 See Ginsberg 1969; Rofé 2012, 86. 22 For the objection of Second Isaiah to the divine council see Weinfeld 2004. 23 For the basic mythological significance of this scene see Loewenstamm 1986, and more recently Goldstein 2010; Smith 2008, 139–143.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 15

their enemies, and returns victorious. The poem then ends (32:43) with a call to the members of the divine assembly to sing the praise of YHWH. The poem thus begins and ends (32:8, 43) with explicit mythological scenes. The original text of these two scenes is reflected (with minor variations) in the Septuagint of Deuteronomy, as well as in ancient Hebrew scrolls from Qumran (4QDeuteronomyj.q). In contrast, the Masoretic text (= MT), later to become the textus receptus among Jews, reflects a ‘corrected’ reading of these two verses. This is not the place to recount the intricacies of the various versions, which have been extensively discussed in scholarship.24 Suffice it to note that in the MT of verse 8 the name of the assembly was transformed: from the polytheistic designation ‫בני‬ ‫‘ אלהים‬the Sons of god(s)’ to the less blatant phrase ‫‘ בני ישראל‬sons of Israel’. This latter reading obfuscates the original connotation of the verse and renders the poetic line less effective. Similarly, in verse 43 the call for praise has been extensively modified too. The original reading, preserved in the Qumran scroll 4QDeuteronomyq and to some extent also in the Septuagint, reads: Praise, O heavens (‫)שמים‬, with him, worship him, all you gods (‫!)אלהים‬

In contrast, the Masoretic text gives the shortened and thus enigmatic reading: ‘Praise, O nations, (for?) His people’. The transformation is readily understood if we take into account that the word ‘Heavens’ (‫ )שמים‬stands here for the ‘heavenly beings’, as noted by Rofé,25 and hence it was necessary to replace it with a more moderate term. While the corrected reading retains the universal tone of the original, its poetic sting has been withheld. Deuteronomy 32:8 continued to live in the Israelite literary reservoir and gained much popularity through the ages. Interestingly, the version which is often quoted and interpreted is the original version, not the corrected one of the MT. In these later quotations, however, a considerable change occurred in the understanding of the myth. While the original statement in Deut 32:8 viewed the divine name ʿelyon, ‘the High one’ as superior to YHWH and hence as assigning the portions to all heavenly beings including YHWH, this kind of reading could not have been acceptable among later biblical writers. Among these writers, the epithet ‘the High one’ was understood as referring to YHWH, he himself being superior over the other heavenly beings. It is thus a monotheistic transformation of the original myth. This transformation is attested in the paraphrases

|| 24 For a detailed analysis see Loewenstamm 1986; Goldstein 2010; Rofé 2012, 62–73; Joosten 2007, 548–555. 25 Cf Jeremiah 14:22; Rofé 2002, 50.

16 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

of 32:8 in Deuteronomy 4:19 and 29:25, as well as in later, post-biblical paraphrases.26 My study has thus far shown how there was an ambiguous attitude towards the scene of the divine assembly in the literature of the Hebrew Bible: it was not utterly rejected, but rather corrected, interpreted, or accommodated in various ways. As we shall presently see, this scene experienced a surprising renaissance in the post-classical period of Israel and in other Jewish literature written in the Hellenistic period. It has long been acknowledged that the biblical Book of Daniel contains a West Semitic throne scene of the divine assembly. The first half of this apocalyptic book, written in Aramaic, dates somewhere between the 4th and 2nd centuries BCE, i.e. between the Achaemenid and Seleucid rule over Judah, and most probably contains layers from both of these periods.27 The book recounts a series of magnificent symbolic dreams, by the Babylonian and Persian kings as well as by Daniel himself. As part of Daniel’s dream in chapter 7 we read how the master of the assembly descends from heaven to resume his throne in a judgment scene among the host of heaven (Daniel 7: 9–10, NRSV) As I watched, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his throne; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence. A thousand thousand served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him.

The scene clearly develops the contrast between the mighty seated lord and the infinite standing multitude of his servants. It has been noted long ago that the epithet used here for the chief of the assembly: ‫עתיק יומין‬, ‘the Ancient of Days’ is a reflection of an accepted Canaanite epithet for ʾIlu, the lord of the assembly, common already in the 2nd millennium BCE and into the 1st millennium.28 It is often identified with the Ugaritic epithet ʾab šnm, ‘Father of Years’.29 In addi-

|| 26 See Smith 2008, 202–212. 27 For the date and authorship of Daniel see Collins 1993, 24–38. Chapter 7, standing in between the narratives and the visions, might be later than chpters 1–6. 28 See Emerton 1958 with earlier bibliography; Collins 1993, 286–291; Becking 1999. 29 For this epithet see Rahmouni 2007, 18–21.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 17

tion, the identity of ‘one like the Son of Man’ in Daniel 7:13 brings to mind other Canaanite divine imagery.30 While the main sources of Canaanite religion attesting to these epithets date back to the 2nd millennium BCE, there is no reason to assume that Daniel 7 refers back to those archaic religious manifestations, which would have become entirely obsolete by the 2nd century BCE. Rather, such an epithet was part of the Levantine culture of the late 1st millennium, and the author of Daniel participated in that regional aggregate.31 Thus, after a period in which the divine assembly had been controlled and moderated, this material reentered biblical literature in the framework of apocalyptic visions, demonstrating the liveliness of Levantine mythology in Second Temple Judaism.32 The main part of this article will now focus on apocalyptic Jewish groups of the Hellenistic and early Roman period, and especially on the community whose writings were discovered at Qumran, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. There are many reasons to tie this community specifically to the religiouscultural milieu of the Levant, particularly Syria, first and foremost the fact that the community itself makes that connection explicitly. Thus, in the text known today as ‘the Damascus Document’, the community is called ‘The New Covenanters in the Land of Damascus’, recounting the establishment of a renewed covenant and a new community in the land of Damascus (CD VI 4–5, cf 4QDa 3 ii): ‘The Well is the Law, and its “diggers” are the captives of Israel who went out of the land of Judah and dwelt in the land of Damascus’.33 While some scholars take the reference to Damascus as a metaphor for an exile ‘in the spirit’, I see no reason to doubt the reliability of the geographical report.34 One must then ask how this Syrian affiliation was manifested in the writings of the group. In my earlier work I have explored the ways in which the Aramaic-speaking Syrian milieu mediated the transfer of Mesopotamian lore – both scientific and mythological – to Judaea and to Jewish scholars at the time.35

|| 30 Collins 1993, 304–310 with extensive bibliography. 31 Collins 1993, 291–294. Another hint of the cultural background of Daniel 7 is the depiction of YHWH’s throne in 7:9, which is often compared to the scene on a coin from Yehud, showing a deity sitting on a wheeled throne. See Shenkar 2007–2008. 32 For the Chaoskampf motif in Second Temple literature, see Yarbro Collins 1976; Angel 2006. 33 For text and translation of this scroll see Charlesworth and Baumgarten et al. 1993. 34 For the metaphorical interpretation see Dimant 2014, 455–464. For the literal interpretation see Campbell 1995. 35 Ben-Dov 2008; for a wider discussion of this cultural contact beyond the scientific material see Sanders, forthcoming.

18 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

The library of Qumran, altogether about 900 different scrolls, is rather heterogeneous.36 Among the various classes in this collection, I will deal with – and try to interconnect – the biblical scrolls, the Aramaic scrolls which bear close affinities with ancient Near Eastern material, and some of the core sectarian scrolls regulating the community’s structure and practice. Let us begin with the Qumranic attestations of Deuteronomy 32 noted above. As noted above, the MT preserves a corrected version of verses 8 and 43, which replaces the divine assembly scene with less mythological-sounding expressions of the distribution of nations in the world among the divine assembly. Now, one may well understand why a transmitter of the Masoretic text corrected the offending polytheistic lines; conversely one may also understand how the scribe who transmitted the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint was wary of changing the ancient text despite its awkwardness.37 More should be said, however, about the transmission of this passage in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The poem of Deuteronomy 32 seems to have been a central one for the community, since no less than six different scrolls contain parts of the chapter.38 Moreover, some of them were not copies of the book of Deuteronomy, but rather contained only selected excerpts, probably for liturgical purposes, with chapter 32 included. In fact both 4QDeutj and 4QDeutq contain only excerpts from Deuteronomy, with the former presenting Deut 32:1–9 alongside selections from chapters 5–6, 8, 11, 21, as well as Exodus 12–13,39 while 4QDeutq was probably a single sheet containing only chapter 32.40 The older, original reading of the problematic verses is attested in two scrolls (4QDeuteronomyj,q), both of them containing excerpts of Deuteronomy. The ‘corrected’ reading of MT is not preserved in any Qumran scroll known to

|| 36 For a general survey of the Qumran finds and the Dead Sea Scrolls see VanderKam and Flint 2005. 37 In fact, the translation of this Hebrew Vorlage into Greek attests unease with the title ‘sons of god’. Most text witnesses of the Septuagint do not preserve this title in a straightforward way, but rather give a duplicate translation: υἱῶν ἀγγέλων θεοῦ, placing the more orthodox term ἄγγελοι next to the problematic ‘sons of god’. See Smith 2008, 201–202. Only two miniscule manuscripts of the Septuagint preserve the reading ‘sons of God’ as in 4QDeuteronomy j. 38 Copies c, r, j, q, b, and k1 of the 4QDeuteronomy scrolls. 39 Most of these scrolls probably served as parchment slips inserted into phylacteries. See White Crawford 2005, 127–140, esp. 128–130. Deuteronomy 32 is preserved on the Phylacteries scroll 4QPhylN. 40 Likewise, 4QDeuteronomyk1 contains excerpts from Deut 5, 11, and 32. See Doering 2005, 26–27; Tov 1995.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 19

us. This may be a matter of chance, since additional copies of Deuteronomy 32 may have perished in the course of two thousand years of lying in the caves. However, further evidence prompts the thought that there was some value imputed to the ‘polytheistic’ reading of Deut 32 with reference to the divine assembly. Thus, an allusion to 32:8 appears in a poetic sectarian text, which reflects quite clearly the older reading of that verse.41

ǀ ‫נ[ ֯כבדתה מבני‬

‫הצבתה ג[ ֗בולות עמים‬ ‫ל[ ֗הרבות אשמה‬ ‫לוא[ ֗עז֗ ֗ב ֗תם ביד‬

] ֗‫אל שו‬ ] ‫לחזקם‬ ] ‫בנחלתו‬ ‫מבק]שי נפשם‬ ֯ ‫כול‬

You are more honoured than the sons of El[… you fixed] the boundaries of the nations to strengthen them [… ] in order that iniquity will [not?] abound in His inheritance [ … ] You have [not?] abandoned them in the hands of those who see[k their lives]

The poem addresses God in the second person, praising his dignity beyond that of other sons of El and the way He has ‘established the lands of nations’, with a clear reference to 32:8b. The word ‘inheritance’ corresponds to 32:9: Israel is the Lord’s inheritance, and he acts to maintain it properly by not letting evil and guilt dwell in it and preventing the other divine beings from interfering with his private inheritance.42 With the caution due to the fragmentary context of this statement, one may note that these literary lines allude to Deuteronomy 32:8 in the older, ‘Qumranic’ version. This is made clear by the term ‫בני אל‬, ‘sons of El’, which corresponds to the reading ‫ בני אלוהים‬in 4QDeutj and disagrees with ‫בני‬ ‫‘ ישראל‬Sons of Israel’ of the MT. I suggest that the ‘polytheistic’ reading of Deut 32 raised interest in the community of the Yahad because the scene of the divine assembly was entirely

|| 41 1QHa XXIV 33–37, following Qimron 2010, 99. For the relation of this passage to Deut 32 see Kister 2012, 76–77. Smith 2008, 209 mentions two other allusions to Deut 32:8 in Qumran literature (1QM X 9 and 4Q418 fr. 81+81a line 3; Smith did not note the Hodayot passage mentioned here). In his examples, however, the allusion to Deut 32:8 is not as clear as in the Hodayot. 42 The term ‘you have not abandoned them’ recalls other formulations in the DSS when the Israelites are given away – or are saved from being given away – into the hands of evil angels representing the nations. The angels of the nations are often contained under the authority of the evil lord Belial. The relationship between the angels of the nations and the (positive) lord of the assembly is best reflected in the Animal Apocalypse, where the angels are represented as seventy shepherds (1Enoch 89:59–77). For a wide discussion of this motif and several new occurrences of it see Dimant 2006, 373–388.

20 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

active, sacred, and revered in that community. In such a community, the old message of Deuteronomy 32 was not conceived as offending, but rather as always relevant. My opinion about the use of Deuteronomy 32 at Qumran thus differs from that of Smith.43 Smith takes it as an axiom that all allusions to Deuteronomy 32:8 – both biblical and post-biblical – are strictly monotheistic. Even the author of Deut 32, according to Smith, did not really mean what he wrote but rather ‘understood El Elyon as a title of Yahweh. Despite drawing on the old polytheistic type-element, the author intended no polytheism and perhaps knew none in this case’.44 In my opinion, however, readers of this verse in the Yahad community were especially fond of it precisely because it embodied the notion of multiple divine beings, which was especially suitable for their demonology and for their theology in general. Let us adduce some examples to that end. The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness depicts the ultimate cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil at the end of days.45 Column XII of the largest copy (1QM) recounts the collaboration of human beings with angels throughout the battle (1QM XII 1–5):46 … For [th]ere is a multitude of holy ones in the heavens, and the hosts of angels (are) in your holy habitation to pr[aise] your [truth]. The elect ones of the holy people, you have set for yourself [ ]. The names of all their hosts (are) with you in your holy dwelling;[ ] In your glorious habitation. …. and to muster […] according to their thousands and their myriads, together with your holy ones [… ] your angels, so that they have a mighty hand in the battle […] the rebels of the earth in the strife of your judgments, and the people of the elect ones of the heavens shall be victo[rious..]

Lines 4–5 depict a recurring scene in Qumran literature: the chosen ones among mankind stand shoulder to shoulder with the heavenly beings. They will fight together with the angels and ultimately win with them. The heavenly beings are called here not only ‫מלאך‬, the usual word for angel, but also ‫קדושים‬, ‘holy ones’ the normal word in other West Semitic languages for denoting ‘a heavenly being’, the same as ‘the holy ones of Byblos’ encountered above. Coexistence with heavenly beings is practised in another fundamental role of the community. A passage from the poetic-liturgical Hodayot recounts the foundation of the sectarian identity: membership in the sect elevates the indi-

|| 43 Smith 2008, 208–242. 44 Quotation from p. 203. 45 For the War Scroll see Duhaime 2004. 46 English translation follows J. Duhaime, in Charlesworth and Baumgarten et al. 1993.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 21

vidual from poverty and selflessness to the position where they can participate with the angels in their duty of praising God (1QHa XI 19–23).47 I give thanks to You, O Lord, for You have redeemed my soul from the pit. From Sheol and Abaddon You have raised me up to an eternal height, so that I might walk about on a limitless plain, and know that there is hope for him whom You created from the dust for the eternal council. The perverse spirit You have cleansed from great transgression, that he might take his stand with the host of the holy ones, and enter together (or in the Yahad) with the congregation of the sons of heaven. And for man, You have allotted an eternal destiny with the spirits of knowledge, to praise Your name together with a community (Yahad) of praise, and to recount Your wonders before all Your creatures.

Of special importance is the phrase ‫לבוא ביחד עם עדת בני שמים‬, ‘entering together / in communion / in Yahad with the congregation of the sons of heaven’. The word yahad appears here not only as an adverb connoting ‘communion’, but serves also as the most common self-designation of the community, denoting the coexistence of the community with the heavenly beings. The poetic sentence from the Hodayot alludes directly to the biblical verse from Job 38:7 quoted above, which has, it seems, affected quite significantly the religious world-view of the Yahad. Of all the texts at Qumran, the scene of the assembly is most prominent in the collection known as Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, attested in over ten copies from Qumran and Masada.48 Here, the people of the Yahad community recite weekly prayers in which they (re-)enact a human performance of the liturgy of the heavenly temple. The priests of that temple are the heavenly beings, so that the human recitation of these prayers creates a mystical-mythical setting for human communion with the divine.49 I quote here a typical example (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice 1 I 1–6):50 [For the instructor. Song of the whole-offering of the] first [Sabba]th on the fourth of the first month. Praise [the God of ]h, O god-like ones of all the holiest of the holy ones (‫ ;)קדושי קדושים‬and in His divinity [ ]among the eternally holy, the holiest of the holy ones (‫)קדושי עד קדושי קדושים‬, and they have become for Him priests of [ ], ministers of the Presence in His glorious shrine. In the assembly of all the gods of [ ]god-like ones

|| 47 Translation follows Stegemann and Schuller 2009 (DJD 40). Italics added. On the communion with the angels in prayer among the Yahad community see Chazon 2000. 48 See Newsom 1998. 49 For the sort of encounter practised in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice see Schäfer 2006, 37–66. 50 Translation follows Newsom 1998.

22 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

(‫)אלהים‬. He inscribed His statutes concerning all spiritual matters and precepts of [ knowledge, people of discernment, honoured by God.

]

The heavenly beings which constantly praise the Lord are called here by the old West Semitic title ‫קדושים‬, often with a typical syntactic duplication and intensification: ‫קדושי קדושים‬, ‘holiest of the holy ones’. Moreover, they are straightforwardly called ‫אלים‬, ‘gods’ (in various construct combinations as for example ‫אלי‬ ‫‘ דעת‬gods of wisdom’), a highly surprising appellation in a Jewish environment which is supposed to have shunned polytheism already centuries before.51 Not dissimilar from the usage noted above is the conspicuous biblical interpretation in the so-called Pesher of Melchiṣedek (11Q13). In that scroll, the title ‫אלוהים‬, ‘god’, of Psalm 82:1 is interpreted to refer to none other than Melchisedek, a semi-divine semi-human primordial figure acting here as a leader of the assembly (11Q13 II 9–10).52 The use of such divine appellations as ‫ קדוש‬and ‫ אל‬may not be so surprising if one takes into account that there is considerable continuity, even affinity, between Qumranic thought (presented in Hebrew) and a variety of literature, both earlier and contemporary, written primarily in Aramaic. In that literature, such as Book of Giants, Book of Watchers, Genesis Apocryphon etc. epithets such as ‫עלאה‬, ‘lofty’, ‫קדישא רבא‬, ‘Great Holy one’, ‫קדיש‬, ‘Holy one’, are frequent. For example, the throne scene, noted above, of Daniel 7:9–10 is paralleled in both 1 Enoch 14 and in the Book of Giants (4Q530).53 The title ‫קדישא רבא‬, ‘the Great Holy One’, is quite common in Qumran Aramaic to denote the chief of the divine assembly (e.g. 1Qapocryphon Genesis II 14, XI 15, XII 17). The Book of Enoch, an important predecessor of the Yahad, expands on the myth of the fallen angels, using that mythological kernel to construct a wide-ranging worldview with recourse to many religious and even political issues.54 The myth of fallen angels relates in many ways to the scene of the divine assembly. Especially noteworthy is a passage in 1 Enoch 1:3 (= 4Q201 i 5–6), which recounts how the Great Holy One will rise (‫ )יופע‬with his multitude of hosts. Similar wording to that particular phrase appears in 1QM I 16, where God appears (‫ )יופיע‬with holy ones

|| 51 For an analysis of the divine epithets in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice which stresses their un-conservative orientation see Mizrahi, forthcoming. 52 The restoration and overall interpretation of this theme in the Pesher of Melchisedek remain debated. A short discussion may be found in Collins 2000, 18–19. 53 See Trotter 2012, 451–466. In fact in the Book of Giants (4Q530) the lord of the assembly is called ‘Great holy one’ rather than ‘Ancient of Days’ as in Daniel e. For the continuity between Yahad theology and apocalyptic literature see Hempel 2013, 231–252; Collins 2010. 54 See Reed 2005; Stuckenbruck 2014.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 23

(‫)קדושים‬.55 This is further demonstration of the continuity between Yahad traditions and earlier Aramaic angelology. In the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, the Qumranic ‘polytheism’ is carried to the extreme. The angels of heaven are simply called ‘gods’ and function as an essential part of the community’s conceptual universe, plain and simple. The multiplicity of agents in heaven is not a mere ornament in the poetic atmosphere of the Songs; rather, this multiplicity constitutes the very essence of the entire composition, since the effect can only be achieved with a multi-vocal heavenly choir singing God’s praise. While what we call ‘monotheistic religions’ made it their mission to eradicate the dimension of multiplicity from the heavenly realm and assign agency to a single god, many followers of these religions could not have functioned with such a bereft divine realm. A single god was simply not enough to fulfill the religious imagination of worshippers. The divine realm required the supplementation of multiple other figures, which in monotheistic religions are called ‘angels’ to conceal the polytheistic point.56 While some religious currents would seek to play down the role of angels in the divine realms, others would seek to underscore it.57 The community of the Yahad, as we saw, belongs to the latter current. Members of the community felt the multiplicity of heavenly beings on a daily basis and could not have run their spiritual life without recourse to them. In that sense, the theology of the community is similar to the religion of the surrounding Levant. In other words, the Yahad was not ‘influenced’ by the Levantine culture, but rather took part in the formation of Levantine religion as an active agent, although with a unique and particular hue. Was the community at Qumran polytheistic? The terms ‘monotheism’ and ‘polytheism’ are misleading. We as modern readers, after millennia of Abrahamic religions, may expect more of these terms that the ancients would. Members of the Yahad would certainly succumb to the statement of Deuteronomy 6:4 ‘Hear O Israel, YHWH our Lord, YHWH is one’, a verse often quoted in Qumran and copied in numerous phylacteries.58 Yet they would qualify it with a very active host surrounding the one single god. At this point we may conceive of a connection between the Yahad’s belief in multiple heavenly beings and the popularity at Qumran of Deuteronomy 32,

|| 55 Curiously this verse from 1 Enoch is also quoted in verse 7 of the Epistle of Jude from the New Testament. 56 For this move see Koch 1994. 57 See especially Rofé 2012, 81–97. 58 See Lange and Weigold 2012, 147–177.

24 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

particularly with the original, polytheistic-like reading of 32:8, 43. I believe it is no coincidence that these two phenomena appear within the same community. They seem to be two sides of the same coin: the continuing significance of the divine assembly as a religious category in the Yahad. In contrast, other Jewish streams of the Second Temple period, which may have been less well-attuned to the multiplicity of angels, introduced corrections in these two verses which ultimately found their way into the Masoretic text.59 My argument connects with the well-known and much discussed habits for representing the divine name in the Dead Sea Scrolls.60 The scribes of these scrolls do not write the Tetragrammaton in free Hebrew composition and usually use the title ‫אל‬, ‘El’, as the standard divine name. In addition, the same title is quite often used when quoting biblical texts within non-biblical compositions. The choice of this title is intriguing, given that earlier Hebrew scribes, represented already within the Hebrew Bible, chose the more common title ‫אלהים‬. In fact, the divine title El was not only used as a substitute to the Tetragrammaton, but rather functioned in sectarian literature as the standard divine name. Thus to take a single example from the Damascus Covenant (CD II 3): ‘El, who loves true knowledge, has positioned Wisdom and Cleverness in front of him’. The Dead Sea Scrolls also use the divine name El to build chains of constructs for designating the deity and the nation of Israel: ‫ גורל אל‬,‫יחד אל‬, ‫אל ישראל‬, ‫אל אלים‬ ‘El of the gods, El of Israel, the Yahad of El, the lot of El’ etc. Why is it that the members of the Yahad avoided the designation Elohim, already attested in numerous biblical writings before them, and chose instead the designation El? It may be noted that El is rather infrequent in other Jewish literature of the corresponding period. It may not be too far-fetched to claim that the mythical scene of the divine assembly, which was so powerful for the selfconstruction of the community, is what prompted the choice of El as the main divine title within the Yahad. In the special worldview of the Yahad, the main characteristic of the supreme God was His position as the chief of the assembly, i.e. the special dynamic that was achieved within the realm of the divine between the One and the Many. There is of course only one supreme god, but his greatness and power can only be manifested by way of interacting with the other divine beings surrounding Him. The title El is most suitable to convey this

|| 59 Based on various circumstantial evidence, Van der Kooij 2005, dated this correction to sometime during the 2nd century BCE. 60 I have addressed this topic myself in an earlier study (Ben-Dov 2010) but did not include the main point suggested here. For earlier studies see mainly Stegemann 1978.

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 25

particular sense, because it had been used for at least a millennium throughout the Levant as an indication for the head of the divine assembly. Take for example the designation ‫אל אלים‬, ‘the god of gods’ which appears in the War Scroll (e.g. 1QM XVIII 6). In turn, this title is similarly used in Daniel 11:36, in a chapter which probably served as the backdrop to the war accounts in the War Scroll.61 Both literary contexts make much of the conflict between the angels of the nations and the chief divinity, the God of Israel. The construction ‘god of gods’ is a partitive genitive connecting the singular and plural of the word ‘El’. It is an intriguing play between monotheism and polytheism: the phrase is meant to convey the greatness of the One, but this cannot be expressed without recourse to the way He stands out among the Many. The more common biblical name ‫ אלוהים‬does not lend itself to such a construct, since it is grammatically plural even in designating the one and only God.62 A scribal culture like that of the Yahad which wished to make constant references to various powers in heaven cannot use the standard Hebrew titles for God; the old West Semitic title El would be a perfect choice for that purpose. I therefore suggest that a deeper understanding of the Yahad’s fascination with multiple divine beings in the assembly may explain not only various literary expressions throughout its literature, but also the fundamental choice of divine epithets used in constructing that literature. The very same ‘El’ who functions in the West Semitic culture as the head of the assembly is called into duty in a most unexpected literary milieu in early Roman Judaea.

Conclusion The task of this article was to trace submerged lines of thought behind the front row of canonical literature. This task was carried out with regard to the West Semitic motif of the divine assembly. This motif was shown to be stable throughout the religion of the Levant, from 2nd millennium BCE Ugarit, through the 1st millennium in Phoenician and Aramaean religion, and even later to the Syrian culture of the early 1st millennium CE. This motif and the literary tradition which arose out of it rely on the frequent religious need to contrast the One and the Many in the realm of the Divine. This juxtaposition was required also in the more monotheistic world of Hebrew biblical literature. While the motif is readily

|| 61 See Flusser 2007. 62 Why this is so, is an interesting question which cannot be answered here.

26 | Jonathan Ben-Dov

apparent in Hebrew literature of the Iron Age, in that age of bellicose monotheism there is a degree of resistance to it, and authors use various techniques to play down the polytheistic undertones of the motif. In the words of Mark Smith, biblical writers sought to reduce the translatability of the tradition. The main appearance of this motif, in Deuteronomy 32:8 and 43, acquired a central place in the Hebrew biblical tradition, but it was transmitted in an oblique way: it was either reinterpreted to place YHWH as the chief of the assembly, or, more boldly, corrected by means of the replacement of words in order to obfuscate the divine identity of the members of the assembly. Despite the biblical ambiguity towards the scene of the Divine assembly, this scene experienced a radical revival in Jewish literature of the Second Temple period, especially in Aramaic and in apocalyptic texts such as Enoch, Daniel, the Genesis Apocryphon, and the Book of Giants, and later in the sectarian literature of the Yahad. This revival reintegrated the Jewish literary tradition into the wider religious tradition of the Levant. The revival has been traced here in the variety of divine appellations and titles used in Jewish Aramaic, which correspond to the same or similar titles in contemporary non-Jewish texts. On the same continuum, these traditions can also be seen in Hebrew, mainly in the writings of the Yahad community. The indebtedness of the Yahad to its apocalyptic predecessors – mainly the circles that produced the Aramaic apocalypses – is quite clear. In addition the Yahad declares its origins to be located ‘in the Land of Damascus’, where the renewed covenant took place and the community was established. Within the Yahad there is a significant revival of the divine assembly, which played a central part in almost every field of the sectarian religion. It was suggested here that due to the Yahad’s commitment to the divine assembly, its scribes chose to use the divine epithet ‘El’, one which was not very popular among contemporary Jews, but which was most efficient for a religion based so strongly on the divine assembly. Thus, either deliberately or not, the community of the Yahad joined forces again with the Levantine religion of its times, at least in some aspects of describing the godhead. How does the mechanism of absorbing and reviving mythological elements work? Is it fair to say that the absorbed mythological elements remained within the confines of apocalyptic literature while leaving the mainstream Jewish writings ‘pure’ of foreign mythology? As the historian of ideas Amos Funkenstein taught, such an expectation would be naïve. The ideas of apocalyptic literature existed side by side with more ‘formal’ shapes of religion, and the two forms

The Resurrection of the Divine Assembly and the Divine Title El | 27

could not have avoided mutually influencing each other.63 Thus, the submerged will necessarily – sooner or later – find its way also from the back alley to the main road. The present article suggested a further way of benefiting from the mechanism of ‘submerged literature’. The Israeli scholar Frank Polak proved that the Aramaic stories in the Book of Daniel are based on a previous, oral tradition, based on their formulation and on epic formulas preserved in them.64 This earlier oral tradition is the tip of the iceberg of the lost Aramaic oral tradition, which contained all sorts of religious and narrative literature. While most of that Aramaic literature perished through history, significant parts of it survived because they were submerged in Jewish apocalyptic literature. Of course, this is not to say that the apocalyptic Jewish literature is a polytheistic Levantine product. It was based on components of the regional Aramaic tradition, but it did its best to tame its most offensive parts, and to acclimatize it within a normative Jewish tradition. Some circles in Jerusalem saw it as their duty to oppose even the faint traces of the divine assembly tradition, and so they refashioned the text of Deuteronomy 32, the main proof text for that tradition in the Hebrew Bible. The Qumran Yahad is thus not only a radical Jewish sect, but also a thriving locus of Levantine religion. A careful study will allow that both aspects of this vista could live side by side.

Reference List Angel, A., Chaos and the Son of Man: the Hebrew Chaoskampf Tradition in the Period 515 BCE to 200 CE, London and New York 2006 Avishur, Y., Studies in Hebrew and Ugaritic Psalms, Jerusalem 1994 Ayali-Darshan, N., The Story of the Combat between the Storm God and the Sea: Its Origin, Dispersion and Diffusion in the Ancient Near East, Diss. Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2012 Ayali-Darshan, N., ‘The Question of the Order of Job 26, 7–13 and the Cosmogonic Tradition of Zaphon’, Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 126.3, 2014, 402–417 Baumgarten, A. I., The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos. A Commentary, Leiden 1981 Beaulieu, P. A., ‘Official and Vernacular Languages: The Shifting Sands of Imperial and Cultural Identities in First-Millennium BC Mesopotamia’, in Sanders, S. L., ed., Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures, Chicago 2006, 187–216

|| 63 Funkenstein 1985, 44–60. 64 Polak 1993, 249–265.

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Becking, B., ‘Ancient of Days’, in Van der Toorn, K., et al., eds, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden 1999 (2nd edn), 44–45 Ben-Dov, J., Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context, Leiden 2008 Ben-Dov, J., ‘The Elohistic Psalter and the Writing of Divine Names at Qumran’, in Roitman, A. D., Schiffman, L. H., and Tzoref, S., eds, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture. Proceedings of the International Conference Held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July 6– 8, 2008), Leiden 2010, 79–104 Campbell, J. G., ‘Qumran-Essene Origins in the Exile: A Scriptural Basis’, Journal of Jewish Studies 46, 1995, 144–156 Charlesworth, J. H., Baumgarten, J. M., et al., eds, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 2: Damascus Document, War Scroll and Related Documents, Tübingen and Louisville 1993 Chazon, E., ‘Liturgical Communion with the Angels at Qumran’, in Falk, D. K., and García Martínez, F., eds, Sapiential, Liturgical and Poetical Texts from Qumran. Published in Memory of Maurice Baillet, Leiden 2000, 95–105. Cogan, M., Imperialism and Religion: Assyria, Israel, and Judah in the Eighth and Seventh Centuries BC, Michigan 1974 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture: An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014. Collins, J. J., A Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Minneapolis 1993 Collins, J. J., ‘Powers in Heaven: God, Gods, and Angels in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Collins, J. J., and Kugler, R. A., eds, Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Grand Rapids, MI 2000, 9–28 Collins, J. J., ‘Tradition and Innovation in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, in Metso, S., et al. (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts, Leiden 2010, 1–23 Crouch, C. L., The Making of Israel: Cultural Diversity in the Southern Levant and the Formation of Ethnic Identity in Deuteronomy, Leiden 2014 Dimant, D., ‘Israel’s Subjugation to the Gentiles as an Expression of Demonic Power in Qumran Documents and Related Literature’, Revue de Qumran 22, 2006, 373–388 Dimant, D., ‘Men as Angels: The Self-image of the Qumran Community’, in History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Collected Studies, Tübingen 2014, 465– 472 Dimant, D., ‘Not Exile in the Desert but Exile in the Spirit’, in History, Ideology and Bible Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Collected Studies, Tübingen 2014, 455–464 Doering, L., ‘Excerpted Texts in Second Temple Judaism: A Survey of the Evidence’, in Piccione, R. M., and Perkams, M., eds, Selecta colligere II: Beiträge zur Technik des Sammelns und Kompilierens griechischer Texte von der Antike bis zum Humanismus, Alessandria 2005, 1–38 Duhaime, J., The War Texts: 1QM and Related Manuscripts, London 2004 Emerton, J., ‘The Origin of the Son of Man Imagery’, Journal of Theological Studies 9, 1958, 225–242 Flusser, D. ‘Apocalyptic Elements in the War Scroll’, in Judaism of the Second Temple Period, Part 1: Qumran and Apocalypticism, Grand Rapids, MI and Jerusalem 2007 (orig. published 1981), 140–158 Funkenstein, A., ‘A Schedule for the End of the World’, in Friedländer, S., et al., eds, Visions of Apocalypse – End or Rebirth?, New York 1985, 44–60

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Ganzel, T., and Holtz, S.,‘Ezekiel’s Temple in Babylonian Context’, Vetus Testamentum 64, 2014, 211–226 Ginsberg, H. L., ‘A Strand in the Cord of Hebraic Hymnody’, Eretz-Israel 9, 1969, 45–50 Goldstein, R., ‘A New Look at Deuteronomy 32: 8–9 and 43 in the Light of Akkadian Sources’, Tarbiz 79, 2010, 5–21 (in Hebrew) Greenstein, E. L., ‘The Language of Job and its Poetic Function’, Journal of Biblical Literature 122, 2003, 651–666 Greenstein, E. L., ‘Parody as a Challenge to Tradition: The Use of Deuteronomy 32 in the Book of Job’, in Dell, K., and Kynes, W., eds, Reading Job Intertextually, New York 2013, 66–78 Hempel, C., ‘The Community Rule and the Book of Daniel’, in The Qumran Rule Texts in Context. Collected Studies, Tübingen 2013, 231–252 Hoftijzer, J., and Jongeling, K., Dictionary of Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, Leiden 1995 Joosten, J., ‘Note on the Text of Deuteronomy xxxii 8’, Vetus Testamentum 57, 2007, 548–555 Kister, M., ‘Ancient Material in Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer: Basilides, Qumran, the Book of Jubilees’, in Maeir, A. M., et al., eds, ‘Go out and Study the Land’ (Judges 18:2). Archeological, Historical and Textual Studies in Honor of Hanan Eshel, Leiden 2012, 69–93 Koch, K., ‘Monotheismus und Angelologie’, in Dietrich, W., and Klopfenstein, M. A., eds, Ein Gott Allein? JHWH-Verehrung und biblischer Monotheismus im Kontext der israelitischen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte, Freiburg and Göttingen 1994, 565–581 Kottsieper, I., ‘El – ferner oder naher Gott? Zur Bedeutung einer semitischen Gottheit in verschiedenen sozialen Kontexten im 1. Jtsd.v.Chr.’, in Albertz, R., and Otto, S., eds, Religion und Gesellschaft: Studien zu ihrer Wechselbeziehung in den Kulturen des Antiken Vorderen Orients. Veröffentlichungen des Arbeitskreises zur Erforschung der Religionsund Kulturgeschichte des Antiken Vorderen Orients, Münster 1997, 25–74 Lange A., and Weigold, M., ‘The Text of the Shema Israel in Qumran Literature and Elsewhere’, in Piquer Otero, A., and Torijano Morale, P., eds, Textual Criticism and Dead Sea Scrolls. Studies in Honour of Julio Trebolle Barrera, Leiden 2012, 147–177 L’Heureux, C. E., Rank among the Canaanite Gods: El, Baʻal, and the Rephaʼim, Missoula, MT 1979 Loewenstamm, S. E. ‘Nah̟alat YHWH’, Scripta Hierosolymitana 31, 1986, 155–192. Mizrahi, N., ‘God, Gods and Godhead in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice’, in Kister, M., ed., Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the Orion Center Symposium 2013, Leiden, forthcoming Newsom, C., ‘Shirot ʿOlat Ha Shabbat’, in Eshel, E., et al., eds, Qumran Cave 4, VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1, Oxford 1998, 173–401 (DJD 11) Niehr, H., Der Höchste Gott. Alttestamentlicher JHWH-Glaube im Kontext syrisch-kanaanäischer Religion des 1. Jahrhundets v. Chr., Berlin 1990 Mullen, E. T., The Assembly of the Gods. The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature, Chico, CA 1980 Parker, R. B., ‘The Beginning of the Reign of God: Psalm 82 as Myth and Liturgy’, Revue Biblique 102, 1995, 532–559 Parker, R. B., ‘Council’, in Van der Toorn, K., et al., eds, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden 1999 (2nd edn), 204–208 Polak, F. ‘The Daniel Tales in their Aramaic Literary Milieu’, in Van der Woude, A. S., ed., The Book of Daniel in the Light of New Findings, Leuven 1993, 249–265. Qimron, E., The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Hebrew Writings, Vol. 1, Jerusalem 2010 Rahmouni, A., Divine Epithets in the Ugaritic Alphabetic Texts, Leiden 2007

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Reed, A. Y., Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature, Cambridge 2005. Reeves, J. C., ed., Tracing the Threads. Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha, Atlanta 1994 Ribichini, S., ‘Questions de mythologie phénicienne d’après Philon de Byblos’, in Bonnet, C., Lipiński, E., and Marchetti, P., eds, La religion phénicienne, Namur 1986, 41–52 Rofé, A., ‘The End of the Song of Moses (Deuteronomy 32:42) ’, in Idem, Deuteronomy: Issues and Interpretation, London 2002, 47–54 Rofé, A., Angels in the Bible. Israelite Belief in Angels as Evidenced by Biblical Traditions, Jerusalem 2012 (2nd edn, in Hebrew) Sanders, S. L., From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylonia, Tübingen, forthcoming Schäfer, P., ‘Communion with the Angels: Qumran and the Origins of Jewish Mysticism’, in Schäfer, P., ed., Wege mystischer Gotteserfahrung: Judentum, Christentum und Islam, München 2006, 37–66 Shenkar, M., ‘The Coin of the “God on the Winged Wheel” ’, Boreas 30–31, 2007–2008, 13–25 Shinan, A., and Zakovitch, Y., From Gods to God. How the Bible Debunked, Suppressed, or Changed Ancient Myths and Legends, Lincoln, Nebraska 2012 Smith, M. S., The Early History of God. Yahweh and Other Deities in Ancient Israel, Grand Rapids, MI 2002 (2nd edn) Smith, M. S., God in Translation. Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World, Tübingen 2008 Stegemann, H., ‘Religionsgeschichtliche Erwägungen zu den Gottesbezeichnungen in den Qumrantexten’, in Delcor, M., et al., eds, Qumran: Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu, Paris 1978, 195–218 Stegemann, H., and Schuller, E. M., 1QHodayotᵃ, with Incorporation of 1QHodayotᵇ and 4QHodayotᵃ−ᶠ, Oxford 2009 (DJD 40) Stuckenbruck, L. T., The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts, Tübingen 2014 Talmon, S. ‘The Qumran ‫ – יחד‬A Biblical Noun’, Vetus Testamentum 3, 1953, 133–140 Tov, E., ‘Excerpted and Abbreviated Biblical Texts from Qumran’, Revue de Qumran 16.4, 1995, 581–600 Trotter, J., ‘The Tradition of the Throne Vision in the Second Temple Period: Daniel 7:9–10, 1 Enoch 14:18–23, and the Book of Giants (4Q530)’, Revue de Qumran 25, 2012, 451–466 Vanderhooft, D. S., ‘Ezekiel in and on Babylon’, Transeuphratène 46, 2014, 99–119 [= Bible et Proche-Orient, Mélanges André Lemaire III] VanderKam, J. C., and Flint, P. W., The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity, London 2005 Van der Kooij, A., ‘Ancient Emendations in MT’, in Böhler, D., et al., eds, L’écrit et l’esprit: Études d’histoire du texte et de théologie biblique en homage à Adrian Schenker, Fribourg and Göttingen 2005, 152–159 Van Koppen, F., and Van der Toorn, K., ‘Holy One’, in Van der Toorn, K., et al., eds, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Leiden 1999 (2nd edn), 415–418 White Crawford, S., ‘Reading Deuteronomy in the Second Temple Period’, in de Troyer, K., and Lange, A., eds, Reading the Present in the Qumran Library. The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretations, Leiden 2005, 127–140

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Xella, P., ‘QDŠ. Semantica del “sacro” ad Ugarit’, Materiali lessicali ed epigrafici I, Rome 1982, 9–18 Xella, P., ‘Dieux et cultes en Syro-Palestine. Idéologies «religieuses» entre Ugarit et le monde phénicien’, Ugarit-Forschungen 45, 2014, 525–535 Weinfeld, M., ‘God the Creator in the Priestly Source and Deutero-Isaiah’, in Weinfeld, M., The Place of the Law in the Religion of Ancient Israel, Leiden 2004, 95–117 Yarbro Collins, A., The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation, Missoula, MT 1976 Zakovitch, Y., ‘The Exodus from Ur of the Chaldeans: A Chapter in Literary Archaeology’, in Chazan, R., et al., eds, Ki Baruch Hu. Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Judaic Studies in Honor of Baruch A. Levine, Winona Lake, IN 1999, 429–439

Margalit Finkelberg

Out of the Mainstream Some thoughts concerning the submersion process of the poems of the Trojan Cycle

1 Lost or submerged? In his contribution to the first volume of this series, Andrea Ercolani offered a tentative outline of the issues to be taken into account in connection with the so-called submerged texts: Firstly, it will be necessary to identify the occasions on which the performance of a text was required … Secondly, we will need to produce a historical account of the developments in public institutions, and of their vested interests in promoting, maintaining or suppressing specific occasions and the texts that were their correlate. Thirdly, we will have to discriminate, to whatever possible extent, between submerged texts (= marginal, partially relevant, not valued at subsequent stages in cultural history) and lost texts (= not handed down due to accidental circumstances in the tradition). Fourthly, we should investigate the mechanisms whereby ‘canons’ are constituted, even when the canon is, so to speak, implicit, unstated … Finally, we shall have to bear firmly in mind that a dividing line discriminates a pre- and a post- phase in the history we aim to investigate: that there was an earlier phase in which events were decided by the peculiar dynamics of orality and occasions, and a later phase in which such factors gradually ceased to be relevant, eventually to become wholly insignificant.1

Ercolani does not specifically address the poems of the Epic Cycle, but the programme he outlines fits this group of texts remarkably well. Some points, however, seem to need further clarification. The Cycle poems had been lost even before the transliteration of books, set off by the transition from uncial to minuscule writing (9th‒10th cent. CE), produced a bottleneck effect on the manuscripts circulating in the Greek-speaking world, having thus determined the configuration of the corpus of the ancient Greek texts to be transmitted to future generations. Already in the 6th century CE the philosopher and grammarian Philoponus complained that ‘the poems listed

|| 1 Ercolani 2014, 16‒17, with n. 28.

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in the Cycles are not even to be found any more’.2 Nevertheless, this does not yet mean that the Cycle poems belong to the category of texts that, in Ercolani’s definition of lost texts, were ‘not handed down due to accidental circumstances in the tradition’.3 There can be little doubt that the main reason that accounts for the loss of the Cycle poems was their failure to become an integral part of Greek paideia. While the Homeric poems occupied a place of honour in the school curriculum, the poems of the Cycle were not included in it – a circumstance that most certainly determined the future fates of both. The disappearance of the Cycle poems was thus far from having been due to mere chance. As G. Zuntz put it, ‘It would still be wrong to overwork the irrational element in the history of the tradition; for essentially what survived is what was read; Homer, Aristophanes, Lycophron, Aratus were preserved – like the Euripidean Selection – not by lucky chance but because they were in the syllabus of the schools.’4 Zuntz’s assessment woud equally apply to the classical, Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine periods. Since the 5th century BCE, the Homeric poems formed the primary object of study at every stage of education;5 indeed, it was the very text through which children in the Hellenic world learned to read. But Homer was also the focus of attention in the grammatical schools, which formed the first level of higher education, and in the rhetorical schools, its second and highest level. Small wonder, then, that no less than a thousand papyri containing segments of the Homeric poems have been unearthed in the sands of Egypt, which amounts to ten times the number of papyri with texts by Euripides, the next most favoured author. Furthermore, about one hundred of the Homeric papyri are so-called school-texts, with Euripides, again, coming second with twenty texts to his credit. But not even one scrap of papyrus transmitting a Cycle poem has yet been attested in our record.6 As far as I can see, this would satisfactorily account for ‘the developments in public institutions’, Ercolani’s second point, at the post-oral stage in the development of Greek literary tradition (see the last point of his programme).

|| 2 μηδὲ εὑρίσκεσθαι τὰ ποιήματα τά ἐν τοῖς Κυκλικοῖς ἀναγεγραμμένα; transl. M. L. West. According to West’s recent assessment (West 2013, 50), ‘[a]fter 200 CE direct knowledge of the Cyclic poems seems really to fade out.’ This, however, would depend on one’s dating of Proclus’ summary of the Trojan Cycle, see further below, n. 33. 3 See also Sbardella 2014, 61. 4 Zuntz 1965, 277‒278. See also Wilson 1983, 18‒27, 67. 5 The ubiquitous verbatim quotations of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Plato, who went to school in the last third of the 5th century, provide an effective check. 6 On the Homeric papyri see Morgan 1998, 69, 105; on the Cycle see West 2013, 47.

Out of the Mainstream | 35

Yet, when we arrive at the ‘earlier phase,’ the one ‘in which events were decided by the peculiar dynamics of orality and occasions,’ we find ourselves on less safe ground. Indeed, writing is far from being the only way by which a culture would privilege texts.7 Public performance is no less powerful a medium, and the example of the Panathenaea, a festival that secured Homer’s status as the privileged text of ancient Greece, may well have had earlier precedents (see also below, Section 3). Now, although we can safely assume that in the course of the archaic, classical and Hellenistic periods the Cycle poems were performed on different occasions all over the Greek world,8 there is no evidence that they played any significant role at the Panhellenic performance arenas.9 The performance history of the Cycle poems is yet to be written, but even so we can be reasonably certain that it is hardly by mere chance that the only texts that Plato’s Ion, for one, is able to quote or indeed to associate with the Panathenaea and other prestigious festivals that he attends are the Iliad and the Odyssey.10 In this article, however, I intend to go even further than this ‘earlier phase.’ I will argue that the submersion process of poems of the Epic Cycle started with their marginalization by the Iliad and the Odyssey, which aimed to appropriate the earlier Trojan tradition and eventually to supersede it.

2 Homer’s appropriation of the Trojan Cycle Initially, it was taken for granted that all the traditional poems about the Trojan War had been authored by Homer. Yet, in the course of time only the Iliad and the Odyssey came to be regarded as genuinely Homeric whereas the other Trojan epics were attributed to other poets and subsumed under the so-called Epic Cycle. It goes without saying that the fragments of the Cycle poems that we have at our disposal are later than the poems of Homer. This does not mean, howev-

|| 7 Finkelberg 2011; see also Ercolani 2014, 15. 8 As suggested by the existence of variant versions, see Finkelberg 2000. 9 On the Cycle poems as representing the local rather than the Panhellenic tradition see Nagy 1990, 52‒115, on the different survival trajectories of local and Panhellenic epics see now Lulli 2014. 10 Plato, Ion 530ab, 535b, 537b, 538cd, 539a‒c et passim. On the argument that the ‘Homer’ performed at the Panathenaea should be identified with the poems of the Trojan Cycle see Jensen 2011, 261‒268. Burgess 2004, Nagy 2009, Sbardella 2014, among others, favour the view that, up to a certain stage, the Iliad and the Odyssey belonged to the Trojan Cycle and were performed at the Panathenaic festival alongside the Cycle poems. See also below, n. 32.

36 | Margalit Finkelberg

er, that, as was once supposed, Homer was unaware of their contents. Since the 1940s, the date of the emergence of the Neoanalytic school in Homeric scholarship, more and more scholars have been ready to entertain the possibility that in everything concerning the general picture of the Trojan War the Homeric poems presuppose the tradition represented in the poems of the Cycle rather than vice versa. That is to say, the sources on which Homer drew belonged to a pre-Homeric Trojan tradition of which the poems of the Cycle were postHomeric representatives.11 The range of the identifiable Cyclic subjects to which Homer refers, either directly or indirectly, is impressive.12 As a result, the Homeric epics act as synoptic narratives embracing the entire story of the Trojan War and the Returns. Moreover, it can be shown that, by using subtle strategies of inclusion and exclusion, Homer does not simply evoke the Cycle tradition but also revises it in order to adapt it to his own agenda. This especially concerns Homer’s treatment of the End of the Race of Heroes.13 According to the Cyclic Cypria, Hesiod’s Works and Days, and the Catalogue of Women, a poem belonging to the Hesiodic tradition, the Trojan War was initiated by Zeus and other gods in order to put an end to the Race of Heroes.14 The overall design of the Epic Cycle, which starts with the plan of Zeus to destroy the Race of Heroes and ends with the death of the last of them, Odysseus, conveys the same idea. The remarkable fact however is that the theme of the End of Heroes is practically absent from Homer.15 We are thus facing a paradox: although

|| 11 See e.g. Kullmann 1984, 309; Nagy 1990, 72; West 2013, 17. 12 See further Kullmann 2015; Finkelberg 2015. 13 See Finkelberg 2004, Finkelberg 2011, Finkelberg 2015. 14 Cypria fr. 1 West; Hesiod, Works and Days 159‒173; [Hesiod] fr. 204. 95‒105 M.-W. 15 It is true of course that ‘the plan of Zeus’, the famous Dios Boule referred to in Book 1 of the Iliad (Il. 1. 5), is strongly reminiscent of the same expression in the proem of the Cyclic Cypria relating to Zeus’ plan to put an end to the Race of Heroes; however, the theme of the End of Heroes is irrelevant to the rest of the Iliad to such a degree that the scholarly consensus since Aristarchus has been almost unanimous in taking this expression as referring to the promise that Zeus gives to Thetis later in the same book. It is also true that the passage in Iliad 12 referring to the future destruction of the Achaean wall by Poseidon and Apollo, with its hapax ἡμιθέων γένος ἀνδρῶν (‘the race of demigods’ Il. 12. 23), may well have evoked the End of the Race of Heroes; yet the same passage states unequivocally that after the end of the war those of the Greeks who were still alive simply and prosaically went home (Il. 12. 14, 16). Again, Proteus’ prophecy in Odyssey 4, according to which Menelaus will be taken after his death to the Elysian Fields (Od. 4. 561‒565), evokes the Isles of the Blessed, the final abode of the Heroes in Hesiod; yet, when taken against the general background of the Homeric epics, whose people invariably die ordinary deaths, Menelaus’ fate is rather the exception that proves the rule.

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the End of the Race of Heroes is ostensibly the central theme of Greek heroic tradition, it is almost completely ignored in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two main representatives of the tradition in question. Homer’s close acquaintance with the principal Cycle subjects makes it highly unlikely that he could have been unaware of what was undeniably the focal point of the Trojan tradition. Accordingly, his failure to integrate the End of Heroes into his own story of the Trojan war can only be interpreted as due to deliberate suppression. In Hesiod, the myth of the End of the Race of Heroes is part of a larger teleological concept according to which the history of mankind is a process of gradual degeneration from the Race of Gold, which flourished at the dawn of humanity, to the Race of Iron, which stands for man’s present condition. Needless to say, such an attitude to the past implies a distinctly negative view of the present, and Hesiod’s unflattering characterization of the Race of Iron corroborates this conclusion.16 But the same attitude can also be discerned in the dark prophecies that conclude the description of the End of Heroes in the Catalogue of Women, as well as in the Cyclic Cypria, whose poet presents Helen, the cause of the Trojan War, as the daughter of Nemesis.17 Conversely, Homer’s suppression of the theme of the End of Heroes establishes continuity between the Greece of the Heroic Age and historical Greece, thus reversing the pessimistic view of the present characteristic of other traditional poetry.18 This move is closely connected with Homer’s treatment of another theme that is shared by Hesiod and the Cycle but is conspicuous by its absence in the Homeric poems, that of the Heroes’ posthumous immortalization. In both Hesiod and the Cycle immortalization seems to be the norm. Thus, in Hesiod’s Works and Days the Heroes find their final abode on the Isles of the Blessed, where they enjoy a happy life; in the Cyclic Aethiopis Achilles is taken after his death to the miraculous White Island whereas his opponent Memnon is rendered immortal by his goddess mother; in the Cyclic Telegony Telemachus and Penelope are led to the island of Circe where they are eventually immortalized.19 This sharply differs from what we find in Homer.20

|| 16 Works and Days 174‒178. 17 [Hesiod] fr. 204. 102‒117 M.-W.; Cypria frr. 10. 2, 11 West. 18 Finkelberg 2004. See Scodel 1982, 35: ‘In Homer, the continuity of history from the heroes to the poet’s contemporaries is complete’. 19 Od. 4. 561‒565, Hesiod, Works and Days 167‒173, both using the expression πείρατα γαίης; cf Aethiopis argument 4, Telegonia argument 4 West. Cf also [Hesiod] fr. 204. 99‒103. See further Griffin 1977, 42‒43. 20 See Griffin 1980, 167, Slatkin 1991, 39.

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Another important theme that is prominent in Hesiod and the Cycle but is ignored by Homer is that of the Heroes’ post-war migrations. The migrations were the central subject of a sub-genre of heroic tradition conventionally called nostoi, and both the Hesiodic tradition and the poems of the Cycle abound with stories of the Heroes’ dispersal over the Mediterranean. Again, nothing of this will be found in Homer. Nestor’s reminiscences in Odyssey 3 are especially illuminating in this respect. According to Nestor’s story, all the survivors of the war returned to their homes: Diomedes’ ships safely landed in Argos from where they had departed at the beginning of the war; the northerners Neoptolemus and Philoctetes also had a safe journey back home; finally, Idomeneus brought all his men back to Crete.21 Yet, the evidence originating in the nostoi tradition suggests a quite different picture. Diomedes left Argos and went to the Adriatic where he became the founder of numerous cities; Neoptolemus travelled by land to Epirus, where he became the founder of the royal dynasty of the Molossians; Philoctetes migrated to the region of Croton in Italy where he colonized Cape Krimissa; Idomeneus was expelled from Crete by his wife and her new consort, and so on.22 Homer’s treatment of Calchas, the diviner of the Achaean fleet and personally of Agamemnon, is no less illuminating.23 Both the Cyclic Nostoi and the Hesiodic Melampodia tell us that after the war Calchas, together with other Achaeans, travelled on foot to Colophon in Asia Minor; according to the Melampodia, he died there of a broken heart after having been defeated in a competition in divination by Mopsus.24 Both sources are traditional, and both sharply at variance with what we find in the Iliad, whose Calchas, consistently represented as a humble and obedient servant of Agamemnon, has nothing in common with the Calchas who leads the survivors of the Trojan War to new places of settlement in Asia Minor. As far as I can see, the fact that here, as with the End of the Race of Heroes and the Heroes’ immortalization, the Cycle and

|| 21 Diomedes Od. 3. 180‒182, cf Returns argument 1 West; Neoptolemus Od. 3. 188‒189, cf 4. 5‒9; Philoctetes 3. 190; Idomeneus 3. 191. On the partiality of Nestor’s account of the homecomings of Diomedes, Neoptolemus, and Idomeneus see also Marks 2008, 127‒129. 22 Diomedes Apollodorus, Epitome 6. 9‒10, cf Virgil, Aeneis 11. 243‒295; Neoptolemus Returns argument 4 West, Pindar, Nemean 7, Euripides, Andromache 1243‒1251, Apollodorus, Epitome 6. 12‒13; Philoctetes Ps. Aristotle, On Marvellous Things Heard 840a 15‒26; Apollodorus Epitome 6. 15b; Idomeneus Apollodorus, Epitome 6. 9. 23 See Finkelberg 2011. 24 Returns argument 2 West (probably also describing Calchas’ death, see West ad loc.); [Hesiod] fr. 278 M.-W., cf fr. 279.

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the Hesiodic tradition coincide but disagree with Homer indicates that they represent the traditional version of Calchas’ story, which Homer suppresses. But probably the most telling case is that of Odysseus. According to the story that the disguised Odysseus tells first to Eumaeus and then to Penelope, upon his arrival from Troy Odysseus left his treasure in Epirus with the Thesprotian king Pheidon and went to Dodona, to ask the oracle whether he should return to Ithaca openly or in secret.25 Epirus, the Land of the Thesprotians, played a prominent part in the lost Cycle epics Telegony and Thesprotis (which was probably just a section of the former), both of which told a story of Odysseus’ return that significantly differed from what we find in the main narrative of the Odyssey. According to Proclus’ summary of the Telegony, after his return to Ithaca Odysseus migrated to Epirus where he married the Thesprotian queen Callidice; Apollodorus adds to this that the purpose of Odysseus’ journey north was to appease Poseidon’s anger, thus fulfilling the prophecy given by Tiresias in the Underworld.26 In other words, although the story is presented in the Homeric poem as a lie, it is in fact an alternative version of the story of Odysseus’ return which is reasonably close to the one we find in the Cyclic Telegony.27 In that it does not presuppose Odysseus’ eventual homecoming, this version sharply disagrees with the Homeric Odyssey, for which the protagonist’s return to Ithaca is a sine qua non.28 Needless to say, by the very fact of turning the Cycle version of Odysseus’ wanderings into a lying story the Odyssey poet downgrades it and privileges the version that he offers.29 It can be concluded, therefore, that Homer does not simply appropriate the other versions of the Trojan saga or challenges their authority: he absorbs the Cycle tradition with the purpose of superseding it. The historical discontinuity implied in the myth of the end of the Race of Heroes gives way to continuity with the heroic past; the Heroes’ posthumous immortalization is supplanted by their humanization through death, which allows the audience to identify themselves with the Heroes and to see them as their role models; the Heroes’ migrations to foreign lands are replaced by the idea of homeland as the source of one’s identity. That is to say, Homer offers a full-scale alternative to the Trojan

|| 25 Od. 14. 316‒335; 19. 287‒302. 26 Od. 11. 119‒137, 23. 266‒284; Telegony argument 2 West; Apollodorus, Epitome 7. 34. 27 See Ballabriga 1989; Peradotto 1990, 60‒76; Danek 1998, 214‒220, 285‒287; Malkin 1998, 120‒155; Marks 2008, 100‒104; Tsagalis 2011, 218, 223. 28 See Ballabriga 1989, 299: ‘This Cyclic Odysseus places himself in opposition to the one of the Odyssey, who is fundamentally the man who returns to Ithaca’ (my translation). 29 See also Danek 1998, 216.

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Cycle – an alternative which, however, suppresses everything that relates to the End of the Race of Heroes, the Cycle’s very raison d’ être.

3 Privileged and underprivileged texts We should therefore speak of two stages of Greek epic tradition, one at which the poems of the Cycle represented the mainstream tradition about the Trojan War, the other at which the Iliad and the Odyssey marginalized the Cycle epics and eventually superseded them. The evidence of vase painting corroborates this observation. In recent decades, it has been demonstrated beyond doubt that while images relating to the contents of the Epic Cycle started to appear on the vases from the eighth century BCE, no clearly recognizable Homeric subjects are represented till the late seventh century.30 This strongly suggests that the circulation of the Homeric poems started later than the circulation of the poems of the Cycle. This evidence is one of the reasons why many scholars today place Homer in the second half of the seventh century BCE rather than, as was assumed before, in the second half of the eighth century. The points at which Homer deviates from Hesiod and the Cycle – the End of the Heroic Age, the Heroes’ immortalization, the post-war migrations – strongly suggest that from the very beginning the Iliad and Odyssey were meant to supersede the other Trojan epics by claiming a special status as regards the tradition that preceded them. We should not forget, however, that claiming a special status and attaining such a status are two different things.31 Only the combination of a text’s claim to a special status and the community’s granting this status to it would result in the text’s attaining a privileged position in the community. Everything points in the direction that the Iliad and the Odyssey triumphantly achieved this goal. This would be true even where, as for example in the case of Calchas, Homer can be shown sharply to deviate from the common tradition: nevertheless, in this case as in many others, it is Homer’s version rather than the traditional one as found in the Trojan Cycle and the Hesiodic corpus that has become authoritative. When did the poems of Homer become canonical? While some scholars associate the canonization of the Homeric poems with their codification in 6thcentury Athens for the sake of performance at the newly established Pan-

|| 30 On this subject see esp. Burgess 2001, 35‒44, 53‒114. 31 Finkelberg 2011.

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athenaic festival, others place it considerably earlier, in 8th- or 7th-century Ionia. Contrary to the widespread view, these two hypotheses are not mutually exclusive. As the studies of Barbara Graziosi, Douglas Frame and Gregory Nagy have shown, the Panathenaic performance of Homer was a legitimate successor of earlier performances at Panionic festivals, such as those at Mycale in Asia Minor or at Delos.32 It is significant, however, that, as distinct from its Ionic predecessors, only the Panathenaea was raised to Panhellenic status, thus securing the relevance of the Iliad and the Odyssey to the entire Greek world. There is indeed little room for doubt that it is only after their codification in th 6 -century BCE Athens that the history of the Homeric poems became that of a text that was uniquely privileged in the civilization to which it belonged. Owing to the constantly growing political hegemony and cultural prestige of Athens, the Panathenaic festival at which the Homeric poems were regularly recited gained the position of one of the central religious, civic and cultural events of the whole of Greece. It is not by mere chance, therefore, that the Iliad and the Odyssey became the basis of elementary education, to be memorized at schools first in Athens and then elsewhere in the Greek world (see Section 1). Nothing of this applies to the Cycle poems. A handful of fragments and a brief summary of the contents excerpted from the Chrestomathy of Proclus (either the 5th-century Neoplatonic philosopher or another Proclus who lived in the 2nd century CE33) is all that has remained of the poems of the Trojan Cycle. As I hope to have shown, this was the direct outcome of their centuries-long history as underprivileged texts, in itself a by-product of ‘the developments in public institutions, and ... their vested interests in promoting, maintaining, or suppressing specific occasions and the texts that were their correlate’.34 Investigation into the nature of the social, ideological and cultural interests that prompted such promoting, maintaining or suppressing would, however, require a separate study.

Reference List Ballabriga, A., ‘La prophétie de Tirésias’, Mètis 4, 1989, 291‒304

|| 32 Graziosi 2002; Frame 2009; Nagy 2012. At the same time, we do not have enough evidence to assert with certainty that the ‘Homer’ performed at Panionic festivals was in every respect identical to the later Panathenaic text. 33 For an overview of the scholarly controversy see Burgess 2001, 198, n. 29; for a recent argument in favour of dating the Chrestomathy to the 2nd century CE see West 2013, 7‒11. 34 Ercolani 2014, 16‒17.

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Burgess, J. S., The Tradition of the Trojan War in Homer and the Epic Cycle, Baltimore and London 2001 Burgess, J. S., ‘Performance and the Epic Cycle’, Classical Journal 100, 2004, 1‒23 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014 Danek, G., Epos und Zitat. Studien zu den Quellen der Odyssee, Wien 1998 Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 7‒18 Finkelberg, M., ‘The Cypria, the Iliad, and the Problem of Multiformity in Oral and Written Tradition’, Classical Philology 95, 2000, 1‒11 Finkelberg, M., ‘The End of the Heroic Age in Homer, Hesiod and the Cycle’, Ordia Prima 3, 2004, 11‒24 Finkelberg, M., ‘Homer and His Peers: Neoanalysis, Oral Theory, and the Status of Homer’, Trends in Classics 3, 2011, 197‒208 Finkelberg, M., ‘Meta-Cyclic Epic and Homeric Poetry’, Fantuzzi, M., and Tsagalis, Ch., eds, The Greek Epic Cycle and Its Ancient Reception. A Companion, Cambridge 2015, 126‒138 Frame, D., Hippota Nestor, Washington, DC 2009 Graziosi, B., Inventing Homer. The Early Reception of Epic, Cambridge 2002 Griffin, J., ‘The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 97, 1977, 39‒53 Griffin, J., Homer on Life and Death, Oxford 1980 Jensen, M. S., Writing Homer. A Study Based on Results from Modern Fieldwork, Copenhagen 2011 Kullmann, W., ‘Oral Poetry Theory and Neoanalysis in Homeric Research’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 25, 1984, 307‒323 Kullmann, W., ‘Motif and Source Research: Neoanalysis and Homeric and Cyclic Epic’, in Fantuzzi, M., and Tsagalis, Ch., eds. The Greek Epic Cycle and Its Ancient Reception. A Companion, Cambridge 2015, 108‒125 Lulli, L., ‘Local Epics and Epic Cycles: the Anomalous Case of a Submerged Genre’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 76‒89 Malkin, I., The Returns of Odysseus: Colonization and Ethnicity, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1998 Marks, J., Zeus in the Odyssey, Washington, D.C. 2008 Morgan, T., Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Cambridge 1998 Nagy, G., Pindar’s Homer. The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past, Baltimore and London 1990 Nagy, G., Homer the Preclassic, 2009, http://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/3284 Peradotto, J., Man in the Middle Voice, Princeton 1990 Sbardella, L., ‘The Trojan War Myth: Rhapsodic Canon and Lyric Alternatives’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 61‒75 Scodel, R., ‘The Achaean Wall and the Myth of Destruction’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 86, 1982, 33‒50 Slatkin, L., The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1991 Tsagalis, C., ‘Towards an Oral, Intertextual Neoanalysis’, Trends in Classics 3, 2011, 209‒244 West, M. L., Greek Epic Fragments, Cambridge, MA 2003 West, M. L., The Epic Cycle. A Commentary on the Lost Troy Epics, Oxford 2013 Wilson, N. G., Scholars of Byzantium, London 1983 Zuntz, G., An Inquiry into the Transmission of the Plays of Euripides, Cambridge 1965

Robert L. Fowler

The Submersion of Mythography Mythography, the recording of mythology in prose, offers an instructive case study for the phenomenon of submersion in ancient Greek culture. As a genre, it emerged in the late 6th century BCE, in particular circumstances and to serve particular needs. As we shall see, the emergence of the genre illuminates interesting aspects of contemporary text production and consumption. In one sense mythography was never thereafter submerged, since we know that mythography continued throughout the rest of antiquity ‒ continues, indeed, to the present day. Some texts, such as Apollodorus’ Library of Mythology (1st–2nd cent. CE), survive in whole or part, and we can identify many others through fragmentary quotations and references, showing that the survivors represent the proverbial tip of the iceberg.1 The genre is well represented in papyri, a fact all the more telling in that most of them come from the unimportant provincial town of Oxyrhynchus.2 Yet, while the genre as a whole thrived in later centuries, it did so in conditions that had changed radically from the early days, moving from a relatively central position, on a par with historiography, to the margins, into a category modern scholars call sub-literary, providing readers with information they needed for other purposes (understanding poetry, ornamenting orations, showing off at smart parties, etc.) rather than being read in its own right as a statement of the cultural patrimony, with often contentious interpretations. Furthermore, individual works of mythography were particularly liable to submersion once the genre acquired its functional, subservient character. No longer esteemed for their inherent qualities, they were excerpted, epitomized, plagiarized and amalgamated by authors of new works of mythography, which were themselves destined to undergo a similar fate in due course. Centuries of this cannibalization created the picture we find in the papyri of the imperial period, where every new mythographical text, like a codex descriptus in a contaminated manuscript tradition, displays affinities with a multitude of others in

|| 1 See Wendel 1935; Lightfoot 1999; Cameron 2004; Smith and Trzaskoma 2013, and Fowler forthcoming for overviews of the genre. 2 The Leuven Catalogue of Paraliterary Papyri (http://cpp.arts.kuleuven.be/; consulted 29 Dec 2014), though incomplete overall, is comprehensive for mythography, listing 251 papyri with mythological content. Mertens-Pack3 (http://cipl93.philo.ulg.ac.be/Cedopal/MP3/dbsearch_ en.aspx; consulted 29 Dec 2014) lists 108 papyri in the category ‘mythography/religion’ (i.e. texts by unidentified authors).

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no discernible pattern, rendering source criticism impossible. Apollodorus’ Library, while showing a remote debt to Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women and early mythographers such as Pherecydes of Athens, has them at best second-hand and usually through several intermediaries, with new details added and changed at every stage. Of the early mythographers there survives only one papyrus scrap of an original work, and that is disputed (Hellanicus fr. 19b Fowler); all other papyrus quotations of these authors are in copies of other texts, mostly commentaries on canonical writers like Homer. Though the list of such commentators is notably long,3 they probably had to consult texts of Pherecydes in major libraries such as those at Alexandria or Rome. Possibly only a handful of copies of Pherecydes existed by the 1st century BCE. The move from centre to margin can be dated fairly precisely to the latter part of the 4th century BCE. Poetry continued to enjoy far more prestige than prose, and the canons of the classic poets were firmly established by the time of Lycurgus, with the idolization that that implies.4 Among prose writers the historians Herodotus and Thucydides already enjoyed pre-eminence and eventually received canonization, but with the doubtful exception of Hellanicus no mythographer ever made it onto anybody’s list of canonical figures.5 The subordinate nature of mythography is already clear by this time. Mythographers of the day laboured to compile handbooks on tragic plots, categories of myths (metamorphoses, love-stories, etc.), wonders of the world, myths of the different cities, and so on, all in a utilitarian spirit. This work was done in libraries; myth had by now become a bookish subject, for people who read other books. This does not mean that the engagement with myth could not be deeply satisfying from an intellectual or religious point of view. Appreciation of the profundity of Callimachus’ Aetia was long hampered by the dogma that the Greeks had ceased to believe in their myths by the Hellenistic period. Thousands of living cults still had their aetiology, and attitudes to the veracity of the stories must have varied widely at all times.6 ‘Belief’ is in any case a very elastic term; belief in myth may not entail belief in its literal truth.7 But the cultural valency of myth

|| 3 Pherecydes is cited by commentators on Homer, Hesiod, Alcman, Pindar, Sophocles, Euripides, Thucydides, Plato, Apollonius, Aratus, Lycophron, Dionysius the Periegete and Lucian. He is cited also by Philodemus (drawing on Apollodorus of Athens), Dionysius of Halicarnassus (directly, in my opinion; probably using a copy in Rome), Strabo, Soranus, Plutarch, Antoninus Liberalis, Apollodorus, Athenaeus, Macrobius and the lexicographers. 4 See Nicolai 2014. 5 Nicolai 1992, 308–309; Fowler 2013, 689. 6 For a recent study of aetiology see Reitz and Walter 2014. 7 See Veyne 1988.

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underwent a decisive transformation in the course of the late 5th and 4th centuries, a transformation reflected by the invention of the concept ‘myth’ itself.8 One can understand why, in the 4th century, historiography (and oratory and other prose genres) ranked below epic and tragedy, given the differences in subject, style and traditional resonance; but mythography could only rank below historiography for an additional reason, as both are prose. Before myth and history were distinguished no such ranking was possible. The tales of the heroes of Troy, Thebes, Argos and so on ‒ what we moderns call heroic myth ‒ were to Greeks of the 5th century the early history of their nation and its various tribes and cities. But already in the 6th century questions were raised about some aspects of the traditional stories. Herodotus, though not yet using the terms ‘myth’ and ‘history’ in their eventual, antithetical senses, routinely writes supernatural elements out of the received tales before even admitting them into his historical discourse.9 Thucydides (1. 22. 4) famously banned τὸ μυθῶδες from his history; that he means ‘myth’ in a sense analogous to later (and modern) usage is in my opinion indisputable after Bernard Williams’ brilliant study.10 The Sophists in all probability invented the related distinction of ‘mythos’ and ‘logos’, which Plato elaborated and profoundly theorized. By his time the whole encyclopaedia of traditional myth had a question mark hanging over its veracity, whereas the history of more recent events did not (except insofar as the individual historian might be untrustworthy). Although no one in antiquity denied the historicity of the basic, underlying events (such as the Trojan War) or of the heroes, strategies were necessary (such as allegorization or rationalization, or stressing the moral exemplarity of the stories) to make myth acceptable to critical audiences. In the rhetorical battle of truth, history had seized the high ground, which it relinquished only in the late twentieth century. Mythographers accepted this subordination, and even handbooks like those of Apollodorus, which told the myths ‘straight’ (without rationalization or allegorization), did so without literary pretence, and did not expect their books to be read merely for their own sake in the way that history, philosophy or oratory could be, to say nothing of poetry. (Even if an ancient reader sometimes read history for ulterior purposes ‒ for example, to furnish exempla for an oration, or

|| 8 Fowler 2011, citing earlier treatments of the ‘invention of mythology’, notably Detienne 1981. 9 Fowler 2010. Note incidentally the qualification ‘heroic myth’; divine myth was mostly ignored by mythography, precisely as being not about the human past. Herodotus too steers clear of such tales (2. 3. 2), which were always in a different category (though they too came in for rationalizing criticism). 10 Williams 2002, 149–171.

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comparanda for a biography ‒ this does not make history, magister vitae, a purely utilitarian genre in the same sense as mythography.) There are some exceptions; Conon’s miscellany of outlandish stories might be enjoyed for itself as literature, and Parthenius’ collection of romantic tales, though he claims that he is merely offering raw stuff for his friend Gallus to turn into verse, also contains rarities, which he serves up in charming, faux-naif prose. On the whole, however, mythography was subservient to the needs of others. A fundamental shift in the cultural background, therefore, resulted in the devaluing and submersion of mythography, because the object of its study, myth, had itself undergone a re-evaluation which always potentially, and in many cases actually, meant a devaluation. At the same time, poetic texts were canonized, and, since they dealt in myth, needed exegesis. Poetry, of course, was doing much more than telling the myths, and the changed status of myth did nothing to diminish the standing of Homer or the tragedians. Mythography provided the material for exegesis, and thus became a sub-literary genre. A final factor in its marginalization is not cultural but, to an extent, literary. The simple style of early mythography could not compete with the brilliance of Herodotus and Thucydides, or of the orators. It was of course open to later mythographers, had they so chosen, to imitate these masters of prose, and, so to speak, raise their game; they chose instead to retain the factual, bare-bones manner that the first mythographers invented, and which had by the 4th century become the hallmark of the genre. It is as if they accepted their servile status, and would have regarded writing mythography in the style of Thucydides as getting above themselves. Yet in the beginning, matters were entirely different. The mythographical style was, in its original context, a deliberate and brilliant creation, suiting the needs of the new genre.11 By the late 6th century BCE, Greek culture had long since outgrown the boundaries of a single polis. To be sure, inter-city (or inter-tribal) communication was already normal in the Bronze Age, and never entirely ceased after the collapse of Mycenae. Aristocratic networks, travelling merchants, journeyman bards and regional festivals provided opportunities for new songs to be heard and adapted. Whole peoples migrated, taking their stories with them. The poetic language of the Iliad and Odyssey reveals centuries of regional cross-fertilization. Yet colonization and trade stimulated steady growth from the 9th century onwards, and Greece of the late archaic period enjoyed a dazzling artistic culture far exceeding anything seen before.

|| 11 See Fowler 2006; Fowler 2013, xi–xxi.

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The great new Panhellenic festivals attracted thousands of visitors who were able to hear works by the latest poetic stars. Lyric poets like Stesichorus, Ibycus, Anacreon and Simonides moved around the Greek world following patronage and commissions, and guilds of epic poets, the Homeridae and the Creophylei, vied with each other to gain international recognition.12 One consequence of this cultural ferment was an awareness of the astounding complexity, and mutual incompatibility, of separate Greek traditions. This realization is the starting point of Hecataeus of Miletus, who in the preface to his work of mythography, the Genealogies, says boldly, ‘I write this account in accordance with what I regard as true. The stories of the Greeks, in my opinion, are many and foolish’ (fr. 1). His purpose was to impose uniformity on this mess of contradiction, in the belief that truth could not be multiplex. Now to do this—and this is the basic stance of the mythographer—requires one to take a step back from tradition, and examine it critically from the outside, rejecting this or that version in favour of a preferred one, or creating an altogether new version, according to rational criteria. The stance in turn implies a textualization of these traditions, which are available in fixed form to be scrutinized; by this time, that meant they were available as written texts.13 Hecataeus and other writers, like all other Greeks, would have consumed many texts in live performances, and the culture as a whole remained overwhelmingly oral;14 nonetheless, a large number of written texts were circulating (explaining their survival in later centuries), and a small minority of highly literate Greeks made full use of them. Their outlook was international, and in this new genre they were providing for similar readers an encyclopaedic redaction of the entirety of Greek tradition. This was an astoundingly original move. If I may quote what I wrote in the introduction to Fowler 2013: The ancient way of acquiring such learning was by listening to poetic performances; and to acquire it on this scale was possible only for the few who could travel, and required many years of exposure. Assembling all data into a portable collection of rolls was a revolution in information technology comparable to those we have experienced in our own age. It is important to grasp how innovative mythography was. It required a brilliant imagination to spot the potential for this kind of cultural product. It took boldness to banish

|| 12 See Sbardella 2014. 13 See Nicolai 2014, 37 and the concluding remarks in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 181–183. The latter section (see 184–187) understates the extent of prose production from the mid-6th century onwards, beginning with philosophy (which was all non-Athenian, like most mythography). The general analysis is, however, unaffected by this amendment. See also Kahn 2003. 14 See Palmisciano 2014a.

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the Muse, silence the song, prune the poetic ornaments and write the bare factual narrative of history. The very act threw the factuality into high relief, and invited one to test the accuracy. Truth was no longer a social act ‒ the poet acting as spokesman for collective values, keeping tradition alive, ‘not forgetting’ the past (the popular etymology of ἀλήθεια, truth); truth was now an individual assertion. It was now measured by the inherent qualities of the narrative itself: its coherence and plausibility, and the evidence cited to support it.15

The unadorned style of mythography, shorn of all excrescence, was the perfect medium for this new venture, enabling the writers to cram as much information as possible into their papyrus rolls. The linguistic register is that of a reporter of facts, a rhetorical stance that enhances the writer’s authority. Modern histories of prose usually disparage these early efforts, and it is of course true that, as prose developed, writers continually invented new devices (a never-ending process); but there were positive reasons for the style of early mythography, and it was not only or even predominantly a matter of primitive poverty. If it had been so, we would have to imagine that contemporary orators were also a sorry lot of performers, which is absurd, unless one also argues that spoken prose outstripped written for over a century, from the philosopher Pherecydes of Syros to the time of Gorgias and Thucydides: again absurd, given the longstanding ability to write down poetry exactly as performed. Note also the rhetorical prowess of pre-Sophistic tragedy, which would have reflected (and been reflected by) contemporary political practice. Within mythography itself there are subtle variations in style, which is further evidence that personal preferences are in play. Herodotus too has long suffered from the traditional, teleological analysis of early prose style. In addition to poetic ornament the new genre, like philosophy, also shed the link to a specific occasion of performance, which was indispensable for poetry, and the defining characteristic of the lyric genres. Mythographic texts were produced from the start for consumption by readers at a distance.16 In exploring the concept of submerged literature in ancient Greece, the contributors

|| 15 Fowler 2013, xvii. 16 The probability that they were also read aloud to audiences, or used as an aide-mémoire for a live performance, does not negate this conclusion, which is based on the stylistic register and specific indications in the text (such as the opening of Hecataeus’ book, which casts the whole thing as a letter). Even Herodotus, who deliberately adopts some of the style of live performance, manifestly does so mimetically (i.e. his text is no transcription of, or script for, a live performance; the use of deixis, for instance, is nothing like what we would expect in that case): we get the experience of the display oration only through the written text, and the experience depends on knowing that this is so. I shall develop this argument elsewhere.

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to Volume 1 concentrated for excellent reasons on the oral environment, substituting ‘text’ and ‘occasion’ for ‘literature’ and ‘genre’; the dynamics of submersion in such circumstances require special treatment. Failure to offer this has distorted scholars’ understanding of Greek ‘literary’ history. In early Greece poetic texts emerged for which occasions existed; should those occasions disappear, the texts produced for them, unless written down, also disappear (and, even if written down, they would not be copied again unless they attracted interest for other reasons, such as canonization; otherwise they became not only submerged but lost). There was an amazing variety of occasions for poetic texts; each occasion had its own social context, which exerted different kinds of control and determined the character of the poetry. Any study of the ‘literary’ culture of early Greece must concentrate on this general situation. At the same time, however, as several contributors to Volume 1 also noted,17 the occasionless prose texts already making their appearance in the 6th century stand to a large extent outside this framework, and call for appropriate investigation in their own right. To a large extent: but not entirely, since early prose derives its special character precisely from its relationship to the usual context of textual production, reaching out not to a community defined by polis, clan or cult, but to individuals who shared intellectual interests. The contrast highlights the character of the innovation. And while prose and poetry were opposed in the ways indicated, there were also points of contact and areas of overlap. As mentioned above, the textualization of poetry itself was accomplished in the archaic period; an enormous number of texts were circulating by 500 BCE. The numbers of copies and readers were very limited, to be sure, and there was nothing like a book trade, but by this date the entire corpus of archaic epic and lyric that eventually made it to Alexandria was already fixed in writing. This had consequences in the composition of the poetry itself. The texts show themselves to be aware that the audience at the original occasion was not going to be the only audience; there would be future readers and re-performances.18 Even if poets expected that their texts would be re-performed rather than read, their own experience of reading other poets’ texts would have suggested to them that there would be at least some readers of theirs too; and these readers, while no doubt enjoying the imaginary hic et nunc of the original occasion, were free to concentrate on other aspects of the text before them (which could be re-read as often as desired):

|| 17 E.g. Ercolani 2014, 17; Palmisciano 2014a, 23; Nicolai 2014, 44; all contributors in the concluding section, 181. 18 See especially Budelmann 2013.

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details of its style, its relation with tradition (its intertextuality, as we would say), implications of its argument. These subtleties cannot be fully appreciated during live performance. Furthermore, both prose and poetry engaged critically, if in different ways, with the same cultural patrimony. They drew on similar sources: other poetry, and oral sources. In the case of mythography, oral sources might come from the mythographer’s own locality, but they could be from surprisingly far afield; at least, there are many details in the mythographers that bear every hallmark of local tales, from up and down Greece, yet which are attested in no other surviving source.19 Even allowing for the number of written texts not now surviving, we must infer that the mythographers quizzed visitors to their polis, or travelled themselves. We know that Pherecydes was an intimate of Cimon, which is to say a member of an elite aristocratic circle (as we might have expected of such a writer anyway on a priori grounds); this would have afforded him many opportunities of the right kind. Pindar and other poets received detailed briefs of local information from the patrons who commissioned their odes. The evidence of Herodotus, who refers repeatedly to his travels, is helpful here. The great sanctuaries were especially rich sources of information, foremost among them Delphi, as were prominent men in the leading cities of the day, especially Athens. Sometimes, when we have parallel sources, we are able to lift the veil on Herodotus’ procedures. An example is his tale of Xerxes and the sanctuary of Zeus Laphystius in Halos, Thessaly (Hdt. 7. 197).20 The story about Athamas comes from the beginning of the Argonautic saga, which figured in much archaic literature, particularly in the work of Eumelus of Corinth.21 Epic is the principal source for the mythographers on this topic, but Herodotus, while sharing some details with them, has an unusual version which shows points of contact with the fragments of Sophocles’ Athamas.22 There are other links between these two writers, who probably spent time in each other’s company. Yet Sophocles was not Herodotus’ only source here; his information about the sanctuary and the prytaneion does not look like theatrical material, and in his version it is not Heracles (as in Sophocles) but Cytissorus son of Phrixus who rescued Athamas (sic, not Phrixus as in the mythographers) from sacrifice (which was the reason his descendants were banned from the prytaneion). We infer that Herodotus has blended all three sources ‒ epic, tragedy (supplement-

|| 19 See Fowler 2013, index s.v. ‘mythography, local knowledge in’. 20 See Fowler 2013, 199–200. 21 See West 2002 for an overview of this writer. 22 TrGF 4.99–100.

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ed by personal conversation with the author?), information deriving ultimately from oral sources in Halos ‒ into his own unique account. This is in fact his usual procedure, and we may presume that it is typical of others like him, the λόγιοι ἄνδρες.23 As we have seen, mythography and historiography were not yet distinguished from each other, and, even if the object of their study differed (the remote as opposed to the recent past), their methods were very similar. Mythographers too listened to poets, read texts and talked to people. The talking (and arguing) must have been incessant and ubiquitous. We have here evidence of a lively and Panhellenic engagement with the ‘mythological’ tradition. These stories had contemporary bite; serious political consequences could follow upon choosing one version over another. With respect to submerged literature, the scenario fits very well with several of those discussed in Volume 1, identifying a spectrum of contexts and texts, particularly of dramatic performances, from informal to highly formal, tracing the conditions of emergence, and breaking down the barriers between these different kinds of texts.24 Sonnino well speaks of an ‘osmotic relation’ between submerged and emerged literature, that is between the texts on various points of the spectrum, between ‘literary’ and ‘non-literary’ texts, or between ritual and non-ritual texts.25 Behind mythography and historiography there existed a luxuriant hinterland of story-telling, in the agorai, the leschai and the barbershops, in private homes and around the edges of public festivals, where Sophists like Hippias of Elis gave orations, often with mythographical content.26 Priests in sanctuaries were guardians of hieroi logoi, whose extent we can only guess at, given that they were often secret; but they must have been legion.27 The stories people told in these myriad contexts were often the same as those we know from Panhellenic poetry, but sometimes we get a glimpse of a stratum of less august tales, about bogeys like Empusa, fools like Margites, mischief-makers like the Cer-

|| 23 On these see Luraghi 2001. On Herodotus and the contemporary intellectual scene see Thomas 2000. 24 See particularly Palmisciano 2014b, Sonnino 2014, Giordano 2014. 25 Sonnino 2014, 148. 26 See Plato, Hippias Minor 368b–d, Hippias Maior 285d = Hippias FGrHist 6 T 2, 6 T 3 with Węcowski’s commentary in BNJ. For the contexts of Greek story-telling see Buxton 1994, 9–44; on the lesche, Bremmer 2008; further on Sophistic display orations, Thomas 2000, 249–269 and Thomas 2003, 176–177, 181–182. 27 See Henrichs 2003; Bremmer 2010, 331–333. Herodotus mentions several such stories, but does not relate them (e.g. 2. 48, 2. 51, 2. 62, 2. 81).

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copes, and a host of minor divinities like the Dactyls or the Cabiri.28 The existence of animal fables in Greece is attested from Archilochus onwards, and in Aesop they achieved written form.29 However one assesses the history of the Aesopic tradition, the stories clearly had a visible presence and valency in the classical period; in other words, they had emerged. For our purposes they are instructive. In Volume I ‘text’ was defined as ‘any elaboration (oral and/or written) of a message destined for an audience (i.e. intended for an addressee)’.30 The weight of this definition must be on ‘elaboration’, since it would be hard to think of the stories casually told in, say, the barber-shop as texts in the sense needed here, even though there was an audience. Yet not much elaboration would be needed. Such stories, if well told and meaningful, would travel; they would become known as ‘the story of X’; they would be recognizably the same from telling to telling, in spite of variations in detail; they would exist somehow between occasions, as wandering tales in search of an audience. Aesop’s fables are not far away from this level of organic undergrowth. Mythography is further removed, but has not lost touch with it by any means. The spectrum spoken of above, from ‘non-literary’ to ‘literary’ texts, is rather fuzzy at the non-literary end, with respect to how elaborate a message needs to be before it has the potential to emerge as a prose text. In these cases neither the polis nor any other institution determines or conditions the emergence and character of the text; what causes emergence is a diffuse cultural need. This is true of nearly all types of Greek prose. Oratory is an apparent exception, in that it took place within a political arena of some kind (assembly, lawcourt, boule, funeral orations) and derived its conventions from the exigencies of those occasions. But oratory must exist in such an arena; there is no private oratory. Such texts are in a sense always elaborated and emerged. The decisive moment in the history of this genre is when the orations started to be preserved. For this to happen it was necessary that, first, the orations had reached such a level of stylistic sophistication that they could be appreciated aesthetically independently of their first delivery (i.e., as literature); and second, that the orators themselves had become superstar showmen. There were good orators already in Homer’s day; the combination of these two factors did

|| 28 Empusa: Johnston 1999, 133–135; Margites: Gostoli 2007; Cercopes: Fowler 2013, 321–323; Dactyls etc: Fowler 2013, 34–59. 29 See Kurke 2011. 30 Ercolani 2014, 14.

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not come about, however, until the advent of the Sophists and the demagogues.31 The mythographers have much to teach us. Their marginal status throughout most of antiquity led scholars to overlook their importance in the classical period. They provide an object lesson in the value of thinking about submersion if we are to understand Greek literary culture. Here at the end of this chapter ‘literary’ may lose its inverted commas, for it is with prose that literature (as opposed to texts associated with occasions) really begins. This study thus strongly confirms the passing remarks on prose in Volume 1, and highlights the need for further investigation of the special conditions governing its emergence.

Reference List Bremmer, J. N., ‘Hebrew Lishkah and Greek Leschê’, Greek Religion and Culture, the Bible and the Ancient Near East, Leiden and Boston 2008, 153–167 Bremmer, J. N., ‘From Holy Books to Holy Bible: an Itinerary from Ancient Greece to Modern Islam via Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity’, in Popović, M., ed., Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism, Leiden 2010, 327–360 Budelmann, F., ‘Greek Festival Choruses in and out of Context’, in Billings, J., Budelmann, F., and Macintosh, F., eds, Choruses, Ancient and Modern, Oxford 2013, 81–98 Buxton, R. G. A., Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology, Cambridge 1994 Cameron, A., Greek Mythography in the Roman World, Oxford 2004 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014 Detienne, M., L’ invention de la mythologie, Paris, 1981 (Engl. transl. The Creation of Mythology, Chicago and London 1986) Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 7–18 Fowler, R. L., ‘How to Tell a Myth: Genealogy, Mythology, Mythography’, Kernos 19, 2006, 35– 46 Fowler, R. L., ‘Gods in Early Greek Historiography’, in Bremmer, J. N., and Erskine, A., eds, The Gods of Ancient Greece. Identities and Transformations, Edinburgh 2010, 318–334 Fowler, R. L., ‘Mythos and Logos’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 131, 2011, 45–66 Fowler, R. L., Early Greek Mythography, vol. 2, Commentary, Oxford 2013 Fowler, R. L., ‘Greek Mythography’, in Zajko, V., ed., The Blackwell Companion to the Reception of Classical Mythology, Oxford and Malden, MA forthcoming Giordano, M., ‘Out of Athens. Ritual Performances, Spaces, and the Emersion of Tragedy’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 151–177

|| 31 An additional factor is that by the 4th century there was a sufficiently numerous reading public for politicians to seek to influence them by circulation of their written speeches.

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Henrichs, A., ‘Hieroi Logoi and Hierai Bibloi: The (Un)Written Margins of the Sacred in Ancient Greece’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 101, 2003, 207–266 Johnston, S. I., Restless Dead. Encounters between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece, Berkeley and London 1999 Kahn, C. H., ‘Writing Philosophy: Prose and Poetry from Thales to Plato’, in Yunis, H., ed., Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece, Cambridge 2003, 139–161 Kurke, L., Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue, and the Invention of Greek Prose, Princeton 2011 Lightfoot, J. L., Parthenius of Nicaea. The Poetical Fragments and the Ἐρωτικὰ Παθήματα, Oxford 1999 Luraghi, N., ‘Local Knowledge in Herodotus’ Histories’, in Luraghi, N., ed., The Historian’s Craft in the Age of Herodotus, Oxford 2001, 138–160 Nicolai, R., La storiografia nell’ educazione antica, Pisa 1992 Nicolai, R., ‘The Canon and its Boundaries’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 33–45 Palmisciano, R., ‘Submerged Literature in an Oral Culture’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 19–32 (Palmisciano 2014a) Palmisciano, R., ‘Dramatic Actions from Archaic Iconographic Sources: the Domain of the Satyrikon’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 107–127 (Palmisciano 2014b) Reitz, C., and Walter, A., eds, Von Ursachen sprechen. Eine aitiologische Spurensuche / Telling Origins. On the Lookout for Aetiology, Hildesheim, Zurich and New York 2014 Sbardella, L., ‘The Trojan War Myth: Rhapsodic Canon and Lyric Alternatives’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 61–75 Smith, R. S., and Trzaskoma, S. M., eds, Writing Greek and Roman Myth: Mythography in the Ancient World, Leuven 2013 Sonnino, M., ‘Comedy outside the Canon: from Ritual Slapstick to Hellenistic Mime’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 128–150 Thomas, R., Herodotus in Context: Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion, Cambridge 2000 Thomas, R., ‘Prose Performance Texts: Epideixis and Written Publications in the Late Fifth and Early Fourth Centuries’, in Yunis, H., ed., Written Texts and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece, Cambridge 2003, 162–188 Veyne, P., Did the Greeks Believe in their Myths?, Chicago 1988 (orig. edn Paris 1983) Wendel, C., s.v. ‘Mythographie’, in RE 16.2, Stuttgart 1935, 1352–1374 West, M. L., ‘“Eumelos”: A Corinthian Epic Cycle?’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 122, 2002, 109– 133 = West, M. L., Hellenica: Selected Papers on Greek Literature and Thought, 1: Epic, Oxford 2011, 353–391 Williams, B., Truth and Truthfulness, Princeton 2002

Manuela Giordano

The Emergence of Athens Constructing Identity in the Age of Cimon The first two volumes on ‘submerged literature’ have investigated a number of questions around dynamics and processes that have caused texts either to be submerged or to emerge within a given cultural and historical context. This contribution deals rather with the question of the emergence of a given textproducing historical context, and of a central one, that of Athens.1 Reflection on the dynamics of cultural geography has already pointed out how determinant the weight of the Athenian cultural centre was, as the main collector as well as filter of texts: ‘in the majority of 5th-century Greek poleis outside Athens, what should technically be regarded as submerged production shared the same fate as the lost’.2 If therefore 5th-century Athens is indisputably the main centre of textual and cultural production in the Greek world, a number of questions arise around the modes and the times in which Athenian civic culture emerged above the others as the authoritative Greek cultural centre. Some directions the analysis could take will be illustrated by concentrating on a limited yet crucial time-span, the decade 477 ̶ 467 BCE during the age of Cimon, when ‘a shift ensued from the mainly polycentric pattern of textual and cultural production and circulation which had characterized Greece until the end of the archaic age to a mainly centralized trend’3 that starred Athens – and tragedy – as protagonists.4

|| 1 The issue is very broad, to be sure, and the bibliography virtually unlimited. I have found particularly useful and insightful Loraux 1981; Ostwald 1992; Scodel 2001; Carter 2011. 2 ‘By Way of Conclusion’ in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 184. 3 Idem, 183. 4 See Ostwald 1992.

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1 From import to export: moulding the Athenian hallmark As regards textual circulation, we can track two crucial moments in the circulation and production of texts in Athens from Pisistratus to Cimon.5 The first comes across as a centripetal movement of the reception and importation of the best talents available in the Greek world towards Athens. This trend is first traceable in our sources in the second half of the 6th century, when Pisistratus and his sons ruled the polis (561 ̶ 510), transforming the Athenian local purview by introducing/reshaping important festivals that enhanced her status in the Panhellenic arena,6 in particular the new international form of the Panathenaea and the foundation, or transformation, of the Great Dionysia.7 The new Panathenaea included the great importation of Homeric texts for rhapsodic contests, within which the ‘emerging’ guild of Homeridae from Chios, as Sbardella has convincingly argued, moulded and adapted the poems to bolster the Pisistratids’ policy8 while inserting an Athenian presence into the standard common epic past.9 The appropriation of the hitherto Panhellenic texts par excellence meant also inserting Athens into the international circulation of authoritative texts, a cultural as well as textual insertion by means of the so-called Attic interpolations.10 By the time of the Clisthenic reforms, a Panhellenic star like Lasus of Hermione was admitted to a chorus of andres at the Great Dionysia of 509/8.11 This movement of importing talent intensifies in the years around the Persian wars, as the Athenian activity of Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides attest.12 || 5 See on this Giordano 2014, 169 f. 6 See Osborne 1993; Parker 1996, 67–101. This process is neatly discussed in Scodel 2001, 222 f., from whom I borrow the expression of ‘importing’ and ‘exporting’ poets to and from Athens, but with a considerably different content as regards the identification of the two phases involved. 7 Parker 1996, 75 ff. Connor 1989 has argued for a post-Clisthenic Panhellenic re-foundation of the Great Dionysia. See also Cartledge 1997. Contra, Sourvinou-Inwood 1994. 8 Sbardella 2012 and Sbardella 2014. 9 In due course, the emergence of Athens as a leading culture secured the status of the Homeric poems as the Panhellenic epic par excellence, as argued by Finkelberg in this volume. 10 See for instance Janko 1992, 30 f. 11 Marmor Parium 46; the competition was won by Hippodicus of Chalcis, a non-Athenian poet. 12 Some of Simonides’ fiftysix victories with men’s choruses, which the poet speaks of in Epigrammata Graeca 181–184 Page, were won in Athens, one of them when he was eighty in

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With the beginning of the 470s BCE, however, the movement of texts and talents seems to invert: Athens increasingly becomes an exporter of talents, markedly with theatre and tragedy, which won an immediate success in the whole Greek world. Scodel has argued that tragedy had a Panhellenic vocation from its outset, which she places in the Pisistratid era, attributing its success to an intrinsic feature of the genre.13 Yet the first firm date that allows us to date the success of tragedy outside Athens is 476/5 (or in 471/0 ) when Aeschylus, invited by Hieron, staged his Aetnaeae in Syracuse.14 In about 476 the Athenians won their first victory in Eion as leaders of the newly founded League and, as I will argue, the success of tragedy seems to be connected to the success of Athens. In this period, tragic and theatrical productions invert the direction of circulation in the process of emergence of talented poets and valued texts ‘from import to export’. Whereas with Pisistratus Athenians had appropriated the best poets who commanded prestige and Panhellenic fame, by which the Athenians themselves gained prestige, with tragedy Athens stars as the centre of textual production and admired poets, who were sought out and applauded in the entire Greek arena. These texts and these poets, however adaptable they were to different milieux, nonetheless bore an unmistakable Athenian hallmark.15 Given that the Homeric poems and language had got rid of any taste for ‘local’ production, to a point that a non-marked language and flavour was a precondition for circulation outside the regional milieu, it is all the more significant that Athenian products became Panhellenic while enhancing their Athenian character by the use of language, themes, and internal references strictly connected to the Athenian context. Once the hallmark of ‘Athens’ had become tantamount to ‘Panhellenic’, a text had greater chance of circulation the more it carried an Athenian flavour: from the 470s onwards, texts became Panhellenic qua Athenian. By visiting Athens, poets and sophoi from all over the Greek world pursued this Athenian hallmark, from Choerilus of Samos, who composed an epic poem on the Athenian victory over the Persians, to Protagoras of Abdera, down

|| 477/6 BCE, Epigrammata Graeca 185–190 Page. The Athenians bestowed on Pindar the title of proxenos of Athens (Isocrates, Antidosis 166) and a statue in the agora (Pausanias 1. 8. 4). For Bacchylides see his Io and Theseus. On the circulation of talent in Athens see Ostwald 1992, 323 ff.; Scodel 2001, 223. 13 Eadem, 220 ff. 14 See Taplin 1977, 416–418. 15 I am referring here to the debate concerning the ‘international’ dimension of tragedy, for which see i.e. Hall 1989, 160–165; Easterling 1994; Taplin 1999. On this issue see also Giordano 2014, 167 f. and n. 88.

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to Aristotle of Stagira.16 This produced a phenomenon of emergence not only of texts and authors but of an entire culture. Indeed, we still consider ‘Panhellenic’ a number of cultural and textual elements that on a closer look stand out as specifically Athenian.17 In the following analysis I will try to pinpoint the historical factors that led to such a textual emergence in 470s by connecting them to the increasing martial primacy of Athens in the Greek world. It is my contention that what bestowed such prestige on the Athenian hallmark was neither poetry nor distinctive aesthetic values, but rather warfare and its consequences. However much this image may fall short of modern projection, 5th-century Athenians perceived their polis in primis as a military power, a democracy in arms rather than a democracy of institutions, and they consequently fashioned their identity more in terms of military supremacy and martial power than in terms of ‘cultural’ primacy.

2 From extra to protagonist: a stalwart march to primacy After the battle of Salamis Athenians experienced an increase of both military and cultural prestige at a tremendous pace, culminating in the (approximate) decade 477 ̶ 467, the period under our lens.18 This decade begins with the foundation of the Delian league and ends in 467, the year when Aeschylus staged the Seven against Thebes, winning a long-lasting victory.19 Mapping out Athenian power in the Pentekontaetia in terms of military events and foreign policy is useful, as it reveals that what we count as the Golden Age of Athens, the era of Pericles, does not coincide with the acme of Athenian expansion and power. On the contrary, the mid-century was a time when Athens was losing her grip on the allies and subsequently changed her policy sharply, initiating a hard struggle for control.20 If we take a fresh look at the 470s and 460s we can see them in || 16 See Ostwald 1992, 323 ff. 17 As in the case of the Athenian version of the myth of Orestes, as argued by Pucci in this volume. 18 See for example Rhodes 1992b, 62–67. 19 In this decade all the League’s campaigns were victorious; the first harsh defeat was at the battle of Drabescus in around 465, during the Thasian campaign. 20 If we took a bird’s eye view of Athens’ history from 479 to 439, we would see a tremendous expansion in the first three decades, both in power and territory, reaching a peak in 454 with

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a perspective that better matches the Athenian one, namely as Athens’ most untainted and glorious years, years that offered occasions for expansion, progressive empowerment and mastery, and hitherto unforeseen scenarios of glory.21 At the moment of the foundation of the League, Athens had no hidden agenda: whether the aim of the confederation was to punish the medizing Greek cities or to protect the Ionians (the latter is the generally accepted interpretation, to which I subscribe), Athens did not begin the enterprise to build an empire.22 The leadership of the League, however, was the occasion and precondition through which Athens increased her military and political strength year by year far beyond initial expectations.23 On the one hand the allies offered Athens the role of leader, preferring a financial rather than military investment, and were reassured by the extraordinary Athenian fleet and strategy in command; on the other hand Athenian citizens responded to that offer with a steadfast determination, willing to take the lead and continue the process set out by Themistocles in the 480s. At a short distance from the extraordinary successes of the 490s and 480s, from Marathon to Mycale, Athenians were always ready to fight, unerringly engaged in military campaigns at the risk of their life, earning victory after victory.24 Under the guidance of Cimon, son of Miltiades, Athenian history in the decade preceding the Seven is a garland of astounding victories: in the Thracian campaign, usually assigned to 476/5, Eion is captured and Cimon set foot on Thrace, a crucial area rich in natural resources. This (probably) first success aroused a great thrill in Athens: three honorific herms with inscribed epigrams were dedicated as a reward to the victorious warriors and

|| the treasury of the League being moved from Delos to Athens. From 454 to 439 follows a phase of relative territorial shrinkage paired with general unrest and backlashes among the allies, with its lowest point in 446 when Athens actually lost its Peloponnesian possessions, and then the upswing of the 430s with the surrender of Samos in 439 and the foundation of Amphipolis about two years later. On the mid-century crisis see e.g. Rhodes 1992a, 54–61. 21 Pericles himself tried to vie with Cimon’s image and renown, as argued in Mariggiò 2011. 22 Rhodes 1992a, 46–49. 23 I follow Thucidides 1. 97. 2, who considers this period to be crucial for the establishment of Athenian arche: ‘My excuse for relating these events, and for venturing on this digression, is that this passage of history has been omitted by all my predecessors, who have confined themselves either to Hellenic history before the Median war, or to the Median war itself …. Besides, the history of these events contains an explanation of the growth of the Athenian empire (ὅτι ἅμα δὲ καὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς ἀπόδειξιν ἔχει τῆς τῶν Ἀθηναίων ἐν οἵῳ τρόπῳ κατέστη)’. Transl. E. C. Marchant. 24 See Thucidides 1. 99.

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generals and publicly displayed in the Stoa of the Hermai.25 After a while the island of Scyros, a convenient stop on the route to the Hellespont, was subjugated. From Scyros Cimon took Theseus’ bones ‘back home’, prompting a surge of narrative productions and the erection of the Theseion.26 Between 474 and 469 the Athenians defeated Carystus and successfully faced the first clash with an ally, Naxos.27 Around 469 and 467 Cimon achieved the great success of the Eurymedon and was saluted as a great victor and, according to Plutarch, Cimon 8. 7 rewarded at the City Dionysia of that year with the position of judge in the contest.28 Between the Persian wars and the age of Cimon, Athenians had, then, experienced an increase of both military and cultural prestige at a tremendous pace, with an acceleration between 477 and 467 in which the relentless victories projected a scenario of greatness for the Athenians that their grandparents and even their fathers could never have imagined.29

3 Inventing an Athenian tradition Triggered by continuous military engagements and success, the new empowerment – resulting in a new Panhellenic standing – went hand in hand with a brisk transformation of Athenian identity vis-à-vis the Athenians themselves as well as the Greek arena, a new identity that no tale or poem had yet told. Athenians had no noble narrative lineage, and the Athenian past lacked narratives of a great past that could also serve to assert afresh their position in the Delian league. The Athenians needed a tradition legitimating their power which would project back into the past the greatness of their present, that is, a type of narra-

|| 25 See Di Cesare 2001. 26 For the Theseion see most recently Di Cesare in Greco 2011, 539–540. 27 See Thucydides’ words 1. 98. 3. 28 The campaign against Thasos in 465 and Chersonesus in 463, and particularly Cimon’s dismissal by the Spartans in Messenia in 462 follow at close quarters, ending this formidable Cimonian season. See Lewis 1992, 109 f., 115, 117. 29 Thucidides 2. 62. 3 may well have spoken of ‘fathers’ not as a generic but as a literal term to designate the former generation, that of the combatants of the first campaign of the League: ‘Your fathers receiving these possessions not from others, but from themselves, did not let slip what their labour had acquired, but delivered them safe to you; and in this respect at least you must prove yourselves their equals’ (transl. E. C. Marchant).

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tion able to represent the Athens of the present time as in continuity with the actual past.30 New narratives were needed to invent a powerful tradition, new ways to sing an unexpected and overwhelming glory and construe an imagined identity in terms of primacy and power, providing the Athenians with updated and powerful paradigms.31 A number of narratives, both visual and verbal, were thus produced in these years, charged with martial stories and ethos, first and foremost tragedy. It is important to view Athenian identity in the age of Cimon in different settings, thus giving more scope to see the similarities between tragedy and the other forms of civic discourse in Athens. Among these different settings we will single out the case of the Stoa Poikile as significantly concurring in narrating – or literally constructing –, no less commandingly than tragedy, the ‘new past’ of Athens.

4 Constructing Athens: visual narratives At the beginning of the 470s not only was the agora a very basic space, with few buildings aligned between the slope of Kolonos agoraios and the great drain, but it also bore witness to the devastation of the Persian armies of 480. Straight after the battle of Salamis the agora, just as much as the Acropolis, probably looked like a kind of deserted ground. The Athenians, and Cimon in particular, converted the agora into the locus of the new Athenian identity and as a visible sign of the beginning of a new era of glory rising from the ashes, debris, and memories of the disaster. In those years a great deal of work was invested in the agora: the Tholos, the plane trees, and the irrigation system,32 the Hermai with the homonymous portico designed to shelter them, and the Stoa Poikile, the painted portico. Just as the age of Cimon was, for the Athenians themselves, the Golden Age of Athens, the most famous Athenian monument may have been not the Parthenon, but the Stoa Poikile.33 This portico was built by Peisianax, prob-

|| 30 On the cultural need for narrative texts as a phenomenon leading to emergence, see Fowler in this volume. 31 On the invention of tradition see Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983. 32 Plutarch, Cimon 13. 8. See Martin 1951, 316; for the Tholos see Shear 1984, 48–50. 33 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 186; Demosthenes, Against Aristocrates 76, 207. On the sources see Wycherley 1957. See Camp II 2010, 96 ‘one of the more lavish secular buildings in Athens’.

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ably the brother-in-law of Cimon or else a member of his circle,34 and was known as the Stoa Peisianaktios35 until the fame of the paintings it sheltered earned it the name Poikile from around 400 BCE. In 1981 excavations revealed the foundation of a portico, dated to the years 475–60, which has been identified by most scholars as the Stoa Poikile.36 Recently Di Cesare has rejected the identification of the portion of this stoa as the Poikile, proposing instead the attribution of the stoa as that of the Hermai, another important monument of the Cimonian age, and he argues that the Stoa Poikile was located in a more north-easterly position. Di Cesare’s thesis is based on a painstaking reexamination of the sources and cannot be easily dismissed.37 It is however implausible that the original construction of the Stoa Poikile dated too the end of the 6th century, as he argues elsewhere.38 We cannot deal at length with this attribution here, but I would like to note that one element in particular fits ill with an early date: unlike other stoas, the Poikile did not have an administrative purpose (such as acting as the seat of an archon, as was the case with the Stoa Basileios) and it was only occasionally used for proclamations and arbitrations.39 Be that as it may, the sources attest that the purpose of this stoa was to display the paintings for which it was famous and captured arms, standing as a site of Athenian self-representation, a pleasant place to wander about, to meet, and to take a walk. The centrality of what the literary sources describe as a neat and elegant building seems further revealed by its having a southern exposure, sheltered from the northern wind.40 In the 470’s and 460’s the Stoa Poikile was therefore the place of exhibition for paintings by the very best artists of the time – Polygnotus, Micon, and Panaenus. Six hundred years later, Pausanias (Pausanias 1. 15. 1–3) could still admire the four paintings and describe them: This portico contains, first, the Athenians arrayed against the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in the Argive territory … On the middle wall are the Athenians and Theseus fighting with the Amazons. So, it seems, only the women did not lose through their defeats their reck-

|| 34 Wycherley 1992, 210. 35 Suda, s.v. 36 See Shear 1984, 5–19, Camp 1986, 77. 37 Di Cesare 2001; Di Cesare 2002a and Di Cesare 2002b. See also Di Cesare 2012, 140, n. 22, 145 and n. 47. 38 Di Cesare 2002a. 39 As Camp II 2010 states ‘it seems to have served the needs of the populace at large, providing shelter and a place to meet just off the Agora square’, 100. Moreover, since the paintings that the Stoa sheltered dated to the age of Cimon, we would have to assume that they were placed in the supposedly pre-existing stoa, which seems an improbable reconstruction. 40 Camp II 2010, 97.

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less courage in the face of danger; Themiscyra was taken by Heracles, and afterwards the army which they dispatched to Athens was destroyed, but nevertheless they came to Troy to fight all the Greeks as well as the Athenians themselves. After the Amazons come the Greeks when they have taken Troy, and the kings assembled on account of the outrage committed by Ajax against Cassandra. The picture includes Ajax himself, Cassandra and other captive women. At the end of the painting are those who fought at Marathon; the Boeotians of Plataea and the Attic contingent are coming to blows with the foreigners. In this place neither side has the better, but the center of the fighting shows the foreigners in flight and pushing one another into the morass, while at the end of the painting are the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks killing the foreigners who are scrambling into them. Here is also a portrait of the hero Marathon, after whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented as coming up from the under-world, of Athena and of Heracles. … Of the fighters the most conspicuous figures in the painting are Callimachus, who had been elected commander-in-chief by the Athenians, Miltiades, one of the generals, and a hero called Echetlus … (Transl. W. H. S. Jones – H. A. Ormerod).

In the order given by Pausanias, they represent the battle of the Athenians against the Spartans at Oenoe in the Argolid, the battle of the Athenians led by Theseus against the Amazons, the war of the Greeks against Troy with the episode of Ajax and Cassandra, and finally the battle of Marathon with the Plataeans and Athenians in the foreground. The painting program of the Stoa Poikile has been subject to various interpretations, what I propose here is to read the paintings both along a vertical/temporal axis and according to horizontal/taxonomical order.41 The chronological order begins with (1) the Amazonomachy, which in the painting becomes the battle of the Athenians against the Amazons, one or two generations before the Trojan war; (2) the Trojan war itself; (3) the battle of Marathon of 490; and (4) the battle of Oenoe that some historians have dated to 457.42 The Amazonomachy is the beginning and the matrix of the battles. By this painting, the Athenians appropriated the more ancient myth that had Heracles as the protagonist of the famous battle against the terrible warrior daughters of Ares, connected as it was to Heracles’ labours (Hippolyta’s girdle); now it was transformed into a personal feat of Theseus, after which the Amazons marched against Athens and were defeated by the Athenian troops under Theseus’ leadership. The involvement of the Athenians in the war against the Amazons is a

|| 41 See Castriota 1992, 76–89, Stansbury-O’Donnell 2005 and Castriota 2005. I will deal more thoroughly with the different interpretation of the Stoa. 42 A problematic date and battle, see Lewis 1992, 117 and n. 77. As to its place in the Stoa Poikile see Stansbury-O’Donnell 2005, 78–81.

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cornerstone of the invention of tradition in this period.43 The Amazonomachy crucially establishes the temporal priority of Athenian martial primacy by stating that the Athenians fought the Amazons before the Trojan war, so the antiquity of the conflict is greater and so more exalted than the Trojan War. Pausanias explicitly asserts that the Amazons after their defeat at the hands of the Athenians ‘went to Troy to fight against the same Athenians and against all the Greeks’. In a foundational relationship the Amazons are the first Asian enemy, and the Athenians are the first Greeks to oppose and defeat an Asian enemy. By this narrative the Athenians invent the tradition of their martial supremacy, transforming the battle against the Amazons into the blueprint of all other battles, including the Trojan War. Bypassing the Homeric narratives by this means, the Stoa Poikile shows as a fact not only that the Athenians participated in the Trojan War, but also that they did so as the principal actors in it. The much closer past of the battle of Marathon is thereafter set in continuity with an already established tradition: at Marathon the Athenians legitimately maintained the role that they had already taken against the Amazons and at Troy. The battle of Oenoe against the Spartans is not clearly identifiable in our sources, but its position becomes clear in a reading of ‘Athens against all’. On a hypothetical horizontal axis these battle scenes set up two opposing fronts. The Amazonomachy is moulded into an archetype of any Athenian clash with an enemy, by which the Athenians face a barbarian enemy with characteristics of otherness, in relation to whom the Athenian identity is progressively defined: the Amazons, the Trojans, the Persians, and finally the Spartans. This narrative sequence invents the tradition of a heroic Athens and establishes a taxonomy positioning the Athenians above the other Greeks, exalting their present-day supremacy. Walking in this ‘hall of victory’ and appreciating the paintings, from the Amazonomachy to the Battle of Marathon via the Trojan War, Athenians could claim a past of military prowess,44 in tune with their present status and agenda, and as such it could provide the Athenians with legitimacy in the eyes of themselves, the allies, and other Greeks.45 The Stoa Poikile and its visual tales signifi|| 43 The same episode was also represented in the paintings decorating the Theseion, the sanctuary Cimon built to shelter Theseus’ bones (Pausanias 1. 17), painted by, probably, Micon, as one of the central feats of the hero’s biography. 44 See Castriota 2005, 89. 45 I can merely mention the central importance of Theseus in ‘inventing an Athenian tradition’. Not one but many Theseids circulated in the 6th and 5th century, and they represent for us submerged texts. On the figure of Theseus in this respect see e.g. Sourvinou-Inwood 1979; Shapiro 1992; Walker 1995; Calame 1996.

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cantly contributed to inventing the tradition of a glorious Athenian past, reconstructed in the particular rhetorical frame we have reviewed above.

5 Tragedy and War As the Stoa Poikile made clear, the Homeric poems, however authoritative, could no longer provide Athenians with the tradition they needed. With Attic interpolations into the Homeric texts, Athenians put in an appearance but could certainly not claim a primary role in the hitherto established Panhellenic heroic past. Furthermore, Homeric heroes and paradigms were no longer felt to be apt and adequate to respond to the demands of the present-day Athenian agenda.46 As we will briefly show, Athenian tragedy is one of the genres that concurred most in the process of identity construction, in which Aeschylus took the lead in telling the stories of an unexpectedly glorious present.47 If the 470s and 460s were the Golden Age of Athens in terms of military prowess and territorial expansion, much the same holds true for tragedy. This genre met the Athenian need for new narratives as well as for new forms: with tragedy Athenians moulded a new medium and a new form in a unique synergy with new narratives.48 Of all plays, Aristophanes’ Frogs picks out the Seven against Thebes and Persians – both dramas full of Ares – to represent the tragedy par excellence. In the decade 477–467 two tragedies celebrated the present with the instruments of the legendary past: Phrynichus’ Phoenician Women (476 BCE) and Aeschylus’ Persians (472 BCE). Both Phoenician Women and Persians stage the battle of Salamis, respectively four and eight years after it happened. The little we know about Phoenician Women is, however, revealing: it exalted Athens and her naval power through the enemy’s point of view, and the choregos was the very creator and champion of that same naval prowess and power, Themistocles. Four years later, Aeschylus represented the same event, reprising Phrynichus, who is indirectly quoted at the beginning of the tragedy, and likewise representing the battle from the enemy’s point of view. Persians exalts the Athenian victory and

|| 46 See Giordano 2006a. 47 We should also mention the epitaphios logos, a new genre that was arguably elaborated in the age of Cimon, and that strongly concurred in the construction of Athenian identity. See Loraux 1981. 48 See on this point Finkelberg 2006. Parker 2005, 140 argues that ‘though myths were told and depicted in many contexts in Greek life, the single most influential medium in classical Athens was surely drama’.

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martial ethos, Themistocles, and the success of his naval policy, evoking it indirectly when praising the Laurium mines (the ‘treasure of the earth’ of line 238), that very treasure which Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to invest in the construction of the fleet. One key theme of the tragedy is that it expresses the feeling of unexpectedness that dominated public opinion, a feeling connected to the victory of a people with scarce means over a gigantic enemy, an aprosdoketon that condenses the atmosphere of those years and of the Athenian rise as a whole. Scholars have pointed out that the historical tragedies remain a unique experiment, following which the tragic poets resumed the ‘traditional’ mythical perspective. However, it is hard to explain the staging of two ‘historical’ tragedies dealing with the same event merely as a more or less successful literary experiment. These tragedies would have been interpreted as responding to the need to represent a contemporary event in the tragic language of the past because that event was felt to be heroic tout court. The significance of this phenomenon will have been viewed against the background of the excitement produced by the victorious Athenian ascent of those years. In the Seven against Thebes, as I have shown elsewhere, Aeschylus deals with the theme of the polis at war – straight after Cimon’s success at the Eurymedon – and offers a new hoplitic model to replace the traditional Homeric paradigm in order to respond to a changing Athenian identity both in martial and religious terms.49 As sketched out above, the new Athenian identity as the ruling martial power required narratives and myths that would simultaneously bear the marks of novelty and antiquity, stories that would recount Athens’ changed standing by projecting it into the past, or by using the language of the past to provide the (Athenian) present with a narrative lineage. In many respects the Seven can be seen as a typical civic tragedy, that is, as a powerful civic institution that also, and particularly in the age of Cimon, served the ‘imaginative’ needs of an Athenian martial identity.50

|| 49 See Giordano 2006a and Giordano 2006b. 50 As I will argue elsewhere, the approach I am suggesting bears an analogy with the ‘historical’ approach to tragedy inaugurated by Thomson 1944. My understanding of the ‘historical’ value of tragedy is however quite divergent from Thomson’s in that I do not intend to see specific references to specific facts or characters in any given tragedy.

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6 Conclusion I would like to quote as a conclusion the remarks with which we concluded the first volume on Submerged Literature, on Athens as the polis that invested the most in the construction of her identity in terms of narratives. ‘From Pisistratus to Lycurgus, Athens continually deployed a strategy of appropriation of diverse “narratives” from all over the Greek world and their utilization in the various Attic occasions and venues often created to this end (from symposia and festivals to theatre and assembly meetings). This process was a continual translation of narratives through Athenian filters, resulting in the selection and transformation of those texts and themes which fed into Athens’ agenda, ultimately dooming to submersion whatever lacked this versatility. Themes, characters, and values bolstering or exalting Athenian interests and values came to stand for what we perceive as Panhellenic to date’.51 I hope the present contribution has offered a richer and more integrated picture in which to place the emergence of Athens in the age of Cimon. The inquiry should be pursued further, taking into account more deeply the interrelation between military, cultural, and political aspects of Athenian society. Our understanding of the single phenomenon will shed further light on the functioning of the larger whole.

Reference List Calame, C., Thésée et l’imaginaire athénien: légende et culte en Grèce antique, Lausanne 1996 (2nd edn) Camp, J. M., The Athenian Agora: Excavations in the Heart of Classical Athens, London 1986 (Repr. 1998) Camp II, J. McK., The Athenian Agora. Site Guide, Princeton 2010 Carter, D. M., ed., Why Athens? A Reappraisal of Tragic Politics, Oxford 2011 Cartledge, P., ‘ “Deep Plays”: Theatre as Process in Greek Civic Life’, in Easterling, P. E., ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy, Cambridge 1997, 3–35 Castriota, D., Myth, Ethos, and Actuality: Official Art in Fifth-Century B.C. Athens, New York 1992 Castriota, D., ‘Feminizing the Barbarian and Barbarizing the Feminine. Amazons, Trojans and Persians in the Stoa Poikile’, in Barringer, J. M., and Hurwit, J. M., eds, Periklean Athens and its Legacy. Problems and Perspectives, Austin 2005, 89–102 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture, Berlin and Boston 2014

|| 51 Broggiato, Colesanti, et al. 2014, 184.

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Connor, W. R., ‘The City Dionysia and Athenian Democracy’, Classica et Mediaevalia 40, 1989, 7–32 Di Cesare, R., ‘Intorno alla Stoà delle Erme’, Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente 79, 2001, 17–36 Di Cesare, R., ‘Testimonianze per la stoà di Peisianax come edificio (tardo-)arcaico dell’agorà di Atene’, Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente 80, 2002a, 43–49 Di Cesare, R., ‘Un lemma di Arpocrazione e la stoà delle Erme di Atene’, Parola del Passato 2002b, 303–307 Di Cesare R., ‘Studio storico-topografico di un brano aristofaneo (Ecclesiazuse 801–806)’, Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente 105, 2012, 137–166 Easterling, P. E., ‘Euripides outside Athens’, Illinois Classical Studies 19, 1994, 73–80 Finkelberg, M., ‘The City Dionysia and the Social Space of Attic Tragedy’, in Davidson, J., Muecke, F., and Wilson, P., eds, Greek Drama III. Essays in Honour of Kevin Lee, London 2006, 17–26 (BICS, Suppl. 87) Giordano, M., ‘Guerra omerica e guerra oplitica nei Sette contro Tebe’, Seminari Romani 9, 2006a, 271–298 Giordano, M., ‘Ritual Appropriateness in the Seven against Thebes. Civic Religion in a Time of War’, Mnemosyne 59, 2006b, 52–74 Giordano, M., ‘Out of Athens. Ritual Performances, Spaces, and the Emergence of Tragedy’, in Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture, Berlin and Boston 2014, 151–177 Greco, E., Topografia di Atene. Sviluppo urbano e monumenti dalle origini al II secolo d.C., 2: Colline sud-occidentali – Valle dell’Illisso, Athens and Paestum 2011 (SATAA, 1/2) Hall, E., Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-definition Through Tragedy, Oxford 1989 Hobsbawm, E. J., and Ranger, T., eds, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge 1983 Janko, R., The Iliad. A Commentary, 4: Books 13-16, Cambridge 1992 Lewis, D. M.,’Mainland Greece, 479 – 451 B.C.’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992 (2nd edn), 96–120 Lewis, D. M., ‘The Thirty Years’ Peace’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992 (2nd edn), 121–146 Loraux, N., L’invention d’Athènes. Histoire de l’oraison funèbre dans la «cité classique», Paris 1981 Mariggiò, V. A., ‘La competizione tra Pericle e Cimone: storia di una rivalità’, Ktèma 36, 2011, 297–317 Martin, R., Recherches sur l’agora grecque, Paris 1951 Ostwald, M., ‘Athens as a Cultural Centre’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992 (2nd edn), 306–369 Osborne, R., ‘Competitive Festivals and the Polis: a Context for Dramatic Festivals at Athens’, in Sommerstein, A., Halliwell, S., Henderson, J., et al., eds, Tragedy, Comedy, and the Polis, Bari 1993, 21–28 Parker, R., Athenian Religion. A History, Oxford 1996 Parker, R., Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford 2005 Rhodes, P. J., ‘The Delian League to 449 B.C.’ , in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992a (2nd edn), 34– 61

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Rhodes, P. J., ‘The Athenian Revolution’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992b (2nd edn), 62–95 Sbardella, L., Cucitori di canti. Studi sulla tradizione epico-rapsodica greca e i suoi itinerari nel VI sec. a.C., Rome 2012 Sbardella, L., ‘The Trojan War Myth: Rhapsodic Canon and Lyric Alternative’, in Colesanti, G. and Giordano, M., Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture, Berlin and Boston 2014, 61–75 Scodel, R., ‘The Poet’s Career, the Rise of Tragedy, and Athenian Cultural Hegemony’, in Papenfuss, D., and Strocka, V. M., eds, Gab es das Griechische Wunder?, Mainz 2001, 215– 228 Shapiro, H. A., ‘Theseus in Kimonian Athens: The Iconography of Empire’, Mediterranean Historical Review 7, 1992, 29–49 Shear, Jr, T. L., ‘The Athenian Agora: Excavations of 1980–1982’ Hesperia 53, 1984, 1–57 Sourvinou-Inwood, C., Theseus as Son and Stepson. A Tentative Illustration of Greek Mythological Mentality, London 1979 (BICS, Suppl. 40) Sourvinou-Inwood, C., ‘Something to Do with Athens: Tragedy and Ritual’, in Osborne, R., and Hornblower, S., eds, Ritual, Finance, Politics, Oxford 1994, 269–289 Sourvinou-Inwood, C., Tragedy and Athenian Religion, London 2003 Stansbury-O’Donnell, M. D., ‘The Painting Program in the Stoa Poikile, in Barringer, J. M., and Hurwit, J. M., eds, Periklean Athens and its Legacy. Problems and Perspectives, Austin 2005, 73–87 Taplin, O., The Stagecraft of Aeschylus, Oxford 1977 Taplin, O., ‘Spreading the Word through Performance’, in Goldhill, S., and Osborne, R., eds, Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy, Cambridge 1999, 33–57 Thomson, G., Aeschylus and Athens, London 1946 (2nd edn) Walker, H. J., Theseus and Athens, Oxford 1995 Wycherley, R. E., ‘Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia’, Agora 3, Princeton 1957 Wycherley, R. E., ‘Rebuilding in Athens and Attica’, in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. V, The Fifth Century B.C., Cambridge 1992 (2nd edn), 206–222

Luca Pucci

The Purification of Orestes at Troezen A Case of Submersion between Ancient and Modern1

1 Introduction On the matricide Orestes the Greek and Latin sources attest the existence of numerous mythical and cultic traditions which can be localized through the narrative setting and/or the evidence of cult on the Greek mainland or the colonies, both in the West and in Asia Minor, across a chronological span that runs from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE.2 The large number of testimonia, although often problematic in interpretation, constitutes in itself a very interesting, and almost unique, datum for the modern scholar, because no other hero seems to have been refunctionalized to such an extent in times and places so far from each other as Orestes. And this should make it possible to elucidate better, at least in a hypothetical and ideal way, some processes in the functionalization of mythical tales in general. However, this peculiarity has never been investigated in a comprehensive and exhaustive study of the traditions that would do justice to the specificity of each one of them. The prevailing approach in existing studies is a classical-centrist analysis that consists of treating the story of the hero’s judicial trial at the Athenian Areopagus, as staged by Aeschylus in 458 BCE, as the version par excellence of the myth of Orestes; by taking this as the starting point, earlier mythical accounts, or versions set somewhere other than Argos/Mycenae or Athens (e.g. the versions attested by Homer, Pindaric poetry, and Herodotus), are usually interpreted as preparatory stages to the Aeschylean exploit, while later ones are read as more or less successful reproductions of the tragic model, forming the descending arc of this hero’s mythic parabola in the Greek world. The most extreme example of this kind of approach, in relation solely to the traditions of the purification of Orestes in the Peloponnese but inevitably re-

|| 1 I presented this paper at the Atelier Paris–Chicago on ancient religions (Paris, September 16th‒17th 2013). I wish to thank Marcello Carastro, Manuela Giordano, Bruce Lincoln, Riccardo Palmisciano and Livio Sbardella for their precious remarks on this paper. 2 For a useful list, see Lesky 1939; for a comprehensive reading of the better attested traditions, see Gantz 1993, 676‒694.

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flecting also on all the others, is in the essay on Delphic propaganda by Defradas who, long ago in 1954, expressed himself as follows: toutes les versions qui placent ailleurs qu’à Delphes la purification d’Oreste sont des explications étiologiques. Elles sont toutes inventées après coup pour justifier l’existence d’un rite ou d’un monument. Il semble qu’en général ces explications empruntent à des légendes connues de quoi éclairer une particularité locale. La légende selon laquelle Oreste, après son crime, a dû s’exiler et parcourir le monde justifiait d’avance toutes les annexions. … toutes les versions péloponnésiennes dépendaient étroitement de la légende athénienne d’Oreste’ (which in its turn constituted the expansion of a prototypical Delphic version).3

This approach to the study of the traditions is in many ways idealistic and Romantic, affected by the grandeur of Aeschylean drama and by a hypothesized all-pervasive Delphic theology. On the one hand it fails to give due consideration to the intrinsically multiple, polymorphic, and multifunctional nature of myths and rituals in a traditional society such as that of Greece, and on the other hand it obscures the function of the traditions themselves for the community that preserved and transmitted them as its traditional heritage. Despite the long time since Defradas’ statement, and despite its arbitrariness in favouring one version, it has become established as verbum Dei in research on the subject and its echo is still heard today in many recent contributions on Orestes in which local traditions are considered to be a direct reflection of the Athenian or Delphic ones.4 || 3 Defradas 1972, 170. As regards what could have been the original Delphic exemplar of this tradition – perhaps Hesiod (frr. 23a‒b Merkelbach–West), Xanthus (frr. 699‒700 Page), or Stesichorus (frr. 210‒219 Davies) – Defradas does express some methodologically correct reservations: ‘Quand nous parlerons d’une “Orestie delphique” … nous ne devrons pas oublier qu’il s’agit là seulement d’une hypothèse. L’œuvre dont nous parlons n’a peut-être jamais existé. Il se peut que, dans les milieux delphiques, la tradition orale ait donné de la légende d’Héraclès ou de celle d’Oreste une version nouvelle. … Que l’influence delphique se soit exercée pour la première fois sur une œuvre aujourd’hui perdue et oubliée, ou sur Xanthos, dont nous ne connaissons que le nom, ou sur Stésichore, dont l’œuvre ne peut être que difficilement entrevue, un seul point paraît sûr: c’est la réalité même de cette influence’ (Defradas 1972, 176). 4 This approach is in truth not, or at least not only, the result of modern scholars’ own reflections, whether persuasive or not. It clearly arises from the state of our sources, which are very fragmentary for all traditions other than the Athenian and Argive/Mycenean ones, for which, in contrast, we have abundant testimonia. However, as will be emphasized below, any such opposition in the process of transmission is the result of the authoritativeness and, to put it in Rossi’s terms (Rossi 2000, 170), of the protected character of some traditions, such as the Athenian one, which succeeded in surpassing the limits of the city and spreading elsewhere, and of the epichoric character of many others, which in contrast remained circumscribed within the regional setting, becoming submerged over time through their lack of protection.

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The goal of the present contribution is to analyse the tradition of the purification of Orestes at Troezen, attested solely by Pausanias (2. 30. 5–32. 10), by rereading the data in the light of the local context and attempting to provide an interpretation that as far as possible escapes from hermeneutic schemes of genetic-derivative type in relation to the other traditions about the hero circulating on mainland Greece. Since Pausanias attests the existence of rituals associated with the mythical tales, it is necessary first to set out some important points about this type of material, listed briefly below, in order to permit an analysis that is as far as possible emic, i.e. contextual and without modern interpretive filters: – in a traditional society like that of Greece, myths are part of – and contribute to defining – what Halbwachs called ‘mémoire collective’, which more recent cultural studies translate as ‘cultural memory’, that is, the cultural heritage, and so also the inherited identity, of a community;5 – as such, myths function as ‘ideological vectors’, i.e. it is possible to trace in them the cultural (religious, political, etc) traits that distinguish different communities; the variety of mythical stories in circulation on the same subject/event in a number of centres is indicative above all of the diversity of the ideological systems of the centres themselves;6 – myth lives from processes of ‘invention of tradition’, i.e. it is preserved, transmitted, and updated over time through confrontation with the traditions of others; the concept of ‘invention’ should be interpreted in the sense of ‘construction of an identity-forming heritage’ which is not open to debate on the basis of an (abstract and absolute) criterion of truth, but is valid because it belongs to the community that has created and transmitted it;7 – the greater or lesser number of testimonies to a given tradition cannot be a criterion in its interpretation, because a poorly transmitted tradition need not be any less ‘authoritative’; the risk of such an approach is that it may completely distort the functional value of a tradition to the community that preserves it; – in a traditional community, myth and ritual cannot be distinguished except at an analytic and theoretical level, insofar as every community event of so-

|| 5 Halbwachs 1925 and Halbwachs 1950. For the more recent studies on ‘cultural memory’ see Erll and Nünning 2008. 6 This type of functional interpretation of myth goes back in its developed form to Durkheim 1912 and Malinowski 1948. 7 See Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983. Bremmer 1997 speaks, aptly, of myth as a propaganda tool of the community.

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–

cial importance consists of gestures and words that are indissolubly linked, of stories that transmit the past and cult practices that actualize it;8 following a principle which we may define as ‘epichoric contextualization’, every tradition should be analysed in the light of the places in which it is attested and through which it is conceived, as well as the historical moment to which it can be traced through the source that transmits it, with all the associated elements in the religious and institutional spheres that these specific contours imply; where possible, one must search for a tradition’s horizon of formation and trace evolutionary processes through time.9

2 The testimony of Pausanias and modern hypotheses In the section of Book 2 of the Periegesis dedicated to the mythical history and monuments of Troezen (2. 30. 5–32. 10), Pausanias attests the existence of traditions about two purifications of Orestes that took place in the vicinity of two important monuments in the city’s agora. A first one (31. 4) is localized on a stone (λίθος) in front of the sanctuary of Artemis Λυκεία and was carried out by nine men of Troezen; the second (31. 8-9) is set in a booth (σκηνή) in front of the sanctuary of Apollo Θεάριος and was carried out using various means by some local men, who are not further identified. Pausanias reports as follows: [31. 4] πλησίον δὲ τοῦ θεάτρου Λυκείας ναὸν Ἀρτέμιδος ἐποίησεν Ἱππόλυτος· ἐς δὲ τὴν ἐπίκλησιν οὐδὲν εἶχον πυθέσθαι παρὰ τῶν ἐξηγητῶν, ἀλλὰ ἢ λύκους ἐφαίνετό μοι τὴν Τροιζηνίαν λυμαινομένους ἐξελεῖν ὁ Ἱππόλυτος ἢ Ἀμαζόσι, παρ' ὧν τὰ πρὸς μητρὸς ἦν, ἐπίκλησις τῆς Ἀρτέμιδός ἐστιν αὕτη· εἴη δ' ἂν ἔτι καὶ ἄλλο οὐ γινωσκόμενον ὑπὸ ἐμοῦ. τὸν δὲ ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ ναοῦ λίθον, καλούμενον δὲ ἱερόν, εἶναι λέγουσιν ἐφ' οὗ ποτε ἄνδρες Τροιζηνίων ἐννέα Ὀρέστην ἐκάθηραν ἐπὶ τῷ φόνῳ τῆς μητρός. [31. 8-9] τοῦ δὲ ἱεροῦ τοῦ Ἀπόλλωνός ἐστιν οἰκοδόμημα ἔμπροσθεν, Ὀρέστου καλούμενον σκηνή. πρὶν γὰρ ἐπὶ τῷ αἵματι καθαρθῆναι τῆς μητρός, Τροιζηνίων οὐδεὶς πρότερον ἤθελεν αὐτὸν οἴκῳ δέξασθαι· καθίσαντες δὲ ἐνταῦθα ἐκάθαιρον καὶ εἱστίων, ἐς ὃ ἀφήγνισαν. καὶ νῦν ἔτι οἱ ἀπόγονοι τῶν καθηράντων ἐνταῦθα δειπνοῦσιν ἐν ἡμέραις ῥηταῖς. κατορυχθέντων δὲ ὀλίγον ἀπὸ τῆς σκηνῆς τῶν καθαρσίων φασὶν ἀπ' αὐτῶν ἀναφῦναι δάφνην, ἣ δὴ καὶ ἐς ἡμᾶς ἔστιν, ἡ πρὸ τῆς σκηνῆς ταύτης. [9] καθῆραι δέ φασιν Ὀρέστην καθαρσίοις καὶ ἄλλοις καὶ ὕδατι τῷ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἵππου κρήνης.

|| 8 On the relation between myth and ritual see Segal 1998. 9 A useful list of precepts for the study of myth is provided by Lincoln 1999, 150 f.

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[31. 4] Near the theatre a temple of Artemis Lycea was made by Hippolytus. About this surname I could learn nothing from the local guides, but I gathered that either Hippolytus destroyed wolves that were ravaging the land of Troezen, or else that Lycea is a surname of Artemis among the Amazons, from whom he was descended through his mother. Perhaps there may be another explanation that I am unaware of. The stone in front of the temple, called the Sacred Stone, they say is that on which nine men of Troezen once purified Orestes from the stain of matricide. [31. 8-9] In front of the sanctuary of Apollo is a building called the Booth of Orestes. For before he was cleansed for shedding his mother's blood, no citizen of Troezen would receive him into his home; so they lodged him here and gave him entertainment while they cleansed him, until they had finished the purification. Down to the present day the descendants of those who cleansed Orestes dine here on appointed days. A little way from the booth were buried, they say, the means of cleansing, and from them grew up a bay tree, which, indeed, still remains, being the one before this booth. [9] Among the means of cleansing which they say they used to cleanse Orestes was water from Hippocrene. (Transl. W. H. S. Jones)

Pausanias attests to the existence of mythic-cultic traditions that were alive in his own time, at least one of which was perpetuated in memory and actualized in collective practice through a periodic ritual. In the case of the stone in front of the sanctuary of Artemis, we read that nine men of the city of Troezen (ἄνδρες Τροιζηνίων ἐννέα) in a distant mythical past (ποτέ) set Orestes there (ἐφ' οὗ) to purify him (ἐκάθηραν) after his matricide. In the case of the booth, we read that the hero had been lodged there, far from all others, to eat and be purified (καθίσαντες δὲ ἐνταῦθα ἐκάθαιρον καὶ εἱστίων, ἐς ὃ ἀφήγνισαν), since upon his arrival none of the inhabitants of the place wished to receive him in their own home because of the stain of matricide (πρὶν γὰρ ἐπὶ τῷ αἵματι καθαρθῆναι τῆς μητρός, Τροιζηνίων οὐδεὶς πρότερον ἤθελεν αὐτὸν οἴκῳ δέξασθαι). After a brief reference to the bay tree that grew from the instruments used for the purification and buried in front of the temple of Apollo, Pausanias mentions that Orestes was purified by many means (καθαρσίοις ἄλλοις), including water from the Hippocrene (ὕδατι τῷ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἵππου κρήνης). The testimony, linear in structure and basic in content, leaves many questions open: do the purifications on the stone and in the booth – cited at a short distance from each other – relate to two autonomous mythical traditions? Or are they rather two alternative but consecutive moments in a single process of purification? Are these traditions from different historical strata, but which were elaborated in the mythical complex of the city agora in the time of Pausanias, from which he has made some kind of selection? What did the rites consist of, which are indicated in both cases with the same word ἐκάθηραν/ἐκάθαιρον? Is there a link, and if so of what kind, to the other traditions about the hero’s purification that were disseminated in Greece? The brevity of Pausanias’ remarks,

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together with the absence of other testimonia on this tradition, on one hand advises caution in drawing definitive conclusions, yet on the other hand it has prompted various scholars to find comparisons and parallels with the exploits of Orestes in other regions (principally Athens and Phocis), appealing to processes of formation of genetic-derivative type that have perhaps not always been productive. In the second half of the 19th century Wide considered the tradition about the stone of Artemis to be analogous to that attested by Pherecydes of Athens on the purification of Orestes in Arcadia at the sanctuary of Artemis Hiereia (Ἱέρεια),10 and hence as older than the tradition about the booth, which would have arisen rather as a consequence of the rise in fame of the Delphic oracle.11 Welter denies any real link between Orestes and Troezen, considers such traditions to be ‘Exegetengeschichten’, and hypothesizes a transition from the local hero Orestheus to Orestes through a process of appropriating myth on the part of the local clan of the Orestheides (IG IV 757. 20).12 Defradas regards the story about the booth as an echo of the Delphic rite of the Septerion (Σεπτήριον), or of the Attic rite of the Choes (Χόες), whereas he maintains that the stone constitutes the evocation of the trial before the tribunal in Aeschylus.13 Analogously, Musti and Torelli maintain that the stone is an echo of a ‘legendary Troezenian Areopagus’ whereas the booth, of ‘prytanic gentilitial’ character, casts light on ‘archaic traits of the polis’.14 Taking a different tack, Montepaone links Orestes to Hippolytus, seeing the two mythic cycles as homogeneous in meaning and

|| 10 FGrHist 3 F 135 = schol. Euripides, Orestes 1645 (I 236, 23 Schwartz). In the fragment one reads that Orestes, pursued by the Erinnyes, found refuge in an Arcadian sanctuary of Artemis, probably the one noted by Pausanias (8. 44. 2) as the ἱερόν of Artemis Hiereia, near the plain of Megalopolis. The goddess had protected the hero, chasing away the malign goddesses. 11 Wide 1888, 21‒23; 28; 80. However, the proposed distinction is not coherent: Wide supposes that the nine men of the stone are equivalent to the Athenian college of archons (and so to an Attic setting), but then refers to the descendants of the purifiers in the booth of Apollo, failing to settle the question of whether the two versions intersect (Wide 1888, 80). 12 Welter 1941, 14. 13 Defradas 1972, 167‒170. He argues that the first story is thus not earlier than the 6th century, the second no earlier than the mid-5th century BCE; and in both cases it would be a recent and unsuccessful copy of Athenian traditions, linked to the clan of the Orestheides (see Welter 1941), who would have aimed to vindicate their matricidal hero in order to give their own role more authority. Rizzo 2010, 411 and Calame 2011, 275 cite the analogy of the booth with the Anthesteria (Ἀνθεστήρια); Halliday 1928, 70 also considers the rites of the Thiasoi (Θίασοι) of Aegina (cf Plutarch, The Greek Questions 301e‒f). 14 Musti and Torelli 2008, 317‒319: ‘leggendario Areopago trezenio’, ‘pritaneo gentilizio’, ‘tratti arcaici della polis’.

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continuous in the Troezenian context.15 Mele, in part reworking the solutions of Wide, holds that the tradition about the booth constitutes ‘il solo riflesso’ in mainland Greece of the purification of Apollo at Tempe, whereas the tradition about the stone derives from contamination with the tradition of Pherecydes of Athens, already mentioned above.16 In many of these studies, the unity or otherwise of the traditions discussed remains problematic, that is, unresolved.17 On the basis of the individual parallels proposed, scholars thus tend to consider the tradition about the stone of Artemis as the result of a relation between the community of Troezen with either the Arcadian mythic heritage (the exile of Orestes at the sanctuary of Artemis, as indicated by Pausanias), or the Attic one (the trial at the Areopagus attested by Aeschylus); the tradition about the booth, on the other hand, is taken to be the result of assimilation to the Attic (Choes) or Delphic (Septerion) heritage.18 In most of these cases the value attributed to each mythical account is reductive, because subordinated to the traditions that are understood as the original ones, and the interpretive approach thus becomes limiting. The analysis is often vitiated by the preconceived idea of ‘imitation by the other’, with the result that the traditions are often interpreted as appropriations, to varying degrees of success, of other people’s myths.19 In this context it is salutary to recall, even briefly, two examples of how a forced read-

|| 15 Montepaone 1999, 88‒92, according to whom Orestes never had any cult in loco. In reality the ritual carried out by the descendants of the purifiers in the Booth of Apollo could evoke a mythic-cultic complex that was more elaborated than can be read from the text itself. 16 Mele 2011, 360 f. The traditions are then to be dated not before the 6th century BCE, simultaneously with the presence of the Thessalians at Delphi after the First Sacred War. The idea that the ritual of Apollo Thearios could be analogous to that of the Septerion is proposed already in Farnell 1907, 294 f. 17 Musti and Torelli 2008, 319, Montepaone 1999, 90 all speak explicitly of two moments in a single process of purification; Detienne 2002, 270 is more cautious. Wide and Mele seem to mean an original common tradition that was then extended through contaminations with others, such as the Arcadian one about Artemis (FGrHist 3 F 135). 18 Calame 2011, 275, thinks rather of a relation between Troezen and Argos. 19 For Musti and Torelli 2008, 319 the data demonstrate that, ‘il grande sforzo impiegato dai Trezenii nel loro tentativo di appropriarsi saghe ambientate altrove’; for Mele 2011, 361 ‘si tratta manifestamente di una costruzione ad maiorem gloriam di Trezene, trasformata, come nelle abitudini locali, in un punto di confluenza di quanti più miti possibili, poco rispettosa del modello’. Similar assessments lie behind any talk like that of Welter and Defradas who, even while reconstructing processes by which a myth belonging to others is resemantized around local monuments, nonetheless continue to speak of imprecise results and insufficiently justified links (e.g. Defradas 1972, 168).

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ing of the sources, based on rigid interpretive models or hypothetical analogies, can lead to erroneous interpretations of the sources themselves. The first telling example is an approach that takes the purification of Orestes on the stone of Artemis to be a local reproduction of the Athenian trial at the Areopagus attested in Aeschylus, to the point of almost rewriting the text of Pausanias itself. Musti and Torelli translate the expression containing the verb ἐκάθηραν in chapter 31. 4 as ‘la pietra … su cui sedettero un giorno nove uomini di Trezene, per purificare Oreste’, i.e. they understand the stone as a seat upon which the hypothetical judges sat and from which they absolved the hero in a local trial.20 Since the verb never occurs in any transmitted text in the sense adopted by these scholars (see LSJ s.v. καθαίρω), the translation proposed unanimously by everyone else is preferable, according to which it is Orestes who sits on the stone to be purifed; this restores to this tradition its proper dynamic, and so yields a more correct interpretation which does not reduce it to a mere chance variant of the tradition about the trial at the Areopagus.21 The second example concerns the tradition about the booth. Mele maintains that the purifying rite of Orestes was an echo of the purification of Apollo at Tempe, but one that is ‘poorly done’ because not faithful to the original.22 According to Mele, in the ritual sphere the Troezenian sanctuary was the seat of Doric ambassadors (θεαροί) responsible for relations with Delphi; the bay tree that grew from the instruments of purification was that from which these same thearoi removed a branch to take to Phocis; this would thus create a daphnephoria on the Delphic (and Theban) model. In the sphere of myth, Orestes would hence have represented Apollo, or, better: the hero’s purification would have

|| 20 Musti and Torelli 2008, 165. The rationale for this rendering depends, in all probability, on the general interpretation of the passage. A little before the description of the stone, Pausanias pauses at three thrones of white marble placed in the temple of Artemis Soteira (Σώτειρα), upon which Pittheus and two others sat as judges (2. 31. 3). Musti and Torelli, in examining the arrangement of the Troezenian agora, identify a parallelism between these three thrones of the dikai and the stone of Orestes, within a more general sphere of salvation and judgments. However, we know nothing about the judicial structure at Troezen that would allow us to infer this reconstruction. 21 E.g. Frazer 1965; Jones 1918, 419: ‘the stone … on which nine men of Troezen once purified Orestes’; Olivieri 1897, 575, translates ‘sasso … su cui una volta nove Trezeni purgarono Oreste dall’uccisione della madre’, but then imagines the nine men sitting as a tribunal; Rizzo 2010, 287: ‘il masso … su cui un tempo nove uomini di Trezene purificarono Oreste per l’assassinio della madre’. 22 ‘mal riuscita’: Mele 2011, 361, who begins from an examination of the purification of Orestes at Metaurum, in Magna Graecia, which he regards as modelled on the purification of Apollo at Tempe.

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been modelled on that of Apollo at Tempe. A tradition like this would not have arisen before the 6th century BCE, i.e. when the intervention of the Thessalians in the management of the Delphic sanctuary from 582 BCE onwards would have favoured a topical reworking of the mythical tradition about the foundation of that sanctuary. When we look more closely, none of the ancient sources permits us to deduce with certainty the data just mentioned about the ritual and sanctuary at Troezen, and in some aspects this reconstruction can be seen to be speculative: we have no certain information about a ‘daphnephoric’ ritual at Troezen, or about the number of purifiers at Tempe;23 water is one means of Orestes’ purification, but not the only one;24 and if it is legitimate to hypothesize a parallel with Tempe, one cannot ignore the ritual of the Septerion, which Mele does not take into account.25 If we follow the sketchy parallel proposed by Mele, it becomes even more difficult to explain the significance of the booth and the fact that the descend-

|| 23 For the sources on the Delphic daphnephoria see Brelich 1969, 387‒438. If it is legitimate to glimpse a reference to Delphi behind the epithet Θεάριος, it is doubtful whether the bay tree in front of the sanctuary, grown from the means of purification used for Orestes, is the one intended for a daphnephoric rite, the protagonist of which is in any case Apollo, not Orestes. Nor are the reports about the Apolline rite at Tempe incontrovertible. According to Mele in the case of Orestes ‘vi sono purificatori alla dorica (3x3), come a Tempe’; quite apart from the question of whether it is valid to refer in the case of the Booth of Apollo to the nine men of Troezen who purified the hero on the stone of Artemis (probably the protagonists of a different moment in the mythical tradition), the ancient sources do not attest specific purifiers in Thessaly for the god, who was rendered impure by killing the dragon. Mele’s reference in a footnote to Aelian (Mele 2011, 361 n. 83) is not apt. Aelian (Historical Miscellany 3. 1), who is probably reporting a testimony of Theopompus (FGrHist 115 F 80), refers only vaguely and generally to the purification of Apollo (τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα τὸν Πύθιον καθήρασθαι κατὰ πρόσταγμα τοῦ Διός), and instead concentrates on the ritual of the shared meal (Δειπνιάς) within the Septerion. 24 The water of the Hippocrene, which according to Mele alludes to that of the Peneus, the river in Thessaly that was used for the purification of Apollo (e.g. Callimachus, frr. 86‒89 Pfeiffer), at least as Pausanias reports the tradition, is only one of the elements with which the purification was carried out; further, it seems secondary to the isolation of the hero in the booth, and the spring seems to be cited with a certain air of competition towards its more famous namesake in Boeotia. 25 The ritual probably evokes the earlier part of the journey of Apollo to Tempe, a rather complicated occasion that is hard to explain. In a booth set up every nine years at the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, a young man who was amphithales (ἀμφιθαλής, i.e. with parents still living) was lodged, accompanied by individuals who are not further identified; a table, probably serving as a dining table, was overturned inside the booth, which was then in its turn burnt (cf Plutarch, The Obsolescence of Oracles 418a).

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ants of the purifiers periodically actualized the mythical event in cult by isolating themselves.26

3 Towards an epichoric contextualization of the tradition A careful reading of the text of Pausanias makes it possible to pinpoint some data that help elucidate the epichoric character of the Troezenian tradition, decoupling it from a too direct relation to the the Attic or Delphic traditions. The spatial disposition of the purification stone (ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ ναοῦ) allows us to suppose that in the local tradition the nine men had met in front of the sanctuary of Artemis Lykeia and had purified the hero there.27 The temple, understood as the scene where the event is set, has not been identified archaeologically;28 this epiclesis of Artemis is otherwise attested only in an inscription from the sanctuary of Apollo at Didyma.29 The name probably recalls that of Apollo Lykeios (Λύκειος) in his quality both as wolf/hunter and as hunter of wolves.30 In the collective imagination he evoked a whole series of links to the theme of revenge, Orestes, and the Atreid family that are well attested in 5th-century tragedy, as shown by Sophocles, among others.31 It is easy to hypothesize that there was a common feature shared by the Argive traditions attested in tragedy and use of this epiclesis in Troezen, for example the relevance of the epithet to revenge.

|| 26 Mele takes no account of this fact, and does not address the question of the solitary dining or of the booth. 27 An alternative hypothesis would be that the stone was placed in front of the sanctuary at some subsequent point, but there is no trace of that in what Pausanias actually says. 28 After the work of Welter 1941, a research group (from the universities of Sydney, Heidelberg, and New South Wales) have restarted excavations at Troezen, from 2012 onwards. For the first findings, see www.troizenarchaeology.com. 29 Cf DI 120 (Rehm and Harder 1958, 123); Fontenrose 1988, 132. Doubt remains on whether some inscriptions (IG IV 763; 770; 775) and the cult image that recurs on the coins (ImhoofBlumer and Gardner 1885, 47 f.) could refer to this epiclesis, or to that of Soteira. 30 The parallel is already emphasized in Wide 1888, 28. For the sources on this epiclesis see Graf 1985, 219‒226. 31 Sophocles, Electra, passim. For the presence of the god in tragedy, see De Roguin 1999.

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The definition of the λίθος as sacred (ἱερόν) in Pausanias’ time has an immediate explanation:32 the use of the verb ἐκάθηραν with a direct object as complement (Ὀρέστην) and an unmistakable identification of place (ἐφ' οὗ) announces that the stone guaranteed the hero’s purification, that is, the stone is defined as the place where the event took place. This type of interpretation is confirmed by comparison with the tradition of the purification of Orestes at Gytheum in Laconia, in which it is the contact of the matricide with the stone, in that case specifically a manifestation of Zeus Kappotas (Καππώτας), that determines the real purification of the hero, because the stone object is itself the god.33 However, in the case of Troezen, it is not possible to establish if the stone had the same characteristics as the Laconian one, i.e. if it was one of the forms in which Artemis manifested herself. It is certain that it was part of the sanctuary, but a possible link with a different divinity cannot be ruled out. As regards the meeting of the nine men, Pausanias does not explain who these persons were nor what the specific number could have meant in the eyes of the local inhabitants, although the fact that it is a multiple of three once again raises the question of a – by no means guaranteed –evocation of the original three Dorian tribes, which are attested also at Troezen, which would reveal that the college’s internal structural rationale derived from the city’s territorial organization.34 The silence of the text seems a fairly clear sign that this was a traditional college of men, that is, it was familiar and perhaps still operative in Pausanias’ time, or a memory rooted in an authoritative past. The sparse sources on the social, political, and religious structure of the city do not allow us to propose secure solutions;35 it is not superfluous to note that many figures

|| 32 On stone cult objects in Pausanias see Pritchett 1998, 97‒170. On stones and their powers in general, see Macrì 2009. 33 Pausanias 3. 22. 1. On the importance of sacred objects as concrete divine presence, see Cusumano 2006, 183: ‘Gli hieroi lithoi di Atene, Trezene, Gizio, Megara, Sicione, consentono la presentificazione della divinità …, e segnano anche quello spazio – interstiziale o dell’intermediario – attraverso cui ha luogo l’intervento soccorritore del dio in favore dei mortali, individui o collettività, relativamente alle sfere della giustizia e della purità’. 34 See Piérart 2004; Mele 2011, 360. Musti and Torelli 2008, 319 see in the number nine, in association with the booth, features of the more archaic organization of the polis in the cultic, political, and judicial sphere. 35 On the history of Troezen see most recently Jameson et al. 1994, 57‒101. For the political structures see both Piérart 2004 and Meyer 1968.

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presided over purificatory offices and that every attempt at identification remains hypothetical until proved otherwise.36 In the case of the σκηνή Pausanias offers more information. The isolation to which Orestes is subjected depends on his impure condition at the time of his arrival in Troezen and responds to the citizens’ desire not to be contaminated. The result of the whole purificatory process – the state of being ἁγνός – is a consequence of being purified (ἐκάθαιρον) and of eating (εἱστίων), that is to say, the symbols that cancel the old life of the killer and guarantee the hero’s social reintegration.37 From these two moments (ἐκάθαιρον καὶ εἱστίων) and the fact that it was only the descendants of the purifiers who from that moment onwards repeated the ritual in the temple (οἱ ἀπόγονοι τῶν καθηράντων ἐνταῦθα δειπνοῦσιν), we may hypothesize that the purifiers and Orestes shared a common state, both at the time of the purification and at the shared meal. The ritual that the people of Troezen derived from it is thus the memory of an event that had put the city to a test: how to accept a matricide as a guest and purify him without failing the duties of hospitality. The burial of the means of purification permits the hypothesis that there was a complex ritual encompassing both the water of the Hippocrene and other elements, such as perhaps a weapon for sacrificing an animal, comparable to the piglet reported by Aeschylus.38 The use of water is frequent in purificatory rites of various kinds in the Greek world from the archaic era onwards: specifically in blood crimes it was often used in clearly defined quantities.39 The sacrifice of an animal might accompany the ritual, with the animal taking on the killer’s impurity.40 To what extent this last practice was used at Troezen remains unclear, however. Even though the sanctuary of Apollo has not been excavated, Pausanias’ insistence on its antiquity has prompted scholars to hypothesize a date of at least the 7th century BCE, which, however, is only a generic terminus post quem

|| 36 Pausanias (2. 32. 6) records, for example, some Troezenian magistrates to whom, on the occasion of the plague of 429 BCE, the god Pan, in his manifestation as Lyterios (Λυτήριος), had appeared in a dream to show them which remedies were able to heal the plague that was afflicting the region. For the cult personnel, see inter alia ThesCRA V, 31‒60. 37 Detienne 2002, 270 mentions the importance of dietary regimen as meriting exploration in more depth. 38 On the burial of the means of purification cf Hippocrates, The Sacred Disease I 12 Jouanna. On their ritual status compare the report that Orestes’ sword was hung up in Magna Graecia (Varro in Probus' Preface to Verg. Bucol. p. 326 Thilo-Hagen) 39 See ThesCRA II, 19 s. 40 E.g. Aeschylus, Eumenides 280‒283. See ThesCRA II, 24 s.

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for a possible origin or development of the cult practised there.41 The temple must in any case have been a particularly important cult centre of the city, given that the public decrees were set up and preserved inside it42 and the cult image of the divinity seems to have been shown on the local coinage.43 The specific epiclesis of the god seems to reveal a direct link to Delphi.44 At Aegina, according to Pindar, the seat of Pythian Apollo was called the Thearion (Θεάριον);45 the theoroi were the ambassadors sent to Delphi periodically by the various Greek cities.46 It is difficult to establish what the relevance of these theoroi was in this specific Troezenian sanctuary,47 yet the name does seem to confirm some link between Orestes and Delphic Apollo that was visible in the presence of the bay tree in front of the booth.48 It is difficult to pinpoint the significant nexus between the σκηνή – whatever its material structure –, the purification rite, the banquet, and the epiclesis of Apollo. The booth is the instrument that separates the matricide hero from the rest of the social group, so it seems to have a preventive and prophylactic function; at the same time it is the site of the purification, and so a sort of liminal zone that supports the social reintegration of the hero. The meal makes fully clear Orestes’ ambiguous condition.49 The relation between Apollo and the booth, given the paucity of data, does not permit us to go beyond the god’s general sphere of influence. One could also advance the hypothesis that the rites in the booth would have been repeated in the theatre of the agora of Troezen, men-

|| 41 Jameson et al. 1994, 72. 42 IG IV 748, 15 f.; 755, 10‒12. See Piérart 2004, 616. 43 Imhoof-Blumer and Gardner 1887, 48. 44 On the epiclesis see RE V A.2, 1382 f. On the significance and the dialect variations θεωροί/ θεαροί cf DELG s.v. θεωρός. See Frazer 1965, 276 (vol. 3); Farnell 1932, 260. 45 Pindar, Nemean 3. 70. Cf schol. ad Nem. 3. 122a‒b Drach. See e.g. Pfeijffer 1999, 380‒382; Rutherford 2011. 46 On theoria see Rutherford 2000, Nightingale 2004. 47 Bultrighini 1980, 141 f. supposed them to be cult personnel and not civic magistrates; for Mele 2011, 361 see supra n. 19. 48 Wide 1888, 21‒23. 49 ThesCRA II, 234: ‘… partager un repas, manger en commun, permet de faire de l’étranger un hôte et ce changement de statu est nécessaire pour tous les échanges de toute nature entre communautés. L’hôte devient un philos. A contrario, refuser de partager sa table, laisser manger un être tout seul, est la marque du refus d’intégration dans la communauté pour des raisons religieuses, sociales ou politiques’.

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tioned by Pausanias (2. 31. 4), in the way attested for the rites of Artemis at Brauron.50

4 Hypothetical reconstruction From the contextual analysis of the data it is thus possible to reconstruct a tradition about the purification of Orestes which in the 2nd century CE had a specific epichoric anchor in local institutions through the figures of the purifiers, in the local pantheon through the divinities, and potentially in local ideology through addressing the problem of the unclean Orestes. To confirm the epichoric status of the tradition, some data exist that can help reconstruct the context in which the myths and ritual described by Pausanias were formed and evolved, in a more extensive way than has been proposed so far by scholars. To Agias of Troezen tradition ascribes the composition of the Nostoi, a poem dated to the mid-7th century BCE, which, to judge from the summary by Proclus, took into account the story of the avenging of Agamemnon by Orestes and Pylades, whose presence is often interpreted as signifying Apollo’s intervention in the family saga.51 We do not know how events unfolded in Agias’ poem, due to a total lack of references to events subsequent to the matricide, and the modern hypotheses about this are not satisfactory.52 The existence of this poem is im-

|| 50 See Giuman 1999, 97‒161. For this observation I thank Riccardo Palmisciano, who during the day of seminars at which I presented this paper invited me to reflect on the possibility of a ritual at the theatre. 51 Nostoi, argumentum 17 f. Bernabé. See most recently Debiasi 2004, 230‒247, West 2013, 244‒287. West in fact supposes that an order was given to Orestes by Athena (echoing the role of the hero in the Odyssey), and therefore he rules out the possibility that the purification was included in the poem (282‒284). 52 Olivieri 1897, 575, thought not only that the poem included the purification of the hero, but also that it would have taken place in the ways presented by Pausanias (‘Oreste uccide la madre, è preso dalle Erinni, queste lo incalzano; egli allora va a Trezene, dove nessuno vuole accoglierlo, entra nel tempio di Apollo; Apollo lo purifica e certo con quei messi di purificazione che noi vediamo riprodotti su vasi greci, cioè sangue di animali, specialmente di un porcellino, spruzzato sul capo e sulle mani omicide con una figlia di lauro. Purificato, egli va nel tempio di Artemide e innanzi al tempio, da un tribunale di nove membri, certo presieduto da Artemide stessa, egli è addirittura assolto’). For Olivieri Agias would thus have been the creator of this version ‘come quegli che era di Trezene e voleva dar lustro alla patria sua, localizzandovi la purificazione e l’assoluzione di Oreste’. However, this reconstruction runs into a series of practical limitations: What judicial tribunal can we imagine for Orestes in a poem of the 7th century BCE? What could have been the role of Artemis as judge of the dispute?

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portant, however, because it confirms, if confirmation were needed, the basic fact that mythical material regarding Orestes was circulating at Troezen, which could have taken root and developed over time in loco, independently of direct influences from Delphi or from Attic theatre. The second fact that has been overlooked by scholars concerns the content of the mythic versions: since it concerns traditions about the purification of Orestes, at least in the form in which they are transmitted by Pausanias, they should likely be subsequent to the end of the 7th century BCE, when the problem of moral stain, contamination, and the necessary purification made its appearance, having been absent in Homer.53 These facts are of great hermeneutic value and permit us to advance a hypothesis about the formation, diffusion, and transformation of this tradition. The first traces of epichoric versions about Orestes at Troezen could have been formed, according to the well known principle of the invention of tradition, as an echo of those of especially authoritative centres, such as Mycenae or Argos, where the story of the house of Atreus had been set since Homer. This basic nucleus of tradition, which was local, Troezenian, and already in existence, could then have been enriched over time by being updated in the light of problematic social issues such as contamination, presenting a litmus test for how the community of Troezen responded to this issue. The college of purifying men indicates that this was deeply anchored in the institutions of Troezen, while the reference to Artemis and Apollo in their specific epicleses denotes the direct link with local ritual. It is possible that the reading of tradition given by Pausanias, like that of his sources, may have suffered from a certain selection of the data and that the tradition itself may have been modified over time due to the influence of the tragic versions of the 5th century BCE, a process that cannot be ruled out, as there is a theatre on the agora of Troezen and the effect of the performances should not be underestimated. Although the clear difference in the rituals described makes it likely that the tradition about the stone is independent of the one about the booth, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconstruct their individual formation and autonomous development; at most one can confirm that in the time of Pausanias they formed a compact and definite nucleus in the agora of Troezen, even though it is not possible to identify the degree to which the citizens differentiated between the data in question.

|| 53 See the important contribution of Giordano 2014.

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5 Conclusions The case we have just examined, through the likelihood of the proposed reconstruction, makes it possible to offer some general reflections on myth, its functioning, diffusion, and submersion in processes of transmission and interpretation both ancient and modern The point of departure for our reflections is that there is no stemma codicum of mythical tales: it is counterproductive to treat the multiple versions that embody myth as oral production as if they were copies – recentiores and more or less deteriores – of an archetype.54 The risk of such an approach is that of banalizing the value of the traditions to the community that preserves them. Myth is a traditional story which does not function according to a mechanism of genetic-direct derivation from a preceding story, but lives on through an elaborate process of formation and transmission, as part of a collective tradition that enters into contact, and at times into competition, with the traditions of others. The rites of Troezen confirm what was stressed recently by Graf, but had already been made clear by Müller in the mid-19th century:55 the Greek myths are deeply embedded in the geography of the places in which their events are set, which is to say that the mythical tale, at a primary level, reveals a direct relation to the institutions, persons, and horizons of the community to which it belongs, because it manifests its beliefs and ideological positions. If we wish to reflect on the origin of a given tradition, we need to renounce the romantic model of abstract invention and instead imagine diffusion processes of myths through various kinds of occasions and performances, which themselves turn into occasions for the creation of new stories in the context of each specific setting. In these diffusion processes the mythic tradition is recontextualized, and exhibits more or less obvious links with others already in existence while also providing a point of comparison for those of the future. Often the explanation for an account that can be traced as an element shared by two traditions is not that they share a single myth, but that there is an overlying ideological structure that may apply to more than just the specific instance of one particular place. The proliferation of traditions about Orestes probably arises from the currency and wide range of application of the issues that he incarnates (vengeance, matricide, contamination, purification), which are clearly present everywhere, though admittedly in diverse forms. The multiplicity of the

|| 54 See Bettini and Spina 2007, 93. 55 Müller 1991, 50 f.; Graf 2011.

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versions, on the other hand, indicates the diverse way that each community treated these issues. Every tradition lives above all in the collective memory of the community to which it belongs, and is transmitted over time as cultural heritage. This transmission is often oral, but it is concretized and, as it were, monumentalized in sacred places, and can be canonized in writing. Often, above all in small civic centres, it does not move beyond the limits of the community. From the scarcity of the testimonia it is clear that the mythical traditions of Troezen underwent a process of submersion with respect to those of other communities such as Athens, which in contrast protected its own traditions, transmitting them through time and making them authoritative in the eyes first of the ancients and then of us moderns.56 The traditions of the other communities which did not set in motion processes like this are confined within the local horizon, circulating only in the collective memory of the place itself and, inevitably, condemning themselves to oblivion. In the final analysis, the specific case of Troezen invites us to relativize the profile given to the Athenian myths in the reading of the ancient sources and hence in scholarly reconstructions. Testimonia such as this show how the sources that have come down to us, clearly partial and at times tendentious, permit us to reconstruct pictures of varying degrees of completeness and probability. A hierarchical analytical approach, which sees Athens as a ‘creative force’, risks causing a second-degree submersion in modern interpretations: to the difficulty of transmission in antiquity, linked to its oral use circumscribed in a limited community area, is added a distorted analysis which, by maintaining a hypothetical genetic link to the Athenian myths, loses track of the contextual meaning of traditions with clearly epichoric value.

Appendix: hypotheses for a possible relation between Troezen and Athens The mythical-cultic nexus betwen the isolation of Orestes and the various purifiers in the booth on the Troezenian agora seems to have analogies with two other mythic traditions, that is, the Thiasoi of Aegina and the Attic Choes. The first is attested only by Plutarch, who tells us that after the Trojan War the sur-

|| 56 See the contribution of Giordano to the present volume.

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viving Aeginetans were received home but were kept far from other people.57 The case of Troezen seems to share with this a precise ideological system regarding the treatment of potentially contaminated persons, whose isolation is a necessary solution to ward off the contamination. More significant is the analogy of the Attic Choes, in which it is Orestes who is the protagonist, as at Troezen. During the Choes (‘the jugs’), the second day of the Anthesteria, an Attic Dionysiac festival that took place on the 11th and 13th of the month of Ἀνθεστηριών (early March),58 there was a drinking contest that began at the sound of the trumpet:59 all competitors drank from their own chous during a banquet, probably organized in various groups in the city, and the winner seems to have received as prize a crown of flowers, some kind of sweet, and more wine.60 The tradition claims that this type of agonistic practice, characterized by isolation, silence, and solitude, arose from a precise event. Orestes, guilty of matricide, had arrived at Athens in the time of king Demophon and Pandion, as a festival was being celebrated in honour of Dionysus: in order not to breach the rules of hospitality yet at the same time not to risk contaminating the whole community, the Athenian king decided to admit the hero to the festival, but made a structural change to it, namely the isolation of all the participants, who from then on no longer drank from a common krater, but instead each from his own chous.61 Orestes in this way had not been turned away as a guest but the community had not risked contamination by contact with the as yet unpurified hero. The testimonia on this aetiological myth are varied in their date (from Euripides’ Iphigenia in Tauris in the 5th century BCE to the Suda in the 10th century CE) and pose a series of interpretive problems, such as whether this myth already existed before the Euripidean tragedy (in the 420s BCE), the significance of Orestes’ presence at the festival, or the nature of the festival. One element emerges clearly: the presence of the mythical story of Orestes in the rituals in question should be interpreted as updating a tradition about the foundation of a festival that had already existed from early times and independently of the he-

|| 57 Plutarch, The Greek Questions 301e‒f. 58 On the festivities see Hamilton 1992 (for the sources on Orestes and the Choes see 149‒171); Burkert 1981, 158‒177 and Spineto 2005, 13‒123. 59 Aristophanes, Acharnians 1000 f. See Spineto 2005, 69‒76. 60 E.g. Atheneus 10. 437b‒e. 61 E.g. Apollodorus FGrHist 244 F 133; Phanodemus FGrHist 325 F 11.

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ro.62 It is legitimate to describe this as a refunctionalization by Athens of an especially authoritative Argive myth in order to update its own traditions. However, the date when the myth of Orestes was used to re-found the Anthesteria remains debated. Hypotheses range from the late 5th century BCE, i.e. with the first explicit testimony from Euripides (Iphigenia in Tauris 957‒960),63 to a period around the late 7th and early 6th century BCE, the same moment as some assertions made by Athens about Trojan mythical traditions.64 To choose one date rather than the other depends in part on the interpretation given to the myth in question and consequently influences the relation it may bear to the ritual at Troezen. Notwithstanding the fact that in the sources on the Choes much reference is made to Orestes’ unclean state as being not purified (μὴ καθαρθέντος) and not absolved (μήπω δικασθέντα), none of the sources presents a concluding purificatory ritual for the hero.65 Orestes, frozen in the ritual that he originated, seems to have lost track of the need to purify himself and to have given way to the importance of the ritual that his presence inspired. This absence could have had many reasons.66 Jacoby proposed that behind the silence of the sources is hid-

|| 62 A series of direct proofs attest this: the Suda (s.v. χόες) states that at first the custom was to draw from a communal krater on the occasion of drinking contests, but with the arrival of Orestes it was necessary to avoid drinking from the same vessel. Phanodemus (FGrHist 325 F 11) states that the hero arrived at Athens on the occasion of the festivities and that Demophon, to prevent the unclean hero’s approach to the holy places, had them all closed and changed some of the rules of the contest. A similar sense can be traced from the opposite perspective in the words of Orestes himself in the Iphigenia in Tauris (947‒960). 63 Scullion 1999‒2000, 226; Shapiro 2011, 28; Kyriakou 2006, 311. 64 Jacoby 1954, 28; Carrara 2007, 8 f. From the late 7th to early 6th century BCE, according to Jacoby, Athens had begun to construct for itself a role as leading actor in the events of the Trojan War, a role that the poems had not in fact ascribed to it, and traces of these assertions were scattered at various points in the Athenian mythical heritage: Iphigenia was sacrificed at Brauron and not at Aulis (Phanodemus FGrHist 325 F 14; schol. Aristophanes, Lysistrate 645.); king Demophon and his brother Acamas, sons of Theseus, were present beneath the walls of Troy (e.g. Iliou persis, argumentum 21‒23 Bernabé); Agamemnon and Diomedes were leading figures in the foundation myth of the Palladium, one of the local courts (Kleidemos FGrHist 323 F 20; Pausanias 1. 28. 8‒9). On the link between Orestes and the Choes there seems to be a series of testimonies prior to Euripides, which could confirm the earlier dating of this tradition: see Bowie 1993; Bowie 1993b, 36‒38; Burkert 1981, 273 n. 40; Spineto 2005, 54 n. 149. 65 E.g. Phanodemus FGrHist 325 F 11; schol. Aristophanes, Knights 95. This condition is evoked in the other Athenians’ wish not to join the hero as dining companions. 66 In the specific case of the Euripidean passage (Iphigenia in Tauris 957‒960) it would not be necessary to evoke a ritual purification of the hero, because the latter was destined to undergo a process and travel to Tauris to recover the statue of Artemis, the real and final stage that

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den in reality the reformulation of a tradition that already existed, but was not connected to the festival, which centred on the purification of Orestes and so would be comparable to that of Troezen.67 For Jacoby, the Choes aition linked to Orestes was in origin an independent story, in which the presence of the hero would explain a particular rite, according to a version that expected the purification of the matricide by Demophon. Whoever created an Athenian version like this must have been thinking of Od. 3. 305‒307, which records the return of Orestes from Athens to Mycenae to avenge his father Agamemnon.68 Euripides would thus have worked on material that had existed at least in part since the 6th century BCE; he would have moulded it according to his own contextual needs and emphasized in it some traits that then became canonical, such as the ambiguity of Orestes as supplicant/matricide, the difficulty in which those who welcomed the hero landed, and the need for a sphere in which the problem of his uncleanness could be resolved. It is not possible to establish how likely Jacoby’s reconstruction is, given the ambiguity of the passage of the Odyssey and the absence of other references to a link between Orestes and Athens of the kind he proposed. However, it permits us to trace at least in part the meaning of the hero’s arrival at Athens, as it is not linked to the trial before the tribunal, and in the version that can be reconstructed from the sources on the Choes he would remain in effect without purification.69 The hypothesis that I wish to propose is that a first reformulation by Athens of the myth of Orestes could hence have occurred in relation to a tradition about the purification of the hero, similar to that at Troezen, around the 6th

|| would conclude his expiation. In the other sources, on the other hand, one could hypothesize that the primary interest in the festival had pushed into the background a subsequent purification that was nonetheless present, or that the myth of Orestes had been functionalized in that particular way for the Choes, i.e. that it had not provided for any final purification, but only for isolation with reference to a possible reintegration of the hero. 67 Jacoby 1954, 27‒29; see Carrara 2007. 68 Jacoby 1954, 28: ‘if Orestes came from Athens in order to execute vengeance for his father, if therefore he had found shelter with Demophon after Agamemnon’s death, it was obvious that he should return when in need of purification’. Jacoby means that if, in the Odyssey, Orestes returned from Athens, it was not an error to be corrected (cf schol. ad loc.) but another trace of an appropriation by the Attic city of the Achaean mythic heritage. 69 On the independence of the tradition of the Areopagus from the foundation myth of the Choes, see most recently Carrara 2007, 9 f. Carrara, however, states that Troezen could have reflected and preserved, ‘per una sorta di applicazione della “norma dell’area laterale”, una fase della leggenda ereditata dalla potenza vicina [scil. Athens], e da quest’ultima non conservata’ (Carrara 2007, 9 n. 18). In this sense she is no different from the others, except in having gone back to a version of the myth prior to Euripides.

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century BCE. And it cannot be excluded that in this first version Orestes could have been purified in the Thesmotheteion, as Plutarch reports.70 In a second phase this would then have been refunctionalized for the civic festival, undergoing formal modifications. We may try at this point to reformulate a possible relation between the mythical version from Troezen and the Attic one. If the scenario reconstructed above about the diffusion of the heroic material to Troezen already from the late 7th century BCE (Agias) is convincing, we could suppose that it was Troezen itself, as part of a regional centre with strong links to Orestes, including through its proximity to Argos/Mycenae, that functioned as the path of the myth’s transmission to Athens, to which it was a novelty. A proof of this seems to come, not only from the appropriation of mythical material by Athens from the 6th century onwards, mentioned above, but also from iconography. The iconographic images show that ‘relativement tard les artistes athéniens ont introduit le mythe des Atrides dans leur répertoire iconographique’ and that ‘avant l’extrême fin du VIe siècle avant J.-C. il n’y a aucun vase attique dont l’imagerie puisse être rapportée de façon sûre à l’Orestie’.71 The hypothesis that it was not Troezen that passively received a mythical version from Athens, but that the latter received an echo of an Argolic version, refunctionalizing it for its own annual celebration, is one among many possibilities. Its advantage is that it would give an account of the passage of mythical traditions from the Argolid to Attica that has fewer stages than that proposed by other scholars (Argos/Athens and second-degree reformulation for the Choes) and which would explain the total silence of the sources about a rite of purification of Orestes on his arrival at Athens, passed over not because it did not exist,

|| 70 Plutarch, Table-Talk 643a. 71 Knoepfler 1993, 40. Other sources make a strong link between Troezen and the heroic cycles of Athens. Pausanias (2. 30. 5.) reports a dispute between Athena and Poseidon for possession of the Troezenian region, at the time of Althepus, grandson of the first mythical inhabitant, Orus. In a foundation myth which is perfectly symmetrical to the Athenian myth, Troezen set on its own coins the trident of Poseidon and the face of Athena. Differently, however, the city was birthplace of the hero Theseus, who then became became a naturalized Athenian, above all from the late 6th to 5th century BCE. In this case, the relation between the two cities is thus more complex. At one level it is an appropriation by Athens of a local hero, who in his turn, once he had become Athenian, would have influenced and reformulated the heritage that already existed at Troezen (see Aloni 2003). The city, then, reflecting this, bore the traces of the Athenian adventures of the hero: the temple of Ares would recall the memory of the battle that had been fought between the hero and the Amazons, as the hero had been purified in it for a year after killing the Pallantidae (2. 32. 9; 1. 22. 2).

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but because it was secondary to the festival itself which the hero had then called into being.

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Andrea Taddei

Literacy and Orality in the Attic Orators The topic of relationships between literacy and orality is not new, even when considered in the specific field of the Attic orators and Athenian law. On the contrary, it has been studied on many occasions during last century1 and in more recent years, under different perspectives2 and to varying degrees of technicality. The Athenian law courts are an excellent vantage point from which to observe this kind of problem: the trial is an agonistic context (ἀγών is the word that defines it) in which the accuser (ὁ διώκων) and the defendant (ὁ φεύγων) fight against each other, ‘wrestling’ and using words as weapons. Within this same context, the more the Athenian law courts functioned as a system that depended on a defined set of written law and procedures, the more persuasion and argumentation increased in importance. The aim of the struggle is in each case – to quote L. Gernet’s words – accabler l’adversaire,3 to strike down the opponent, using laws and various kind of witnesses as instruments in order to win the case. When discussing the relationship between literacy and orality, it is then worth narrowing the problem and stressing from the start that the presence and use of writing in the law courts of Athens is a matter of fact and does not need to be discussed any further.4 The procedure for bringing an accusation exhibits a gradual but continuous shift from the use of opposed oaths (ἀντωμοσία) towards the drawing up (by the γραμματεύς) of an accusation in writing, which is supposed to be sealed in echinoi and transmitted to the law court for the trial. Even though this happened within a system that continued to use oaths5 on a large scale, the ἀντωμοσία gradually became an ἀντιγραφή.

|| 1 See, for instance, Calhoun 1919 discussed in Gernet 2001, 65–86 (with further bibliography). See Thomas 2005. 2 For Athenian law, see, for instance, Faraguna 2007, Faraguna 2009, Faraguna 2013, 107–171 (articles by C. Pébarthe, S. Epstein, E. Harris, M. Faraguna), Canevaro 2013. A recent and important discussion of the topic is Thomas 2011. 3 See. Archives Louis Gernet III 17, 61 (available online on the website of Laboratorio di Antropologia del Mondo Antico: http://lama.fileli.unipi.it). This file included an unpublished book by Gernet (see Di Donato 1990, 112; see also 87 ff.) that has been edited in Italian translation with the title Diritto e civiltà in Grecia antica (Gernet 2000). See also Faraguna 2007, 90. 4 See Gagarin 2008, 177–181. 5 The prefixes anti- and hypo- modify the meaning of homosia and identify different procedures connected with oath-taking in Athenian law. See Todd 1993; Gernet 2000, 122–127, 167– 177.

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Nevertheless, the topic of literacy and orality in the Attic orators is wider than this and can be viewed in a different perspective. As R. Thomas has written, The issue is not whether or not Athens was an ‘oral society’ in the 5th or 4th century, something which is demonstrably untrue whatever it means (it also implies a uniform citizen body), but the combination and interrelation of the democratic performances of assembly and jury courts and written documents or inscriptions.6

The relationship between written texts and oral procedures in the Attic orators should be seen, therefore, within the larger frame of the different relationships among different social practices (related to different skills and argumentative abilities) or, even better, around the complementary ideas of droit and prédroit, the latter being a notion much more dynamic than interpreters have usually allowed since its first formulation or in the many subsequent discussions of it.7 In the first part of this paper I will try to (re)construct a specific context (the judicial sphere of classical Athens) in which the polarity orality/aurality, on one hand, and writing/literacy,8 on the other, can be observed, and I will try to trace some paths by which it is possible to study the theme of ‘submerged’ literature with reference to the Attic orators. In the second part, I shall discuss some particular case studies in which some form of coexistence of orality and literacy in Athenian law can be observed, and I shall consider the possibility of reconstructing the specific part played by rituals and pre-juridical elements, which became progressively more and more submerged (but not erased) by the creation of a complex, articulated, writing-based system of law at Athens.

|| 6 Thomas 2011, 169-170. 7 The article Droit et prédroit en Grèce ancienne was published in the 1948–1949 volume of the Année Sociologique, printed in Paris in 1951 (on this, see Di Donato 2013, 121). For a reconstruction of the debate about the idea of prédroit, see Gernet 2000, 150–152. The idea of prédroit was used by Gernet from the period he spent at the Fondation Thiers, where he conceived his project of Philologie et droit (see Di Donato 1990, 15). See, for instance, his comments in his research project: ‘ce droit attique est suffisamment original pour qu’on puisse aboutir à des résultats vraiment intéressants et généraux ... quel profit peut-on tirer de l’étude du vocabulaire, pour la connaissance de la psychologie juridique des Athéniens du VI au IV siècle? et par exemple des notions “préjuridiques” contemporaines de la vengeance privée et de la famille souveraine’, quoted by G. Davy, in Louis Gernet. L’homme et le sociologue, Hommage à Louis Gernet, rendu le samedi 16 février 1966 (but: 1963, see Di Donato 1990, 39), Paris 1966. On this topic, see my ‘De la sociologie à l’anthropologie juridique. Les études de Louis Gernet sur le droit grec ancien’, forthcoming in Mètis. 8 On the pair orality/aurality see Gentili 1988 (Engl. transl.), 4–5 and Palmisciano 2014, 19 n. 1. See also Di Donato 1999.

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1 Write, rewrite but speak just once In order to set out the context in which our discussion should be framed, I would like to start with an episode concerning the logographos Lysias or, to be more precise, the Lysias reconstructed by Plutarch, many centuries after the so called ‘age of the orators’. In his treatise Concerning Talkativeness, he wrote: Λυσίας τινὶ δίκην ἔχοντι λόγον συγγράψας ἔδωκεν ὁ δὲ πολλάκις ἀναγνοὺς ἧκε πρὸς τὸν Λυσίαν ἀθυμῶν καὶ λέγων τὸ μὲν πρῶτον αὐτῷ διεξιόντι θαυμαστὸν φανῆναι τὸν λόγον, αὖθις δὲ καὶ τρίτον ἀναλαμβάνοντι παντελῶς ἀμβλὺν καὶ ἄπρακτον· ὁ δὲ Λυσίας γελάσας ‘τί οὖν;’ εἶπεν ‘οὐχ ἅπαξ μέλλεις λέγειν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τῶν δικαστῶν;’ (Plut. Mor. 504c 5–11) Lysias once composed a speech for a litigant and gave it to him. The man read it through a number of times and came to Lysias in despair and said that the first time he read it the speech seemed to him wonderfully good, but on taking it up a second and third time it appeared completely dull and ineffectual. ‘Well,’ said Lysias laughing, ‘isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors?’ (Transl. W. C. Helmbold)

The relationship between Lysias and his client is well sketched. After being written (συγγράψας), the speech is delivered to the client, who submits it to a thorough process of evaluation. After a positive first impression, the client comes back to the logographos and starts complaining: the more he reads and re-reads the text, the less he likes it. What is most important for us is the reply of the speechwriter, who starts laughing at the hypercritical attitude of his client, stressing at the same time the limits – in terms of space and time – of the performance in which the speech must be delivered: isn’t it only once that you are going to speak it before the jurors? There is a long chronological and cultural gap between Lysias and Plutarch. However, in Plutarch’s words, the speechwriter seems to be fully aware of the context of the future performance. The speech had to be performed – not read out – just once, and that was the only occasion9 on which it was supposed to achieve its purpose. Despite its anecdotal nature, the conclusion reached by Plutarch’s Lysias is nevertheless important to put in perspective each of the notions mentioned in the title of this paper.

|| 9 On the relationship between the text and the ‘context of publication’ see Colesanti and Giordano 2014 (‘Introductory Notes’) and Ercolani 2014.

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2 In and out of the canon When dealing with the Attic orators, the theme of submerged literature can be seen in different perspectives. First, one must consider the selection that led to the set of texts which, many centuries later, has been identified as a ‘canon’,10 a selection most probably made in the Hellenistic period, and already well known during the imperial age, when Herodes Atticus was praised by his public as ‘one of the ten’.11 This selection evidently involved also the speeches attributed to each single author.12 However, it is not only the eleventh, twelfth (and so on) orator, whose characteristics and prosopography we can sometime and somehow reconstruct, who has been left out of the canon. We must consider another important element of selection, connected with the previous point: for each case debated in the tribunal, we have just one version (the accuser’s or the defendant’s) of what happened. It is true that we have records of some disputes between two or more orators (Lysias and Andocides, but also Lycurgus and Demades13); we know some names of other Attic logographers (in the case of Apollodorus we can even read some of his speeches, conserved in the Demosthenic corpus). Nonetheless – to give just one, very famous example – we cannot read anything of the speech delivered by Eratosthenes’ relatives against Euphiletus, after the latter had killed the former, who was allegedly his wife’s lover (so far as we can trust Euphiletus’ words).14 The lack of an opponent’s speech (what did he say? what were his arguments? how did he use the juridical and ‘pre-juridical’ tools to try to win his case?) is not the only element to be taken into account when assessing what we have and what we do not among the speeches delivered in Athens during the age of the orators. Considering the texts of orations that we read (as many times

|| 10 D. Ruhnken, Historia Critica Oratorum Graecorum, Leiden 1768. On this topic see Nicolai 2007 and Nicolai 2014. On the canon of Attic orators, see also Worthington 1994, 244–264; Pernot 2006, 47–48. 11 Philostratus, Life of the Sophists 564–565. 12 To give just one example: among the 425 speeches attributed to Lysias at the end of the Hellenistic period (Caecilius of Calacte, however, considered only around a half of them to be authentic), we have just thirty-four speeches, together with a hundred more or less extensive fragments (see Todd 2009, 26 and Carey 2007, v–xiii) 13 Cf Lycurgus, frr. 23–26 Conomis, Lysias, Against Andocides, Andocides, On Mysteries. 14 See Todd 2009, 43–60.

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as we like, or need, in order to appreciate or understand a passage), but were intended to be performed just once, in the law courts or at the assembly, we must also take into consideration the extent to which what was actually said during the trial in one of the Athenian dikasteria15 conformed to what was committed to writing and so began to circulate in book markets which authors did not control.16 How did Plutarch’s Lysias eventually behave when he heard his client’s spoken remarks? The degree of re-elaboration of each of the speeches is disputed among interpreters. In some cases rewriting is evident because different orations dealing with the same historical facts show some incoherence.17 On the other hand, the anticipation of the opponent’s arguments should be seen within the framework of a judicial sphere and activity less stringent than is sometimes assumed.18 The elements that did not find a place in the text at the moment of (re)writing it include all references to interactions with those who were present at the trial (οἱ περιεστηκότες), interrupting speakers with different kind of noises, laughing, stamping their feet, and clapping their hands. Not everything has been lost, however: in Demosthenes Against Meidias we are informed about this noise,19 and lexicographers add some information about interruptions from bystanders;20 in Lycurgus’ Against Leocrates we hear the speaker hoping to have the jurors’ wives and children present in court at the moment of voting (§141); moreover, some passages show that orators aimed to persuade not only the jurors, but also those who were present at the trial.21 In his reconstruction of the activity of the law courts, A. Boegehold has described in detail (based both on archaeology and literary sources) the jurors’ arrival in court, protected by benches (the dryphaktoi),22 surrounded by people || 15 A useful reconstruction can be read in Boegehold 1995, 21–43. 16 See Dover 1968, 25–26 and, more recently, Carey 2007. See also Boegehold 1999, 78–93. 17 Cf, for instance, Lysias, In Defense of Mantitheus 8 and On the Scrutiny of Evandros 10 (see, on this issue, Lavency 1964, 7). 18 On the circulation of information and on anticipation of arguments see Dorjahn 1935, Carawan 1998, 183 ff. 19 Demosthenes, Against Meidias 226. 20 Cf Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators s.v. κλόζετε, Pollux, Onomasticon 4. 122. On περιεστηκότες see Lanni 1997. More generally on this issue see Hall 2006, 337, Serafim 2016 (forthcoming) 21 On the presence of children, cf also Lysias, For Polystratus 34. On the importance of persuading bystanders cf Aeschines, On the False Embassy 15 and the discussion of this and other passages in Lanni 1997, 187–188. 22 Cf, for instance, Aristophanes, Wasps 532 and 830. See Boegehold 1995, 195–201 (with further bibliography).

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who ask, suggest, recommend, beseech. A passage of Against Leocrates (§20) is very noteworthy on this point: the speaker has been informed that the defence witnesses are not going to give evidence, and therefore summons them to use the ‘modern’ procedure of kleteusis. It is interesting to hear from the voice of the speaker about these kinds of pressures from bystanders. πρὸ δὲ τοῦ ἀναβαίνειν τοὺς μάρτυρας βραχέα βούλομαι διαλεχθῆναι ὑμῖν. οὐ γὰρ ἀγνοεῖτε ὦ ἄνδρες οὔτε τὰς παρασκευὰς τῶν κρινομένων οὔτε τὰς δεήσεις τῶν ἐξαιτουμένων͵ ἀλλ΄ ἀκριβῶς ἐπίστασθε͵ ὅτι χρημάτων ἕνεκα καὶ χάριτος πολλοὶ ἐπείσθησαν τῶν μαρτύρων ἢ ἀμνημονεῖν ἢ μὴ ἐλθεῖν ἢ ἑτέραν πρόφασιν εὑρεῖν ... ἀξιοῦτε οὖν τοὺς μάρτυρας ἀναβαίνειν καὶ μὴ ὀκνεῖν͵ μηδὲ … μιμεῖσθαι Λεωκράτην͵ ἢ λαβόντας τὰ ἱερὰ κατὰ τὸν νόμον ἐξομόσασθαι. But before the witnesses come up I want to say a few words to you. You are well acquainted, gentlemen, with the tricks of defendants and with the requests made by others asking pardon for them. You know too well that desire for bribes and favours induces many witnesses to forget what they know, to fail to appear, or to contrive some other excuse. Ask the witnesses therefore to come up without hesitation and not to put offered favours before your interests and the state….and not to follow the example of Leocrates by failing in this duty. Otherwise let them swear the oath of disclaimer with their hands on the sacrifice. (Transl. J. O. Burtt)

The presence and influence of bystanders at different moments of the trial is important for our argument for at least three reasons: first, because it enables us to take into consideration the ‘aural’ context in which speeches were delivered; second, because these sort of ‘interruptions by the public’ are sometimes used by orators in order to stress a specific point of their argumentation;23 third, because these interactions between orators and the public find their roots in a sort of shared competence (about law, about rituals, about rituals in the law). Interruptions and comments are, moreover, very frequent and – so to speak – usual within the societies that have been studied by anthropologists of law.24

|| 23 See Hall 2006, 377. On thorybos in the Attic orators, see Bers 1985 (more recently Hall 2006, 376–379, with further bibliography). 24 See for instance Bohannan 1957, 18 and 28 ff. (see also Gluckmann 1955, 16); Verdier 2011. Drawing such a comparison does not provide an answer nor help to fill the gaps in our knowledge of Greek judicial experience. Nevertheless, it can stimulate us to ask different questions, under different perspectives and presuppositions, about Greek society and, therefore, also about Greek law.

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3 From mouth to hand: use and abuse of the Attic orators As S. Todd showed well in an important article more than twenty years ago,25 it has been a long time since W. Wyse, in his commentary on Isaeus, expressed scepticism about the orator’s reliability for the purpose of historical reconstruction. During the last century there has been a continuous, if irregular, oscillation between a total lack of confidence and moments of real enthusiasm about the trustworthiness of evidence given by the Attic orators for the study of Athenian history and civilization. It is, in fact, a quite complicated theme with many elements. Orators’ reliability is not the point at issue for us: when an epigraphic text containing a law or an oath (the ephebic oath, for instance)26 has been found and collated with the words quoted by speakers from a law or from an oath, the degree of accuracy of what we read in some (not all) manuscripts has been to some extent tested.27 The point is the interaction, rather than the opposition, between the utilization of writing and oral competences and performances, with specific emphasis on the use of oral procedures in a field where the use of written documents is well attested. To sum up in few words, we can state – as we have already observed – that in the age of the orators, writing was widely adopted in many fields of Attic judicial experience. We must, nevertheless, add that the transition from the mouth to the hand,28 was very gradual in ancient Greece, in particular in the judicial sphere, where significant delays can be noted in specific domains such as homicide cases,29 where the role played by the idea of contamination lasted for a long time.30 Even katadesmoi make a very specific use of writing, and the turning point of modern interpretation has been when interpreters began to say that these particular kinds of texts were used before and not after the agon,31 with all the consequences for the perceived force of (a particular use of) writing

|| 25 Todd 1990. 26 Cf Lycurgus, Against Leocrates 76–77. See Rhodes and Osborne 2003, n. 88, 440–448. 27 As is well known, the reconstruction of law, witnesses, and oaths in modern editions is provided by editors to match the indications ΝΟΜΟΣ, ΜΑΡΤΥΡΙΑ, ΟΡΚΟΣ that we read in the manuscripts. For a recent discussion, see Canevaro 2013. 28 Goody 1986, 175–176. 29 See the discussion in Gernet 2001, 65–86. 30 A recent discussion on miasma: Giordano 2014. 31 See the recent discussion in Carastro 2010.

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against the power of oral words and rhetoric. Moreover, katadesmoi are able to show a different role for women in the realm of Attic law because, though we know that they were not entitled to appear in a trial and had to be represented by a kyrios, and therefore seldom appeared in the law court, women are nonetheless mentioned in many katadesmoi.32 A first step, before the shift from hand to mouth, was the gradual transition from how to swear to how to write (and, in some cases, falsify) an accusation. A passage of Demosthenes Against Pantaenetus (§39–41) is very instructive on this point, because it allows us to observe a concurrent use of old and new procedures. The defendant summons the prosecutor with a proklesis (a pro-vocation in the proper sense of the word) in order to have his slaves tortured33 to give evidence. This particular procedure of summons was oral, and a πρόκλησις had to be publicly pronounced on the street, near the summoned person’s home and in the presence of other persons.34 οὐδὲν τοίνυν δίκαιον ἔχων οὐδὲ καθ’ ἓν λέγειν ὑπὲρ ὧν ἐγκαλεῖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ ψευδῆ γεγραφὼς εἰς τὸ ἔγκλημα καὶ περὶ ὧν ἀφῆκε δικαζόμενος, τοῦ ἐξελθόντος μηνός, ὦ ἄνδρες Ἀθηναῖοι, ἐπειδὴ ἔμελλον εἰσιέναι τὴν δίκην, ἤδη τῶν δικαστηρίων ἐπικεκληρωμένων, προσελθὼν καὶ περιστήσας τοὺς μεθ’ ἑαυτοῦ, τὸ ἐργαστήριον τῶν συνεστώτων, πρᾶγμα ποιεῖ πάνδεινον· [40] ἀναγιγνώσκει μοι πρόκλησιν μακράν, ἀξιῶν, ὅν φησιν οἰκέτην ταῦτα συνειδέναι, βασανίζεσθαι ... Having not a single just argument for any of his charges, and having made false statements in his written charge, and prosecuting for matters for which he had granted release, last month, men of Athens, when I was about to go into the trial, after the courts had already been allocated, he stepped forward, surrounding himself with his friends, his gang of supporters, and did an outrageous thing. He read me a long challenge, calling for the questioning of the slave who, he said, had knowledge of these matters ... (Transl. D. MacDowell)

|| 32 See the texts quoted in Eidinow 2007, 184–187. 33 Among atechnoi pisteis (cf Aristotle, Rhetoric 1. 15), torture (basanos) was somehow considered the most democratic. For those interested in historical anthropology it is one of the most stimulating topics of Greek law, at least for its continuities with ordeal. On torture as evidence, see Gernet 2000. On the debate on the effective use of basanos and proklesis eis basanon see Mirhady 2000, Thür 2005. 34 On the procedure of proklesis, see Todd 1993, 125–126 and Gernet 2000, 68 (with further bibliography).

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The summoned person eventually accepted, even while expressing serious doubts about the real efficacy of this kind of evidence,35 and finally sealed the πρόκλησις in an echinos. When the trial starts, it is possible to observe a true interaction between the use of writing and modes of orality,36 because in a very noisy moment (διὰ γὰρ τὸν θόρυβον τότε) there had been a sort of oral confirmation of what had previously been written and read aloud (ἀναγιγνώσκει μοι πρόκλησιν μακράν).37 ἐπειδὴ δ’ ἥκομεν πρὸς τὸν βασανιστήν, ἀντὶ τοῦ τὴν πρόκλησιν ἀνοίξας δεῖξαι τὰ γεγραμμένα καὶ κατὰ ταῦτα πράττειν ὅ τι δόξαι (διὰ γὰρ τὸν θόρυβον τότε καὶ τὸ μέλλειν καλεῖσθαι τὴν δίκην τοιοῦτον· ἦν·προκαλοῦμαί σε ταυτί· δέχομαι φέρε δὴ τὸν δακτύλιον· λαβέ· τίς δ’ ἐγγυητής; οὑτοσί οὐδὲν οὔτ’ ἀντίγραφον οὔτ’ ἄλλ’ οὐδὲν ἐποιησάμην τοιοῦτον) ἀντὶ δὲ τοῦ ταῦθ’ οὕτως ὥσπερ λέγω πράττειν ἑτέραν ἧκεν ἔχων πρόκλησιν, ἀξιῶν αὐτὸς βασανίζειν τὸν ἄνθρωπον, καὶ ἐπιλαβόμενος εἷλκεν, καὶ ἐνέλειπεν οὐδὲν ἀσελγείας. When we went to the questioner, instead of opening up the challenge, displaying the written terms, and proceeding to do in accordance with them whatever seemed right – because of the hubbub at the time and the imminent calling of the case, it went like this: ‘I issue this challenge to you’ ‘I accept it’ ‘Let's have your ring’ ‘Take it’ ‘Who is the guarantor?’ ‘This man’. I didn't make any copy or anything of that sort – instead of proceeding in the way I have mentioned, he came with another challenge, demanding to question the man himself, manhandled him, and subjected him to all kinds of bullying. (Transl. D. MacDowell)

As we can see, the new competence in writing an oral procedure goes together with skills and abilities in falsifying texts, as well as with an oral procedure used – so to speak – so that what has been written may operate properly. New competences must be seen within the frame of a complex and quite complicated relationship among judges, opponents, witnesses, bystanders, and speechwriter. It seems to be necessary, therefore, to get away from the duality that exists between Plutarch’s Lysias and his client. These kinds of documents focus our attention instead on the coexistence of ancient procedures, and the progressive shifting towards an emancipation of law, an emancipation that found in writing a very important support and motivation.

|| 35 Cf §41: ποῦ γάρ ἐστι δίκαιον, ἐν οἰκέτου σώματι καὶ ψυχῇ. See also Thür 2005, 149–150. 36 This is not the only example of allusion to written documents. Cf Demosthenes, Against Stephanus I 46; Against Aphobos III 31; For Phormio 20. These documents could be sealed in echinoi and transmitted to the trial at the lawcourt. In one case at least, as M. Faraguna has shown (Faraguna 2007, 97), there was also a katadesmos together with the other written texts. 37 On the uses of anagignosko and paragignosko see Battezzato 2003, 8–12.

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3.1 Old and new competences The exordia of speeches are often a repository of concepts that rhetorical tradition has afterwards called topoi, for instance the declaration of having no previous private reason of enmity with the adversary or, above all, the declaration that one is totally inexpert in law. Logographers are not advocati,38 and one of the most important differences between Greek and Roman law is the absence, at Athens, of iurisprudentes along with the total lack of a written iurisprudentia.39 This point is beyond doubt and does not need to be examined or discussed any further. There is, nevertheless, the matter of competence. The absence of a written jurisprudence does not mean the absence of a competence diffused among politai.40 Each citizen had the opportunity to be present at trials (the periestekotes mentioned above) and was thus able to acquire his own competence, possibly developing knowledge, skills, and capacities in this specific field. Isaeus could affirm, for example, that an agreement had been made ἐναντίον μὲν τῶν δικαστῶν, πεντακοσίων ὄντων, ἐναντίον δὲ τῶν περιεστηκότων (Isaeus, On the Estate of Dicaeogenes 20) and Lysias fiercely criticized his opponent because, allegedly, this latter had never in his life gone to the Areopagus and therefore did not know anything about the performance of a diomosia, the oath used to open a homicide case (Lysias, Against Theomnestus I 11).41 That is why the relationship with bystanders must be considered not unilateral but mutual, since there was an influence from the world of trials (with its procedures, arguments, and rituals) on those who were present (or were in charge as judges), as well as an influence from outside the tribunal in the form of solicitations, interruptions, and acclamations. There was a reciprocal process of legitimation, as the words of Isaeus cited above show very well. Moreover, one must take into consideration the competences of groups such as some gene that are mentioned in the oratorical corpus and in some philosophical dialogues (such as Plato’s Euthyphro).42 These groups are not directly involved in or strictly relevant to the ordinary development of the trial; at the same time, however, they can sometimes be pivotal in finding a solution to the case (or some aspects of the quarrel) between litigants.

|| 38 On this topic, see the discussion in Lavency 1964, 36–45, 96–113. 39 Todd 1993, 49–54. 40 On continuities of context between drama and law courts, see Mirhady 2004; Hall 2006. 41 For the possibility of a ‘political background’ to this allegation, see Todd 2007, 636. 42 See Hammond 1952.

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A famous example can be found in Ps. Demosthenes’ Against Evergus and Mnesibulus, where the Exegetai (the expounders of law)43 give to the accuser, a trierarch whose former slave had been killed in his home, some extra-legal (I would say: pre-juridical) advice. The trierarch turned to the Exegetai asking for practical – not theoretical – advice (ἵνα εἰδείην ὅ τι με χρὴ ποιεῖν περὶ τούτων), because he was not entitled to prosecute.44 In a sort of ‘technical’ dialogue emerging from the orator’s narration, the expounders ask what kind of advice the trierarch is seeking, i.e. whether religious or practical (ἤροντό με πότερον ἐξηγήσωνταί μοι μόνον ἢ καὶ συμβουλεύσωσιν). The narration of this dialogue continues with the reply of the prosecutor, who says he wants to explore both sides of the question (ἀποκριναμένου δέ μου αὐτοῖς ἀμφότερα), and with the counter-reply of the Exegetai who distinguish between ‘ritual’ instruction and advice about what to do (ἡμεῖς τοίνυν σοι τὰ μὲν νόμιμα ἐξηγησόμεθα, τὰ δὲ σύμφορα παραινέσομεν). The instructions concerning the ritual (ἐπενεγκεῖν δόρυ ἐπὶ τῇ ἐκφορᾷ, καὶ προαγορεύειν ἐπὶ τῷ μνήματι)45 are distinguished (πρῶτον μὲν … δὲ, § 69) from the advice about how to operate in the field of law: since the woman killed was neither his wife nor his slave (she had been manumitted), if the accuser swears the diomosia, he is going to commit perjury, facing the risk of being considered an oath-breaker by his fellow-citizens (καὶ ἐὰν μὲν ἀποφύγῃ σε, ἐπιωρκηκέναι, ἐὰν δὲ ἕλῃς, φθονήσει). The prosecutor must, therefore, perform rituals of purification (ὑπὲρ σεαυτοῦ καὶ τῆς οἰκίας ἀφοσιωσάμενος ὡς ῥᾷστα) and try to take revenge in some other way (ἄλλῃ δὲ εἴ πῃ βούλει, τιμωροῦ). It is worth stressing that this is not the core of the speech, and after the narration of this dialogue the orator proceeds with the rest of his argumentation. The orator, however, seems to be fully aware of the distinction between the kind of advice given by the Exegetai and what was transmitted by written laws. In fact, he distinguishes the instructions given by the Exegetai from the words he had read in the law of Draco.

|| 43 On the Exegetai see Valdés Guía 2001; Parker 2005, 99 ff.; Berti 2009, 107–111. 44 For other aspects of this case, see Taddei 1997. 45 The ritual is made up of acts and words which are prefigured in myth, cf Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators s.v. ἐπενεγκεῖν δόρυ.

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3.2 Rituals and the trial This kind of competence, orally transmitted within the genos and eventually written in the form of exegetika whose titles we can sometimes reconstruct,46 were not confined to the Exegetai, and left traces also in the text of the orators. One may mention, for instance, the competences of the kerykes not only in proclaiming the time of the start, interruptions, and end of the trial, but also in pronouncing the prayers that preceded the trial, as a passage of Aeschines shows (ἐπειδὰν ὁ κῆρυξ τὰς πατρίους εὐχὰς εὔξητα).47 The same passage is important also for a different ritual practice, made by another, still different, group, perhaps called the Peristiarchoi, who took a sacrificed pig around the place where assembly was going to be held.48 The importance of rituals is, therefore, manifold and can be considered both from the perspective of the reception of rituals in the argumentation of orators,49 and by considering the role played by rituals during the trial, as happens with oaths. This is a much studied and debated topic, both for the role and efficacy of this kind of atechnos pistis (as it is defined, together with torture, by Aristotle in

|| 46 Exegetika are attributed to some Attidographers (for instance Autoclides, Clidemus, Philochorus: see Jacoby 1949, 8–24, 54, 75–76; Dillery 2005). 47 Aeschines, Against Timarchus 23. 48 ἐπειδὰν τὸ καθάρσιον περιενεχθῇ καὶ ὁ κῆρυξ τὰς πατρίους εὐχὰς εὔξηται, προχειροτονεῖν κελεύει τοὺς προέδρους περὶ ἱερῶν τῶν πατρίων καὶ κήρυξι καὶ πρεσβείαις καὶ ὁσίων, καὶ μετὰ ταῦτα ἐπερωτᾷ ὁ κῆρυξ· ‘τίς ἀγορεύειν βούλεται τῶν ὑπὲρ πεντήκοντα ἔτη γεγονότων;’ ἐπειδὰν δὲ οὗτοι πάντες εἴπωσι, τότ’ ἤδη κελεύει λέγειν τῶν ἄλλων Ἀθηναίων τὸν βουλόμενον, οἷς ἔξεστιν. See the commentary of Fisher 2001 ad loc. Cf also Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators s.v. καθάρσιον. 49 An instance is the use of participation in a festival, rite, or sacrifice as an argument to attest that something is true or false. This is a very fruitful issue. The fact of having participated (or not) in a ritual is sometimes used by the orators to strengthen the argumentation. See, for instance, what happens in Isaeus, On the Estate of Ciron 15: the daughters and the grandson of Ciron, in order to get their share of the disputed inheritance, need to demonstrate that they are legitimate heirs of the deceased. Beside ordinary arguments (having lived in the same house, having received a dowry from her father), Ciron’s daughter uses arguments based on the participation in the same rituals shared by the grandfather with his daughter and grandsons (οἷα γὰρ εἰκὸς παίδων [ὑέων] ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ θυγατρός, οὐδεπώποτε θυσίαν ἄνευ ἡμῶν οὐδεμίαν ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ’ εἴτε μικρὰ εἴτε μεγάλα θύοι, πανταχοῦ παρῆμεν ἡμεῖς καὶ συνεθύομεν. καὶ οὐ μόνον εἰς τὰ τοιαῦτα παρεκαλούμεθα, ἀλλὰ καὶ εἰς Διονύσια εἰς ἀγρὸν ἦγεν ἀεὶ ἡμᾶς, καὶ μετ’ ἐκείνου τε ἐθεωροῦμεν ἐνθήμενοι παρ’ αὐτὸν καὶ τὰς ἑορτὰς ἤγομεν παρ’ ἐκεῖνον πάσας· τῷ Διί τε θύων τῷ Κτησίῳ, περὶ ἣν μάλιστ’ ἐκεῖνος θυσίαν ἐσπούδαζε).

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the Rhetoric)50 and for the significance that can be detected behind each component of the ritual. Formalism is strongly respected, even if an oath contradicts another one previously sworn: it seems to be important not what is sworn, but how it is sworn, that is, whether procedure has been respected. It can happen that an orator swears to the truthfulness of something he had previously denied through another oath, for instance the legitimacy of a possible heir, as is attested in Andocides’ On Mysteries (§§ 126–127). In this oration, Callias had previously sworn that he was not the father of a child but, some years later, for reasons that are explained but are not relevant for us here, changed his mind and swore an opposite oath in front of his fellow phratry members: Ὁ δ᾽ ἠρώτα τίνος εἴη τὸ παιδίον ἔλεγον ‘Καλλίου τοῦ Ἱππονίκου’. ‘ Ἐγώ εἰμι οὗτος.’ ‘Καὶ ἔστι γε σὸν τὸ παιδίον.’ Λαβόμενος τοῦ βωμοῦ ὤμοσεν ἦ μὴν μὴ εἶναί υἱὸν ἄλλον μηδὲ γενέσθαι πώποτε, εἰ μὴ Ἱππόνικον ἐκ τῆς Γλαύκωνος θυγατρός· ἢ ἐξώλη εἶναι καὶ αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν οἰκίαν, ὥσπερ ἔσται. He asked whose child it was. ‘The child of Callias, son of Hipponicus’, they replied. ‘But I am he’. ‘Yes, and the child is yours’. Callias took hold of the altar and swore that the only son he had or had ever had was Hipponicus, and the mother was Glaucon’s daughter. If that was not the truth, he prayed that he and his house might perish from the earth – as they surely will. (Trans. by K. J. Maidment)

The procedure is guided by an official (Ὁ δ᾽ ἠρώτα τίνος εἴη τὸ παιδίον) and no contradiction is felt by anyone about the paradox of two contradictory oaths, the previous being the opposite of the latter. On the contrary, the officer asks his question and draws the practical, procedural, conclusion from what has been sworn at the moment (ἔλεγον ‘Καλλίου τοῦ Ἱππονίκου’. ‘ Ἐγώ εἰμι οὗτος.’ ‘Καὶ ἔστι γε σὸν τὸ παιδίον’). The procedure followed is consistent with the performance of oaths in classical Athens: the swearer touches a sanctifying object (here the altar: Λαβόμενος τοῦ βωμοῦ),51 calls down a curse upon himself and his family (ἢ ἐξώλη εἶναι καὶ αὐτὸν καὶ τὴν οἰκίαν), and swears with effects that, sometimes, can be immediate on the matter at issue: in this case, for instance, Callias’ son is immediately admitted to the phratry (ἔστι γε σὸν τὸ παιδίον) and

|| 50 Aristotle, Rhetoric I 15 (1375a 24). 51 For the importance of the stone in oath taking, see Demosthenes, Against Conon 26, Aristoteles, Constitution of the Athenians 55.

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any consequence that may arise in the event that the statement proves false is postponed into the future (ὥσπερ ἔσται, note the indicative).52 There is a much quoted and discussed53 passage of Demosthenes’ Against Aristocrates in which ritual actions to be performed during a diomosia at the Areopagus are described in detail. This oath seems to be different from any other performed in the lawcourts, (οὐδὲ τὸν τυχόντα τιν’ ὅρκον … ἀλλ’ ὃν οὐδεὶς ὄμνυσ’ ὑπὲρ οὐδενὸς ἄλλου) not only for its importance,54 but also because of the gestures enacted by the swearer, demonstrating that words can be distinguished by ritual actions.55 Specific animals are chosen (κάπρου καὶ κριοῦ καὶ ταύρου) and only certain persons are entitled to sacrifice them (καὶ τούτων ἐσφαγμένων ὑφ᾽ ὧν δεῖ). Moreover, this exceptional oath and oath-ritual must be performed on specific days (καὶ ἐν αἷς ἡμέραις καθήκει), with a specific timing, and assuming a specific posture. It is necessary to establish contact (στὰς ἐπὶ τῶν τομίων) with the parts slaughtered in the same way as happens, for instance (though not only), in the passage of Against Leocrates quoted at the beginning of this paper, in which witnesses are forced to swear λαβόντας τὰ ἱερά (§20).56

3.3 Selection, omission, inclusion When speaking of the Attic orators, the most important ‘submerged’ elements are, certainly, all those speeches that we are not able to read, the responses to those speeches that we can read and analyse, and all the judicial performances that did not enter the canon of the Attic orators. However, this is not the only aspect of submersion involved when dealing with the Attic orators. We can also go further and consider all the procedures that imply the competence of jurors, speakers, and bystanders, which at a certain moment also began to be written (and sometimes manipulated). There seems to be a wide sphere of competences, functions, and ritual actions that were not included in the final version of the speech delivered in the law court and which was sometimes rewritten afterwards. This sphere is crucial for the

|| 52 On the lack of the possibility of appeal against an oath in Athenian procedure, see Gernet 2000, 122 ff. 53 Carastro 2012. 54 For further cases of hierarchy between oaths, cf Andocides, On the Mysteries 31, Lysias Against Diogeiton 13, Aeschines, Against Timarchus 111. 55 On gestures as added rituals, see Faraone 2012. 56 For oriental parallels to this practice see Faraone 1993; Giorgieri 2001; Faraone 2012.

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understanding of the civilization of classical Athens, as seen through the lens of the judicial experience. Interactions between these different kinds of competences contributed to the shaping of what was performed by accuser or defendant during the trial, and contributed also to the sedimentation within the lines of the text we read (in the form of selection, omission, or inclusion) of these speech acts, ritual actions, oaths, and citation of parts of laws. Besides rituals, and the way rituals are used or referred to in orations, we may also add the competences that were orally transmitted within specific gene and provided to citizens who sought advice on specific points. There are many different elements submerged beneath the words of a speech delivered in the law court, but there are also many different ways of being submerged, and many corresponding strategies by the interpreter may allow them to emerge.

Reference List Battezzato, L., I viaggi dei testi, in Battezzato, L., ed., Tradizione testuale e ricezione letteraria antica della tragedia greca. Atti del convegno Scuola normale superiore, Pisa, 14–15 Giugno 2002, Amsterdam 2003, 7–31 Bers, V., ‘Dikastic thorybos’, in Cartledge, P., and Harvey, D., eds, Crux. Essays in Greek History Presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, London 1985, 1–15 Berti, I., Istro il callimacheo, Rome 2009 Boegehold, A., The Lawcourts at Athens, Princeton 1995 Boegehold, A., When a Gesture Was Expected, Princeton 1999 Bohannan, P., Justice and Judgment among the Tiv, Oxford 1957 Calhoun, G. M., ‘Oral and Written Pleading in Athens’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 50, 1919, 177–193 Canevaro, M., The Documents in the Attic Orators. Laws and Decrees in the Public Speeches of the Demosthenic Corpus, Oxford 2013 Carastro, M., ‘Les liens de l'écriture. Katadesmoi et instances de l’enchainement’, in Cartry, M., and Durand, J. L., eds, Architecturer l’invisible, Turnhout 2010, 263–292 Carastro, M., ‘Fabriquer du lien en Grèce ancienne: serments, sacrifices, ligatures’, Mètis 10, 2012, 78–107 Carawan, E., Rhetoric and the Law of Draco, Oxford 1998 Carey, C., Lysiae orationis cum fragmentis. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit C. Carey, Oxford 2007 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture, Berlin and Boston 2014 Di Donato, R., Per una antropologia storica del mondo antico, Florence 1990 Di Donato, R., Omero tra oralità e oralismo, in Di Donato, R., ed., Esperienza di Omero, Pisa 1999, 15–30

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Di Donato, R., Per una storia culturale dell’antico, 1–2, Pisa 2013 Dillery, J., ‘Greek Sacred History’, American Journal of Philology 126, 2005, 505–26 Dorjahn, A. P., ‘Anticipation of Arguments in Athenian Courts’, Transactions of the American Philological Association 66, 1935, 274–295 Dover, K. J., Lysias and the corpus Lysiacum, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1968 Eidinow, E., Oracles, Curses, and Risk among the Ancient Greeks, Oxford 2007 Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 7–18 Faraguna, M., ‘Tra oralità e scrittura: diritto e forme della comunicazione nella società greca antica’, in Idem, ed., Nomos despotes: legge e prassi giudiziaria nella società greca antica, Etica & Politica / Ethics and Politics 9, 2007, 75–111 Faraguna, M., ‘Oralità e scrittura nella prassi giudiziaria ateniese tra V e IV sec. a.C.’, in Thür, G., ed., Symposion 2007, Wien 2009, 63–86 Faraone, C., ‘Molten Wax, Spilt Wine and Mutilated Animals: Sympathetic Magic in Early Greek and Near Eastern Oath Ceremonies’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 113, 1993, 60–80 Faraone, C., ‘Curses and Blessings in Ancient Greek Oaths’, Journal of Near Eastern Religion 5, 2006, 140–158 Faraone, C., ‘At the Limits of Efficacious Speech: The Performance and Audience of Self-Curses in Ancient Near Eastern and Greek Oaths’, Mètis 10, 2012, 120–133 Fisher, N., Aeschines, Against Timarchos, Oxford 2001 Gagarin, M., Writing Greek Law, Cambridge 2008 Gernet, L., Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne, Paris 1955 Gernet, L., Les Grecs sans miracle, Paris 1983 Gernet, L., Diritto e civiltà in Grecia antica, Milan 2000 [ed. by A. Taddei] Gernet, L., Études sur la technique du droit athénien à l’époque classique, Pisa 2001 [ed. by A. Taddei] Giordano, M., ‘Contamination et vengeance: pour une diachronie du miasma’, Mètis 12, 2014, 291–310 Giorgieri, M., ‘Aspetti magico-religiosi del giuramento presso gli Ittiti e i Greci’, in Ribichini, S., Rocchi, M., and Xella, P., eds, La questione delle influenze vicino-orientali sulla religione greca. Stato degli studi e prospettive della ricerca. Atti del colloquio internazionale Roma 20–22 maggio 1999, Rome 2001, 421–440 Gluckmann, M., The Judicial Process among the Barotse, Manchester 1955 Goody, J., The Logic of Writing and the Organization of Society, Cambridge 1986 Hall, E., The Theatrical Cast of Athens. Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society, Oxford 2006 Hammond, N. G. L., ‘The exegetai in Plato’s Laws’, Classical Quarterly 2, 1952, 4–12 Jacoby, F., Atthis. The Local Chronicles of Ancient Athens, Oxford 1949 Lavency, M., Aspects de la logographie judiciaire attique, Louvain 1964 Lanni, A., ‘Spectator Sport or Serious Politics? οἱ περιεστηκότες and the Athenian Lawcourts’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 117, 1997, 183–189 Mirhady, D. C., ‘The Athenian Rationale for Torture’, in Edmondson, J., and Hunter, V., eds, Law and Social Status in Classical Athens, Oxford 2000, 53–74 Mirhady, D. C., ‘Forensic evidence in Euripides’ Hippolytus’, Mouseion 4, 2004, 17–34 Nicolai, R., ‘Il canone tra classicità e classicismo’, Critica del testo 10, 2007, 95–103 Nicolai, R., ‘The Canon and its Boundaries’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 33–45

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Palmisciano, R., ‘Submerged Literature in an Oral Culture’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 19–32 Parker, R., Polytheism and Society at Athens, Oxford 2005 Pernot, R., La retorica dei Greci e dei romani, Palermo 2006 (orig. edn Paris 2000) Rhodes, P. J., and Osborne, R., Greek Historical Insriptions 404–323 BC, Oxford 2003 Serafim, A., Attic Oratory and Performance, London (forthcoming) Taddei, A., ‘Diritto e prediritto in casa del Trierarca’, Studi Classici e Orientali 46, 1998, 833– 844 Thomas, R., ‘Writing, Law and Written Law’, in Gagarin, M., and Cohen, D., eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law, Cambridge 2005, 41–60 Thomas, R., ‘And You, the Demos, Made an Uproar: Performance, Mass-audiences and Text in Athenian Democracy’, in Lardinois, A. P., and Van der Poel, M. G., eds, Sacred Words: Orality, Literacy and Religion, Leiden 2011, 161–187 Thür, G., ‘The Role of the Witness in Athenian Law’, in Gagarin, M., and Cohen, D., eds, The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek Law, Cambridge 2005, 146–169 Todd, S. C., ‘The Use and Abuse of the Attic Orators’, Greece & Rome 37, 1990, 159–178 Todd, S. C., The Shape of Athenian Law, Oxford 1993 Todd, S. C., A Commentary on Lysias. Speeches 1–11, Oxford 2007 Valdés Guía, M., ‘La exegesis en Atenas en epoca arcaica y clasica’, Mediterraneo Antico 5, 2001, 185–245 Verdier, R., Justices de l’invisible. La vérité du feu en pays Kabyè, dvd, Paris 2011 Worthington, I., Persuasion: Greek Rhetoric in Action, London and New York 1994

Emanuele Greco

With Pausanias (and Others) in the Agora of Sparta It is surprising, even though perhaps an obvious point, that one must take stock of the extreme imbalance between research on the topic of Sparta addressed to its history and fame as a society, on the one hand, and, on the other, studies that pursue knowledge of the physical, monumental and urban environment in which the Spartans lived. Leaving aside here the research, some of it recent, on the settlement history of Laconia (and of the neighbouring ‘subject’ land of Messenia), I refer essentially to the city in the sense of the centre of the polis, within limits that were marked only in the age of Nabis (cf Livy 34. 27) when Sparta’s first city walls were constructed. The site itself had been selected at a much earlier period (at least the eighth century BCE) as the ‘central place’ of the city of the Lacedaemonians. Before then the centre lay further south, as we now know thanks to H. Vasileios’ discovery of the Mycenean site.1 Archaeological knowledge of Sparta consists essentially of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia and very little else (the poorly preserved Acropolis and the theatre and a series of scattered disiecta membra in the area of the modern city which come to light periodically in the course of rescue excavations) (fig. 1).2 Our topographical knowledge of Sparta is owed primarily to the long chapters that Pausanias dedicates to describing the city in his Book 3, though here we also have to contend with the large number of modern studies characterized by the claim (usually vain) to have understood it all. This problem has recently been the focus of a study by D. R. Stewart, who treats Pausanias’ modus describendi and his programmatic position of recording whatever is ‘Most Worth Remembering’.3 Sparta is a good example in this respect, on account of the widely varying reconstructions of Pausanias’ route. In sum, in this case more than ever caution is advised. In the present contribution we instead aim to examine an aspect that may be easier to pin down in the framework of how ar-

|| 1 See Ergon 2010, 33–34; Ergon 2011, 29–31; Ergon 2012, 50–53; Vasilogambrou 2011. On the discovery of the tablets in Linear B see Aravantinos and Vasilogambrou 2012, 41–54. 2 A careful examination of the archaeological documentation is provided in Kourinou 2000 and, more recently, Tosti 2013 (doctoral diss.), with the previous bibliography. 3 Stewart 2013, 241–243, n. 67: the approach is not in truth new and can be accepted in large part, aside from some gaps as regards Athens, whose agora is discussed by comparing Pausanias’ tour to the much richer archaeology of the square of the Kerameikòs.

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Fig. 1: Plan of Sparta

chaeology relates to Pausanias’ description. The city’s agora seems to me to offer a good opportunity in this respect, in that it furnishes us with elements of the site that have emerged from old – some indeed very old – excavations which can thus be added to the few monuments mentioned above, by recovering some archaeological finds on which we can base conclusions even at our current level of knowledge. With Pausanias (3. 11. 2) in hand, therefore, and drawing on only a very few points of reference, we can be certain that the agora was located to the north of

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Fig. 2: Plan of the Agora of Sparta

the gigantic construction with vaulted substructures that supports the terrace above it known as the Roman stoa4 (fig. 2). This is the famous Spartan town square which Pausanias allows us to imagine as full of memorials and public buildings, of archeia, temples and statues. Sadly we can only imagine, because the agora of Sparta has had a very different fate to that of Athens. To understand the reasons for this difference – a point that seems to me of importance – we need to recall the political and cultural context of the early 1930s when the excavation of the Athenian agora began.5 It is clear that the choice of site was influenced by the belief that to excavate the Athenian agora was to explore the birthplace of democracy.6 For this reason, one cannot today properly understand research on the agora of the Kerameikòs without first taking into account the modern political and diplomatic querelle

|| 4 Waywell and Wilkes 1993; Waywell and Wilkes 1994. 5 See Sakka 2008, with rich bibliography, who successfully reconstructs the Greek-American political climate that preceded the start of the excavation of the agora of the Kerameikòs; very useful, to complete the picture, is the reading of Davis 2007, who regards Edwards Capps and the birth of Hesperia, the journal of the ASCSA, as inseparable from the agora project (though it was not exclusively intended for excavation reports or for the publication of materials from them). 6 Ampolo 1996, 1053–1056 emphasizes the pioneering role of the studies of C. Thirlwall in the process of promoting the figure of Cleisthenes as a predecessor of liberal political institutions, a process to which a decisive contribution was made by G. Grote with his work, the History of Greece, 1–12, London 1846–56.

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that preceded the start of the excavations and paralleled them also in their later stages. It is to the credit of J. Davis and N. Vogeikoff-Brogan (2013) that they conceived and edited a special issue of Hesperia – with quite an intriguing title, considering that it comes from American archaeologists: Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? American Archaeology in Greece – which allows us to retrace the complex story of American archaeology in Hellas. On the Athenian agora, as well as the excellent study of N. Sakka7 a few years ago, the Hesperia volume includes an essay by Hamilakis,8 who reads the excavation of the Agora as an intersection between colonial and national archaeology, and one which ultimately imposed the point of view of the aristocratic elites and the middle class, minorities in the population as a whole: we should bear in mind that around 40,000 people were forced from their homes to make possible the excavation of the square. The topic is of immense interest for the political and cultural history of 20th-century archaeology and it would be valuable to pursue it in more depth elsewhere. However, to say that the Agora Excavations, with Pericles’ Athens’ obvious attraction for the Americans, are comparable to the Rome of Mussolini (which harked back rather to the Caesars) does not seem quite right and does not exhaust the topic, because it risks equating structurally situations that have merely formal analogies. It would not occur to anyone to compare American democracy to fascism, but there would be a certain value in viewing the Americans’ idea of Athens against the foil of the idea of Sparta held by the Nazi regime, which was deployed extensively in these very years.9 To put it briefly, this patch of ground below the kolonos agoraios was the site of the deliberations, laws and actions of the ancestors of American democracy, the only true heir to the Greek democracy, in the view of, above all, the ‘heirs’ themselves. Sparta, on the other hand, was at that moment about to enter the field as a sign that was naturally opposed to Athens. The Nazis had not yet taken power but the Nazi movement had existed for some time and events were starting to roll, with the whole series of changes in orientation that paralleled the well known sequence of tragic political events. Leaving aside other considerations, with the development of events (and from the perspective of the modern observer), through the inevitable contrast that came to be established between two polar opposites, Athens is Athens and the USA is its political reincarnation. And Sparta? A partial answer is provided by Hodkinson’s article

|| 7 Sakka 2008. 8 Hamilakis 2013, 153–177. 9 Marchand 1996 on German philhellenism in the period 1933–1945 and above all Roche 2013.

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on ‘Sparta and Nazi Germany’,10 in which the author reflects on the liberal and progressive British thinkers (historians, philologists and philosophers who were often also political figures) and their relation to Nazi Germany, which changed over time. The American milieu has been investigated by N. Sakka with scrupulous attention to the relation between dominant ideologies and the selection of the field of research. Sakka makes clear the general scientific interest of the site (beginning with the Greeks themselves), the American desire to explore something of equal prestige to that addressed by the French (in Delphi) and Germans (at Olympia) and the fatal attraction of this, so to speak, omphalos of democracy, as the Athenian agora must have been in the collective imagination.11 In Hodkinson’s study we find, further, discussion of the relation between archaeology and Spartan history as filtered through modern ideology.12 To illustrate the Spartan ‘volte-face’, Gilbert Murray, the great liberal Hellenist, maintained that Athens and Britain were on the opposite side to Sparta, a city that had sacrificed its most ancient culture (the pacifist calling of a farming people) in favour of war and military efficiency. The correspondence of this verdict with the changed attitude to Nazism, which was at the time showing its true, brutal face, cannot be accidental. A confirmation – unexpectedly, from archaeology! – of this change in Lacedaemonian social outlook had been provided by the excavation of the sanctuary of Artemis Orthia carried out by the British School at Athens between 1906 and 1910.13 The stark difference between the richness and variety of the objects retrieved from the archaic strata and the poverty encountered in the later levels was taken as proof of radical changes in Spartan society; the more recent phase, thus, would have been the result of the austere regime reported by the classical sources.14 So, while for the early Nazis Sparta had been a model of society to be emulated for its rejection of commerce and its preference for farming, to liberal and democratic thought Sparta was not born ‘Nazi’ but became so, especially in the classical period and in historiography contemporary to the evolution of the Nazi regime. From the point of view of the British observers, therefore, the Sparta of the classical period was the one most strictly

|| 10 Hodkinson 2010. 11 Sakka 2008. 12 Hodkinson 2010, 314. 13 For the publication of the sanctuary see Dawkins, et al. 1929, esp. 1–51, and Catling 1998, 22–23. 14 This demonstrates, once again, the random nature of the recourse to archaeological evidence, which is moreover extrapolated from contexts chosen by chance, in order to provide confirmation of hypotheses advanced a priori that arise in the context of political and social history.

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comparable to Nazism. Soon afterwards, the opposition of Sparta to Athens became so radical and generalized that it may explain why, if we want to get an idea of the agora of Sparta, we must rely practically on Pausanias alone, aside from a very few other data, whereas that of Athens has been almost completely brought to light. Now that times, thankfully, have changed, it is to be hoped that the agora of Sparta – the poor innocent! –, freed from the foolish denunciations of the moderns, may finally be brought into the light of day. But let us turn to strictly archaeological issues. In the large area now securely identifiable as the agora of the Lacedaemonians, as Pausanias calls it, aside from the so-called Roman stoa two monuments of exceptional interest have been brought to light in different periods and circumstances. They have been explored only partially and in isolation, among other drawbacks, and, crucially, with no attention at all to the spatial relations between them and the rest of this flat area, today covered by a dense grove of olive trees in which the tips of architectural remains jut out from the ground, from buildings that are datable to the Roman period, to judge from their use of cement mortars. The first monument is the so-called circular building, in the archaeological park at Sparta to the west of the modern stadium (fig. 2). Excavated by an American team directed by C. Waldstein in 1892, it has long been well known thanks to the speedy preliminary publication.15 It is a drum 41.30 m in diameter, the external circumference of which is realised in large blocks laid flat to support tall orthostats, evidently with the function of a retaining wall (analemma) for a large part of its circumference on the eastern, southern and some sections of the western side; here the circle is interrupted by a Byzantine chapel which altered the building. The excavator identified the complex with the sanctuary of Zeus and Aphrodite Olympioi (cf Pausanias 3. 12. 11). Since then, aside from rare exceptions (essentially Robert),16 this identification has been generally accepted, even after the work of the ephor Ch. Christou in the 1960s17 yielded new archaeological elements at the site, including excavation of a stoa located a little to the north which we shall for now call ‘the building excavated by Christou’ and to which we shall turn shortly. Before addressing the round building’s reconstruction and function, we must examine the topographical context, an aspect that should never be overlooked. Relying strictly on the secure data, let us begin from the few established points. Firstly, the agora of Sparta is located in the space to the north (and not

|| 15 Waldstein 1894. 16 Robert 1939, 102–117. 17 Christou 1964.

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to the south, as was long believed) of the so-called ‘Roman stoa’.18 Further, thanks to the aerial photograph,19 we have an idea, even if only a general one, of the area to be identified as the agora. The building that we are discussing here is located at the southwest extremity of the rectangle, near two paths: one to the west that runs southwards, the other to the north; this last, located between the circular building and Christou’s building, connects the agora with the theatre (the summa cavea) and the acropolis (fig. 2). These are the concrete data. Now let us examine the relevant passages of Pausanias. At 3. 12. 10 he informs us that there is a second exit from the agora (hetera exodos) near which they had built the so-called ‘Skias’ where meetings were still held (ekklesiazousin) even in his time. The Skias is the work of Theodorus of Samos; from Pausanias it appears that this was where the Lacedaemonians had hung up the kithara of Timotheus of Miletus, who was guilty of having added four strings to the traditional seven.20 Beside the Skias (pros de te Skiadi) was the oikodomema peripheres with the statues of Zeus and Aphrodite Olympioi. Remaining with the topographical evidence we note the other relevant passage (cf Pausanias 3. 14. 1), in which Pausanias states that proceeding from the agora southwards (pros helion ionti, fig. 2) one encounters the cenotaph of Brasidas, situated not far from the theatre. These notices of Pausanias allow us to attempt an interpretation, but first

|| 18 Waywell and Wilkes 1993; Waywell and Wilkes 1994. 19 Baudini 2006 calculates both the probable boundaries and the area of the square, around 4 ha. 20 Robert 1939, 103–119 discusses the passage of Pausanias, comparing it to that in Plutarch in the Instituta Laconica 17 (= Morals 238c–d): ‘when Timotheus competed at the Carneia one of the ephors, having grabbed a sword, asked him from which part of the instrument he should cut the strings that exceeded the number seven’; see also Plutarch, Morals 1141f, who reports the joke that the comedian Pherecrates said had been spoken by Music (‘... afterwards Phrynis came, who finally destroyed me, though I could have tolerated him. But Timotheus was the one who dug the hole for me. In melody he is all a monstrous tingling, and when he encountered me alone, he stripped me and dealt me the coup de grâce with his 12 strings’), underscoring the likelihood that Pausanias has confused Timotheus with Terpander, who had added only one string, as is clear from the text of Plutarch. From the context of the passage it seems to me possible to deduce that Pausanias did not see the kithara itself but learned from his informants of the episode of the condemnation when he visited the building, in which of course the instrument, after about six centuries, would not still have been preserved; Robert, however, is of the opinion that in the Skias Pausanias did see a kithara, which was erroneously ascribed by him to Timotheus. On the ‘condemnation’ of Timotheus, see recently Marzi 1988, 267 n. 13 on the ‘esasperato conservatorismo spartano’; the Spartans, further, accused Timotheus of having taught the use of the polychord magadis, cf Athenaeus (14. 636e–f); Palumbo Stracca 1997; Berlinzani 2008. Leaving aside the historicity of the various traditions, there remains the strong link between the building and musical presentations.

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we must consider the relation between the word skias and the building’s use as a place of assembly. The lexica are clear in insisting on the similarity, not to say identification, of the skias to the tholos, through their circular form and domed roof.21 It seems clear that a covered building of this type could not host ekklesiai in the sense of popular assemblies, which at Sparta were held between Babyka and Knakion (cf Plutarch, Lycurgus 11), a general expression, but one that should in some way refer to open-air locations where a few thousand people could gather. That is to say: an unroofed location. This allows us to rule out the idea that the Skias was a building of enormous proportions. It follows from this that, when Pausanias reports that assemblies took place in the Skias, he must have been referring to meetings of a modest number of participants. It is difficult to say for what purpose: our only clue is the kithara of Timotheus, which may suggest a use of the space connected to musical contests or performances. But let us return to the examination of the topographical situation. The circular building stands at the southwest extremity of the rectangle that we identify as the agora. Not only this: it stands near two very clear pathways, one towards the southwest (the hetera exodos?) and the other which can be deduced from study of the terrain; this is the passage between the building excavated by Christou and the circular building, the only path by which one could pass from the agora towards the theatre. In fact, if we take into account that a large part of the west side of the agora is closed off by the ‘Christou’ building, our passage (7.10 m wide) is much the easiest way to move westwards from the agora to the acropolis. The acropolis stood apantikry (cf Pausanias 3. 14. 1) with respect to the theatre’s summa cavea, not to the skene, given that the mnemata of Pausanias and Leonidas mentioned there were located at the entrance to the sanctuary of Athena Chalkioikos, which stands at the highest part of the acropolis. Thucydides (1. 134) states that the tomb (taphos) of Pausanias the victor of Plataea (the later Pausanias, our Periegetes, uses the term mnema, but it is hard to believe that these are two different things) were located at the entrance to the temenos of the Chalkioikos, as was indicated by inscriptions on the stelae and suggested by the fact that two bronze statues were consecrated to the goddess; we may ask ourselves if these

|| 21 Harpocration, s.v. θόλος. Ammonius in his book On the altars writes: the place where the prytaneis eat is called tholos, called by some also skias ... its round form makes it similar to a θολία (a hat, or also a small umbrella); other sources in Wachsmuth 1890, 315–316 (it seems that at Athens the name tholos was the popular one, while the official one was Skias, see Etym. Magn. s.v. and Photius and Suda s.v. σκιάς: skias means that which the Athenians call θόλος). Sources on the tholos in Agora 3, 179–184.

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Fig. 3: The Circular Building of the Agora (by O. Voza)

are not the same statues which Pausanias the Periegetes saw beside the altar, calling them ‘statues of Pausanias’.22 Let us now turn to the monument itself. Waldstein published a plan of the building and Christou about 70 years later published a new one with some details that Waldstein had not noted, but without including those discovered by Waldstein. Some confusion has arisen as a result; the precariousness and partial character of the data could be addressed by a complete exploration of the building, something that has never been done. A brief campaign directed by A. Vassilogamvrou made it possible to make a new plan that combines Waldstein’s data with those of Christou. On this campaign the discovery was made of stone

|| 22 Nafissi 2004, 173–174, n. 3 deduces from the context that Pausanias went from the agora to the theatre along a street at the foot of the acropolis which would have led him to see the tombs of Pausanias and Leonidas behind the skene of the theatre and not in a summa cavea as we believe and as has already been maintained, in our view correctly, by Woodward 1924–1925, 264–276. The question is not easy to decide on current knowledge, but, in favour of the hypothesis that we are supporting here, I cite the topography, that is the street that exits the agora in proximity to the Skias and goes straight to the summa cavea, which is right behind the Acropolis and of Athena Chalkioikos. Spawforth 2012, 124–125 also thinks that the tomb of Leonidas was behind the skene, but his arguments are not convincing. See Di Napoli 2013 on the theatre of Sparta.

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bases that mark out a peristyle of wooden columns which are related to a large hole that must have held the central pole (fig. 3). It would be desirable to investigate the embankment formed by the large retaining walls in limestone and conglomerate blocks, in order to recover secure chronological elements that could permit the identification of this extraordinary construction as the Skias built by Theodorus of Samos. The chronology of that building (second half of the 6th cent. BCE) offers a valuable point of reference for archaeological-stratigraphic verification that goes beyond the exterior assessment that Waldstein and even Frazer23 relied on to assign the monument – with good reason, in my view – to the archaic age. The external retaining wall, the central rotunda with umbrella-dome roof, the space between the external circle and the internal one, are the elements available to us – in truth, not much – to identify the functions of the building if we wish to leave Pausanias to one side. Aside from the name, the circular form and the near-identical dimensions, the comparable building in Athens (the Tholos/Skias), although erected at the time of the philolaconic Cimon,24 has nothing to do with our one, having not a peristyle but a continuous wall that enclosed it and being intended for the meals of the prytaneis, a function that can be ruled out for the Spartan Skias. For Spartan building we thus have only the hint offered by the kithara of Timotheus, which implies that the use of its interior should be connected to musical displays. As well as investigating the circular building, Christou25 brought to light, around 30–40 m to the northwest of the latter, a notable stretch of a building in excellent polygonal masonry that can easily be identified as a stoa. The west wall of this portico runs, up to a maximum height of 4 m, from north to south for 31 m; but the exploration was not completed. To the south, the northsouth wall meets at a right angle another wall, also in polygonal masonry, 15 m long, which does not stop at a double foundation in large blocks (probably the stylobate of the stoa, which must thus have been open to the east). Inside, the space is articulated by internal walls set at a regular distance of 4.5 m; one may note also clear indications of the monument’s re-use (fig. 2). The discovery on the floor of the southern room of a bronze statue of a female figure from the family of the Severans (Athens EM, 23321)26 held much of the excavator’s atten-

|| 23 Frazer 1898, 326–327. 24 Di Cesare 2004. 25 Christou 1964, 113 f., 115–116: the excavator dates the monument to the 4th–3rd cent. BCE on the basis of his rather odd reflections on the construction technique. 26 Kourinou Pikoula 2001 demonstrates that it does not depict Julia Domna but is the statue portrait of Julia Aquilia Severa (the second and then fourth wife of Elagabalus).

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tion, who did not offer a clear position on the function of the building and gave only general conclusions about the chronology. I hope to be able to demonstrate – even if only as a hypothesis while we await an excavation, which is greatly to be desired – that the building excavated by Christou is the famous Persike Stoa of the agora of Sparta. This is not in fact a new proposal, since it was advanced by Kourinou27 in her work on the topography of Sparta; but she limited herself to proposing ut sic the identification of the building excavated by Christou with the Persike, whereas I shall try to provide arguments to support the hypothesis. I shall try, that is, to demonstrate the reason why our building could be identified with the Persike Stoa that Pausanias 3. 11. 3 admired, defining it as the epiphanestaton of the agora and explaining the name by the fact that it was erected from the booty taken from the Persians. Not only that: Pausanias notes its rich decoration, emphasizing that it had recently been restored. The observation of Pausanias on the presence, above the columns, of portraits of Mardonius and Artemisia28 removes any doubt about the chronology: it is the portico erected after the victory over the Persians at Salamis (Artemisia) and Plataea (Mardonius). We are thus in a period after 478 BCE. The first question to be answered is the following: is the ‘building excavated by Christou’ compatible with this dating? After even a cursory examination of the polygonal masonry of the wall and of the summit, the crest, in orthostats arranged in good ‘key pattern’ masonry with both faces visible, I would answer yes, even if, to be cautious, I would wish for a careful survey and some stratigraphic study that could yield more secure elements. The striking point, which I shall use as a possible key to understanding this, is rather the polygonal treatment itself that was chosen for the construction of this extraordinary monument.29 Our interest in the monument and especially in the technique with which it was executed is prompted by the spectacular comparison with another famous ‘stoa’, that of the Athenians at Delphi (fig. 4).

|| 27 Κourinou 2000, 109–114. 28 Picard 1935, 220 ff. mistakenly thinks of columnae celatae, where Vitruvius 1. 1. 6 speaks of statues (captivorum simulacra barbarico vestis ornatu); it concerns telamones, as seems proved by the discovery by G. Steinhauer (1972, 248, pl. 186a) of a small terracotta telamon with Persian iconography (datable to the 3rd cent. BCE) on which see Schneider 1986, 109–114, tab. 33, figs 2–3. 29 Spawforth 2012, 117–118 offers an opinion on the persike without supposing that the building had been discovered and in part excavated.

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Fig. 4: Plan of the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi (from Guide de Delphes)

Now, the parallel needs to be explained starting from the Delphic monument, in particular since P. Amandry has produced a careful edition of it in the series Fouilles de Delphes.30 Since then there have been numerous interventions that aim to reconstruct the history of the monument. I shall try to summarize the salient details: Pausanias, after describing the thesauros of the Athenians (Pausanias 10. 11. 15) that was erected from the booty taken from those who came ashore at Marathon with Datis, states (Pausanias 10. 11. 6) that the Athenians also erected the stoa. Archaeology, or rather epigraphy, has allowed us to correct Pausanias, who cites as the warlike ‘event’ that gave rise to the monument the naval battle won by Phormio, who had dedicated ships’ prows and bronze shields taken from the foes (kai ploion ta akra kosmemata kai aspides chalkai). The battle in which Phormio featured was in 429 BCE, but the monument is decidedly older, by at least half a century (if not more), as can be established

|| 30 Amandry 1953.

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thanks to the large inscription carved on the stylobate of the portico, from which we learn that the Athenians constructed the stoa, in which were displayed hopla and akroteria taken from the enemy.31 Amandry concluded that the porticus should be dated to 478 BCE, on account of the inscription, and that the hopla in question were the ropes with which Xerxes had created his bridge over the Hellespont, ropes that the Athenians, led by Xanthippus (father of Pericles), had taken as booty from Sestus and dedicated in the Greek sanctuaries.32 Amandry’s interpretation has prompted both admiring agreement and firm rejections.33 Paradoxically, the more interesting alternative hypothesis was advanced, if timidly, by Amandry himself in response to the criticisms of Meiggs and Lewis. It had already been noted by Morrison and Williams34 that at Marathon there was also a naval encounter, if only in limited form, in which Cynegirus the brother of Aeschylus lost his life and which cost the Medes the loss of seven ships.35 (Here Amandry observes36 en passant that the number of the ships coincides with the number of columns of the stoa at Delphi, which could thus have been the number of the akriphia taken from the Medes on the shore of Marathon, thanks to the heroism of Cynegirus and those who followed him.) This conclusion, while attractive, cannot be regarded as a securely established fact. At this point it seems necessary to review the sequence of events that can be stated with certainty. After the fire of 548 BCE, the Temple of Apollo at Delphi was reconstructed, as we know, by the Alcmeonids, who completed

|| 31 As well as Amandry 1953, see Gauer 1968; Kendrick Pritchett 1979, 281–282; Amandry 1978, 582–586; Kuhn 1985, 269–287 reconstructs a hypothetical set of steps at the bottom of the back wall where one could sit and observe the processions; Walsh 1986 defends an unacceptable date for the stoa; Meiggs and Lewis 1988, 25; Miller 1997, 29–41; Immerwahr 1990, 145–146; Amandry 1998, 75–90; Förtsch 2001, 48–49; Umholtz 2002, 269, n. 32; Hellmann 2006, 216; Jung 2006, 96–108; a careful and effective summary in Mercanti 2006; I do not share his conclusions or his enthusiasm for the bizarre hypothesis of Hansen 1989, according to whom, to explain the generic character of the polemioi, the stoa was intended for the future victories terra marique of the Athenians; see most recently Choix, 46–47, n. 20: the text of the inscription (Athenaioi anethesan ten stoan kaì ta hopla kai takroteria helontes ton polemion) runs on a single line for a length of 14.37 m with letters 0.18 m high in an Attic alphabet of the late archaic period. 32 Herodotus 9. 21; the hopla were still described by Herodotus in 7. 36; Herodotus 7. 33: Xanthippus son of Arriphron takes Sestus. 33 Restated in Meiggs and Lewis 1988, n. 25, 53–54; Amandry 1978 (the response of Amandry is obviously to the first edition of the Selection, which is from 1969). 34 Morrison and Williams 1968, 133–135. 35 Herodotus 6. 114. 36 Amandry 1978, 582–586.

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the work between 514 and 504; in the context of those same works the terrace with the famous wall in polygonal masonry of finely worked limestone blocks, in perfect conformity with the ‘fashion’ of the moment at a time when the elegance of polygonal masonry reached its akme.37 Some time afterwards the Athenians used part of this terracing (around 27 m of the 84 m that it measured from east to west) as the back wall of the famous porticus (only 3.10 m deep)38 (fig. 4). Leaving the chronology to one side, we may observe that the stoa had a very precise function both at the moment of its initial construction and afterwards (the dedication by Phormio seen by Pausanias): to display booty taken from enemies. At Delphi the Athenians erected, down below, the so-called base of Miltiades (a work of Phidias, cf Pausanias 10. 10. 1–2 and hence ‘promoted’ by Cimon, in all likelihood) and the thesauròs (Pausanias has told us this was constructed from the booty taken from the Persians at Marathon) with the base that stood in front of it, and the inscription that records how the anathema was created from the booty taken from the Medes at Marathon.39 None of these monuments was intended to display the skyla (the booty) of Marathon.40 After Salamis all the Greeks jointly dedicated to Apollo the work of the bronze-sculptor Theopropus of Aegina; and after Plataea the famous golden tripod on the serpentine column was set up by all the Greeks, en koinō (cf Pausanias 10. 13. 9); while after Salamis the Aeginetans alone dedicated a ships mast in bronze with three gold stars in the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo (cf Herodotus 8. 22).41 I ask if we should not regard it as more coherent, if still based on fragile arguments such as the epigraphic lettering, to attribute to the stoa of the Athenians at Delphi the function of displaying the spoils of Marathon, hopla kai takroteria, as the inscription reads.42 Leaving aside the dating, the conclusion to which I tend

|| 37 Hellmann 2002, 110–112 (with bibliography). 38 Different measurements (length 31.60 m and width 3.73 m) in Kuhn 1985, 269, citing Coulton 1976, 234. 39 Amandry 1998 (inscription on the so-called ‘socle marathonien’ is rightly interpreted not as the tithe of booty but as a monument erected with the proceeds of the booty); there is a summary of the Delphic dedications in the well documented collection by Asheri 2006, 366–368 and Choix, 41–42, n. 15. 40 See the useful work by Jacquemin 1999. 41 See Bommelaer 1996, 165–167, 169–170; Choix, n. 16 (Apollo of Salamis), n. 17 (tripod of Plataea). 42 See n. 31; one should not underestimate the episode of Cynegirus and the capture of the ships on the shore of Marathon, a heroic act that was celebrated in the context of the Poikile, a work of Polygnotus (or of Panaenus brother of Phidias, according to Pliny 30. 57), which would give substance to the hypothesis that in the stoa were displayed the prows of the ships of Mara-

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is that the Porticus of the Athenians was characterized as a Persike Stoa and in the end transmitted this significance to the entire structure: the Porticus of the Athenians at Delphi ended up being, in my view, the Persike Stoa par excellence and a kind of model for the way in which it must have been immediately perceived. However, I would insist, the characterization came about thanks to a wall erected about a quarter century earlier: it should not in fact be overlooked that the back wall of the stoa is significantly older than the rest of it. This is not the case at Sparta: the Persike Stoa of Sparta is later than Plataea (terminus post quem 478 BCE). So I ask: why, in the second quarter of the 5th century BC, roughly, would the Spartans have chosen polygonal masonry (already out of fashion in this period) to create ex novo a wall that seems to be a copy of that at Delphi? I do not believe that this would happen by chance. This imitation of the model serves, in my view, to illuminate the functions of the Delphic stoa and at the same time furnishes us with material that points to the identification of our building as the Persike Stoa of Pausanias (fig. 5).

Fig. 5: The Stoa of Sparta (left) and the Stoa of the Athenians (right)

|| thon without being obliged to date the dedication after the birth of the League and to refer it to the submission of Naxos, as Mercanti 2006, 339–340 would have it.

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In sum, the Skias and the Stoa Persike both close off the agora to the southwest, where in all probability the hetera exodos lay. We are only at the start, or even, if I may say so, before the start of a history that we may hope to know better, if someone who cares about the historical fate of a city that is not exactly without importance (even if far from that of Athens) will someday choose to bring to light the agora of the ‘Lacedaemonians who live at Sparta’. 43

Reference List Agora III = Wycherley, R. E., The Athenian Agora III. Literary and Epigraphical Testimonia, Princeton 1957 Amandry, P., ‘La Colonne des Naxiens et le Portique des Athéniens’, Fouilles de Delphes t. II, Paris 1953 Amandry, P., ‘Consécration d’armes galates à Delphes’, Bulletin de Correspondance Héllenique 102, 1978, 571–586 Amandry, P., ‘Notes de topographie et d’architecture delphiques. X. Le “socle marathonien” et le trésor des Athéniens’, Bulletin de Correspondance Héllenique 122, 1998, 75–90 Ampolo, C., ‘Per una storia delle storie greche’, in Settis, S., ed., I Greci, 1, Turin 1996, 1005– 1088 Aravantinos, A., and Vasilogambrou, A., ‘The First Linear B Documents from Ayios Vasileios (Laconia)’, in Études mycéniennes 2010: Actes du XIIIe colloque international sur les textes égéens, Sèvres, Paris, Nanterre, 20–23 septembre 2010, Pisa and Rome 2012, 41–54 Asheri, D., ‘I memoriali greci delle guerre persiane in Erodoto’, in Asheri, D., and Corcella, A., eds, Le storie. Libro IX, (transl. by A. Fraschetti), Milan 2006 Baudini, A., ‘L’agorà di Sparta. Dati, posizionamento e alcune considerazioni’, Workshop di archeologia classica 3, 2006, 21–35 Berlinzani, F., ‘Timoteo di Mileto: implicazioni ideologiche di un caso di censura musicale a Sparta’, in Zanetto, G., ed., Nova vestigia antiquitatis (seminari 2006–2007), Milan 2008, 115–142 Bommelaer, J.-F., Guide de Delphes, Paris 1996 Catling, H. W., ‘The Work of the British School at Athens at Sparta and in Laconia’, in Cavanagh, W. G., and Walker, S. E. C., eds, Sparta in Laconia. Proceedings of the 19th British Museum Classical Colloquium (London 6–8 December 1995), London 1998, 19–27

|| 43 In an earlier paper (‘Alla ricerca dell’agora di Sparta’, Annuario della Scuola archeologica di Atene e delle Missioni italiane in Oriente 89, s. 3, 11, 2011, 53, n. 1) I was wrong in attributing the hypothesis of a localization of the agora west of the circular building to G. Sanders (‘Platanistas, the Course and Carneus: their Places in the Topography of Sparta in Sparta and Laconia. From Prehistory to Pre-modern’, in Cavanagh, W. G., Gallou, C., and Georgiadis, M., Annual of the British School of Athens, Studies 16, 2009, 195–203). The ancient agora had been correctly located, in my opinion, by Sanders NE of the circular building.

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Choix = Jacquemin, A., Mulliez, D., Rougemont, G., ‘Choix d’inscriptions de Delphes, traduites et commentées’, Études Épigraphiques 5, Athènes 2012 Christou, Ch., (Χρήστου, X.), ΑΝΑΣΚΑΦΗ ΑΚΡΟΠΟΛΕΩΣ ΣΠΑΡΤΗΣ, Π.Α.Ε. 1964 (1966), 102–120 Coulton, J. J., The Architectural Development of the Greek Stoa, Oxford 1976 Davis, J. L, and Vogeikoff-Brogan, N., ‘Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience?: American Archaeology in Greece’, Hesperia 82, 2013, 1–14 Dawkins, R. M. , et al., The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia at Sparta, London 1929 Di Cesare, R., ‘Kleoitas di Aristokles, la Tholos e le unghie d’argento’, Workshop di archeologia classica 1, 2004, 51–59 Di Napoli, V., Teatri della Grecia Romana: forma, decorazione, funzioni. La provincia d’Acaia, Atene 2013 Förtsch, R., Kunstverwendung und Kunstlegitimation im archaischen und frühklassischen Sparta, Mainz 2001 Frazer, J. G., Pausanias’ s Description of Greece, vol. 3, London 1898 Gauer, W., ‘Weihgeschenke aus den Persenkriegen’, Istambuler Mitteilungen (Beiheft 2), Tübingen 1968 Hamilakis, Y., ‘Double Colonization. The Story of the Excavations of the Athenian Agora (1925– 1931)’, Hesperia 82, 2013, 153–177 Hansen, O., ‘Epigraphica bellica. On the Dedication of the Athenian Stoa at Delphi’, Classica &Medievalia 40, 1989, 133–134 Hellmann, M. Ch., L’architecture grecque 1. Les principes de la construction, Paris 2002 Hellmann, M. Ch., L’architecture grecque 2. Architecture religieuse et funéraire, Paris 2006 Hodkinson, S., ‘Sparta and Nazi Germany in Mid-20th-century British Liberal and Left-wing Thought’, in Powell, A., and Hodkinson, S., eds, Sparta. The Body Politic, Oxford 2010, 297–342 Immerwahr, H. R., Attic Script. A Survey, Oxford 1990 Jacquemin, A., Offrandes Monumentales à Delphes, Paris 1999 Jung, M., Marathon und Plataiai. Zwei Perserschlachten als ‘lieux de mémoire’, Göttingen 2006 Kendrick Pritchett, W., The Greek State at War. Part III, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1979 Kuhn, G., ‘Untersuchungen zur Funktion der Säulenhalle in archaischer und klassischer Zeit’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 100, 1985, 169–317 Kourinou (Κουρίνου), E., ΣΠΑΡΤΗ, Athens 2000 Kourinou Pikoula (Kουρίνου Πίκουλα), E., ‘The Bronze Portrait Statue NM 23321 from Sparta’, Annual of the British School at Athens 96, 2001, 425–429 Marchand, S. L., Down from Olympus. Archaeology and Philhellenism in Germany, 1750–1970, Princeton 1996 Marzi, G., ‘Il “Decreto” degli Spartani contro Timoteo (Boeth., “De Instit. Mus.” 1, 1), in Gentili, B., and Pretagostini, R., eds, La musica in Grecia, Rome and Bari 1988, 264–272 Meiggs, R., and Lewis, D., A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions to the End of Fifth Century BC, Oxford 1988 (2nd edn) Mercanti, D., ‘La Stoà degli Ateniesi a Delfi’, Ostraka 15.2, 2006, 331–340 Miller, M. C., Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC, Cambridge 1997 Morrison, J. S., and Williams, R. T., Greek Oared Ships, Cambridge 1968 Nafissi, M. ‘Tucidide, Erodoto e la tradizione su Pausania nel V secolo’, Rivista Storica dell’Antichità 34, 2004, 147–180 Palumbo Stracca, B. M., ‘Il decreto degli Spartani contro Timoteo (Boeth. de instit. mus. I 1)’, Annali dell’Istituto Orientale di Napoli (filol.) 19, 1997, 129–160

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Picard, Ch., ‘Vitruve, le portique des Perses à Sparte, et les origines de l’ordre persan’, Comptes rendues de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 1935, 215–235 Robert, F., ‘Thymele. Recherches sur la signification et la destination des monuments circulaires dans l’architecture religieuse de la Grèce’, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 147, 1939 Roche, H., Sparta’s German Children, Oxford 2013 Sakka, N., ‘The Excavation of the Ancient Agora of Athens: the Politics of Commissioning and Managing the Project’, in Damaskos, D., and Plantzos, D., eds, A Singular Antiquity. Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-century Greece, Athens 2008 (Mouseio Benaki, Suppl. 3) Schneider, R. M., Bunte Barbaren, Heidelberg 1986 Spawforth, A. J. S., Greece and the Augustan Cultural Revolution, Cambridge 2012 Steinhauer, G., Archaiologikon Deltion 27, Chronika 1972 (1976) Stibbe, C., ‘Beobachtungen zur Topographie des antiken Sparta’, Bulletin antieke Beschaving 64, 1989, 61–99 Thompson, H. A., The Tholos of Athens and Its Predecessors, Baltimora 1940 (Hesperia, Suppl. 4) Tosti, V., Nascita e sviluppo di Sparta. Archeologia di una città, diss., Perugia 2013 Umholtz, G., ‘Architraval Arrogance? Dedicatory Inscriptions in Greek Architecture of the Classical Period’, Hesperia 71, 2002, 261–293 Vasilogambrou, A., ‘Preliminary Study of the First Mycenaean Fresco Fragments from Laconia’, in Mycenaean Iconography in Contexst: New Discoveries and Old Finds Reconsidered. International Colloquium held in Athens on February 11–13 2011, Athens 2011 Wachsmuth, C., Der Stadt Athen im Alterthum, II, Leipzig 1890 Waywell, G. B., and Wilkes, J. J., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman Stoa, 1988–91. Preliminary Report. Part I’, Annual of the British School at Athens 88, 1993, 219–220 Waywell, G. B., and Wilkes, J. J., ‘Excavations at Sparta: the Roman Stoa, 1988–9. Part II’, Annual of the British School at Athens 89, 1994, 377–443 Waldstein, C., ‘The Circular Building of Sparta’, American Journal of Archaeology 9, 1894, 545– 546 Walsh, J., ‘The date of the Athenian Stoa at Delphi’, American Journal of Archaeology 90, 1986, 319–336 Woodward, A. M., ‘Laconia. Excavations at Sparta, 1924–25. The Acropolis. The Finds’, Annual of the British School at Athens 1924–1925, 26, 253–276

Salvatore Monda

Beyond the Boundary of the Poetic Language: Enigmas and Riddles in Greek and Roman Culture ‘What is my name?’ is the question that Rumpelstiltskin poses, in the Brothers Grimm’s fairytale of that name, to the young queen, who has only three days’ time to find the answer or hand over her firstborn to the cruel antagonist. The ancient world never devised a riddle like this, which is impossible to solve and – in Saussurian terms – wholly arbitrary and without explanation: it does not permit any verbal or iconic link between the object of the riddling and the formulation of the question.1 In this case the solution can derive only from elements external to the formulation of the riddle: the intervention by someone who knows the answer, or resort to a trick to prise it out of whoever has posed the question. For the Greeks the theme of human identity is a rather serious matter, which over time becomes the object of complex philosophical reflections. In certain contexts it is linked to the theme of recognizing a person, as in Book 23 of the Odyssey Penelope plays a trick on Odysseus to put his real identity to the test. The lady orders her maid Eurycleia to prepare the marriage bed, letting it be understood that it had been moved from its place, whereupon Odysseus is finally revealed as himself when he says that no one, not even a god, could have moved that bed, which he himself had made. It is these words, more important than the physical appearance of the hero, that finally convince the queen that this man is indeed Odysseus. Penelope here plays a simple trick that does not have the typical form of a catch question which would have turned it into a true riddle. However, the classical tradition includes puzzles whose solutions concern the identity of a person and which perhaps take their origin from the secrets of the mysteries and cults of the gods. The human being, viewed in the various phases of life – infancy, adulthood, and old age – is central to a puzzle that we may consider paradigmatic in many aspects, namely the one which the Sphinx puts to travellers and which in the myth could be solved only by Oedipus, a success that provoked the death of the defeated monster. Pindar, in a raw and intense image, defines it as αἴνιγμα παρϑένοι᾿ ἐξ ἀγριᾶν γνάϑων.2 This riddle, inserted into a precise narra-

|| 1 The riddle of Rumpelstiltskin is noted also by Frye 1976, 138. 2 Pindar, fr. 177d Snell: ‘the puzzle (that emerges) from the cruel jaws of the virgin’.

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tive framework, puts at stake the life both of whoever poses it and also of whoever submits to the challenge: for the western world it is the prototype of the ‘neck riddle’ and enjoys a wide and varied diffusion in the literary production of all periods.3 But the riddle of the Sphinx is also a Zahlenrätsel, a riddle based on a numerical combination, like those found so often in Vedic poetry.4 It concerns a situation that evokes very ancient rites of expiation, given that the episode is linked to the spread of a plague. It is like a foundation myth of human ills, a kind of original sin:5 Ἔστι δίπουν ἐπὶ γῆς καὶ τετράπον, οὗ μία φωνή, καὶ τρίπον· ἀλλάσσει δὲ φυὴν μόνον, ὅσσ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν ἑρπετὰ γίνονται ἀνά τ᾽ αἰϑέρα καὶ κατὰ πόντον. Ἀλλ᾽ ὁπόταν πλεόνεσσιν ἐρειδόμενον ποσὶ βαίνῃ, ἔνϑα μένος γυίοισιν ἀφαυρότερον πέλει αὐτοῦ. There is a being on earth that has two and four feet and only one voice, and also three feet; and it alone changes its nature out of the number of creatures that grow on the earth and in the sky and on the sea. But when it walks resting on more feet it is then that its body has little strength.

Beginning from Homer, when poets and writers record this puzzle, they refer to the episode of the Sphinx always as to something that happened in the background prior to their own narration; they never discuss it completely, but only refer to it, as if it belonged to a vague, primordial past, to the extent that, were it not for the later testimonia, we would have only one, fairly lacunose fragment of the puzzle. This is drawn from the Oedipus of Euripides,6 the only tragic poet known to have reported the text of the riddle, which was spoken by either a messenger or the character who recited the prologue:7 the lines are dactylic hexameter, a rare metre in Greek tragedy, though not unique, which the poets use especially when the theme is oracular or riddling.8

|| 3 See Norton 1942; Abrahams 1972, 183‒196; Abrahams 1980; Dorst 1983; Pepicello and Green 1984, 87 f.; Goldberg 1993; Bauman 1996. 4 E.g. Ṛgveda 10. 117. 8; 10. 27. 15. 5 The text is given in the ὑποϑέσεις to Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Euripides’ Phoenicians (the latter also reports Oedipus’ solution); cf also schol. in Eur. Phoen. 50, p. 243 f. Schwartz; Palatine Anthology 14. 64; Athenaeus 10. 456b; Ps. Apollodorus 3. 5. 8; schol. in Lycophr. 7. 6 Euripides, Oedipus fr. 83 Austin (= fr. 2 Jouan and Van Looy; TGF 540a Kannicht). 7 See Di Gregorio 1980; Jouan and Van Looy 2000, 439; Monda 2012b, 120 f. 8 See Tartaglini 1983; Pretagostini 1995; Monda 2000.

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Let us return to the theme of identity with which we began: at the end of the day, even Oedipus’ answer, namely the human being, if related to the troubles of the hero, raises the question of a precise identity. In Sophocles’ drama his killing of his father and his incest are relived by the protagonist through a series of questions and clues which the son of Laius is not able (or willing) to answer, but the tragic solution to which is entangled with that of the riddle of the Sphinx: to the question of who is guilty of the killing and incest the correct response this time is not ‘the human being’, as in the solution of the puzzle, but ‘one human being’: Oedipus.9 In Sophocles the course of the action, which is entirely conceptual, unfolds in an almost judicial context of proofs and evidence; the course of the puzzling and oracular events in the case of the Senecan Oedipus is more decisively psychological and introspective. In the above discussion I have referred a number of times to poetry. Puzzles and riddles do not constitute an autonomous poetic genre in the Greek and Latin literary tradition,10 and their transformation into a genre is a late phenomenon, linked to the emergence of anthologies and epigram collections. However, from the early periods onwards, to speak in veiled or obscure ways is entangled with poetic language, which in its more estranging forms can take on the characteristics of a puzzle, or even find expression in a true riddle.11 Eumolpus, the old poet who is the protagonist of the Satyricon, to whom Petronius gives a short treatise on poetics and theory of the epic genre shortly before making him declaim his Bellum civile, maintains that per ambages deorumque ministeria et fabulosum sententiarum tormentum praecipitandus est liber spiritus.12 Ambages is the word that at Rome appears alongside the Graecism aenigma in the definition of obscure utterances and riddles,13 the presence of which, together with the Götterapparat and myth, is considered by Eumolpus a prerequisite in poetic composition, especially epic. Yet, when we talk of puzzles, we think first, even

|| 9 See also Bettini 2009, 202. 10 See the riddle in the interesting classification of genres proposed by Frye 1976. 11 In general see the works of Gimbutas 2004 and Cook 2006, which do not specifically concern classical literature. 12 Petronius 118. 6: ‘the inspiration, free, should abandon itself to launching into obscure phrases, divine interventions, and the tortuousness of language typical of myth’. 13 Aulus Gellius 12. 6, remembers the old word for ‘riddle’ in Latin, scirpus (lit. ‘basket-rush’, ‘knot’): quae Graeci dicunt ‘aenigmata’, hoc genus quidam ex nostris ueteribus ‘scirpos’ appellauerunt. Nevertheless, I suppose that the term, a calque on γρῖφος, in the sense of ‘riddle’ is an invention by Gellius’ source (see Monda 2012c). In a figurative sense, however, nodum is sometimes used with the sense of aenigma (Monda 2012a, 11 f.).

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before we think of poetry, of the sphere of archaic wisdom,14 of popular tradition, of parlour games,15 and even of children’s games,16 or of the language of oracles,17 or, finally, of a specific situation in myth – like that of Oedipus – transmitted by literary texts, but which appears to be an ideal expression of the Volksgeist. Puzzles are deeply rooted in the Indo-European cultural fabric, and the practice of posing riddles is attested in many cultures and from earliest times: a practice that belongs to an oral and popular sphere – only vague traces and testimonies of which have been left to us by the ancient critical tradition – but which is frequently found even within texts and genres of high literature subject to institutional control by the poleis or to the philological activity of grammarians. In the Greek and Latin literary tradition, above all in verse but also in prose, there are authors who achieve particular expressive effects by drawing on the obscure language of puzzles and oracles,18 or others who refer to such codified language in passages that are often thick with special, hidden meanings;19 further, it is not unusual to encounter genuine riddles spoken by a narrator or character in a work.20 Reading these texts demands particular attention at the interpretive level. The relation between traditional songs and authorial production, in fact, is notoriously a two-way street and open to reciprocal influence.21 Thus, very often, when a poetic work gives a concrete representation of veiled language in the form of a puzzle or riddle, this may be the repetition of cultural models that derive from a social practice, or, on the other hand, a more learned intertextual reference.

|| 14 See, e.g., Pausanias 8. 8. 3: Ἑλλήνων τοὺς νομιζομένους σοφοὺς δι᾿ αἰνιγμάτων πάλαι καὶ οὐκ ἐκ τοῦ εὐϑέος λέγειν τοὺς λόγους, ‘In ancient times those whom the Greeks regarded as wise made their arguments through puzzles and not in a straightforward way.’ 15 For this practice, from the 4th century BCE, see Atheneus 10. 448b ff. 16 See, e.g., Plutarch, Table Talks 673a‒b and the Latin grammarian Pompeius, gramm. V 311, 5 ff. Keil. The riddles may also have a use in teaching, as occurred with the Babylonian ones, although they go back to old popular traditions (see Jaeger 1894). More generally on children’s riddles see McDowell 1979. 17 See Guidorizzi in Bettini and Guidorizzi 2004, 148 f.; Naerebout and Beerden 2013. 18 One thinks of poetic genres created and diffused in the context of the symposium. 19 This is true of Charmides, the Platonic dialogue that addresses the political-philosophical theme of σωφροσύνη; the central point is represented by the entry of Critias, whose words are judged by Socrates to be enigmatic (161c‒162b). As regards Plato, cf also Republic 479b‒c. 20 As often occurs in theatrical works, above all comedy. 21 See, for example, the excellent study by Palmisciano 2003.

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The aspect of morality and wisdom present in the puzzle is shared by other genres, such as proverbs, sayings, and fables,22 which in various eras and circumstances undergo a ‘sophisticated’ transformation that leads to the birth of true literary genres.23 And genres which, further, have a double nature: firstly extra-literary and based on folk tradition, secondly literary, and so able to achieve more refined stylistic solutions. The problem for anyone engaged in analysing and interpreting the riddles and puzzles that appear in literary documents is that the line between literary and extra-literary is very fine: there is a very high risk of over-rating one of the two elements and hence downplaying the other.24 The genre of riddles permits at most a distinction between written productions and oral productions: the texts that we find mentioned by ancient writers and poets are often a development out of pre-existing knowledges and practices, achieved over time and codified among a people through the inherited knowledge of the community. But even the claimed distinction between oral tradition and a written tradition produced with fully intentional artistry seems inadequate: often a written text may be a testimony to oral tradition and the popular use of puzzles. Further, anyone who addresses the topic of the riddle in Greek and Latin literature encounters a myriad of parallel cases that can be found in periods and cultures different from those of the Mediterranean area.25 From the first studies in the late 18th century onwards,26 the learned tradition has been notably open to comparative treatments, also citing so-called prehistoric and primitive cultures. Already the valuable works of Ohlert and Schultz had the undoubted merit of beginning the first true systematic investigations of puzzles in the literary tradition, including their complex relations to oral transmission.27 After the heyday || 22 These are some of the so-called Einfache Formen, in the apt definition of André Jolles (Jolles 1930). 23 Blauner 1967, whose study extends also to other cultures, such as Indian and Arabic culture, maintains that a distinction between popular riddles and riddles with literary pretentions and functions develops slowly over time. 24 Faced with the whole surviving output of Greek puzzles, which is so variegated according to context and occasion and also linked to different systems of publication and transmission, I agree with Ercolani 2014 on the utility of going beyond the traditional definitions of literature and genres. 25 On the basis of what is stated by Boas 1925, 332 f., it seems that only among the Indians of North America are puzzles, riddles, and proverbs almost totally absent. 26 I note at least Müllenhoff 1855; the preface of Paris and Rolland 1877, I‒XVI; Pitré 1897 (the pages XLVI‒LI are devoted to Greek riddles); Petsch 1899. 27 Ohlert 1912; Schultz 1909‒1913; Schultz 1914. By now rather outdated are the studies of Ehlers 1867; Morawski 1872; Ehlers 1875.

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of folklore studies, which runs from Antti Aarne28 to Archer Taylor29 and unites philological research on literary texts with the field surveys, from the end of the 1960s to the first half of the ’80s approaches and schools developed, above all in the United States, which raised questions about the methods of folklore research in the field of riddles.30 The intention, more or less explicit, of these studies was to lay the groundwork for a universally accepted model of analysis and classification.31 Such research often has as its goal also the establishment of rules for formal interpretation of a communicative act of the puzzle type. The great merit of the studies of folklore from the 1970s on lies in having recognized the important role of performance, in addition to the text of the riddle. The puzzle is fundamentally a mental contest and the key to success is knowledge. It is given life through a particular form of utterance which sets in ambivalent relation a speaker and an addressee, who take on the role of competitors. In its simplest form a proposition in which the subject has been omitted is sufficient;32 then there is the kind in which one refers to a subject through a series of metaphorical expressions; and so on to the more complex forms, in which the utterance may also take the form of a question. The puzzle takes fully concrete shape in what we are accustomed to call the riddle, the question to which an addressee is challenged to find a solution: it is not a true question, since it conceals the answer in its own words. We may at most think of it as a rhetorical question, one which does not leave the interlocutor a free choice. The ancients, in both practice and theory, did not in fact make distinctions between riddles, puzzles, problems (including arithmetical ones), charades, plays on words, ambiguous utterances, and double entendres; they included in the cate-

|| 28 See the three volumes of Aarne 1918‒1920. 29 Taylor 1938; Taylor 1939; Taylor 1943; Taylor 1948; Taylor 1951; Taylor 1953. 30 See above all Georges and Dundes 1963; Köngäs Maranda 1971, 51‒61; Köngäs Maranda 1971; Abrahams 1972; Abrahams and Dundes 1972. In 1976 the American Folklore Society dedicated an entire number of its journal to riddles (The Journal of American Folklore no. 89): Riddles and Riddling, with introduction by Elli Köngäs Maranda (127‒137) and contributions by leading scholars. 31 An interesting system of classification is proposed by Burns 1976, based on the diverse occasions that may elicit the formulation of riddles. Still in common use today, however, is the system adopted by Archer Taylor (Taylor 1951), expanding that proposed by Lehmann-Nitsche 1914, based on the descriptive motifs of the question. On this classification is based, for example, the recent study by Craig Williamson on the Exeter Book of Riddles (Williamson 2011, 19 ff.). 32 On thinks of the Ṛgveda 8. 29, a list of divinities whose characteristics are cited, but not their names.

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gory even aural jokes, in which actions, objects, and ideas are linked by the similarity of the sounds.33 Aἴνιγμα, γρῖφος, and πρόβλημα are used as synonyms. In ancient Greece the use of the puzzle may belong to a ritual or political context: knowing the secrets is what gains an individual a place among the adepts of a religion, or it may guarantee membership of a community or political group. Theognis, in the famous elegy of the allegory of the ship, addresses a public of ἀγαϑοί and not the κακοί, as is explained explicitly in the finale (681 f.): ταῦτά μοι ᾐνίχϑω κεκρυμμένα τοῖσ᾿ ἀγαϑοῖσιν· γινώσκοι δ᾿ ἄν τις καὶ κακόν, ἂν σοφὸς ᾖ. I have set out through puzzles these hidden thoughts, addressed to the nobles: but also the humble, if wise, may be able to understand.

Plato, too, regards poetry as an αἰνίττειν that has as its natural addressee the σοφός (Republic, 332b). Certainly in these cases the term αἴνιγμα and the verbs related to it take on a nuance that expresses an obscure language leading to allegory rather than to the riddle proper; however, it is necessary to remark that the use of the verb αἰνίττεσϑαι in the sense of ἀλληγορίζειν is not merely accidental. In addition to the well known association between aenigma and allegoria, there is a use of αἰνίττομαι also in the sphere of scholia in which allegorical readings (above all in epic, from Homer to Virgil) are fairly common among the exegetes:34 a significant instance is the use made of αἰνίττομαι by the Derveni papyrus and in general the type of allegorical interpretation adopted in this important commentary on an Orphic poem.35 In Greece the principal place in which poetic works might contain puzzles or even be presented in the form of riddles is the major political and aristocratic institution of the archaic period, the symposium.36 The passage of Theognis cited above is an example of this. As happened for other types of skolia, riddles, too, turned on themes dear to the culture that had given rise to them. The puzzle

|| 33 On acrostics, anagrams, palindromes, carmina figurata, and other technopaignia of this type, see Luz 2010. 34 See Newiger 1957, 132 f.; Ford 1999; most recently, Struck 2004, esp. 21 ff. (on 39 ff. Struck cites Aristophanes, Peace 43 ff. as example of allegorical interpretation: the two slaves of Trygaeus explain to the public the words and actions with which the comedy had begun up to that point). 35 The papyrus from Derveni (Macedonia) can be dated to the mid-4th century BCE. For the text, Betegh 2004 and Parássoglou, Kouremenos and Tsantsanoglou 2006. See Laks 1997; Most 1997; Struck 2004, 29 ff. 36 See Beta 2012; Bowie 2013.

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interacts with the cultural behaviours of the society around it. The riddles posed in symposia must have had meta-symposiastic solutions, linked to the situation, to the objects, to the symposiasts themselves, to their ἑταιρεία. For the riddles during a symposium there was also a prize for whoever solved them and a punishment for whoever failed. All this leads us to a context of competition. In this sense the symposium, at least in its archaic phases, seems to have been inspired by ancient agonistic situations, in which the puzzle is a contest of the intellect. The archetype of the riddling contest in the western world seems to be, once again, that of Oedipus and the Sphinx. The riddle is often formulated in the context of a duel, an ἀγών in which one of the two contenders may also be risking life itself. Homer, from being an elusive epic poet, even becomes the protagonist of an ancient narrative tradition and ends in the snare of a puzzle: there is a well known episode in which fishermen or boys (depending on the version) put to him the following riddle: ‘What we have caught we leave, what we have not caught we carry off’ (the solution is ‘lice’). Homer fails to solve it and this is fatal to him, since he dies of grief.37 A similar fate is met by the seer Calchas, defeated by Mopsus in a duel of wisdom narrated by Hesiod, fr. 278 MerkelbachWest. Mythical poets and writers, persons made real in the imagination of the Greeks, become the protagonists of narratives or novelistic episodes. And no respectable fable could lack a riddle. The other author involved in a similar process is Aesop, who in the so-called Aesop Romance (or Life of Aesop) seems to make a profession of solving puzzles, rather than being an author of fables: the numerous puzzles resolved by the protagonist are the most significant part of the structure of the tale.38 Sappho, too, who was a character in a comedy by Antiphanes, set a puzzle to some boys: they were unable to solve it and so it was the poet herself who revealed the solution to them.39 The use of riddles within a story with the structure of a folk tale creates a true synthesis between narrative and riddling session. The ancient puzzles that survive are transmitted by writers and poets, whose texts often present only the simulation of a folk-tale situation. There are riddles introduced by conventional formulae and riddles expressed in a way that seems not to be as clearly struc-

|| 37 See Costa 2012, 54 and 61 f. The episode is attested by several sources, from Aristotle, Poetics fr. 8 Ross, to Heraclitus fr. 56 Diels-Kranz, to Palatine Anthology 9. 448 and 14. 65. The riddle is also inscribed on a wall in Pompeii (see Bevilacqua and Ricci 2012, 128 and Tab. 1). 38 See Konstantakos 2006 and 2010. 39 Antiphanes, Sappho fr. 194 Kassel-Austin. The solution involves the letters of the alphabet, a theme that would go on to have some success also in the medieval collections of puzzles (cf e.g. Aenigmata Eusebii 7 Glorie).

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tured according to a standardized set of formulae; in general the literary texts present this second type. In the folk tales there recurs with some frequency the pattern of a person who – like Oedipus’ Sphinx – poses puzzles to others, who try in vain to solve them, until one hero is alone able to pass the test. This type of fable is cast both within the framework of folk traditions and in the sphere of literary treatments. The hero who solves the riddles, or who poses insoluble ones, will generally win the hand of a princess,40 as happens, for example, in the Historia Apollonii regis Tyri, in which the topic of the riddling is the princess herself, following a type of puzzle linked to the identity of the person in a story, a type that is fairly common in the genre of fable:41 Scelere vehor, maternam carnem vescor, quaero fratrem meum, meae matris virum, uxoris meae filium: non invenio. I am transported by a crime, I feed on the flesh of my mother, I seek my brother, the husband of my mother, son of my wife: I do not find him.

But, aside from in the novel, which is often from a late period, where can we look for evidence of a riddling session in the ancient world? Certainly not in the collections of puzzles. We may find situations of agonistic type in dramatic literature, especially comedy. Here too we cannot rely on our texts much, since the representation of two or more characters who speak riddles, and also explicitly provide the solution to them, has little to do with real situations and often seems even to move into a metatheatrical dimension, when the insistent joke is transformed into a breach in the dramatic conventions established by tradition.42 However, there are interesting examples for anyone looking for references to situations and contexts of popular character. In the opening scene of Aristophanes’ Wasps the two slaves Xanthias and Sosias, who have fallen asleep before Philocleon’s door during their guard duty, wake up and each recounts his dream. The two stories are full of jokes and allegories on political topics. The story told by Xanthias includes the first occurrence of the word γρῖφος in the Greek language, but the passage stands out also because it is the first attestation of the custom of posing riddles during symposia43 (ll. 15‒23):

|| 40 Borghini 1990 is important here; see also Goldberg 1993. 41 Hist. Ap. 4. On the riddle see Chiarini 1983; Garbugino 2004, 126‒136 (important also for the other puzzles contained in the story and the relation to the collection of Symphosius); Monda 2012b, 122‒124. 42 See Monda 2012b, above all for Middle Comedy. 43 See the commentary of MacDowell 1971, 130 f., and Cook 2006, 24.

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ΞΑ. ἐδόκουν αἰετὸν καταπτάμενον εἰς τὴν ἀγορὰν μέγαν πάνυ ἀναρπάσαντα τοῖς ὄνυξιν ἀσπίδα φέρειν ἐπίχαλκον ἀνεκὰς εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν, κἄπειτα ταύτην ἀποβαλεῖν Κλεώνυμον. ΣΩ. οὐδὲν ἄρα γρίφου διαφέρει Κλεώνυμος. ΞΑ. πῶς δή; ΣΩ. προερεῖ44 τις τοῖσι συμπόταις, λέγων ὅτι ‘ταὐτὸν ἐν γῇ τ᾿ ἀπέβαλεν κἀν οὐρανῷ κἀν τῇ ϑαλάττῃ ϑηρίον τὴν ἀσπίδα’ XA. It seemed to me that a giant eagle swooped all over the Agora and carried off in its talons a shield45 covered in bronze, it lifted it up into the sky; and then Cleonymus threw it away. SO. So Cleonymus is no different from a riddle. XA. In what sense? SO. In symposia someone would say that he is ‘the same animal that threw away his shield on the ground, in the sky, and in the sea’.

Cleonymus is a character who is often the butt of Aristophanes’ humour: in this case he is guilty of abandoning his shield in battle (naturally this brings to mind the other, much older examples of Archilochus and Alcaeus). The γρῖφος to which Sosias is alluding at lines 22 f. is quoted fully in question form by Athenaeus (453b): τί ταὐτὸν ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς καὶ ἐν ϑαλάττῃ; ‘what is found in the sky, on land, and in the sea?’46 It is a riddle of a type that Athenaeus regards as very ancient (the kind that presents a rational puzzle): the author is of course unknown, and the line is collected among the carmina popularia.47 Aristophanes’ citation of it reveals that it is not an exemplum fictum created in the rhetorical and grammatical tradition. Despite the political references (to Cleon), Aristophanes’ scene seems to be the realistic representation of a game that we can firmly link to an archaic culture and one that is securely popular, in the sense

|| 44 It is useful to mention the observation of Green 1894, 13, on schol. in Aristoph. Vesp. 21 p. 12 Koster, which here seems to suggest προβαλεῖ in place of the transmitted προερεῖ: προβάλλω, in fact, is a ‘technical’ term for riddles. 45 The ambiguity of ἀσπίς is untranslatable: the spectator expects that the eagle will carry off an ‘asp’. 46 The answer is given by Athenaeus himself: ‘bear, snake, eagle, and dog’ are names of animals that exist on land, but also of marine animals; further, they are in the sky because they are also the names of constellations. 47 Fr. 10 Diehl: the poem is not included in the PMG of Page, nor in Volume V of Campbell’s Greek Lyric (Loeb).

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that it is presented as a pastime typical of lower social classes: on display is not only the recourse to riddles, but also the device of telling dreams (with their interpretations), which we also find in the dialogue between the poor fishermen of Idyll 21 of Theocritus. Certainly the passage of Aristophanes is mocking the institution of the symposium, but perhaps it is also an example of how in classical (and democratic) Athens the symposium had come into fashion even in nonaristocratic settings. Yet this passage is interesting also for a different reason: unlike nearly all dramatic riddles, which almost always present the solution (in most cases provided by the character who had posed the riddle), in this case the γρῖφος of Sosias – which, at the same time, is also an εἰκών – remains unsolved, and the audience is expected to recognize the names of the four animals to which Cleonymus is compared. This is perhaps a more realistic representation, less bound to dramatic practice. There is no literary genre, above all in poetry, which could be said to be entirely without puzzles and riddles within its texts: epic, tragedy, comedy, lyric – to cite only a few of them – are genres rich in puzzling allusions or jokes based on interpretive problems posed to the addressee. We may add those poetic compositions that possess in their entirety a framework and structure that is inspired by puzzles. A perfect example of Rätselpoesie is the Alexandra of Lycophron, a short poem – which the Suda lexicon (III, p. 827 Adler) defines as τὸ σκοτεινὸν ποίημα ‘the obscure poem’ – constructed as a web of puzzles intended to test the ability and erudition of the reader. This is not an isolated case within the Alexandrian poetics of experimentation: one thinks of the Syrinx, the figure poem of Theocritus, or of the lost work of Callimachus called Athena, of which we know nothing except what is recorded in a Byzantine epigram that preserves a list of Callimachus’ works (Test. 23 Pfeiffer),48 and which at line 10 defines the Athena as a song in the form of ‘the most dense puzzle and of arguments hard to unveil’ (γρίφῳ βαϑίστῳ καὶ δυσευρέτοις λόγοις). In Latin language and culture there are various works by Ausonius in the category of ‘literary games’, such as, for example, the Griphus ternarii numeri. In the ancient world a poetic genre with the puzzle as principal characteristic formed in a slow and gradual process, starting from attempts to explain linguistic phenomena, which in Greece seem to have begun within the Peripatetic school. The puzzle is hence set out according to the very disparate divisions and classifications (including terminological ones) of the ancient grammarians and rhetors. Athenaeus in Book 10 of his Deipnosophists transmits to us what re-

|| 48 On this see above all Reitzenstein 1891.

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mains of the distinction into seven types of riddle deployed by the Peripatetic Clearchus of Soli, fr. 86 Wehrli (Atheneus 10. 448c‒e), who does not seem to go beyond a purely formal classification (riddles about letters, syllables, names... but then the citation by Athenaeus suddenly breaks off). And, still according to Athenaeus, in a passage that is unfortunately badly transmitted (10. 448b), Cleobuline daughter of Cleobulus of Lindus, who is known to have composed hexameter riddles, gave a definition of the puzzle. Book 10 of Athenaeus is almost entirely dedicated to riddles, for which it is a most important source, even though the majority of the examples are from dramatic texts: this selection of material is due to factors related to the author’s preferences, and it creates a risk of erroneous conclusions about the quantity and distribution of puzzles in the different poetic genres. Athenaeus’ principal – but not sole – source is the Περὶ γρίφων of Clearchus. In Greek works reflection on the nature of puzzles is generally a matter for rhetorical treatises. Among the Latins, on the other hand, grammarians also take an interest in them.49 In India of the 6th to 7th century CE, Daṇḍin treats riddles in a work on poetics with the title Kāvyādarśa (3. 97‒124), in which he enumerates and defines a sixteen subcategories of prahelikā.50 But, returning to the theories of the Greeks and Latins, we may recall that the sources are divided between those – the greater part – who see the puzzle as part of allegory,51 and the other – Aristotle alone – who assimilates it to metaphor.52 But the puzzle

|| 49 Gellius 12. 6 cites a riddle (see below) from the second book of the De sermone Latino ad Marcellum of Varro. Thierfelder 1976 maintains that this lost work belonged to the genre of rhetoric rather than conforming to the typology of a linguistic treatise. Undoubtedly Varro would already have in mind the Peripatetic and Alexandrian theoretical framework concerning the position of the aenigma in the system of figures and tropes. However, that is not to say that this part must necessarily have been inserted in a rhetorical treatise, given that the Latin tradition (not the Greek one) is the only one to grant space to figures and tropes in the artes grammaticae and it is not impossible that Varro influenced this feature of Roman technical grammatical writing (there is a brief discussion of the presence of the aenigma in the artes grammaticae in Monda 1999, 293 f.). 50 On Indian riddles see at least Bhagvat 1965 and Sternbach 1975. 51 Cf Demetrius, On Style 102; Ps. Trypho, On Tropes III 193. 13 ff. Spengel; Philodemus, On Rhetoric I p. 181 Sudhaus; Anonymus, On Poetic Tropes III 209. 12 ff. Spengel; Cocondrius III 235. 17 ff. and 236. 20 ff. Spengel; Choeroboscus III 253. 7 ff. Spengel; Cicero, On the Orator 3. 166 f.; Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory 8. 6. 52; Marius Plotius Sacerdos, On Grammar VI 462. 19 ff. Keil; Charisius, On Grammar 364. 10 ff. Barwick; Diomedes, On Grammar I 462. 18 ff. Keil; Donatus, Ars Maior 672. 10 ff. Holtz; Pompeius, On Grammar V 311. 6 ff. Keil. 52 Cf Aristotle, Rhetoric 1405b 1 ff.; 1412a 27 ff.; Poetics 1458a 28. For the link between puzzle and metaphor see Guidorizzi in Guidorizzi and Beta 2000, 27‒32; Calboli 2012.

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may also take its origin from a simile, or, as Aristotle points out, may be the result of an assimilation between concepts and things that common sense would find it hard to associate, the so-called adynata.53 For aenigmata the path to the status of literary genre was gradual and culminated in a series of genuinely editorial operations: systematization and collection in anthologies. The ‘minor’ poetic genres of late antiquity are easy to anthologize, though they still retain their original condition of balancing autonomy and dependence on other genres. The evolution of epigrammatic collections was thus an important phase in the process by which an autonomous genre of puzzles was formed. In Greek culture we see a development in the practice of puzzles, which begins from its presence in symposiastic poetry, with a further contribution from the subsequent formalization in ancient rhetorical and grammatical treatises, and in the Hellenistic period arrives at the production of collections of riddles in verse:54 the ultimate solution is represented by an entire book (Book 14) devoted to them in the Palatine Anthology, entitled Ἀριϑμητικὰ καὶ γρῖφοι. The arrangement, according to Alan Cameron, is as follows:55 riddles (1‒64), oracles (65‒100), a mixed section of riddles and oracles (101‒115), arithmetical problems (116‒146). In the Palatine Anthology many riddles – for the most part in hexameters or distichs – quote or rework texts present in older works (the series of oracles, for example, takes 25 of them from Herodotus). A large part of the material derives even from previous collections. The Ἀριϑμητικά 116‒146 certainly derive from the collection of Metrodorus of Byzantium, a grammarian of the 5th–6th century CE, who is believed not only to have collected them, but in some cases also to have composed them. This type of anthology naturally brings together and contrasts new works with works by older poets. What seems certain is that the riddles of Book 14 were not part of the collection of Constantine Cephalas, whereas many do appear in a little collection transmitted by cod. Mediceus Laurentianus 32, 16, which was compiled by Maximus Planudes between 1280 and 1283; that is around twenty years before the other, better known collection that goes by the name of Anthologia Planudea, which offers only 5 of the 150 riddles in Palatine Anthology 14. A literary genre must possess, as well as a more or less specific theme, united with a particular stylistic delivery, also a precise metrical identity. According to Diogenes Laertius, Cleobuline composed riddles in hexameters (this is true of two of her riddles that survive; the others are in fact in distichs). Among the

|| 53 See Bettini 2009, 195‒201; Bevilacqua and Ricci 2012 with further bibliography. 54 On the first phases of this development see Kwapisz 2013. 55 Cameron 1993, 208 f.

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epigrams of Book 14 of the Palatine Anthology there are more hexameters than distichs: out of 150 epigrams, 71 are in hexameters, 1 is a hexameter plus a distich, 66 are distichs, 9 trimeters, 1 lyric metre, and 2 in prose. As has just been mentioned above, even some riddles and puzzle-passages in tragedy are in dactylic hexameters.56 The Latin poet Symphosius, too, adopted the hexameter form for his riddles. At this point in the discussion, in which Greek culture has taken the principal role that it certainly deserves, we may finally pass to the Romans. As regards puzzles, Latin culture presents characteristics similar to those described up to now for the Greek world. However, we find that the quantity of surviving material is undoubtedly smaller. On this topic, the question arises of whether, at a certain point, the influence of Greek culture may have become fundamental in the development of a literary tradition that draws on the obscure language of puzzles. There is no lack of ancient examples, such as those found in comedy,57 where, however, dependence on Greek models seems to me beyond doubt. To find something ‘autochthonous’ we must turn elsewhere. At Attic Nights 12. 6, a chapter that I have already cited a number of times,58 Gellius cites a riddle in iambic senarii, which he judges to be both old and funny (hercle anticum, perquam lepidum): semel minusne an bis minus sit nescio, an utrumque eorum; ut quondam audiui dicier, Ioui ipsi regi noluit concedere. I do not know whether minus is one time only, or two, or both; as I once heard tell, He did not want to give way even to King Jupiter.

Gellius does not provide the solution and refers the reader to his source, the second book of the De sermone latino ad Marcellum of Varro. The solution of the riddle is the god Terminus (ter, ‘thrice’, minus), who, as Ovid recounts, Fasti 2. 639‒684, had his residence in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol.59 It seems to be indeed rather ancient, but I would not say that it should be considered part || 56 See above n. 8. 57 See Monda 2012b, 114 f., 117‒119. 58 See above notes 13 and 49. 59 The solution was discovered by Angelo Poliziano in chapter 36 of the Miscellaneorum centuria prima (1489). On the god Terminus and the delimitation of boundaries, see De Sanctis 2014, 161‒164 with earlier bibliography.

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either of oral and popular tradition, or epigraphic. At first sight one would say that it is taken from a palliata, but, if that were so, Gellius would not have omitted to name the author. This problem is destined to remain unsolved, but the origin of the text seems to be securely literary. The Romans had no riddle like that of Oedipus that represents a kind of foundation of the puzzle genre, but in the historiographical and literary tradition about the history of the archaic period, which for the Romans takes on the functions fulfilled by myth in the Greek world, we find an episode with the contours of a folk tale which is based on solving an oracle and which, as in the story of Oedipus, contributes to regime change in a city. I refer to the well known story, narrated also by Livy (1. 56), of how Brutus pretends to be a simpleton but then – as in a fable of the Brothers Grimm where the hero has the characteristics of a fool, or pretends so, yet exceeds in wisdom all the members of his family and community – he is the only one of three brothers able to solve the enigmatic words of the Delphic oracle, which Tarquin the Proud had decided to consult; thus Brutus helps to drive out the last king of Rome and institute the Republic.60 The Latin poets, like the Hellenistic ones, sometimes disguise learned references behind a caricature of popular and folk forms, and this happens also with riddles. It occurs in Virgil, who in the third Eclogue includes two riddles in an agonistic context of amoebaic song, at line 104f (posed by Damoetas): Dic quibus in terris, et eris mihi magnus Apollo, tris pateat caeli spatium non amplius ulnas Tell me in which places – and you will be for me equal to great Apollo – the space of heaven appears no wider than three cubits

and line 106 f. (posed by Menalcas): Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum nascantur flores, et Phyllida solus habeto Tell me in which places grow flowers marked with names of kings, and you alone will have Phyllis.

The two riddles represent the conclusion of the tenzone between Damoetas and Menalcas: they are not solved and the judge Palaemon suddenly ends the amoebaic song, declaring that he is not able to name a sole winner. But we can have little confidence in Virgil as evidence of folk contexts. His riddles exude a || 60 See the essay by Maurizio Bettini, Bruto lo sciocco, in Bettini 2000, 53‒105.

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literary character.61 The two γρῖφοι are a true enigma for both ancient and modern interpreters and none of the solutions devised so far seems entirely acceptable. Servius, after attempting some interpretations, concludes: tamen sciendum aenigmata haec, sicut fere omnia, carere aperta solutione.62 As I have written elsewhere,63 my impression is that the solution should be sought in the literary sphere, and that Virgil, in making use of the two γρῖφοι, may have been inspired by the lost works of Euphorion of Chalcis. On the topic of puzzles, the Romans too make fairly frequent references, of varying degrees of explicitness, to their use in symposia, but these generally concern socio-cultural contexts profoundly different from those of archaic Greece. The reports of Gellius about philosophical dilemmas (1. 2. 4, and 1. 7. 13) and erudite riddles (18. 2) are an excellent source on the changes in symposiastic habits that had occurred from the Hellenistic period onwards, compared to those of archaic and classical Greece.64 In Chapter 2 of Book 18 Gellius tells of a celebration of the Saturnalia that took place at Athens, during which the Romans who were in Greece would relax iucundis honestisque sermonum inlectationibus (‘with the pleasures of delightful and noble conversations’). The organizer of the dinner posed in turn as many quaestiones as there were banqueters, setting up a laurel wreath and a prize for whoever was able to solve the query. If a quaestio remained unsolved, since no one was able to solve it, the wreath was offered to the god of the festival. Gellius records the seven queries posed during one of these dinners, the first of which concerns a passage of Ennius65 in Sotadean verse: Itaque nuper quaesita esse memini numero septem, quorum prima fuit enarratio horum versuum, qui sunt in saturis Quinti Ennii uno multifariam verbo concinniter inplicati. Quorum exemplum hoc est:

|| 61 Another riddle is that concerning the astronomer whose name is sought by Menalcas, but the reader is required to recall it (ll. 40‒42): see La Penna 1985. 62 In reality the second of the two seems to have a fairly certain solution (see the commentary of Cucchiarelli 2012, 235 f.): the blotches on the hyacinth are derived from the blood of Ajax (AI are the first letters of his name), or from the exclamation of grief (Ai ai) which the blood of the young Hyacinth, killed by Apollo, has left on the flower. This idea seems to be confirmed by two passages in Ovid, Metamorphoses 10. 207 f. and above all 13. 394‒398. On the various proposals for solving the two riddles see Calboli 2012, 41‒43. 63 See Monda 2012b, 105. See also Cucchiarelli 2012, 235. 64 For the Greek world I refer to Sonnino 2003. 65 Gellius 18. 2. 7. For the text and solution of Ennius, Satires, ll. 59‒62 Vahlen² (= fr. XII Russo) I follow the proposal of Mariotti 2000, who intervenes only in the punctuation and understands is as the subject of dicit in line 60.

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nam qui lepide postulat alterum frustrari, quem frustratur frustra, eum dicit frustra esse. nam qui sese frustrari quem frustra sentit, qui frustratur is frustra est, si non ille est frustra. I remember that not long ago seven queries were posed, the first of which was the explanation of these verses, which are in Quintus Ennius’ Satires, wrapped artfully with a single word used several times. The example is as follows: For, if someone jokingly seeks to fool another, he who fools him in vain says that he has been fooled. For, if one notices that someone is fooling him in vain, he who wants to fool is fooled if the other is not fooled.

Other queries follow, including one that recalls the riddle that was posed to Homer66 and another, termed a sophisma, which seems to be a variant of the liar’s paradox known from Epimenides onwards.67 But the fragment of Ennius, drawn from the Saturae, is a true brainteaser, based on an insistent repetition and a play on words, which even today wears out the reader who attempts an enarratio.68 It would be interesting to know the context in which Ennius introduced this difficult puzzle: the nam at the start of the composition, repeated at line 61, seems intended to indicate that by this jeu de mots, with its gnomic content, the poet is concluding a fable:69 if that is the case, it would be a sort of inversion of the Aesopic epimythion, which loses all its necessary clarity and becomes obscure, almost indecipherable. The symposiastic setting is also the context of the first and most important collection of puzzle poems in Latin, the work of a late poet of elusive date and location; even his exact name is unknown to us, either Symphosius or, more likely, Symposius. His hundred poems are transmitted in the codex Salmasianus70 of the so-called Anthologia Latina.71 In collections of puzzles, there is thus

|| 66 § 9 quod non perdidisti, habes; cornua non perdidisti: habes igitur cornua. 67 § 10 cum mentior et mentiri me dico, mentior an verum dico? (on the ψευδόμενος λόγος see Costa 2012, 60 f.). 68 The text is much harder than the puzzle, in some respects similar, posed by Meletus in Plato, Apology 27a. Notably, Ennius’ query also recalls a puzzle composed by the playwright Philemon in a comedy entitled The Claimant (Epidikazomenos, fr. 23 Kassel-Austin). 69 Already in another satire Ennius had narrated in trochaic septenarii the fable of the lark’s nest (ll. 21‒58 Vahlen² = frr. XIa‒XIb Russo). We know also that Lucilius, ll. 980‒989 Marx (= 1074‒1083 Krenkel), tells in hexameters the fable of the old lion and the fox; in Horace, Satires 2. 6. 79‒117, we find the first attestation of the famous fable of the town mouse and the country mouse. 70 Parisinus Latinus 10318.

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a rather clear difference between the Greek and Roman worlds: from the latter we have a surviving collection that brings together riddles of various nature and provenience, but which has been composed, formalized in epigrams of three hexameters each, by a specific author. From the Greek world, in contrast, we have a series of mostly anonymous epigrams, a result of the fact that compilers of collections tend to associate their own compositions with those of others. There has often been research into possible antecedents of the epigrams of Symphosius. And in this connection reference is sometimes made – without any proof – to the lost Saturnalia of Lucan. Yet another, perhaps less uncertain, testimony is seldom flagged up, that of Apuleius in Chapter 9 of the Florida, in which he speaks out against his detractors.72 In the final praises for the proconsul Severianus and his son Honorius at §§ 27‒29, Apuleius refers to his own output and, among the various works, he mentions satiras ac griphos.73 The passage has been identified as containing an imitation of the Hippias Minor of Plato (368b‒f),74 but, to judge from the variants, it seems that the adaptation does not undermine the reliability of the information that Apuleius provides about his own literary output. However, as regards the mention of γρῖφοι, I do not believe that it concerns a true collection of puzzles: satires and riddles perhaps both formed part of the Ludicra, of which Nonius, p. 96 L., preserves, as well as the title, a trochaic septenarius (fr. 1 Beaujeu). At any rate, the passage of Apuleius is evidence of a development of the puzzle in the direction of generic autonomy within the wider field of epigrammatic production. Much Greek puzzle poetry arose from the symposium and continued to make reference to the symposiastic context also when transferred to other genres, such as dramatic ones, but in the later literary production, and above all in Latin, writing and the objects linked to it are among the themes exploited the most: this probably represents a link to the grammatical, schoolroom context in which the genre of puzzles develops.75 We may pick an example which originates from the figurative sense that associates ploughing with writing. In Latin

|| 71 On medieval riddle collections see Polara 2003 and Maggioni 2012. 72 See Monda 2012a, 15. 73 Prorsum enim non eo infiti[ti]as nec radio nec subula nec lima nec torno nec id genus ferramenti uti nosse, sed pro his praeoptare me fateor uno chartario calamo me reficere poemata omnigenus apta virgae, lyrae, socco, coturno, item satiras ac griphos [the reading of the archetype F, ms. Mediceus Laurentianus 68. 2, is satira sacreppus], item historias varias rerum nec non rationes laudatas disertis nec non dialogos laudatos philosophis atque haec alia [et] eiusdem modi tam graece quam latine, gemino voto, pari studio, simili stilo. 74 Marangoni 2000, 22 f. 75 See Polara 1993; Maggioni 2012, 199; Beta 2014.

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the metaphorical process also involves the compound verb exarare, which is a synonym of scribere.76 The metaphor is present in two fragments of comoedia togata, namely fr. 157 Daviault (160 Ribbeck³, from Charisius, gramm. p. 69 Barwick) of Titinius: uelim ego osse arare campum cereum I would like to plough with a bone the field of wax,

and fr. 14 f. Daviault (12 f. Ribbeck³, from Isidorus, The Etymologies 6. 9. 2) of Atta, from a comedy called Satura: uertamus uomerem in cera mucroneque aremus osseo let us turn the ploughshare in the wax and plough with a tip of bone.

At the metaphorical level, and without the utterance forming a true puzzle, the comparison between ploughing and writing seems to be present also in other cultures fairly distant in space and time from the Greco-Latin world. On this topic I would like to cite an episode77 narrated by Matthew Bradley in an article that appeared in 2014 in the journal New Scientist.78 He tells of a researcher from the University of Michigan, Abbie Hantgan, who had gone to the remote village of Bounou, in Mali, to study the Bangime language. Hantgan had to compile a list of the most common words in Bangime, and this earned her the hostility and derision of the locals. She recounted: ‘Every day, villagers on the way to their day’s work in the fields would see me seated inside with my notebook and pen, asking a consultant to repeat the difference between “moon” and “water” over and over again ... With their hoes over their shoulders, they would make fun of me for spending another day sitting in the shade instead of going out to tend crops.’ The hostility lasted until the village chief said that, ‘She is tending her crops! The pen is her hoe, and the notebook is her field.’

|| 76 See also Isidorus, The Etymologies 6. 14. 7: ‘uersus’ autem uulgo uocati quia sic scribebant antiqui sicut aratur terra. A sinistra enim ad dexteram primum deducebant stilum, deinde conuertebantur ab inferiore, et rursus ad dexteram uersus; quos et hodieque rustici uersus uocant. 77 I owe this reference to Dr. Chiara Monti (University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’), whom I thank. 78 Bradley 2014.

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Let us return to Latin culture. It is in the Middle Ages that the ancient metaphor becomes a true tradition of this theme, in the form of a riddle.79 Not by chance, in collections created in monastic settings and in scriptoria there are many compositions that turn on the theme of writing and have as their solution the action of writing or its objects (tablets, pen, stylus). And we may also recall, on this topic, the so-called Veronese Riddle (8th–9th century): Se pareba boues, alba pratalia araba et albo uersorio teneba, et negro semen seminaba.80 Perhaps the first example of a use of this metaphor in a puzzle is in two iambic senarii of Apuleius. In Book 9 of the Golden Ass Lucius has some new patrons, the lascivious priests of the dea Syra. They go round the villages and always offer the same sors to the crowd that comes to consult them (§ 2): Ideo coniuncti terram proscindunt boues ut in futurum laeta germinent sata. The reason the yoked oxen plough the land, is because one day what is sowed will happily sprout.

As Apuleius states, this response is adapted to diverse circumstances and permits the priests to earn a sack of money.81 Among the various possible interpretations that Apuleius records,82 that relating to writing is missing, as it was surely not appropriate for use in prophecies. But it is not impossible that in reality the interpretation that compared writing and ploughing was the original solution of this text, the form of which recalls a true riddle. The Latin world, as compared to the Greek one, seems to be rather niggardly with riddles, with the exception, of course, of the late and medieval collections. Anyone who takes an interest in puzzles in Roman culture ends up asking the

|| 79 Cf Aenigmata Aldhelmi 32 and 59 Glorie; Aenigmata Tatuini 6 Glorie; Aenigmata Eusebii 31 Glorie; Aenigmata Laureshamensia 9, p. 355 Glorie. 80 Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare, ms. 89: ‘He drove in front of him the oxen, ploughed a white field, held a white plough, and sowed a black seed.’ 81 Golden Ass 9. 8. 3‒5: Tum si qui matrimonium forte coaptantes interrogarent, rem ipsam responderi aiebant: iungendos conubio et satis liberum procreandis; si possessiones praestinaturus quaereret, merito boues [ut] et iugum et arua sementis florentia pronuntiari; si qui de profectione sollicitus diuinum caperet auspicium, iunctos iam paratosque quadripedum cunctorum mansuetissimos et lucrum promitti de glebae germine; si proelium capessiturus uel latronum factionem persecuturus utiles necne processus sciscitaretur, addictam uictoriam forti praesagio contendebant, quippe ceruices hostium iugo subactum iri et praedam de rapinis uberrimam fructuosamque captum iri. 82 And further examples could be added, also with explicit reference to the sexual sphere.

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same question as the mythologists and historians of religion ask about myth:83 did the Romans have a mythology? It becomes natural to ask whether the riddle, too, existed from earliest times and by chance the fates have been relatively averse to preserving its memory, or, on the other hand, if it was never part of Roman culture at all, and its attestations are no more than yet another late and sophisticated appropriation of a Greek genre. But it is likely that the question in these terms is badly posed: the obscure speech typical of puzzles would have been part of the oracular tradition of the Romans, just as of the Greeks; it is the symposiastic context that represents the first moment in which the obscure language becomes poetry, which is absent from the Latin convivial tradition. In Roman culture the symposiastic framework in which riddles were sometimes inserted had become merely fictitious.

Reference List Aarne, A., Vergleichende Rätselforschungen, Helsinki 1918‒1920 (FF Communications, 26‒28) Abrahams, R. D., ‘The Literary Study of the Riddle’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 14, 1972, 177‒197 Abrahams, R. D., Between the Living and the Dead, Helsinki 1980 (FF Communications, 225) Abrahams, R. D., and Dundes, A., ‘Riddles’, in Dorson, R., ed., Folklore and Folklife, Chicago 1972, 129‒143 Bauman, R., ‘“I’ll Give You Three Guesses:” The Dynamics of Genre in the Riddle-Tale’, in Hasan-Rokem and Shulman 1996, 62‒77 Ben-Amos, D., ‘Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context’, Journal of American Folklore 84, 1971, 3‒15 Beta, S., ‘Gli enigmi simposiali: dagli indovinelli scherzosi ai problemi filosofici’, in Monda 2012a, 69‒80 Beta, S., ‘Enigmi’, in Bettini and Short 2014, 288‒302 Betegh, G., The Derveni Papyrus: Cosmology, Theology and Interpretation, Cambridge 2004 Bettini, M., Le orecchie di Hermes. Studi di antropologia e letterature classiche, Turin 2000 Bettini, M., ‘L’arcobaleno, l’incesto e l’enigma. A proposito dell’Oedipus di Seneca’, in Affari di famiglia. La parentela nella letteratura e nella cultura antica, Bologna 2009 Bettini, M., and Guidorizzi, G., Il mito di Edipo. Immagini e racconti dalla Grecia a oggi, Turin 2004. Bettini, M., and Short, W. M., eds, Con i Romani. Un’antropologia della cultura antica, Bologna 2014 Bevilacqua, G., and Ricci, C., ‘Obscure inscribere: enigmi e indovinelli epigrafici’, in Monda 2012a, 125‒150 Bhagvat, D., The Riddle in Indian Life and Literature, Bombay 1965

|| 83 See the introductory essay by Maurizio Bettini to Ferro and Monteleone 2010, V‒XXIX.

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Blauner, D. G., ‘The Early Literary Riddle’, Folklore 78, 1967, 49‒58 Boas, F., ‘Stylistic Aspects of Primitive Literature’, The Journal of American Folklore 38, 1925, 329‒333 Borghini, A., ‘La principessa antagonista. L’eroe che propone indovinelli e l’Edipo di Arachoba’, La Ricerca Folklorica 21, 1990, 99‒107 Bowie, E., ‘The Sympotic Tease’, in Kwapisz, Petrain, and Szymański 2013, 33‒43 Bradley, M., ‘People of Secrets: The Slave Sanctuary Anti-language’, New Scientist issue 2971 (01 June 2014) Burns, T. A., ‘Riddling: Occasion to Act’, in Köngäs Maranda, E., ed., Riddles and Riddling, Champaign, Ill. 1976 (The Journal of American Folklore 89), 139‒165 Calboli, G., ‘Enigma, dalla metafora alla macchina per criptare’, in Monda 2012a, 21‒45 Cameron, A., The Greek Anthology from Meleager to Planudes, Oxford 1993 Chiarini, G., ‘Esogamia e incesto nella Historia Apollonii regis Tyri’, Materiali e Discussioni 10‒11, 1983, 267‒292 Cook, E., Enigmas and Riddles in Literature, Cambridge 2006 Costa, G., ‘Sugli enigmi indeuropei, ovvero: prodromi di etnolinguistica della metacognizione nell’Eurasia protostorica e nella grecità arcaica’, in Monda 2012a, 47‒68 Cucchiarelli, A., Publio Virgilio Marone. Le Bucoliche. Introduzione e commento di A. Cucchiarelli. Traduzione di A. Traina, Rome 2012 De Sanctis, G., ‘Spazio’, in Bettini and Short 2014, 143‒165 Di Gregorio, L., ‘L’Edipo di Euripide’, Civiltà classica e cristiana 1, 1980, 49‒94 Dorst, J. D. ‘Neck-Riddle as a Dialogue of Genres: Applying Bakhtin’s Genre Theory’, The Journal of American Folklore 96, 1983, 413‒433 Ehlers, J., Ainigma et griphos, Diss. Bonn 1867 Ehlers, J., De Graecorum aenigmatis et griphis, Programm Prenzlau 1875 Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014, 7‒18 Ferro, L., and Monteleone, M., Miti romani. Il racconto, Turin 2010 Ford, A., ‘Performing Interpretation: Early Allegorical Exegesis of Homer’, in Beissinger, M., Tylus, J., and Wofford, S., eds, Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World. The Poetics of Community, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford 1999, 33‒54 Frye, N., ‘Charms and Riddle’, in Spiritus Mundi. Essays on Literature, Myth, and Society, Bloomington and London 1976, 123‒147 Garbugino, G., Enigmi della Historia Apollonii regis Tyri, Bologna 2004 Georges, R. A., and Dundes, A., ‘Toward a Structural Definition of the Riddle’, Journal of American Folklore 76, 1963, 111‒118 Gimbutas, Ž., The Riddle in the Poem, Lanham, Maryland 2004 Goldberg, Ch., Turandot's Sisters: A Study of the Folktale AT 851, New York and London 1993 Green, T. A., and Pepicello, W. J., ‘The Folk Riddle: A Redefinition of Terms’, Western Folklore 38, 1979, 3‒20 Green, T. A., and Pepicello, W. J., ‘The Riddle Process (Grammar and Metaphor in the Form of Riddles)’, The Journal of American Folklore 97, 1984, 189‒203 Green, W. C., Aristophanes. The Wasps, London 1894 Guidorizzi, G., and Beta, S., La metafora, Pisa 2000 Hasan-Rokem, G., and Shulman, D., eds, Untying the Knot: On Riddles and Other Enigmatic Modes, Oxford 1996

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Jaeger, M., ‘Assyrische Räthsel und Sprichwörter’, Beiträge zur Assyriologie 2, 1894, 274‒305 Jolles, A., Einfache Formen. Legende, Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Märchen, Witz, Halle 1930 Jouan, F., and Van Looy, H., Euripide. Tome VIII 2e partie. Fragments, Paris 2000 Kaivola-Bregenhøj, A., Riddles: Perspectives on the Use, Function, and Change in a Folklore Genre, Helsinki 2001 (Studia Fennica Folkloristica, 10) Köngäs Maranda, E., ‘The Logic of Riddles’, in Maranda, P., and Köngäs Maranda, E., eds, Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition, Philadelphia 1971, 189‒232 Köngäs Maranda, E., ‘Theory and Practice of Riddle Analysis’, Journal of American Folklore 84, 1971, 51‒61 Konstantakos, I. M., ‘Aesop Adulterer and Trickster. A Study of Vita Aesopi ch. 75‒76’, Athenaeum 94, 2006, 563‒600 Konstantakos, I. M., ‘Aesop and Riddles’, Lexis 28, 2010, 257‒290 Kwapisz, J., ‘Were There Hellenistic Riddle Books?’, in Kwapisz, Petrain, and Szymański 2013, 148‒167 Kwapisz, J., Petrain, D., and Szymański, M., eds, The Muse at Play: Riddles and Wordplay in Greek and Latin Poetry, Berlin 2013 (Beiträge zur Altertumskunde, 305) La Penna, A., s.v. ‘Indovinelli’, in Enciclopedia Virgiliana, II, Rome 1985, 948‒950 Laks, A., ‘Between Religion and Philosophy: The Function of Allegory in the Derveni Papyrus’, Phronesis 42, 1997, 121‒142 Lehmann-Nitsche, R., ‘Zur Volkskunde Argentiniens, I. Rätsel’, Zeitschrift des Vereins für Volkskunde 24, 1914, 240‒255 Luz, C., Technopaignia. Formspiele in der griechischen Dichtung, Leiden 2010 MacDowell, D. M., Aristophanes. Wasps, Oxford 1971 Maggioni, G. P., ‘Il genere letterario degli Aenigmata nella letteratura latina medievale’, in Monda 2012a, 183‒226 Marangoni, C., Il mosaico della memoria. Studi sui Florida e sulle Metamorfosi di Apuleio, Padua 2000 Mariotti, S., ‘L’inganno fallito (Ennio, Satire, vv. 59 sgg. Vahlen²)’, in Scritti di filologia classica, Rome 2000, 65‒67 McDowell, J., Children’s Riddling, Bloomington, Indiana 1979 Monda, S., ‘Fragm. poet. Lat. inc. 59 Blänsdorf’, Rivista italiana di filologia classica 127, 1999, 291‒305 Monda, S., ‘Gli indovinelli di Teodette’, Seminari Romani 3, 2000, 29‒47 Monda, S., ed., Ainigma e griphos. Gli antichi e l’oscurità della parola, Pisa 2012a Monda, S., ‘Enigmi e indovinelli nella poesia scenica greca e latina’, in Monda, S., ed., Ainigma e griphos. Gli antichi e l’oscurità della parola, Pisa 2012b, 99‒124 Monda, S., ‘Gellio, Noctes Atticae 12, 6 e l’antico nome latino degli aenigmata’, in De Nonno, M., Passalacqua, M., and Morelli, A. M., eds, Venuste noster. Studi offerti a Leopoldo Gamberale, Hildesheim, Zürich and New York 2012c, 445‒450 Morawski, F., De Graecorum poesi aenigmatica, Diss. Münster i. W. 1872 Most, G. W., ‘The Fire Next Time. Cosmology, Allegories, and Salvation in the Derveni Papyrus’, Journal of Hellenic Studies 117, 1997, 117‒135 Müllenhoff, K., ‘Nordische, englische und deutsche Rätsel’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Mythologie 3, 1855, 1‒20 Naerebout, F. G., and Beerden, K., ‘Gods Cannot Tell Lies: Riddling and Ancient Greek Divination’, in Kwapisz, Petrain, and Szymański 2013, 121‒147

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Newiger, H.-J., Metapher und Allegorie, München 1957 Norton, F. J., ‘Prisoner Who Saved His Neck with a Riddle’, Folk-Lore 53, 1942, 27‒57 Ohlert, K., Rätsel und Rätselspiele der alten Griechen, Berlin 1912 (2nd edn; 1st edn 1886) Palmisciano, R., ‘È mai esistita la poesia popolare nella Grecia antica?’, in Nicolai, R., ed., Ῥυσμός. Studi di poesia, metrica e musica greca offerti dagli allievi a Luigi Enrico Rossi per i suoi settant’anni, Rome 2003 (Quaderni di Seminari Romani, 6), 151‒171 Parássoglou, G. M., Kouremenos, T., and Tsantsanoglou, K., eds, The Derveni Papyrus, Firenze 2006 (Studi e testi per il Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini, 13) Paris, G., and Rolland, E., Devinettes et énigmes populaires de la France, Paris 1877 Pepicello, W. J., ‘Linguistic Strategies in Riddling’, Western Folklore 39, 1980, 1‒16 Pepicello, W. J., and Green, T. A., The Language of Riddles. New Perspectives, Columbus, Ohio 1984 Petsch, R., Neue Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Volksrätsels, Berlin 1899 Pitrè, G., Indovinelli, dubbi, scioglilingua del popolo siciliano, Torino 1897 Polara, G., Aenigmata, in Cavallo, G., Leonardi, C., and Menestò, E., eds, Lo spazio letterario del Medioevo, I 2, Roma 1993, 197‒216 Pretagostini, R., ‘L’esametro nel dramma attico del V secolo: problemi di “resa” e di “riconoscimento”’, in Fantuzzi M., and Pretagostini, R., eds, Struttura e storia dell’esametro greco, Vol. 1, Roma 1995, 163‒191 Reitzenstein, R., ‘Die Inhaltsangabe im Archetypus der Kallimachos-Handschriften’, Hermes 26, 1891, 308‒314 Schultz, W., Rätsel aus dem hellenistischen Kulturkreis, Leipzig 1909‒1913 Schultz, W., s.v. ‘Rätsel’, in RE I A, 1914, 62‒125 Sonnino, M., ‘Insulto scommatico e teoria del comico in un simposio alessandrino del 203 a. C. (Polibio 15. 25. 31‒33)’ in Nicolai, R., ed., Ῥυσμός. Studi di poesia, metrica e musica greca offerti dagli allievi a Luigi Enrico Rossi per i suoi settant’anni, Rome 2003 (Quaderni di Seminari Romani, 6), 283‒301 Sternbach, L., Indian Riddles: a Forgotten Chapter in the History of Sanskrit Literature, Hoshiarpur 1975 Struck, P., Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of Their Texts, Princeton 2004 Tartaglini, C., ‘Situazione drammatica e semantica dei ritmi: i dattili in Soph. Trach. 1004‒1042’, Materiali e Discussioni 10‒11, 1983, 295‒303 Taylor, A., ‘Riddles Dealing with Family Relationships’, The Journal of American Folklore 51, 1938, 25‒37 Taylor, A., A Bibliography of Riddles, Helsinki 1939 Taylor, A., ‘The Riddle’, California Folklore Quarterly 2, 1943, 129‒147 Taylor, A., The Literary Riddle before 1600, Berkley and Los Angeles 1948 Taylor, A., English Riddles from Oral Tradition, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1951 Taylor, A., ‘Riddles in Dialogue’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 97, 1953, 61‒68 Thierfelder, A., ‘De aenigmate Varroniano’, in Atti del Congresso internazionale di studi varroniani. Rieti. Settembre 1974, Rieti 1976, Vol. 2, 533‒538 Williamson, C., A Feast of Creatures. Anglo Saxon Riddle-Songs, Philadelphia 2011

Maurizio Bettini

Cantare cantilenae (Semi-)Submerged Practices and Texts In Latin the act that we call ‘singing’ was expressed by two different terms: cano and canto. If we want to understand the native perception of the use of the human voice at Rome and the significance of some of the cultural practices connected to it, we may begin from this duality.

1 Native categories: canere and cantare Isidore claimed to be able to distinguish between these verbs quite firmly: ‘cantare means only producing sound with utterances or shouting, canere means either to modulate (to develop a rhythmical theme), or to prophesy’.1 Despite such distinctions, a comparative analysis of the uses of these two words easily shows that cano and canto cover substantially the same territories. Given that the second term is a frequentative of the first, one may naturally suppose that canto had progressively occupied areas that originally belonged only to cano.2 The fact remains, however, that on the basis of the information provided by the texts, the two verbs appear in practice to be interchangeable. We may briefly look at the cultural spheres to which they apply:3 1. 2.

Both are used to indicate the ‘song’ produced by the human voice, both solo and accompanied by musical instruments.4 Both cano and canto indicate the action of playing musical instruments (wind or string), as well as the sound produced by these instruments.5

|| 1 Isidorus, Differentiae 1. 98: cantare tantum vocibus vel clamore insonare est, canere autem interdum modulari, interdum vaticinari. 2 This seems to be the theory of Ernout and Meillet, DELL, s.v. cano. 3 I base this on the relevant lemmata of the Thesaurus linguae latinae: s.v. cano, III, 263 ff.; s.v. canto, III, 287 ff. 4 The herdsmen/singers of Virgil’s Eclogues are devoted to cantare (Arcades ambo, / et cantare pares et respondere parati, ‘Both Arcadian, equal in singing and in responding one to the other’: Virgil, Eclogues 7. 5 f.); but in the same Eclogues, again on the song of the herdsmen, we also meet expressions such as alta sub rupe canet, ‘he will sing beneath a high cliff’ or imitabere Pana canendo, ‘you will imitate Pan in song’ (1. 56; 2. 31).

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3.

Both cano and canto are used to indicate the call or ‘song’ of the birds: from the nightingale to the swan, the cockerel, the hen, the geese, the owl, the crow, and so on.6 Although, at least according to the ancient learned sources, there were specific verbs to indicate the sounds uttered by the individual birds – drensare (swans), cucurrire (cockerels), crispire (hens), gliccire or sclingere (geese), cuccubire (owls)7 –, when one wanted to say simply that a hen or an owl had ‘given its call’, one would use the verbs cano or canto indifferently. 4. Both cano and canto designate the act of ‘narrating’ or ‘celebrating’ deeds or persons in verse, and hence the act of reciting or composing poetry.8 To these observations we may add that for each of the uses indicated – singing with the human voice, playing instruments and the sounding of instruments, birdsong, celebrating deeds or persons, composing verses – the result of the actions can be indicated both by the word carmen (which is normally considered to be derived from cano)9 and by the word cantus.10 The same interchangeability that we met between the two verbs is thus found also between the two substantives most directly connected to them. Hence neither cano nor canto is reserved for the human voice alone, but rather they designate any sound uttered that has melodic, rhythmic or more generally musical characteristics. In other words, the native categories available to us – the linguistic testimonia – oblige us to accept that the Romans did not perceive the rhythmic-musical use of the human voice as specific, as different from all the other uses of the terms; rather, they assimilated it to any other sound uttered that had these characteristics. Evidently the possibility of emitting notes identifiable as such – or even one note only: one thinks of musical

|| 5 A tibicen, for example, ‘player of the flute’, could equally well canere as cantare (Cicero, On the Orator 2. 338; Plautus, The Haunted House 934); the tibia, when it emits its own sound, is equally said to canere and to cantare (Cicero, On the Nature of the Gods 2. 22; Ovid, Fasti 6. 659); the same is true of other wind instruments such as tubae, cornu and bucina (cf Thesaurus linguae Latinae, III, 265, 26 ff.; 289, 2 ff.). But also the act of playing the fides, the lyre, can be termed both canere and cantare (Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1. 4; Plautus, Epidicus 500). 6 Cf Thesaurus linguae Latinae, III, 265, 12 ff.; 267, 19 ff.; 288, 70 ff. 7 Cf C. Svetoni Tranquilli praeter Caesarum libros reliquiae, edidit A. Reifferscheid, Lipsiae 1860, 247–254; Latin Anthology 1. 762. On these texts I refer to my analysis in Bettini 2008, 9– 33. 8 Cf Thesaurus linguae Latinae, III, 267, 64 ff.; 269, 11 ff.; 289, 81 ff. 9 From can-men, according to the old theory of L. Havet (cf DELL, s.v.). 10 Cf Thesaurus linguae Latinae, III, 463 ff.; 292 ff.

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instruments with limited tonal capacity (cornu, tuba, bucina) or of the monotone call of some birds –, or the possibility of producing some recurrent rhythmic intervals, was enough for a given utterance of sound to be included in the sphere of canere or cantare.

2 When the magician enters, the diviner exits the stage (and vice versa) While cano and canto are substantially interchangeable in their uses, there are some zones in which this is not the case. This is true in particular in relation to the act of prophesying on the one hand, and the recitation of magic formulas on the other. It is hence at this point that we encounter some submerged – or rather semi-submerged – Latin texts of some interest. We know that cano is commonly used to designate the action of vates and diviners when they utter their oracles. This use of cano is attested from at least Ennius on – the famous scripsere alii rem / versibus quos olim Fauni vatesque canebant – and is widely documented throughout the whole of Latin literature.11 The fact that the pronouncements of the vates are brought into the same sphere of sound as song, musical sounds, poetic composition and so on, has a fairly simple explanation. The ancient oracles were composed in metrical form – saturnians, as is shown by the line of Ennius just cited – and as such they had every right to belong to the sphere of canere. This is why prophecy bore the name vati-cinium, the second element of which is derived from cano, just as the action proper to the diviner is described by the verb vati-cinari. It should be noted, however, that when we enter this sphere, cano cannot be substituted by canto. In other words, whereas cano and canto are interchangeable in the majority of cases, this is not true when one describes the action of prophesying: canto practically never bears this meaning; the contrast is very strong because, as we have mentioned, the attestations of cano in the sense of ‘prophesy’ are extremely numerous.12 Let us turn now to canto. This verb is frequently used to indicate the recitation of magic formulae and the act of uttering ‘incantations’.13 Further, the composite forms of canto that likewise refer to the sphere of magic (incantare, occen-

|| 11 Ennius, Annales 206–207 Skutsch. 12 Thesaurus linguae Latinae, s.v. cano, III, 271, 12–272, 64. 13 Thesaurus linguae Latinae, s.v. canto, III, 291, 13–34.

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tare, excantare, praecantare, decantare) are very numerous, and this magical use of the verb canto is linked also to the term cantio in the sense ‘magic formula’.14 In contrast to all this, cano is never used in this sense. When the topic is reciting incantations or uttering magic formulae, cano exits the scene and gives way to canto; just as, when the topic is prophetic utterances, canto departs the stage and concedes this role to cano. The sphere covered by cano and that indicated by canto thus seem to alternate exclusively as soon as we enter the sphere of the supernatural. These two verbs, normally synonyms or almost so, are separated when the persons making rhythmic-musical use of the voice are, respectively, agents of divination or of magic. It is as if the vates had wanted to remain distinct from the magus, from the saga or the venefica, and vice versa. Their respective discursive regimes, which from our modern (and lay) point of view might be thought to be contiguous, at Rome remained distant: the diviner canit, but does not cantare; whoever practises incantations cantat, but does not canere. Here we clearly have a key node of meanings and of competences in the rhythmic-musical use of the voice, which we should pursue in more depth. But what does cantare mean in the world of magic? What use of the voice – evidently different from that of the vates – was practised in the recitation of magic formulae? We may consider two famous examples of Roman spells, texts that have survived from the wreckage of the ancient practices that we would today class as folklore.

3 Between songs and spells: ritual practices and (semi-)submerged texts The first relevant example is presented to us by the incantation (cantio) against sprains transmitted to us by Cato:15 luxum siquod est, hac cantione sanum fiet. Harundinem prende tibi viridem P. IIII aut quinque longam, mediam diffinde, et duo homines teneant ad coxendices. Incipe cantare (in alio s. f. ‘moetas vaeta daries dardaries asiadarides una petes’ usque dum coeant): ‘Motas

|| 14 Cf Thesaurus linguae Latinae, s.v. cantio, III, 286 ff.: one may recall e.g. the story of Curio, who accused Titinia of having made him lose his memory in court through her incantations (Cicero, Brutus 217: subito totam causam oblitus est idque veneficiis et cantionibus Titiniae factum est). 15 Cato, On Agriculture 160: the text cited is that of Mazzarino 1982. Cf Pliny, The Natural History 17. 267 and 28. 21 (where this incantation is defined as carmen auxiliare).

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uaeta daries dardares astaries dissunapiter» usque dum coeant. Ferrum insuper iactato. Ubi coierint et altera alteram tetigerint, id manu prehende et dextera sinistra praecide, ad luxum aut ad fracturam alliga, sanum fiet. Et tamen cotidie cantato (in alio s. f. vel luxato vel hoc modo ‘huat hauat huat ista pista sista dannabo dannaustra’) et luxato vel hoc modo: ‘huat haut haut istasis tarsis ardannabou dannaustra’. If there is a sprain, heal it with this incantation (cantio). Take a long green reed of four or five feet, cut it in two lengthwise and let two men hold each half beside the hip. Begin to cantare: ‘Motas uaeta daries dardares astaries dissunapiter’ until they meet (in another it is thus: ‘moetas vaeta daries dardaries asiadarides una petes’ until they meet). Shake it above an iron. When they meet and each touches the other, take it in the hand and cut to left and right, bind it on the sprain or fracture, it will be healed. However, you must also cantare every day over the sprained part in this way: ‘huat haut haut istasis tarsis ardannabou dannaustra» (in another it is thus: or on the sprained part or in this way: ‘huat hauat huat ista pista sista dannabo dannaustra’).

This is not an easy text, with the difficulties beginning in the transmission itself. The magic formulae to be used seem to have been preserved in two different traditions.16 The interpretation of these charms, too, has yielded various explanations,17 even though in reality it is likely that they have no meaning at all. As often happens when we are dealing with utterances that contain elements of magical character – from the voces magicae present in the magical papyri, to certain curse formulae in the tabellae defixionis, to onomatopoeic reproductions of animal calls – it is the very incomprehensibility of the utterance that expresses its power or mystery. Their foreignness to the normal rules of phonematic composition proper to shared language reveals that they come from an otherworld which, as such, is charged with power or mystery.18 Returning to the spell against sprains, the dynamic of the operation – and it too is not entirely clear – would seem to be as follows: –

the two halves of the reed, cut lengthwise (diffindo),19 were to be applied each to the outer part of the hip of each of the two men, with the cut part likewise turned outwards: in this way they could be progressively brought towards each other as the two men approached each other;

|| 16 For the older proposals on this double tradition, see Heim 1893, 533 ff.; for more recent contributions Tupet 1976, 169–175. 17 See Tupet 1976. 18 Luck 1985, 90–93; Bettini 2008, 62–65. 19 Cf Cato himself in On Agriculture 41: vitem mediam diffindito per medullam; Varro, On Agriculture 1. 40. 6 (a graft): ex arbore, qua vult habere surculum, in eam quam inserere vult, ramulum traducit et in eius ramo praeciso ac diffisso implicat.

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– –

–

while this approach was taking place, they were to cantare the formula until the two halves were joined again; once the two halves were joined and the original form of the reed had in this way been reconstituted, it was cut short with two symmetrical cuts, to right and to left; after this it was bound to the sprain or fracture. At this point it was believed that the healing must have taken place; nonetheless, it was recommended also to repeat (cantare) a different formula over the sprained part every day.20

One may suppose that the act of ‘reunifying’ the two halves of the reed was a magic procedure of sympathetic character, capable, that is, of producing an analogous ‘reunification’ of the sprained parts of the patient’s body. In fact the form of the reed may recall by analogy that of a limb in the body of a living being. Such a ‘sympathetic’ equivalence between reed and limb recurs also in a magical practice reported by Aelian, in which the reed acts as a magical Ersatz for the tail of a dog. To prevent the escape of guard dogs, one would proceed in the following way: after measuring (metrésantes) on their tails a piece of reed, they daub it in butter and give it to them to lick. The dogs (so they say) do not leave, as if they had been bound’. Making the poorly trained guards lick the buttered reed, understood as a sympathetic substitute for their own tail, was most likely understood as producing a circular movement of the animal: it thus became a prisoner – ‘bound’ – within this magic circle.21 We now come to the point that interests us, namely the use of cantare. Leaving aside the meaning of the two incantations – as we have said, they intentionally have none at all – their compositional form may suggest an idea of how the charm was performed. In both variants of the first formula, the one to be carried out once only as the two halves of the reed approached each other, we may note the use of sounds that are very similar to each other, repeating identical or very similar phonemes and syllables (Moetas uaeta, daries dardares; astataries dissunapiter / asiadarides una petes); in the second formula, the one to maintain the healing process, both variants present repetitions of syllables that are identical (huat haut haut) or at least very similar (istasis tarsis / ista sista pista), and so on.22 As we see, these cantiones are basically constructed on the principle of analogy: phonemes, syllables and morphemes appear to have been chosen and put together not for the sake of any meaning they might be intended to produce

|| 20 This is how I interpret the syntagm et luxato which Tupet 1976 does not translate. 21 Aelian, On the Characteristics of Animals 9. 54. See Franco 2014, 73. 22 For the ‘rhyming games’ present in this incantation, see Norden 1982, 827.

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(as would be the case in any ‘normal’ enunciation), but according to the criterion of their reciprocal similarity.23 In this sense, the cantio for the sprains seems to be similar to the type of delivery that the Romans called cantilena, a vetus et vulgata cantio ‘old and popular singsong’, as it was defined by the grammarian Donatus.24 Once again we are dealing with a textual genre which, unfortunately for us, was marked by the official culture at Rome for almost complete ‘submersion’, as it was not considered worthy of record. As we shall see, the linguistic texture of these cantilenae is wholly similar to that of the cantio of Cato: both are founded on the criteria of analogy, parallelism and iteration. The difference is that in this second case the utterance aims to produce not only a musical-rhythmic effect, but also a meaning, whereas the Catonian cantio, quite to the contrary, based its performative efficacy on the very absence of meaning. Among the few examples of cantilenae that have survived from the wreckage we may recall the trochaic septenarius that, according to Porphyrio, pueri lusu cantare solent ‘the boys would sing as a game’: rex erit qui recte faciet || qui non faciet non erit ‘whoever will do it right will be king, whoever will not do it will not be king’.25 The first and second parts of the verse are based on a perfect parallelism (the second half is merely a conversion into the negative, non … non …, of the first); and just as obvious is the word-play rex … recte. It is easy to suppose that this rhyme was meant to be repeated several times by the children in the course of the game. Perhaps even more immediate, however, is the other cantilena – it too introduced by the verb cantare – which is preserved for us by Plautus in the Three Pieces of Money. The young Lysiteles wants to reproach his father, Philto, for his lack of generosity. And he does so with the following argument:26 sed civi inmuni scin quid cantari solet? ‘quod habes ne habeas et illuc quod non habes habeas, malum quandoquidem nec tibi bene esse pote pati neque alteri’ but you know what gets sung (cantari solet) to the citizen who dodges his duties?27

|| 23 For the resources of analogy and parallelism drawn on by some Roman poetic production, I refer to some of my earlier works: Bettini 2010 and Bettini 2013. 24 Commentum in Terentii Phormionem 495, p. 460 Wessner. 25 Scholia ad Horatii Epistulas 1. 1. 59. 26 Plautus, Three Pieces of Money 350 ff. 27 The adjective immunis properly means someone who withdraws from duties that derive from his own position (munus), and who therefore behaves contrary to whoever is munificus.

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‘What you have, may you not have, what you don’t have, may you have, dammit, because you can’t stand doing well, not for yourself nor for anyone else’

The text of this jingle is entirely composed by playing on overlapping repetitions, equivalences and inversions, analogous sounds (habes ne habeas … non habes habeas, bene esse pote pati), as favoured by the rhythm of the trochaic septenarius. Given the context in which the cantilena was performed (public reproach thrown at the civis immunis), we may suppose that this cantilena, already internally repetitive in itself, was in turn repeated several times to increase the effect of the censure hurled at the civis immunis, in a sort of public flagitatio.28 From this point of view, the mechanism of social censure seems identical to that which was unleashed against those Etruscan haruspices who had been unmasked and punished for giving fraudulent advice to the Romans. In that case, too, boys composed a verse and ‘sang’ it (cantatus) through the city:29 malum consilium consultori pessimum est, ‘bad advice is worst for the adviser’. The pueri thus went around Rome repeating this iambic senarius with such effective iterative and parallel construction: in the middle is a paronomastic pair (consilium consultori), framed by a play on positive and superlative degrees (malum … pessimum). Returning to Cato’s incantation, we may hence confirm that the act of singing (cantare) there corresponds to a delivery of repetitive character. This is, in the first place, repetition of an ‘internal’ type, through the iterative structure of the phonic material used in the formula, but the repetition surely also operated from the ‘external’ point of view, in the sense that the formulae would have been repeated many times, according to need and to the available opportunities. In the prescriptions for the delivery of the charm, in fact, Cato says: ‘begin to sing “motas uaeta daries dardares astaries dissunapiter” until they (the two halves of the reed) are reunited’. Everything depends on the time taken for this reunification: in the meantime, one evidently continued to repeat the formula indicated. A second submerged text, again an incantation, comes to us from the De re rustica of Varro. In this case too the healing formula has to be ‘sung’ (cantare), but unlike the cantio against sprains the utterance here intends to produce meaning, even though the stylistic means with which it is constructed are the same as the ones we have just been considering.

|| 28 I have addressed this traditional Roman practice and its textual forms in Bettini 2013b (with bibliography). 29 Versiculi populares et pueriles 5, p. 30 Morel (Gellius, Attic Nights 4. 5. 5).

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Fundanius, one of the characters in Varro’s dialogue, suffers from pains in his feet. At this point Varro announces that he has read a prescription against this ailment in the book on agriculture written by the Sasernae, father and son. Fundanius wants to know the remedy at once, and Stolo, another character in the dialogue, smilingly satisfies his curiosity at once:30 Dicam, inquit, eisdem quibus ille verbis scripsit: ‘Vel(em) Tarquennam audivi, cum homini pedes dolere coepissent, qui tui meminisset, ei mederi posse (fr. 5 Morel)’: Ego tui memini medere meis pedibus. Terra pestem teneto, salus hic maneto in meis pedibus Hoc ter noviens cantare iubet, terram tangere, despuere, ieiunum cantare. I will say it to you with the same words with which he wrote it: ‘I heard that Vel Tarquenna31 (said that), when someone’s feet start to hurt and you have come into his mind,32 (you) can heal him’: You have come into my mind, cure my feet! May the earth hold33 the ailment may health remain here in my feet

|| 30 Varro, On Agriculture 1. 2. 27; cf Pliny, The Natural History 28. 21. 31 In the reading of this passage of Varro I differ from the text presented in the various editions of the work, and adopt the proposal advanced in Bettini 2004. For a possible identification of Tarquenna see the note by Heurgon 1978, 117, who thinks of the haruspex Tarquitius Priscus; Münzer 1932 emphasizes the analogy of this name with the Etruscan Tarchna. 32 In this I translate meminisset with Heurgon 1978, 117 ‘avoir present à l’esprit’. In two late charms, one from the De herbarum virtutibus of Ps. Apuleius, the other from the so-called Medicina Plini (Heurgon 1978, 117 f.), the act of ‘thinking’ exerts an analogous influence on the magical process: in one case it is the magician who ‘thinks’ of someone whom he intends to heal, in the other it is, as here, the patient who ‘thinks’ of his healer. Attention was already drawn to these two texts by Fehrle 1926–1927, 221–224; on the magical role played by ‘thinking’ in this type of incantation, see Tupet 1976, 172 ff., who goes so far as to postulate a process of hypnosis. The charms of contemporary folklore, too, keep alive the role of ‘thinking’ in the magical process: to stop hiccoughs, ‘take seven sips of water and think of S. Gennaro’. 33 According to Flach 2002, 243, the two imperatives in -to that occur in the spell should be interpreted as in the second person rather than the third. The suggestion seems rather weak. Aside from any other consideration, the spell already has an explicit second-person interlocutor in the person of whom ‘one thinks’ and who is to heal the patient; introducing a second and a third tu (the terra, salus, in the vocative) would only create major confusion.

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He prescribes singing this three times nine times, to touch the earth, to spit and to sing while fasting.34

Even more than in the case of Cato’s incantation about sprains or the few other traditional charms that we possess,35 we are here given numerous performative indications, because we are provided with a fairly detailed explanation of how the charm was to be performed. Firstly, here too it was necessary to ‘sing it’ (cantare iubet, ieiunum cantare), as in the previous case; the execution was then to be repeated ‘three times nine times’ or twenty seven (!) times (both ‘three’ and ‘nine’ are magical numbers);36 it was then necessary to ‘touch the earth’, evidently to establish contact and so to transfer the illness into the ground (‘may the earth hold the ailment’);37 then it was necessary to ‘spit’, another act that frequently appears in charms (both ancient and modern);38 and finally it was prescribed to ‘sing’ (cantare) while fasting – the fast created a condition of ritual purity, frequently required in magical or religious ceremonies.39 This, then, was the setting in which the charm against foot pains was performed. The most important element in guaranteeing the efficacy of the formula seems however to be the paranormal relation, so to speak, that was to be established between the patient and the person who ‘comes to (the patient’s) mind’ at the same time as the pain began. In other words, what is regarded as decisive is the coincidence between the moment in which one starts to feel foot pains (dolere coepissent) and the appearance of a certain person (or rather of that

|| 34 This text of Varro is normally misunderstood by editors and interpreters: see Bettini 2004. 35 As well as the incantation just cited from Cato, cf Praecepta rustica et medica, frr. 1–4 Morel; other interesting references can be found in the commentary of Heurgon 1978. 36 The same ter novies recurs also in other spells: see Fehrle 1926–1927; Heurgon 1978. It is an interesting way of counting, which makes evident the quality of being a ‘multiple of three’ possessed by a given number. We may recall for example the expression of Ennius ter quattuor corpora sancta ‘twelve (three times four) sacred bodies (of birds)’ at the moment of the auguratio of Romulus (Annales 87 Skutsch). On the magical and symbolic value of the number three, it is still useful to refer to the classic work of Usener 1903. 37 For these mechanisms of ‘transferring’ pain, cf e.g. Pliny, The Natural History 30. 31: transfer of a headache by kissing the nose of a mule; 42: transfer of pain in the praecordia to a puppy pressed onto the aching part; etc. see Heim 1893, 483 ff. 38 Fehrle 1926–1927; see Tupet 1976, 173 (who cites Nicholson 1897); Flach 2002, 244. 39 Fehrle 1926–1927; Heurgon 1978; in general see Fehrle 1910. Van Groningen 1936, 232 has even proposed to establish an interpretive link between the prescription to ‘spit’ and that of singing ‘while fasting’: the prescribed fast would thus be so strict, that is, as to prevent even swallowing saliva (cf Callimachus, Hymn to Demeter 5 f.).

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person’s image) in the mind of the patient: it is on the basis of this kind of mental image, in fact, that one is able to heal the patient (mederi posse). For this reason, in the spell it is explicitly stated, ‘you came into my mind’, an invocation that is followed by the request, ‘cure my feet!’ To summarize, this curious charm seems to function on the basis of a series of ritual transitions arranged in a precise sequence: – – –

– –

pains appear in the feet; the image of a certain person appears in the mind; then one approaches the person who came to mind (‘you came into my mind’), i.e., the fact this person’s image has come to mind is verbalized, and he or she is asked to cure the sore feet (‘cure my feet!’); one ‘sings’ the spell twenty seven times (three × nine) while fasting, touching the ground and spitting; at this point, it is supposed that the ‘illness’ passes into the ground, leaving the feet healthy.

The mechanisms of magical thought active in this spell are fascinating, but what interests us is obviously the style of the utterance. In all probability we here have a text of metrical character, of Saturnian type, though it is difficult to pin down its exact structure. Leo was against the idea of excluding and suppressing cola to derive from the Varronian text a single Saturnian: terra pestem teneto | salus hic maneto40. He preferred to suppose that the charm – all of it, from ego tui … a … meis pedibus – was composed of five Kurzverse, the metrical form of which presented some analogies with cola attested elsewhere in the known Saturnian tradition. Moreover, the first and last of these cola have a structure that is quantitatively equivalent: the presence of this stylistic figure, or

|| 40 Leo 1905, 62 f. On p. 54, Leo himself cited instead the possible Saturnian terra pestem teneto | salus hic maneto for the scansion of the second colon (cf also p. 50). Before the study of Leo, Buecheler 1879, 343–346, as a comparison for the sequence terra pestem teneto | salus hic maneto cited ‘leonine’ Saturnians, if it is possible to put it that way, of the type bicorpores Gigantes magnique Atlantes; Müller 1885, 119, explicitly regarded as a ‘gloss’ the words in meis pedibus and, following Korsch 1869, modified the order of the words, reading terra pestem teneto | hic salus maneto, to avoid beginning the second colon with the sequence ‘short + long’. Fehrle 1926–1927 held that the sequence terra pestem teneto | salus hic maneto constituted a formula of general character, which could recur also in other incantations (but for this reason he did not accept the idea of expunging the part that precedes and follows it; for the history of interpretations prior to Leo see also Heim 1893, 544 ff.

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the ring composition, is a guarantee that the text, exactly as it has been transmitted to us, matches the whole of the spell to be uttered.41 From the phonic and verbal point of view, then, the text appears to have been composed strictly according to rules of analogy: in the first two cola it is the m- which is used to stitch the phrases together (Ego tui memini / medere meis pedibus); the third colon is held together by the t- (Terra pestem teneto), the fourth is tied to the third by a true rhyme in -eto (teneto … maneto),42 the fifth reprises the second through parallelism (… meis pedibus … meis pedibus). Given that a text of this kind needed to be performed, then, what is the significance of the act of cantare? As we have seen, we here have a text that is extensively based on parallelism and has been given an explicit quantitative structure; further, we are told that it must be ‘sung’ twenty seven (!) times. What dominates the execution of this incantation is therefore, once again, repetition at all levels: the text of the incantation is no more than a refrain, the efficacy of which resides in a process, so to speak, of iteration, both internal (phonic, syllabic, quantitative analogies) and external (repetition of the formula twenty seven times). Most likely, therefore, is that the cantare that is required for the execution of this utterance corresponds to the production of a cantilena that unfolds – like a long nursery rhyme – by repeating twenty seven times the same stanza, which itself is built on parallelisms: in a certain sense auto-producing its own rhythmic and melodic form though the insistent repetition of a refrain that is already internally repetitive. Now that we have completed the analysis of these two incantations, we may draw some conclusions regarding the specific sense of cantare in the sense of ‘to recite magic formulae’. In the field of magic, the rhythmic-musical use of the human voice seems to coincide with the principles of repetition and of iteration, with a hypnotic use of language that, to some degree, takes to the extreme the principle of analogy. We should, in sum, conclude that, for the Romans, what was perceived as cantatus was a text that was in some way obsessive, repetitive, which tended to turn in on itself. In this sense, other uses of cantare are ex-

|| 41 Thulin 1906, 76 f., insisted on the ‘dreiwortig’ structure of the individual lines; and identified at this level formal analogies with the text of the so-called Liber linteus in Zagreb, called by him ‘ein Bruchstück aus den sakralen Büchern der Etrusker’ (73). Thulin’s argument is as follows (p. 77): Tarquenna was an Etruscan, for whom it would have been fairly odd to have used a Roman spell; the text cited by Varro must therefore be considered a translation from Etruscan. 42 On this see Norden 1982, 825.

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plained which likewise imply the trait of repetition. For example, when, again in Plautus’ Three Pieces of Money the old man Philto says to his son Lysiteles43 haec ego doleo … haec dies noctes canto tibi ut caveas these are the things that make me suffer … these are the things that I am repeating to you day and night, so that you are on your guard

there is no doubt that the old man regards his warnings as cantare precisely because – as if they were a cantilena – he repeats them obsessively. In the same way, Clinia in Terence declares that his friend cantabat to him what the habits of women were because, evidently, the latter repeated to him his own warnings: harum mores cantabat mihi ‘he continually repeated to me what women’s habits were’.44 Quintilian, too, says that, when he was young, certain overused similes ubique cantari solebant ‘used to be repeated everywhere’.45 As we see, the notion of cantare on the one hand, and that of producing ‘repetitions’ on the other, are closely connected: cantare means to repeat. We may thus conclude that all magic formulae involve cantare, but not canere, because their nature and their purpose necessarily require that they be ‘repeated’, often in an obsessive way. And this type of musical use of the voice, for the Romans, presupposed cantare, not canere.

Reference List Bettini, M., ‘Varrone, De re rustica, 1, 2, 27’, Studi Italiani di Filologia Classica 2, 2004, 115–122 Bettini, M., Voci. Antropologia sonora della cultura antica, Turin 2008 Bettini, M., ‘Per un’antropologia stilistica. La “parola efficace” a Roma’, in Ajello, R., Berrettoni, P., Fanciullo, F., et al., eds, Quae omnia bella devoratis. Studi in onore di Edoardo Vineis, Pisa 2010, 147–172 Bettini, M., ‘Authority as “Resultant Voice”: Towards a Stylistic and Musical Anthropology of Effective Speech in Archaic Rome’, Greek and Roman Musical Studies 1, 2013a, 175–194

|| 43 Plautus, Three Pieces of Money 287a f. 44 Terence, The Self-tormenter 260. 45 Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory 8. 3. 76; Horace, Satires 2. 1. 46: ille qui me commorit … flebit et insignis tota cantabitur urbe, ‘he who irritates me ... will weep and will be sung through the whole city’, obviously in the sense that people will talk again and again of him, his story will thus be repeated everywhere; other examples of cantare in the sense of ‘repeat’ in Thesaurus linguae Latinae, III, 290, 35 ff.

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Bettini, M., ‘Preletterario, popolare, contadino. Tre categorie ‘atellaniche’ su cui riflettere’, in Raffaelli, R., and Tontini, A., eds, L’Atellana preletteraria. Atti della seconda giornata di studi sull’Atellana, Urbino 2013b, 141–162 Buecheler, F., ‘Coniectanea’, Rheinisches Museum 34, 1879, 341–356 (= Kleine Schriften, II, 352 –364) DELL = Ernout, A., and Meillet, A., Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, Paris 2001 (rev. edn by J. André) Fehrle, E., Die kultische Keuschheit im Altertum, Giessen 1910 (Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten, 6) Fehrle, E., Zu Varro, Res rus. 1, 2, 25 ff., in Raccolta di studi in onore di F. Ramorino, Milan 1926–1927 (Pubblicazioni dell’Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 7) Flach, D., Marcus Terentius Varro, Gespräche über Landwirtschaft, 1, Darmstadt 2002 Franco, C., Shameless. The Canine and the Feminine in Ancient Greece, with a New Preface and Appendix, Oakland, CA 2014 (orig. edn Bologna 2003) Heim, R., Incantamenta magica Graeca et Latina, Leipzig 1893 (Jahrbücher für Klassische Philologie, 19, Supplementband) Heurgon, J., Varron. Économie rurale, Paris 1978 Korsch, Th., De versu Saturnio, Moskow 1869 Leo, Fr., Der Saturnische Vers, Göttingen 1905 Luck, G., Arcana Mundi, Baltimore 1985 Mazzarino, A., M. Porci Catonis De agri cultura, Leipzig 1982 (2nd edn) Müller, L., Der saturnische Vers, Leipzig 1885 Münzer, F., s.v. ‘Tarquenna’, in RE 2. 8, Stuttgart 1932, 23–43 Nicholson, F. W., ‘The Saliva Superstition in Classical Literature’, Harvard Studies 8, 1897, 23– 40 Norden, Ed., La prosa d’arte antica, it. edn by B. Heinemann Campana, Rome 1982 (orig. edn Leipzig 1898) Thulin, C., Italische sakrale Poesie und Prosa. Eine metrische Untersuchung, Berlin 1906 Tupet, A. M., La magie dans la poésie latine, Paris 1976 Usener, H., Dreiheit. Ein Versuch mythologischer Zahlenlehre, Bonn 1903 van Groningen, B. A., ‘Une pratique de jeûne’, Mnemosyne 3, 1935, 232

Guy G. Stroumsa

Modes of Scriptural and Personal Authority in Late Antique Religion In the long late antiquity, roughly from Jesus to Muhammad, nothing less than a rolling revolution transformed the very nature of religion in the Mediterranean and the Near East. Of the various aspects of this revolution, none is more visible, perhaps, than the end of public blood sacrifices. Already prohibited by Jews and Christians in the 1st century, the prohibitions by the Roman emperors, before the end of the 4th century, of the practice of blood sacrifice began a new chapter in the eradication of this multifaceted and widely celebrated way of revering divinities among pagans and monotheists alike.1 The formation of religious orthodoxies, among Christians, Jews, Manichaeans, and Zoroastrians was accomplished through the canonization of texts as scriptures. This process entailed the exclusion of other texts, deemed apocryphal, from the canonical scriptures, which became submerged, sometimes irretrievably. It also entailed the development of rules of scriptural interpretation, alongside the formation of new religious elites endowed with a personal authority comparable to that of the revealed scriptures.2 In parallel to this religious revolution, late antiquity also saw a cultural revolution related to a transformed relationship between orality and literacy, and to the emergence and rapid development of the codex, which would soon replace the roll as the preferred mode of publication. The combination of these factors permitted the flourishing of religious leaders endowed with a charismatic, prophetic personality, who became either heralds of or contenders with the emerging orthodoxies based on scriptures. The dialectical relationship between scriptural and personal authority is at the core of the following study, in which my goal is essentially methodological. I wish to try out a model in order to help us organize a highly complex reality in the longue durée of a crucial period in the transformation of religious life in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East. The complexity of religious life and categories in a variety of cultures and communities is compounded by the fluidity of

|| 1 See Stroumsa 2009. I wish to thank Manuela Giordano for her kind invitation to the Rome workshop, for insisting that I should publish this text, and for her numerous suggestions on the draft. 2 For the processes involved in canon-formation see Nicolai 2014. See ‘By Way of Conclusion’ in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 178–187 on cultural dynamics of inclusion/exclusion of texts.

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religious and cultural boundaries and the dynamic relationship between these communities through time. Of necessity, scholarly research needs a sharply limited focus, certainly for presentations at workshops and conferences. Yet too often the result is that we are left with many trees, but no view of the forest. I have sought here to try out a different approach. It would be a mistake to study scriptural and personal authority in isolation from one another, because it is precisely their dialectical interface that we should seek to decipher. The resulting presentation will thus necessarily suffer from too much abstraction, or too few examples. The mention of Jesus, Mani, and Muhammad is enough to highlight that prophecy remained a central fact throughout our period, and that the hermeneutically ‘orthodox’ elites within the different communities do not represent the only kind of personal authority in late antique religion. We must also reckon with the charismatic authority of prophets or/and heretics. At the same time, these three charismatic religious leaders – Jesus, Mani, Muhammad – while possessed in various ways by the prophetic spirit, had highly different approaches to the idea of the religious book. Jesus teaches, but does not write; Mani makes sure to write down his teaching in books, in order to distinguish himself from his predecessors, such as Jesus, Buddha, and Zarathustra; while Muhammad is portrayed as illiterate, but as the recipient of divine revelations that must be written down. In other words, in the highly complex religious scene of late antiquity, religious authority can be understood only as the result of a dialectical relationship between scriptures and individuals. A central aspect of the transformation of religion in late antiquity was what the late Canadian historian of religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith has called ‘the Scriptural Movement of Late Antiquity’.3 This movement included, besides new scriptural texts, also their canonization, their translations, and hermeneutic literature. The growth of a number of religious movements was established upon what we have learned to call the ‘Holy Scriptures’.4 The first two centuries saw the ‘parting of the ways’ between Judaism and Christianity, which was also fought as a literary war over the proper Biblical hermeneutics, through the elaboration of interpretive texts. From the first texts of the New Testament (Paul’s letters), through the redaction of the Mishna toward the end of the 2nd century, and the first mention of the ‘New Testament’ (kainē diathēkē), by Irenaeus of Lyon, at the same time (around 180), we can follow the competition between Jewish and Christian communities over the proper interpretation of the || 3 See Smith 1993. 4 For a detailed study of the term and its origins, see Bremmer 2010.

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Scriptures, which were then still, for Christians and Jews alike, the texts of the Hebrew Bible or of its Greek translation, the Septuagint. It is no coincidence, as I have argued elsewhere, that the concept of New Testament and that of Mishna (i.e., as its Greek name indicates, deuterosis, repetition [of the Law]) seem to appear at approximately the same time: both offer more or less the same key to the correct reading or interpretation of the biblical text – through the oral law, or through the new prophecy.5 To the best of my knowledge, it has never been noted that the end of the 2nd century is also the moment at which an academic choice began to be made among the many Greek tragedies, at the peak of Stoic influence in the Greco-Roman world (reaching up to the emperor, Marcus Aurelius).6 The appearance of Mani’s texts and the canonization of the texts of the New Testament in the 3rd century, as well as the finalization of the list of the thirtyseven books of the New Testament in Athanasius’ Easter Letter of 367, would be paralleled by the identification of a great number of texts as apocryphal, to be rejected as heretical. Most such texts were therefore fated to become submerged, being destroyed or becoming victims of benign neglect and simply not copied. It is usually only through luck that we have those which have survived. While it is almost impossible to date with any precision the first appearance of the Mandaean texts, there seems to be no doubt that the Qur’an was originally, and at least for some decades remained, an oral book. The concept of oral book is not such an oxymoron as it may sound. In the ancient world, some texts achieved such a high level of respect and authority that they were memorized even before they were committed to writing. The clearest case of an oral book in the ancient world is the Avesta, which remained oral for a thousand years and was preserved in remarkably precise fashion in a language which was no longer understood by those who learned it by rote. In the 5th and 6th century, the redaction of the two versions of the Talmud, in Palestine and in Babylonia, should be studied in parallel to that of the great legal codes in the Roman Empire, the Theodosian Code, the compilation of laws since 312 CE published by Theodosius II in 429, and the Justinianic Code published a century later. In this highly condensed summary, I have not dealt with parallel scriptural attitudes to classical texts among pagans, for instance among Platonist philosophers or trends influenced by Platonic philosophy, circles in which the texts of Plato functioned more or less like religious scriptures, with both a reverence and a hermeneutic apparatus that look very similar to those observable among Christians, for instance. In this respect, the classical scholar || 5 See Stroumsa 2005, Ch. 4, 79–91. 6 On this, see Marx 2012.

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E. R. Dodds could write: ‘Christians and pagans were alike schoolmen: they could not challenge the authority of the ancient texts’.7 Throughout our period, the ‘Scriptural Movement’, then, not only represents a series of new scriptures, establishing new religious communities, but also – or perhaps mainly – it represents the systematic construction of new interpretive layers laid over existing scriptures. This is obvious for the Mishna and the Talmud, as well as for the Roman legal codes, but also for the huge and diverse Patristic literature, an immense cathedral of glosses, as it were, on the Christian Bible, both Old and New Testaments. One should note here the ‘uneasy ambivalence’ (the expression was coined by Shaul Shaked, referring to the Talmud) between the oral and written modes of transmission in late antiquity.8 These ‘monuments of words’, then, formed the backbone of emerging orthodoxies: Christian, but also Jewish and Zoroastrian, in both the Roman and the Sasanian Empires. Whoever says ‘orthodoxy’ also implies heterodoxy, and the fixation of scriptural canons and the creation of hermeneutic corpora also means the censorship of apocryphal and heretical writings. In other words, the process of the emergence of orthodoxies also saw the submersion of texts, authors, and ideas. Just as there are different kinds of religious writings, there are different kinds of religious specialists. On the one hand, we have those interpreters of the scriptures, in each community who seek to develop and enforce hermeneutic rules through which the scriptural text should be interpreted. Such rules had long been in existence, in the Greek tradition (where the Homeric writings had been interpreted metaphorically by the philosophers since at least the fourth century BCE) and in the Jewish world, both in Palestine and in the Hellenistic world (where the influence of the Greek allegorical philosophical tradition was dominant). As is well known, Max Weber identified three main types of authority in human societies: what he called ‘rational-legal authority’ (1), founding legitimacy upon a complex system of written rules; traditional authority (2), including customs, habits, and social structures; and charismatic authority (3), mainly that of the individual leader, either political or religious in nature. When dealing with religion, and in particular with religious traditions stemming from the individual inspiration of a prophet, Weber perceived the usual transformation, over time, of the original charismatic element of prophecy into more structured social patterns, what he called the ‘routinization’ of religion. This ‘routinization’ || 7 Dodds 1965, 114. 8 See Shaked, Ford and Bhayro 2014, Introduction, 1–26.

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usually replaces the charismatic element of the first generation (or generations) with hierarchical structures and fixed patterns of decision-making, in particular for the formulation of rules of interpretation of the scriptures. In Weberian sociology, then, there are two main kinds of religious authority: that stemming from charismatic prophecy, and that embedded in the routine of ecclesiastical hierarchy. The tension between prophets and bishops soon becomes an opposition between orthodox rulers and heretical leaders.9 I wish to argue here that one can speak of a similar dichotomy in relation to the authority of scriptures. Even before scriptures are fully canonized, an elaborate hermeneutic system is established, methods of interpretation are , and alternative scriptures are censored, excluded from the canon, as apocryphal or heretical. The texts belonging to the canon, and the rules for their interpretation, soon become the core of the educational system of the religious elites. The importance of education is here paramount. Whatever is not taught is soon pushed to the edges of circulation and transmission, eventually becoming forgotten and ultimately lost. Side by side with this routinized scriptural authority, however, the scriptures retain another, much more direct, immediate, personal impact upon the individual. I propose to call this the charismatic scriptural authority. I refer here to different forms of immediate reference to the text of scripture, such as prayer, recitation or chant, incantation, sortes biblicae, and the immediacy of the biblical calling involved in such behaviour as Tolle, lege!10 The text of scripture can also be listened to directly, without the intermediary of the teacher, the priest, or the commentary, and have an immediate impact upon one’s life. To sum up what we have seen so far, just like personal authority, then, scriptural authority too can be either charismatic or routinized. In the tradition of Weberian religious sociology, the Oxford social anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse has developed a theory of religion that differentiates between two fundamental modes of religiosity, which he calls, respectively, doctrinal and imagistic, to be found, in different ways, in all societies.11 The doctrinal mode of religiosity, which is highly routinized (in the Weberian sense

|| 9 The opposition orthodoxy–heresy may be regarded as a major factor of emergence– submersion of both doctrines and texts. 10 Augustine, Confessions 8. 7. 11 See in particular Whitehouse 2002. See further Whitehouse and Laidlaw 2004.

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of the word), is essentially characterized by high frequency and low levels of religious arousal, while the reverse is true of the imagistic mode. Whitehouse insists that all patterns of religious life offer different mixtures of the two modes. His theory of the two ‘modes of religiosity’ seems to have been found of great value, although perhaps more by historians of religion than by social anthropologists. In particular, his willingness to acknowledge that the dichotomy he describes is not absolute, and that it represents an ‘ideal type’ rather than adequately reflecting the complexities of historical reality has persuaded many to take it seriously. In the light of Weber’s and Whitehouse’s categories, doctrinal religiosity is mediated by routinized authority, both personal and scriptural. Similarly, imagistic religiosity is mediated by charismatic authority, both personal and scriptural. In other words, the mode of scriptural authority, when it is charismatic, informs imagistic religiosity, whereas, when it is routinized, it informs doctrinal religiosity. Similarly, the mode of personal authority, when it is charismatic, informs imagistic religiosity, whereas, when it is routinized, it informs doctrinal religiosity. To ‘imagistic’ and ‘doctrinal’ we might prefer ‘charismatic’ and ‘structural’, yielding the following schema: Person: charisma: prophet, holy man, heretic structure: bishop, rabbi, priest Text:

charisma: oral, prophetic, eschatological structure: commentary, legal text.

A charismatic person may intersect with a charismatic or with a structural text, while a ‘structural’ person might intersect with a charismatic or with a structural text. In each case a different figure obtains, in which both the community and the text are either strong or weak. Now while charisma is never stable, and soon becomes more rigid and structured, structures are not stable either, and have a tendency to turn into supple, charismatic frameworks. Studies on authority in the early Church usually deal with personal authority much more than with scriptural authority. The early textual evidence mentions a number of different categories of people invested with authority in the early church: ministers, prophets, teachers. In the early Church, the authority of scripture is mentioned very soon. Tertullian, before the end of the 2nd century, is

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one of our first testimonies.12 The same Tertullian mentions the Apostles.13 Cyprian deals with the episcopal succession and the relationship between bishops and priests.14 In Patristic Latin texts, auctoritas is different from potestas: thus Pope Gelasius mentions auctoritas sacra pontificum as different from the regalis potestas. The Roman pontiff has plenitudo potestatis. The functions of authority are, first, the ordination and the laying on of hands. For Cyprian, ‘All must recognize that the bishop is in the church and the church is in the bishop’.15 Authority permits the formulation of laws, the exercise of justice, the suppression of errors, and conciliar legislation, which is the richest and most elaborate source of authority. From the start of the 3rd century, the papacy intervenes in disciplinary matters. We have seen that both scriptural authority and personal authority in late antique religion are complex, as they can be either charismatic or structural. We must now attend to the complex relationship between scriptural and personal authority, and their different combinations. One now starts to realize that what was once called ‘the scriptural movement’ of late antiquity was actually one aspect, albeit a central one, of what seems to have been a much more complex phenomenon. In order to understand this phenomenon, one should remember that we are dealing with societies in which the status of reading and writing remains ambiguous.16 Although these skills is by no means limited to technicians such as scribes, as it was in archaic societies, it is in general not shared very broadly by large segments of the population.17 Here, the Jews may possibly be an exception, as it seems reasonable to assume that many young Jewish males received some kind of literate education.18 Among Christian rank and file, however, illiteracy was far from rare, although the traditional image of Christian monks as often being illiterate now appears to have been more cliché than reality. The publication of St Anthony’s letters by Samuel Rubenson has shown that Anthony, for instance, whom Athanasius famously describes as illiterate in his classic hagiography, was actually rather well read and knew Greek very well.19

|| 12 See esp. Tertullian, Of Modesty 2. 10; Against Praxeas 11. 9; Apology for the Christians 19. 1; cf Augustine, The City of God 12. 11. The concept of regula fidei appears in Tertullian, Against Marcion 4. 12. 3. 13 Tertullian, On the Prescription of the Heretics 21. 4. 14 Cyprian, Letters 59. 4. 13. 15 Cyprian, Letters 66. 8. 3. 16 See for instance Goody 2000. 17 See Harris 1989. 18 See Hezser 2001. 19 Rubenson 1995.

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This discovery sheds important new light upon the vexed question of early monasticism and paideia: it appears to be far from certain that, as so often claimed in the previous generation, a majority of Christian monks were more or less illiterate or semi-literate. In a series of path-breaking studies, Peter Brown highlighted the new centrality of the figure of the holy man in late antiquity. In the later part of late antiquity, i.e., from the 5th century, the holy man becomes the umpire of the holy, and the moral and spiritual lode of his community.20 What is of crucial significance for us here is that the holy man, in a sense, seems to incarnate not only the Saviour but also the Scriptures. That the holy text is also represented by a man should not surprise or puzzle us, as the letters of the alphabet had long functioned in figurative images of the body’s members. For a long time Greek philosophers had been asked to represent their books in their body. Some philosophers, and then some rabbis, were thus considered to be living libraries. The holy man was the new incarnation of the wise, of the philosopher, of the rabbi, of the gnostic.21 Presence had replaced knowledge. This presence, in itself, had become a source of power, which could accomplish miracles. But such miracles were accomplished in the name of the divine scriptures that the holy man (or, more rarely, holy woman) incarnated.22 Hence, as Claudia Rapp has noted, ‘the holy book and the holy man are the most powerful icons for our interpretation of the culture and mentality of late antiquity’, adding that, ‘… a double movement connects the two: the pious scribe acquires holiness from copying a sacred text, but at the same time the holy man – whether as a scribe or as the subject of a hagiographical work – is also able to impart holiness to the written text’.23 Derek Krueger has argued a similarly bold thesis quite convincingly.24 For Krueger, a series of late antique Christian authors gave a new meaning to writing, transforming it into a religious activity. Probing various aspects of writing habits in Christian literature from the eastern Mediterranean from the 4th to the 7th century, he focuses upon early Byzantine hagiography, on texts such as Ath-

|| 20 Brown, ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity’ in Brown 1982, 103–152, as well as Brown 1998. See further Brown 1995, esp. Ch. 3. 21 On Gnosticism and related texts see Cahana in this volume. 22 In a doctoral thesis on ‘The Crucified Book’ submitted to the University of Michigan in 2014, Ann Starr Kreps has called attention to the passage in the Gospel of Truth (CG I, 20: 10–21: 7) describing the crucified Jesus wrapped in a scroll (of scriptures) and to early Christian and Jewish texts parallel to this. 23 Rapp 2007, 222. 24 See Krueger 2004.

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anasius’ Life of Antony, Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina, Theodoret of Cyrrhus’ Religious History, the Hymns of Romanus the Melodist, and the Teaching of Addai. Together with fasting or prayer, writing thus became a major instrument of early Christian authors in their ascetic ambitions. This development, according to Krueger, reflects the double meaning of the word mimesis, both representation and imitation. Hence, for instance, the virtues exemplified by the saints are those to be imitated, or the audience is asked to become like holy images. The images, here, play the same role as words: they are, like the biblical characters, types to be imitated by the believer. The text of the Bible here plays a central role: for early Byzantine hagiographers, for instance, the biblical authors are perceived as typological precedents for their activity of narrating the lives of holy people. These hagiographers, who belonged to the monastic movement, described their heroes, the holy men, as patterned along the lines of leading biblical figures, in particular Moses. One wonders whether this phenomenon of the spiritual transformation of writing and reading, of the religious authority given to the text (which is no longer the text of scripture, but that of the saint, of the holy man who has become the incarnation of scripture) is limited to Christianity, or whether similar phenomena can be detected in other late antique religious cultures. What happens, for instance, in Hellenic or in Jewish literature in the same period? Do biographies of philosophers reflect similar trends? And could one gain a new insight into the nature of Midrash by reading it in the light of the insights provided by Christian hagiography? Moreover, the new attitude to writing must be studied in direct relation to the new approach to reading, including intensive and silent reading, emerging in late antiquity, mainly among Christian authors.25 Further research might also probe Western Christian literature, in order to understand better both the similarities and differences between East and West in this matter. In late antiquity writing, like reading, was starting to become part and parcel of religious activity. This reflected a new attitude to the very idea of religion. Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, is traditionally described as a ‘religion of the book’, i.e., a religion based upon a revealed book, and which, as such, needed to constantly reinterpret this book. Now, in a study published long ago, I argued that to a significant extent early Christianity reflected a rather ambivalent attitude to the holy book, and certainly a very different one from that found

|| 25 See for instance Stock 1996.

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in Judaism. The demotic approach to scriptures typical of early Christianity (an approach that permitted, or even encouraged, their translation as well as their multiple reproduction, without meticulously preserved rules) permitted me to call it, tongue in cheek, ‘a religion of the paperback’.26 In late antique Christianity, there is a constant tension between the one Book of revelation and the many books of education. One can speak, in a sense, of the tension between the Bible and paideia, or between Jerusalem and Athens, Judaism and Hellenism, or even revelation and reason, to use perhaps rather anachronistic terms. This tension, never to be quite resolved, is exemplified in a sense by that between monks and theologians: while the former wish to emphasize the sole authority of the books of divine revelation, the latter seek to combine the authority of the scriptures with the rules of interpretation received from a long cultural tradition of hermeneutics first applied to the Homeric texts. There are, in a sense, two ‘programmes of truth’, one focusing on the one book, the other on the whole cultural tradition.27 Now each of these choices on the nature of scriptural authority entails a different attitude to personal authority. Again, a focus on sola scriptura will entail a certain type of personal authority, while a focus on the larger Hellenic tradition too will entail a different approach to personal authority. Without necessarily defining a single kind of personal authority, it will frame the possibilities. For the Rabbis, it was clear that after the destruction of the Temple, the Holy Spirit had stopped its revelatory activity; in their language, ‘the gates of prophecy’ had been closed. The Rabbis had now replaced the prophets as interpreters of God’s will.28 That meant inter alia that all new texts claiming to be prophecies were spurious, coming from false prophets. This approach was compounded by the fact that the huge Jewish literature written in Palestine during the Second Temple period in both Hebrew and Aramaic had been essentially a pseudepigraphical literature. Texts were not signed by their authors, but were attributed to a hero of the Ur-Zeit, such as Adam, Seth, Noah, Abraham, etc. Similarly, commentaries and targums were usually not explicitly authored. The situation was of course highly different in Hellenistic Jewish literature, which functioned according to the rules of Greek literature, in which authors were of

|| 26 See Stroumsa 2003, 153–173. 27 ‘Programme of truth’ is a concept proposed by Michel Foucault. See Veyne 1983. 28 Hakham ‘adif me’navi (the sage is superior to the prophet), Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Bava Batra 12a.

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course proud to sign their works.29 But, as is well known, we do not have any single remaining instance of an authored Jewish work after Philo and Josephus. Most literature written by Jews during the Second Temple period was censored, and hence submerged, by the late antique Rabbis. Those texts which have survived (those we call the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, as well as Philo and Josephus) were preserved by the Christians, not by the Jews. Julius Scaliger had already meditated upon this puzzling fact, which seems to be due, at least to a point, precisely to the fact that the Christians appreciated this literature. Throughout late antiquity, extant Jewish literature would essentially be written in Hebrew and Aramaic and is usually anonymous, as are the various Midrashic compilations and Talmudic treatises, which are often tantamount to stenographic notes from the discussions in the Academies. This means that to a great extent Rabbinic literature is a literature from which the concept of the author is absent. For the Rabbis, then, the Bible, a book, or rather a collection of texts, or literary corpus, authored by God, or inspired by the Holy Spirit, clearly belonged to a category of its own. If this was a book, then no other book could be equal in dignity to it. Hence, all Rabbinic literature would be called ‘Oral Torah’, in contradistinction to the ‘Written Torah’. As ‘Oral Torah’, the scholars’ statements are not created by an author but are memorized and transmitted over centuries, each generation building on the cumulative body of tradition through interpretation and innovation. In such a system, the ‘relationship of scholar, text, and interpreter is a complex one, each member contributing at all times to the overall authority of the tradition in the academy’.30 The fact that there is in a sense no concept of textual authorship in Rabbinic Judaism entails a very deep difference in the conception of textual authority in late antique Judaism and Christianity. For the Rabbis, the ‘text’ of the Oral Torah is not identified as that of one authoritative voice. It is the polyphony itself that constitutes the authority and, while it is the voice of tradition, it is also a voice that belongs to the ‘reader’ who becomes part of this tradition. In the Rabbinic world, then, the personal authority of the Rabbi is usually a direct function of his scriptural knowledge. More precisely, he is the very incar-

|| 29 This, however, holds true from the classical period onwards. See e.g. Colesanti 2014 for the archaic period. 30 Berger 1998, 131. Florence Dupont has shown that in Rome, the auctor of a book is he who pays for it. See for instance Dupont 2004. In the Hebrew tradition, the sole, or ultimate auctor is of course God.

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nation of scripture, which he has memorized, and hence scriptural and personal authority have achieved some kind of unio personalis. The Rabbi is the incarnation of scripture, and scripture speaks through the mouth of the Rabbi. Again, such an unio personalis is possible precisely because there is no concept of personal authorship of a text in the Rabbinic world.31 This is vastly different, of course, from what obtains in early Christian literature: in contradistinction to the Rabbis, the Church Fathers have no compunction about writing and signing their own works, be they biblical commentaries, sermons, spiritual works, or theological treatises. This is true in Greek and Latin, of course, where the Christians simply inherited long-engrained cultural attitudes from the Greco-Roman world, but also in Syriac, Coptic, or Armenian. Here Jewish and Christian intellectuals show that they belong to highly different cultures. For the Patristic world, Christ is God’s Logos, and the ecclesiastical authority is that of the bishop, or episkopos, a figure modelled on that of the mevaqer, or supervisor at Qumran. The personal authority of the bishop is founded upon his role in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Such a hierarchy did not exist in Rabbinic Judaism, in many ways a much more demotic religion than early Christianity, which retained the priestly element of Second Temple Judaism. The scriptural authority, in early Christianity, is that of the text itself (in its recognized translation, inspired by the Holy Spirit). The Biblical text speaks directly to the Christian believer, much more than to the member of a Jewish community, where it is always relayed and interpreted by the Rabbis. For the Christians, it is the New Testament (rather than the Mishna), itself soon transformed into a scriptural text, which represents the hermeneutic key to the Old Testament. Hence, scriptural authority has a much more direct impact in Christianity than in Judaism. In Patristic Christianity, we can distinguish different kinds of personal authority. Side by side with that of the bishop and that of the theologian and there is also that of the spiritual writer, i.e. one of the authors who write treatises both on scriptural interpretation and attempts at theosis. But besides the attempt to unite with God – the traditional attempt in any mystical pattern of religious life – one of the major goals of the Christian is the imitatio Christi, following Jesus, even unto martyrdom. It is usually the holy men who show the way to this imitatio, thus becoming themselves models for admiration and emulation on the part of Christian believers. These holy men developed a pattern of personal authority

|| 31 See Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Menahot 29b, where Moses does not recognize ‘his’ Torah as taught in Rabbi Aqiva’s school. For another conception of authorless authority in nonliterate societies, see Severi 2008.

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based upon their own charisma, which competed with the authority of the bishop and with that of the theologian. All in all, personal authority is much more powerful in Christianity than in Judaism, and more elaborate, while the authority of the scriptures remains, mostly, the power of Jesus as ultimate model. In Judaism, the model for imitation is that of the master by his pupil, while the authority of scripture is mediated through the voice of tradition, which is plural, but always eventually passes through the mouth of one Rabbi – a master and not a priest, a teacher and not a holy man. I have sought to argue here in a nutshell that in the long late antiquity, the highly complex and fluid interface between literacy and orality entailed a similarly complex and interrelated relationship between scriptural and personal modes of authority in ‘religions of the book’, i.e., among Jews and Christians. This relationship was also directly dependent upon the different attitudes to the surrounding culture. Arguably, both scriptural and personal authority functioned in more direct fashion among Christians, and in a more mediated way among Jews. This difference between the networks of authority may have been one of the major structural differences between the two emerging religions.32

Reference List Berger, M., Rabbinic Authority, Oxford 1998 Bremmer, J., ‘From Holy Books to Holy Bible: An Itinerary from Ancient Greece to Modern Islam via Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity’, in Popović, M., ed., Authoritative Scriptures in Ancient Judaism, Leiden 2010, 327–360 Brown, P., Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1982 (2nd edn) Brown, P., ‘The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity, 1971–1997’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, 1998, 353–376 Brown, P., Authority and the Sacred: Aspects of the Christianization of the Roman World, Cambridge 1995 Dupont, F., ‘Comment devenir à Rome un poète bucolique? Corydon, Tityre, Virgile et Pollion’, in Chartier, R., and Calame, C., eds, Identités d’auteur dans l’Antiquité et la tradition européenne, Grenoble 2004, 171–189 Colesanti, G., ‘Two Cases of Submerged Monodic Lyric: Sympotic Poetry and Lullabies’, in Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014, 90–106

|| 32 In Fowden 2014, he has mentioned prophecy, scripture, and exegesis as three successive stages in the development of the Abrahamic religions, 56. It might be more accurate to see them, not as chronological stages, but as simultaneous forms of religious expression.

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Dodds, E. R., Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety: Some Aspects of Religious Experience from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine, Cambridge 1965 Fowden, G., Before and After Muhammad: The First Millenium Refocused, Princeton 2014 Goody, J., The Power of the Written Tradition, Washington and London 2000 Harris, W. V., Ancient Literacy, Cambridge 1989 Hezser, C., Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, Tübingen 2001 Krueger, D., Writing and Holiness: The Practice of Authorship in the Early Christian East, Philadelphia 2004 Marx, W., Le tombeau d’Oedipe: pour une tragédie sans tragique, Paris 2012 Rubenson, S., The Letters of Saint Antony: Monasticism and the Making of a Saint, Minneapolis 1995 Severi, C., ‘Autorités sans auteur: Formes de l’autorité dans les traditions orales’, in Compagnon, A., ed., De l’autorité: Colloque annuel du Collège de France, Paris 2008, 93–123 Rapp, C., ‘Holy Texts, Holy Men, and Holy Scribes: Aspects of Scriptural Holiness in Late Antiquity’, in Klingshirn, W. E., and Safran, L., eds, The Early Christian Book, Washington, D.C. 2007, 194–222 Shaked, Sh., Ford, J. N., and Bhayro, S., Aramaic Bowl Spells: Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Bowls, I, Leiden 2014 Smith, W. C., What Is Scripture? A Comparative Approach, Minneapolis1993 Stock, B., Augustine the Reader, Cambridge, MA 1996 Stroumsa, G. G., ‘Early Christianity: a Religion of the Book?’, in Finkelberg, M., and Stroumsa, G., eds, Homer, The Bible and Beyond: Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World, Leiden 2003, 153–173 Stroumsa, G. G., Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism, Leiden 2005 (2nd edn) (Studies in the History of Religions, 70) Stroumsa, G. G., The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity, Chicago 2009 (Italian trans. Turin 2006) Veyne, P., Les grecs ont-ils cru à leurs mythes? Essai sur l’imagination constituante, Paris 1983 Whitehouse, H., ‘Modes of Religiosity: Towards a Cognitive Explanation of the Sociopolitical Dynamics of Religion,’ Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 14, 2002, 293–315 Whitehouse, H., and Laidlaw, J., eds, Ritual and Memory: Towards a Comparative Anthropology of Religion, Walnut Creek, CA 2004

Jonathan Cahana

Gnosticism and Radical Feminism From Pathologizing Submersion to Salvaging Re-emergence

1 Introduction According to Luigi Enrico Rossi, ‘submerged literature’ includes texts that ‘were mistreated from the very beginning of their transmission’ since ‘it was in the interest of a community that they be concealed, and even suppressed’.1 As will be shortly made clear, both ancient Christian Gnosticism and radical feminism would easily fall under this definition. There is, however, one major difference: since radical feminism is a relatively recent phenomenon which also benefited from modern modes of text production and preservation, almost all of the sources are still with us, even if some may be harder to locate then others. This, in turn, may allow us to use radical feminism to make certain aspects of ancient Gnosticism re-emerge from their long submersion, provided that enough similarities can be independently drawn between the two phenomena to merit such a comparison.

2 Radical feminism and Gnosticism Radical feminism is a relatively well demarcated phenomenon which has been the subject of a few scholarly monographs and anthologies.2 As a movement, radical feminism offered the first detailed and thorough criticism of such issues as rape, sexual acts, and procreation and childbearing, as well as offering a careful deconstruction of how ‘woman’ or ‘man’ are constructed as givens in our culture. It is important to differentiate between radical feminism and liberal or first-wave feminism (which preceded it) and cultural feminism (which followed, and to some extent also submerged it). Here, Alis Echols’ formulations are especially helpful. She notes that while liberal feminists sought (political) equality

|| 1 Rossi 2000, 170, cited and translated in Ercolani 2014, 7. 2 E.g. Echols 1989; Crow 2000; Buchanan 2011.

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radical feminists sought women’s liberation.3 Her differentiation between radical feminism and cultural feminism is even more important for our purposes: … radical feminism was a political movement dedicated to eliminating the sex-class system, whereas cultural feminism was a countercultural movement aimed at reversing the cultural valuation of the male and the devaluation of the female. In the terminology of today, radical feminists were typically social constructionists who wanted to render gender irrelevant, while cultural feminists were generally essentialists who sought to celebrate femaleness.4

The sources discussed in the following comparison stem from the major figures of the radical feminist movement and are representative of its views, which are, more often than not, opposed to those taken by either liberal or cultural feminists. Gnosticism is a modern term that was nevertheless coined from the Greek word gnostikoi, meaning ‘those who have knowledge,’ a self-designation of a few early Christian sects that flourished in the first centuries of the GrecoRoman world. These early Christians were denounced as ‘heretical’ by the proto-orthodox Church Fathers, thus ultimately damning their writing to full submersion within proto-orthodox heresiological production. The few ‘original’ Gnostic sources we have today (most of which were originally written in Greek but preserved only in Coptic translation) survived merely due to chance and the dry climate of the Egyptian desert, the most important find being that near Nag Hammadi in 1945. Contrary to proto-orthodox Christians, Gnostic Christians believed that the God who sent Jesus to redeem humanity is distinct from the biblical God who created the world. The latter is often portrayed as an evil entity setting out, together with his collaborators the archons, to persecute and take advantage of humanity by a combination of deceit and force. Conversely, Jesus is portrayed as sent to inform humans of the highest God and to liberate them from the creator and his deceptive creation. While the very existence of Gnosticism as useful historical term has recently been challenged for various reasons,5

|| 3 Echols 1989, 12. See also Crow 2000, 2. 4 Echols 1989, 12. No less intriguing is her judgment that cultural feminism bears more similarities to liberal feminism than to radical feminism (Echols 1989, 14). Without using these very terms, radical feminist Monique Wittig has already noticed these similarities as they took form in front of her very eyes, and warned lest the feminist movement fall into that ‘trap which threatens us once again: the myth of woman’ (Wittig 1992, 15; original article published in 1981). 5 See Williams 1996 and King 2003. On the other hand see Brakke 2011 for a recent defence of the category, even if in a limited sense. All three studies also contain a wealth of material

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I have purposely left the discussion of this complicated question (and the implications my arguments may entail for this question) to the end of this article. However, as with radical feminism, I have concentrated only on those sources whose Gnostic affiliation has rarely been doubted. That is, the sources discussed in this comparison are those that even scholars who reject the category would turn to in order to prove their point.

3 The comparison: similarities 3.1 Procreation and childbearing The first Gnostic work to be dealt with is the Nag Hammadi tractate known as the Dialogue of the Saviour. Already in the late 1970s, Elaine Pagels noted in her tremendously popular but no less insightful book The Gnostic Gospels the affinity this text has with ‘certain radical feminists today,’ but she did not go into further detail (1979, 86).6 At first, this work may seem contradictory: On the one hand, Mary Magdalene is singled out as ‘the woman who knew the all’ (139. 53), but on the other hand the text contains what appears to be anti-feminine statements. However, if we pay careful attention to Mary’s response to these statements, as well as to Shulamith Firestone’s important formulation of the role of procreation and childbirth in women’s lives (1970), we will discern that this text is unswerving in its radical feminist posture. In the following dialogue, Jesus has something to say about procreation: The Lord said, ‘Whatever is born of truth does not die. Whatever is born of woman dies’. Mary said, ‘Tell me, Lord, why I have come to this place to profit or to forfeit’. The Lord said, ‘You make clear the abundance of the revealer!’7

Mary’s first reaction to Jesus’ statement can be easily understood: as a woman who was socialized into patriarchy, she initially believes that the only justification she has for her life is procreation; if the latter is rejected, her very sense of being is at loss. This becomes even more pointed once we remember that, according to the proto-orthodox New Testament epistle 1 Timothy, procreation is || regarding the available Gnostic sources, primary and secondary, and their haphazard mode of transmission. 6 See also her earlier pivotal (1976) but seldom quoted discussion of feminine imagery, androgynous creation, and the status of women in Gnosticism. 7 Dialogue of the Saviour 140. 59‒61; trans. Emmel 1984, 81.

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actually woman’s only path to salvation.8 Yet Jesus, completely reversing the ideals set by 1 Timothy (which forbids women to preach ‒ 2:12), says that her purpose in life is apostleship and procreation is an obstacle in her way. Jesus’ point is quickly grasped by Mary, and when the subject arises again in the conversation, she is worried for a completely different reason: The Lord said, ‘Pray in the place where there is no woman’. Matthew said, ‘“Pray in the place where there is [no woman],” he tells us, meaning, “Destroy the works of womanhood,” not because there is any other [manner of birth], but because they will cease [giving birth]’. Mary said, ‘They will never be obliterated’. The Lord said, ‘[Who] knows that they will [not] dissolve and ... [2 lines missing]?’9

At this stage of the conversation, Mary already understood that procreation must be done away with if she is to be free, but she worries lest this will never happen. Jesus, however, comforts her, hinting that this may indeed come about. This rather optimistic viewpoint is adopted also by Shulamith Firestone. In her Dialectic of Sex she singles out procreation as being at the heart of women’s oppression and vows to fight it by any means possible: The heart of woman’s oppression is her childbearing and childrearing roles … Let me then say it bluntly: Pregnancy is barbaric. … I submit, then, that the first demand for any alternative system must be: 1) The freeing of women from the tyranny of their reproductive biology by every means available ... To thus free women from their biology would be to threaten the social unit that is organized around biological reproduction and the subjection of women to their biological destiny, the family.10

For both Firestone and whoever wrote the Dialogue of the Saviour, then, procreation is no less than a honey trap of patriarchy. As such, its aim is to subjugate women, and both the Dialogue of the Saviour and Firestone agree that only its complete elimination can set women free.11 It is only to be expected, therefore,

|| 8 1 Timothy 2:15. 9 Dialogue of the Saviour 144. 90‒94; trans. and emendations Emmel 1984, 89‒91. 10 Firestone 1970, 72, 198, 206 (emphasis in the original). While Firestone can indeed be singled out as providing the most detailed and intricate argument against procreation, she is by no means an exception in adopting such an approach. One need only cite Ti-Grace Atkinson’s statement that, ‘Women have been murdered by their so-called function of childbearing’ (1974, 5). On the centrality and importance of both Firestone and Atkinson in the radical feminist movement, see, for instance, Buchanan 2011, 12‒13 and 26‒27. 11 It is also quite intriguing that both radical feminists and the author of the Dialogue of the Saviour use the patriarchal concept of ‘woman’ while calling for its abrogation. See, for instance, Crow 2000, 2: ‘the key distinguishing feature of radical feminism is its refusal to accept

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that the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin can be found quoting approvingly a very similar dialogue – this time between Jesus and Salome – which Clement of Alexandria ascribed to the Gospel of the Egyptians, and concluding that in this she would wholeheartedly take the (Gnostic) Christ as her guide.12

3.2 Rape and intercourse Our second subject is the understanding of intercourse and rape. Radical feminists were the first to explicate rape not as an impulsive act of lust by men who are not able to control themselves (usually as a result of women acting wantonly), but as a terroristic act of violence meant to subject women in general. Susan Brownmiller wrote the following in her 1975 book Against Our Will: … we accept as basic truth that rape is not a crime of irrational, impulsive, uncontrollable lust, but a deliberate, hostile, violent act of degradation and possession on the part of the would-be conqueror, designed to intimidate and to inspire fear …13

If we now go back to the rape stories we have in Gnostic writings, one can hardly resist the thought that they were written to express this basic truth. In the Hypostasis of the Archons, for instance, while lust is mentioned as a motive for the archons’ wish to rape Eve and Norea, once Norea rejects them their real purpose comes immediately to the forefront: Their supreme chief said to her, ‘Your mother Eve came to us’. But Norea turned to them and said to them, ‘It is you who are the rulers of the darkness; you are accursed. And you did not know my mother …’. The arrogant ruler turned, with all his might … he [said] to her presumptuously, ‘You must render service to us, as did also your mother Eve; for I have been given …’.14

|| the traditional category of “women” as it has been defined in the West’. Or the more colourful, yet somehow still troubling, address of the radical feminist Ti-Grace Atkinson to women: ‘You'll be afraid you'll die, and the woman will die, but your life will be born, and you’ll begin to be free’ (1974, 7). 12 Dworkin 1974, 173. 13 Brownmiller 1975, 391. See also MacKinnon 1989, 172: ‘In feminist analysis, a rape is … an act of terrorism and torture within a systemic context of group subjection, like lynching’. On the determinative importance of Brownmiller’s Against Our Will on the radical feminist understanding of rape, see Echols 1989, 193‒194 and Buchanan 2011, 68‒70. 14 Hypostasis of the Archons 92. 19‒31; trans. Layton 1987, 73, with minor alterations.

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Once we get to the untitled Nag Hammadi writing known as On the Origin of the World, which resembles a philosophical tractate much more than an apocalypse and therefore does not take pains to tell a ‘good’ story, lust is not even mentioned; on the contrary, it seems that the archons have just read Brownmiller and know exactly what one should do in order to subject a renegade woman: They came to Adam. When they saw Eve talking to him, they said to one another, ‘What sort of thing is this luminous woman? … Now come, let us lay hold of her and cast our seed into her, so that when she becomes soiled she may not be able to ascend into her light. Rather, those whom she bears will be under our charge’.15

Other radical feminists argued that rape as such is not the only problem; Catherine MacKinnon, for instance, noted that when one uses the formula that ‘rape is violence and not sex,’ it preserves the ‘sex is good’ norm and hides the basic truth that sex, under patriarchal domination, can be difficult to distinguish from rape (MacKinnon 1989, 135; 174). Andrea Dworkin went on to describe intercourse itself as the problem, being an incessant ubiquitous device for subjugating women: Intercourse is a particular reality for women as an inferior class; and it has, in it, as part of it, violation of boundaries, taking over, occupation, destruction of privacy, all of which are construed to be normal and also fundamental to continuing human existence. There is nothing that happens to any other civilly inferior people that is the same in its meaning and in its effect … while the subject people, for instance, may be forced to have intercourse with those who dominate them, the God who does not exist did not make human existence, broadly speaking, dependent on their compliance. The political meaning of intercourse for women is the fundamental question of feminism and freedom: can an occupied people—physically occupied inside, internally invaded—be free; can those with a metaphysically compromised privacy have self-determination; can those without a biologically based physical integrity have self-respect?16

|| 15 On the Origin of the World 116. 12‒20; trans. Bethge, Layton, et al. 1989, 67. I thus agree with Benjamin Dunning that rape in this work is portrayed as a means ‘to subdue … difference and shore up the boundaries of a creation that has begun to leak’ (2009, 80). But I would argue, contrary to Dunning, that the situation in the Hypostasis of the Archons is quite similar, despite the mention of ‘lust’ as an additional motive for the actions of the archons. This difference is due to genre, but it is quite clear that in both cases the archons’ (attempted) rapes are first and foremost due to their (justified) feeling that creation is no longer under their charge and needs to be subdued immediately. 16 Dworkin 1987, 123‒124. Once again, this concept permeated radical feminist thought which, in general, ‘held up the nuclear family and even the act of sexual intercourse as methods of oppression ...’ (Buchanan 2011, x; see also 25).

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These insights become extremely relevant in Gnostic writings once we remember how the rape stories function in the writings. Karen King has already noted that the plight of the rape victims in the Hypostasis of the Archons stands for the plight of the Gnostics in the world, and that the Gnostics in general found much in common between their own situation and the situation of women under patriarchy (King 1990, 11; 23). And indeed, the text starts by promising to explicate our struggle against the rulers and archons of this world (134.1; cf Ephesians 6:12).17 It takes, however, the formulations of Dworkin and MacKinnon to see how exactly this common ground was constructed: both women and Gnostics are consistently raped in this world by patriarchy – whether the latter is represented colourfully as powerful monstrous archons or, more mundanely, by men in general. In both cases, these recurring rapes are not understood primarily as a result of uncontrollable lust on the part of the rapists, as they would be usually understood from within patriarchal discourse. Instead, they are portrayed as a well-crafted terroristic device meant to maintain an inferior and subjugated class through penetrative sexual acts – a viewpoint that takes its stance from outside and is critical of patriarchal discourse.18 It is certainly true that radical feminists explicated a careful socio-historical reasoning to demonstrate this point, whereas the Gnostics expounded their ideas mythologically. Nevertheless, the underlying argument is very similar.

3.3 Contradictory patriarchal images of the feminine: holy or whore? The third parallel I would like to present is yet another device of patriarchal subjugation; yet this time, it is a literary or discursive device. Adrienne Rich, among many other radical feminists, has noted that patriarchal descriptions of women and the feminine tend to be extremely dichotomistic: Throughout patriarchal mythology, dream-symbolism, theology, language, two ideas flow side by side: one, that the female body is impure, corrupt, the site of discharges, bleedings, dangerous to masculinity, a source of moral and physical contamination, ‘the devil’s

|| 17 A point stressed already by McGuire 1988, 242, but see her more recent views in McGuire 1999, 272‒273. 18 Katherine Veach has made a very convincing case that On the Origin of the World was written either by a woman or ‘by someone with a vested interest in rethinking what it means to be a woman’ (2010, 3). Such an authorship would of course corroborate well with such a perspective.

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gateway’. On the other hand, as mother the woman is beneficent, sacred, pure, asexual, nourishing; … These two ideas have become deeply internalized in women, even in the most independent of us, those who seem to lead the freest lives. In order to maintain two such notions, each in its contradictory purity, the masculine imagination has had to divide women, to see us, and force us to see ourselves, as polarized as to good or evil, fertile or barren, pure or impure.19

It would be extremely easy to find examples of this patriarchal device in Second Temple period Judaism and early Christianity; one need only have recourse either to Woman Wisdom and the Strange Woman/Folly in the book of Proverbs or to typological hermeneutics on Eve and the Virgin Mary in the early Christian fathers.20 Yet, as always, when we come to Gnostic writings things change. The enigmatic Thunder: Perfect Mind seems to strike back against these patriarchal notions: I am she who is honoured and she who is scorned. I am the whore and the holy. I am the wife and the virgin. I am and the daughter. I am the members of my mother. I am the barren one and many are her sons. I am she whose wedding is great, and I have not taken a husband. I am the midwife and she who does not give birth. … Why do you curse me and honour me? You have smitten and you have shown mercy. Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have [known] …21

Contrary to Anne McGuire’s claim, that this text ‘reinforce[s] the oppressive polarization of scorned harlots and honoured holy ones,’22 I would like to argue that it does exactly the opposite: it subverts such a polarization, since these notions are not kept in their ‘contradictory purity,’ but it is the same entity that claims to be both, resulting in a real affront to patriarchal values.23 Moreover, it

|| 19 Rich 1986, 34. See also the classic study of Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (1979). 20 Actually, ‘the devil’s gateway’ in Rich’s text is a reference to Tertullian of Carthage’s depiction of each and every woman as a (potential or actual) Eve (The Apparel of Women 1. 1. 2). On Woman Wisdom and the Strange Woman/Folly in Proverbs see the discussion of Claudia Camp (1997, 85‒112), who refers to their juxtaposition as ‘one of patriarchy’s favorite symbolic games’ (92). On Eve/Mary in early Christianity, see Tina Beattie, who explicitly refers to Rich and argues that, ‘[T]o demonize Eve and idealize Mary through contrasting death and life, sin and grace, is to perpetuate a discourse of repression and denial, by disallowing the identification of women with Eve and Mary, with fallenness and redemption, as the warp and weft of being human’ (2002, 105). 21 Thunder: Perfect Mind 13. 14‒14. 9; 17. 35‒36. For the Coptic text, see MacRae 1979, 234‒236; 244. The translation is mine. 22 McGuire 1999, 283. 23 It is enlightening to note here that Camp in her study, mentioned above (n. 20), signals that the feminist potential in the female imagery of Proverbs can be brought out precisely by read-

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goes on to address the apparent representative of patriarchy and asks, much like Rich, ‘Why do you curse me and honour me? … Do not separate me from the first ones whom you have known!’ A special force would be added to these words if one considered Bentley Layton’s proposal, that the ‘true setting’ of Thunder might be a monologue spoken by Eve after her wilful separation from Adam by the evil archons.24 In such a setting, I propose, it can be read as the first gendered ‘woman’ protesting vehemently against her gendering at the very beginning of it. As an aside, it is interesting to note how the poignancy of Thunder's claim to be both whore and holy and both honoured and scorned is still felt today, to the point that when it was used for the recent appealing Prada commercial, those two lines were elegantly skipped.25 One can only presume there is a limit to how feminist you can be when you are trying to sell perfumes. Returning to late antiquity, however, I would like to stress that while this text is indeed exceptional or even unique in the cultural climate of its time, it is by no means exceptional in Gnosticism, and one need only refer to that ‘arch-heretic’ Simon Magus, who, according to both Irenaeus of Lyon and Epiphanius of Salamis ‘acquired’ his companion Helena from a brothel and called her ‘mother of all’ and ‘both prunicus (= wanton) and Holy Ghost’.26 If this story has any historical basis, it seems to have been a concrete demonstration of those same ideas expressed so poetically in Thunder.27 || ing Proverbs ‘against the surface grain of the text’ and regarding the two women as unified (1997, 107‒108). Thunder would clearly not require such a contrariwise reading strategy to lend itself to the formulation of feminist theology, and indeed it was deployed for such use by the feminist writer Michèle Roberts (1984; Thunder is quoted in 64, sung jointly by Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus). For discussion of Roberts’ work see Jasper 2012, 139‒150, who notes that Roberts was ‘[W]riting in the “white heat” of early second-wave feminist thinking’ (141). 24 Layton 1986, 46‒47. 25 Scott and Scott 2005. After ‘I am the first and the last’ the voiceover conveniently skips to ‘I am the wife and the virgin’. I am quite baffled as to how Taussig, et al. were able to hear it there (2010, 42), since it is clearly not there. Actually, if those lines were spoken in the film, it would have laid bare precisely the capitalist machinations that Taussig, et al. work so hard to reveal, and thus would considerably detract from its power as a commercial. 26 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1. 23. 2; Epiphanius, Panarion 21. 2. 2‒4; Birger Pearson went so far (and, to my mind, too far) as to argue that the speaker in Thunder is Simon Magus’ Helen and that this work is a piece of Simonian Gnosis (see MacRae, et al. 1973, 122). The exceptionality of Thunder in antiquity has been stressed by many scholars: see, for instance, MacRae, et al. 1973, esp. 2‒4 and 13; MacRae 1977, 112‒113; and, much more recently, Taussig, et al. 2010, 95 and passim. 27 Hans Jonas, among others, accepted the basic historicity of the account (1963, 104 n. 3). In his monograph on Simon Magus, Stephen Haar also noted that ‘… the available evidence does

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3.4 The Anti-sex/pro-sex divide The last trait of this comparison may be the most sensitive of the four. It is well known that radical feminism was (and, to a certain extent, still is) bitterly and fiercely divided in its approach to sexual intercourse. While the two factions share a lot in common as far as ideas and concepts are concerned, they part ways as to the practice these should entail. One strand, which is larger (or at least more vocalized) has adopted what has been termed an ‘anti-sex’ attitude, while the other is often labeled as ‘pro-sex’. Gayle Rubin delineated this schism carefully and fairly: Feminism has always been vitally interested in sex. But there have been two strains of feminist thought on the subject. One tendency has criticized the restrictions on women’s sexual behavior and denounced the high costs imposed on women for being sexually active. This tradition of feminist sexual thought has called for a sexual liberation that would work for women as well as for men. The second tendency has considered sexual liberalization to be inherently a mere extension of male privilege. This tradition resonates with conservative, anti-sexual discourse. With the advent of the anti-pornography movement, it achieved temporary hegemony over feminist analysis.28

Rubin’s paper itself attests to the bitterness of this divide, as it originates in a conference (now known as the Barnard Conference) that radical ‘anti-sex’ feminist groups did their best to prevent from convening.29 When specific practice has been at stake, as was most famously the case in lesbian feminist BDSM practice, this divide has sometimes turned almost (physically) violent. Pat Califia testifies: In October of 1976, I attended a lesbian health conference in Los Angeles and went to a workshop there about S/M. In order to go to a workshop, you had to sign a registration sheet. I was harassed by dykes who were monitoring this space to see who dared sign up for that filthy workshop, I had to walk through a gauntlet of women who were booing and hissing, calling names, demanding that the workshop be canceled, threatening to storm the room and kick us all out of the conference.30

|| not discount the possibility of there being an actual Helen’, but at once added that ‘her symbolic importance overshadows all other details’ (2003, 271). 28 Rubin 1984, 301. 29 See the testimony of Pat Califia (2000, xiv). 30 Califia 2002, 171‒172. Ever since the days of Against Sadomasochism (Linden, et al. 1982), and, on the other side of the argument, Coming to Power (1981), there have been numerous treatments of the question as to whether BDSM can or should be considered feminist. The most

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It is striking that ancient Gnosticism appears to have been divided along two lines that are almost identical. The two factions shared much in common as far as theology, mythology, and cultural ideology is concerned, but diverged fiercely as to the proper practice this knowledge necessitates. A large group of Gnostic sects believed that gender and sexuality could be overcome only by extreme asceticism; others, probably a minority, believed that only by a profusion of subversive sex could one break free from the evil archontic scheme of gender.31 From an outsider point of view these divergent practices need not be seen as opposites, since, as Hans Jonas already remarked, ‘freedom by abuse and freedom by non-use … are … only alternative expressions of the same acosmism’.32 From an insider Gnostic point of view, however, these differences mattered greatly, and the hostility they provoked was no less horrendous than in radical feminism, as the following dialogue from the Pistis Sophia attests: Thomas said; ‘We have heard that there are some upon the earth who take male sperm and female menstrual blood and make a dish of lentils and eat it … Is this then seemly or not?’ Jesus … said to Thomas: ‘Truly I say that this sin surpasses every sin and every iniquity. People of this kind will be taken immediately to the outer darkness …’33

While it is clear even from Thomas’ (apparently innocent) question that this kind of subversive sexual behaviour was an issue as far as the group who read and revered this text is concerned, in a closely related tractate, the Books of Jeu, we find Jesus himself being worried lest his worthy mysteries be divulged to some proximate group involved in such subversive sexual practices. In his vehement proscription against divulging any mystery to this rival group (which he

|| recent appears to be that of Ritchie and Barker 2005. What looms large over all such discussions is, of course, the general issue of whether pro-sex feminists are, or can be, ‘really’ feminists. 31 Some scholars (e.g. Williams 1996, 163‒188) deny the historicity of the accounts regarding ‘pro-sex’ Gnostics. I have recently tried to demonstrate that these accounts are basically credible and corroborated by different types of evidence: Cahana 2011, 25‒29. The historical validity of the accounts is of course strengthened by the comparison to radical feminism in demonstrating how similar ideology can result in such two-pronged ethics. Many other scholars have also argued for the existence of Gnostic groups that were engaged in subversive sexual rituals, but for different (yet not mutually exclusive) reasons. See, for instance, Grypeou 2011, Broek 2008, and Turner 2000. I am consciously refraining from using the misleading term ‘libertinism’, since it implies a license to do whatever one wishes, not specifically those acts that can be considered sexually subversive. 32 Jonas 1963, 171‒172. 33 Pistis Sophia 4. 147 (ed. and trans. Schmidt and MacDermot 1978b, 381 with minor alterations).

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mentions in parallel with ‘father, or mother, or brother, or sister, or relative’), Jesus is forced to admit that the members of that group argue that they ‘have known the knowledge of truth, and … pray to the true God’. He is quick to point out, however, that ‘their god is wicked’.34 It seems highly likely, therefore, that a ‘pro-sex’ Gnostic group lived in close proximity to the ‘anti-sex’ Gnostic group who read and revered these texts, and hostility was high.35

3.5 The origin and purpose of sex and gender At this stage it may not come as a surprise to find that radical feminists and Gnostics would have found much to agree about when discussing the origin and purpose of sex and gender. Monique Wittig explained that it is oppression that creates sex, which is then masked as natural: The perenniality of the sexes and the perenniality of slaves and masters proceed from the same belief, and, as there are no slaves without masters, there are no women without men. The ideology of sexual difference functions as censorship in our culture by masking, on the ground of nature, the social opposition between men and women. The masters explain and justify the established divisions as a result of natural differences. … For there is no sex. There is but sex that is oppressed and sex that oppresses. It is oppression that creates sex and not the contrary. The contrary would be to say that sex creates oppression, or to say that the cause (origin) of oppression is to be found in sex itself, in a natural division of the sexes pre-existing (or outside of) society.36

While we could hardly expect such a meticulous argument from the Gnostics, we may easily locate its mythological counterpart in their writings. A recurrent motif apparent in most, if not all, Gnostic creation accounts is that the original heavenly human, or anthropos, was neither gendered nor sexed, and that gender was the creation of an evil, inferior, and overly masculine god whose purpose was to delude humankind lest they recognize their heavenly origin and revolt against him.37 Even in an exceptional text such as On the Origin of the World, where ‘biological’ sex is not the result of the creator’s actions – as metic|| 34 Second Book of Jeu 43. For the Coptic text and an English translation, see Schmidt and MacDermot 1978b, 128‒129. 35 For the intricate connections between, and the existence of a community behind, the Pistis Sophia and the Books of Jeu, see Evans 2015. I have provided a detailed comparison of BDSM and sexual Gnostic rituals in Cahana 2012. 36 Wittig 1992, 2. 37 See, for instance, Apocryphon of John 22. 28‒23. 4, Hypostasis of the Archons 89. 3–11 and Apocalypse of Adam 64. 5‒64. 30.

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ulously described by Benjamin Dunning38 – the cultural meaning of gender is still ascribed to that evil deity: They came to Adam. When they saw Eve talking to him, they said to one another, ‘… come, let us lay hold of her and cast our seed into her, so that when she becomes soiled she may not be able to ascend into her light. Rather, those whom she bears will be under our charge. But let us not tell Adam, for he is not one of us. Rather let us bring a deep sleep over him. And let us instruct him in his sleep to the effect that she came from his rib, in order that his wife may obey, and he may be lord over her’.39

Note the composite process of gendering in this text, the stages of which I have delineated in this article from both radical feminist and Gnostic points of view: first the penetrative act (in this case rape), then procreation and childbirth – all meant to establish the inferiority of the oppressed. Then comes the ‘naturalization’ of the differences, which, in reality, turns out to be no more than a conspiracy and a lie of the ‘masters’. No doubt this knowledge, this unveiling of the overarching conspiracy of sexual difference, calls for action, much as it does for Monique Wittig; only here the ‘masters’ are not human but divine (if evil).40

4 Gnosticism and radical feminism: differences This last remark leads me to the differences between radical feminism and Gnosticism. To begin with, it is very clear that for radical feminists, the source of all evil is the oppression of women, and gendering (or even sexing, according to Wittig) is but the device of the oppression.41 The Gnostics would probably have phrased it differently: as far as issues of gender are concerned, the very creation

|| 38 Dunning 2009; Dunning 2011, 75‒94. 39 On the Origin of the World 116. 12‒16; trans. Bethge, Layton, et al. 1989, 67–69. 40 Here I would like to stress that while Wittig’s understanding of sex and gender can be aligned closely with Gnostic Christianity, it cannot be so easily assimilated to early protoorthodox Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism, despite what Daniel Boyarin argued in his otherwise enlightening study (1998, 122‒128). The crucial difference is that the early nonGnostic Christian and Jewish Hellenistic evidence presented by Boyarin points to gender/sex being understood either as a second-best condition (more often), or as a pitiful but welldeserved result of the/a Fall. In both Wittig and Gnosticism, however, the argument is that gender and sex are an evil, overarching, and ultimately fictitious conspiracy that has no other purpose than to enslave humankind to the ‘masters’. Only this is not Kansas anymore. 41 See, for instance, Crow 2000, 2: ‘radical feminism saw women’s oppression as the first, the oldest, and the primary form of oppression’.

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of the sexes is the source of all evil, and the oppression of women (and men) is but the sad (yet intended) consequence of it. Another important difference is the belief in progress evinced by radical feminists. If anything, feminist writing is first and foremost a vehicle for socio-political change in the here and now.42 It is thus telling that when rejecting procreation and childbirth, for instance, radical feminists try to figure out how the propagation of the human race is possible without oppressing women: both Dworkin and Firestone turn to science in the hope of finding a solution.43 For the Gnostics, this problem apparently did not exist. On the other hand (or on the other side of the time spectrum) while Gnostics did long for an ungendered era in time immemorial, most radical feminists tended to have very little patience for a nostalgia for an ancient matriarchy.44

5 Summary and conclusions I mentioned at the beginning of my article that two major arguments have been made against any continued scholarly use of the category ‘Gnosticism’. The first, by Michael Williams, was on the grounds that there is very little resemblance among the evidence subsumed under the ‘Gnostic’ category. All in all, Williams argued, the only thing in common is ‘biblical demiurgical traditions’, that is, the idea that the God who sent Jesus to redeem humankind is distinct from and superior to the biblical god who created the world.45 Karen King, on the other hand, argued that our very use of the terms ‘Gnosticism’ and ‘Gnostic’ is in continuity with heresiological discourse and thus serves only to distort our understanding of these ancient Christian texts. The main thrust of this heresio-

|| 42 See Dworkin 1974, 17: ‘This book is an action, a political action where revolution is the goal. It has no other purpose’. Radical feminist belief in progress and social change is, of course, hardly surprising, due to its close alliance with (while criticizing of the sexist premises of) socialism: see the discussion in Echols 1989, esp. 51‒101 on the Politico-Feminist schism. 43 Dworkin 1987, 138; Firestone 1970, 191‒202. Atkinson, on the other hand, while still assuming that a solution should be sought, vehemently argues that it is not the responsibility of women to find this solution, in the same way that, ‘it wasn’t the responsibility of slaves to think up, develop, experiment, and prove superior a new economic system for the South before they were emancipated’ (Atkinson 1974, 6). 44 Wittig 1992, 10. See also Firestone 1970, 74. Dworkin, on the other hand, does develop and subscribe to a myth of an original androgynous/ungendered era (tellingly, however, not to a myth of matriarchy), but she appears to be interested in such a myth mostly for its potential effects and contribution to the feminist revolution in the here and now: 1974, 155‒173. 45 Williams 1996, 55‒57. See also Williams 2005.

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logical discourse was and, according to King, still is ‘the ongoing project of defining and maintaining a normative Christianity’.46 This, in turn, can only be done by demarcating, ‘othering’ and pathologizing the ‘others,’ in this case the Gnostics. But how are we to respond to the fact that all of the sources that align so well with radical feminism (which is no doubt a historical phenomenon) are those that have usually been considered Gnostic throughout decades of scholarship? One possibility is that Gnosticism was not so much a religious phenomenon as a cultural-critical one. Admittedly, religious symptoms abound in Gnostic texts; but their main thrust lies elsewhere, in the cultural sphere. Like radical feminists, the Gnostics appear to have developed a critical theory of culture, even though they transcribed it mythically. Critical theories of culture, however, challenge the very unquestioned premises on which a given culture is built and by which it functions, and as such they are indeed an easy target for defensive pathologizing and submersion propounded by the representatives of that culture. And, indeed, radical feminism has received its own share of pathologizing.47 Yet, in our justified attempt to resist the pathologizing of Gnosticism by the heresiologist, we must take heed of Karmen MacKendrick’s important observation that, while ‘to pathologize is to dismiss from serious consideration’, ‘to normalize … is equally dismissive’.48 Indeed, both Gnosticism and radical feminism were pathologized by representatives of mainstream culture as part of the process of submersion. But normalization would salvage neither. That radical feminism, however, due to its relative novelty and its reliance on modern methods of text production and preservation, could be pathologized but not wholly submerged, means it may be used as a life-vest to salvage from the deep an almost completely submerged early, mythological, and eerie counterpart. And if, as seems to be the case, Gnosticism was indeed such an ancient counterpart, it should be appreciated for what it was, even if it has sometimes, like radical feminism, challenged some concepts and raised some issues that some of us might prefer to remain dormant.

|| 46 King 2005, 115‒116. 47 See, for instance, Bell 1971, which included a rather lenient and well-meaning chapter on the deviance of ‘Militant Women’ (357‒394) on a par with chapters on ‘Alchohol’, ‘Drugs’ and ‘Prostitution’. Further references to the pathologization of radical feminism are provided in Crow 2000, 8 n. 6. 48 MacKendrick 1999, 17.

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Reference List Atkinson, T., Amazon Odyssey, New York 1974 Bell, R. R., Social Deviance: A Substantive Analysis, Homewood, Il. 1971 Beattie, T., God’s Mother, Eve’s Advocate: A Marian Narrative of Women’s Salvation, London 2002 Bethge, H., Layton, B., and the Societas Coptica Hierosolymitana, trans., ‘On the Origin of the World’, Layton, B., ed., Nag Hammadi Codex II, 2‒7, Vol. 2: On the Origin of the World, Expository Treatise on the Soul, Book of Thomas the Contender, Leiden 1989, 29‒93 Boyarin, D., ‘Gender’, in Taylor, M. C., ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies, Chicago 1998, 117‒135 Brakke, D., The Gnostics: Myth, Ritual, and Diversity in Early Christianity, Cambridge, MA 2010 Broek, R. van den, ‘Sexuality and Sexual Symbolism in Hermetic and Gnostic Thought and Practice’, in Hanegraaff, W. J., and Kripal, J. J., eds, Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism, Leiden 2008, 1‒21 Brownmiller, S., Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, New York 1975 Buchanan, P. D., Radical Feminists: A Guide to an American Subculture, Santa Barbara, CA 2011 Cahana, J., ‘Gnostically Queer: Gender Trouble in Gnosticism’, Biblical Theology Bulletin 41, 2011, 24‒35 Cahana, J., ‘Dismantling Gender: Between Ancient Gnostic Ritual and Modern Queer BDSM’, Theology & Sexuality 18, 2012, 60‒75 Califia, P., Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex, San Francisco 2000 Califia, P., Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex, San Francisco 2002 Camp, C. V., ‘Woman Wisdom and the Strange Woman’, in Beal, T. K., and Gunn, D. M., eds, Reading Bodies, Writing Bodies: Identity and the Book, London 1997, 85‒112 Coming to Power, San Francisco 1981 Crow, B. A., ed., Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader, New York 2000 Dunning, B., ‘What Sort of Thing Is This Luminous Woman?: Thinking Sexual Difference in On the Origin of the World’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 17, 2009, 55‒84 Dunning, B., Specters of Paul: Sexual Difference in Early Christian Thought, Philadelphia 2011 Dworkin, A., Woman Hating, New York 1974 Dworkin, A., Intercourse, New York 1987 Echols, A., Daring to Be BAD: Radical Feminism in America 1967‒1975, Minneapolis 1989 Emmel, S., ed., Nag Hammadi Codex III,5: The Dialogue of the Savior, Leiden 1984 Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and Some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture: An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014, 7‒18 Evans, E., The Books of Jeu and the Pistis Sophia as Hanbooks to Eternity, Leiden 2015 Firestone, S., The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, New York 1970 Gilbert, S. M., and Gubar, S., The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Imagination, New Haven 1979 Grypeou, E., ‘Gnostic Libertinism Revisited’, in Bumazhnov, D., Grypeou, E., Sailors, T. B., et al., eds, Bibel, Byzanz und christlicher Orient, Leuven 2011, 29‒46 Haar, S., Simon Magus: The First Gnostic?, Berlin 2003 Jasper, A. E., Because of Beauvoir: Christianity and the Cultivation of Female Genius, Waco 2012

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Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianity, Boston 1963 King, K. L., ‘Ridicule and Rape, Rule and Rebellion: The Hypostasis of the Archons’, in Goehring, J. E., Hedrick, C. W., Sanders, J. T., et al., eds, Gnosticism and the Early Christian World: In Honor of James M. Robinson, Sonoma, CA 1990, 3‒24 King, K. L., What is Gnosticism?, Cambridge, MA 2003 King, K. L., ‘The Origin of Gnosticism and the Identity of Christianity’, in Marjanen, A., ed., Was There a Gnostic Religion?, Göttingen 2005, 103‒110 Layton, B., ‘The Riddle of the Thunder (NHC VI, 2): The Function of Paradox in a Gnostic Text from Nag Hammadi’, in Hedrick, C. W., and Hodgson, R., eds, Nag Hammadi, Gnosticism, and Early Christianity, Peabody, MA 1986, 37‒54 Layton, B., ed. and trans., The Gnostic Scriptures, New York 1987 Linden, R. R., Pagano, D. R., Russell, D. E. H., et al., eds, Against Sadomasochism, Palo Alto, CA 1982 MacKendrick, K., Counterpleasures, New York 1999 MacKinnon, C. A., Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, Cambridge, MA 1989 MacRae, G. W., ‘Discourses of the Gnostic Revealer’, in Widengren, G., and Hellholm, D., eds, Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Gnosticism, Stockholm, August 20‒25, 1973, Leiden 1987, 111‒122 MacRae, G. W., ‘The Thunder: Perfect Mind’, in Parrot, D. M., ed., Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2‒5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4, Leiden 1979, 231‒255 MacRae, G. W., Pearson, B. A., and Conley, T., ‘The Thunder: Perfect Mind’: Protocol of the Fifth Colloquy of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies in Hellenistic and Modern Culture, Berkeley 1973 McGuire, A., ‘Virginity and Subversion: Norea against the Powers in the Hypostasis of the Archons’, in King, K. L., ed., Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism, Philadelphia 1988, 239‒258 McGuire, A., ‘Women, Gender, and Gnosis in Gnostic Texts and Traditions’, in Kraemer, R. S., and D’Angelo, M. R., eds, Women & Christian Origins, Oxford 1999, 257‒299 Pagels, E. H. ‘What became of God the Mother? Conflicting Images of God in Early Christianity’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 2, 1976, 293‒303 Pagels, E. H., The Gnostic Gospels, Princeton 1979 Rich, A., Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution, New York 1986 Ritchie, A., and Barker, M., ‘Feminist SM: A Contradiction in Terms or a Way of Challenging Traditional Gendered Dynamics through Sexual Practice?’, Lesbian & Gay Psychology Review 6, 2005, 227‒239 Roberts, M., The Wild Girl, London 1984 Rossi, L. E., ‘L’autore e il controllo del testo nel mondo antico’, Seminari Romani 3, 2000, 165‒181 Rubin, G., ‘Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality’, in Vance, C. S., ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Boston 1984, 267‒319 Schmidt, C., and MacDermot, V., ed. and trans., The Books of Jeu and the Untitled Text in the Bruce Codex, Leiden 1978a Schmidt, C., and MacDermot, V., ed. and trans., Pistis Sophia, Leiden 1978b Scott, J. and Scott, R., directors, Thunder Perfect Mind, Prada Parfums, Ridley Scott & Associates [RSA] 2005, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jP36p0kjTI

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Taussig, H., Calaway, J., Kotrosits, M., Lillie, C., and Lasser, J., The Thunder: Perfect Mind: A New Translation and Introduction, New York 2010 Turner, J. D., ‘Ritual in Gnosticism’, in Turner, J. D. and Majercik, R., eds, Gnosticism and Later Platonism: Themes, Figures, and Texts, Atlanta 2000, 83‒139 Veach, K., 2010, ‘The Case for Feminine Authorship of “On the Origin of the World”’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the North American Patristics Society, Chicago, Il., 27‒29 May 2010 Williams, M. A., Rethinking ‘Gnosticism’: An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category, Princeton 1996 Williams, M. A., ‘Was There a Gnostic Religion? Strategies for a Clearer Analysis’, in Marjanen, A., ed., Was There a Gnostic Religion?, Göttingen 2005, 55‒79 Wittig, M., The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Boston 1992

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Submerged Literature in China Funerary Inscriptions in the Medieval Period (3rd–10th centuries) The present essay is divided into two parts: in the first part I introduce the notion of writing in traditional China along with its linguistic and cultural significance, showing the particular relationship between orality and literacy and the absolute predominance of written culture as the authoritative expression of the culture of the literati; in the second, I focus on funerary inscriptions and their role as ‘submerged’ literature in a very literal sense of the word, as well as on their ‘emergence’ as both literary pieces and refined artifacts in the world of the living. By so doing, not only do I attempt to present the value of non–official documentation in the study of traditional China, but I also aim to assess the unique role of epigraphic data as the reflection of a wider cultural world that is not thoroughly attested in traditional historiography and literature.

1 Writing and orality in traditional China Literature (in Chinese wenxue 文學, lit. ‘the learning of wen’) in China can be compared to the very concept of civilization. The word wen comprises the meanings of ‘pattern’, ‘civil virtue’ and ‘letters’. Emperor Wendi 文帝 Cao Pi 曹丕 (187–226 CE, reigned 220–226 CE) of the Wei 魏 (220–265 CE) dynasty, who is commonly regarded as the first real literary theoretician, made a clear description of the value of literature in his ‘Discourse on literature’ (Lunwen 論文): Surely, literary works are the greatest undertaking for the government of the state, a magnifmagnificent deed that does not decay. There is a moment when [even] a long life will end, just like joy and fame will cease with one’s body[’s decay]. [But] the certain limit that these two have to reach cannot compare to the infinity of literary works. Therefore the writers of the past entrusted themselves in writing (lit. ‘brush and ink’), showing their [innermost] intentions in literary pieces. Without making use of sentences of able historians or relying on

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the power of officialdom and aristocracy, their fame will naturally be transmitted to posterity.1

No wonder that writing is one of the cultural phenomena of which the Chinese are most proud. They also believe that their writing system surpasses all other writing systems in both subtlety and beauty, for it develops through skilled brushmanship into the distinctive art form of Chinese calligraphy. This is the reason why in 1826, a period when China was opening herself to external influinfluences, John Francis Davis (1795–1890), who would shortly afterwards become governor of Hong Kong, published an article on the importance of handwriting in China, wishing that Westerners would learn how to write the Chinese standard script in a beautiful hand, so that they could gain favour from the mandarins of the Heavenly Empire.2 As many will know, Chinese writing is a logographic system of signs, called in Chinese hanzi 漢字 (lit. ‘characters of the Han people’, and thus translated sometimes as ‘sinographs’) in which every sign (at least in theory in the oldest forms of Chinese) represents one word of the spoken language. Hence, no alalphabet or syllabary can provide any help for mastering the Chinese writing system, something that can only be achieved through a constant memorization of basic lexical elements that are in many cases words per se. Some characters are indeed comprised within other characters, sometimes with a phonetic funcfunction, sometimes bearing a semantic value, whereas others bear small semantic ‘markers’ such as those standing for water, fire, grass, etc., which aid recognition of the semantic field of the written sign. The overall number of Chinese characters recorded in the massive Great Dictionary of Chinese Characters (Hanyu dazidian 漢語大字典) is 60,370, but many of these are simply graphic variants. A list of 7,000 ‘commonly used characters’ (tongyongzi 通用字) in Modern Chinese was published in 1988, and it has been calculated that 2,500 ‘frequently used characters’ (changyongzi 常用字) derived from it suffice to read 97.97% of everyday modern Chinese writing.3 As to traditional China, today scholars believe that a learned man would have been expected to know how to write at least 5,000 characters,4 and this

|| 1 Chinese text, and a slightly different translation, in Owen 1992, 68–69: 蓋文章，經過之大業，不朽之盛事。年壽有時而盡，榮樂止乎其身。二者必至之常期，未若文 章之無窮。是以古之作者，寄身於翰墨，見意於篇籍。不假良史之辭，不託飛馳之勢，而聲名 自傳於後. 2 Davis 1826. 3 Wilkinson 2013, 40. On the various aspects of Chinese writing, see Qiu Xigui 1988. 4 Wilkinson 2013, 39.

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was the most important means through which to enter the highly esteemed world of officials. In the standard dynastic history Book of the [Western] Han (Hanshu 漢書, 206 BCE–6 CE, completed in 96 CE) it is clearly stated that those students who wanted to become scribes had to memorize over 9,000 characters,5 and those who excelled in etymology became copyists in the Palace Library.6 Starting with the Han (even though there is also some evidence of a large administrative apparatus in the Western Zhou 周 [ca. 1065–753 BCE]),7 the bureaucratic apparatus developed into an imposing system of administrative control which relied on officials who were able to read and write, and whose efficiency was crucial for the life of the immense Chinese empire, hence the fundamental function of writing for the whole history of China. As already hinted, to master or to be ignorant of writing are two very different things, perhaps more different in China than in other cultures. Each character does not bear just one meaning, but can function in many different synctactic ways depending on the context. For this reason, one can only fully master Chinese writing through a gradual and constant study of many and varied texts. In addition, in traditional China characters were not merely signs to represent the oral language. They were the manifestation of the cosmos, and therefore they could be used as a means for understanding the patterns of the universe. As we know, Chinese cosmology begins with the Classic of Changes (Yijing 易經), which describes both natural and human phenomena in terms of the combinations of two lines (yao 爻), one of which is continuous (yang 陽) and the other is broken (yin 陰), into eight trigrams (bagua 八卦), which, in their turn, produce 64 hexagrams (also called gua). In the commentary Appended Words [to the Classic of Changes] (Xici 繫辭) (completed 4th–3rd cent. BCE) we find the first account of the invention of writing: Anciently, when Baoxi had come to the rule of all under heaven, looking up, he contemplated the brilliant forms exhibited in the sky, and looking down he surveyed the patterns shown on the earth. He contemplated the ornamental appearances of birds and beasts and the (different) suitabilities of the soil. Near at hand, in his own person, he found things for consideration, and the same at a distance, in things in general. On this he devised the

|| 5 Martin Kern has shown that this figure could actually be 5,000, according to the excavated text ‘Statutes of Scribes’ (Shilü 史律). See Chang and Owen 2010, vol. 1, 58–59. 6 Han shu, 30.1719–1720. 7 Martin Kern has calculated that in the Rites of Zhou (Zhou li 周禮, completed ca. 4th cent. BCE) 994 scribes are recorded in the central administration. Chang and Owen 2010, vol. 1, 58.

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eight trigrams, to show fully the attributes of the spirit-like and intelligent (operations working secretly), and to classify the qualities of the myriads of things.8

This divinatory dimension is more clearly expressed in the ‘Postface’ to the first (and still widely used) etymological dictionary of Chinese characters, the Discussion of Single Characters and the Explanation of Compound Characters (Shuowen jiezi 說文解字), completed in 100 CE by Xu Shen 許慎 (ca. 55–ca. 149 CE), which starts with the first sentence of the Appended Words and then goes on to say that: Cang Jie, archivist of the Yellow Emperor understood, by observing the footprints of birds, that the shape [of things] could be distinguished from each other, therefore he created for the first time writing. The hundreds of officials could then be regulated through it, and the ten thousand things could be examined…9

Since the first century onwards, the origin of Chinese writing has thus been connected to this idea of cosmic phenomena and to their relation to ruling the world. From this excerpt and from the importance given to this dictionary and its ‘Postface’ in the history of Chinese literacy, we learn how Chinese writing has traditionally been regarded not only from a purely linguistic point of view, but also from a cultural one. For the Chinese characters are not only the written signs of oral language, but, more importantly, the ‘shapes and forms’ (faxiang 法象), that is the direct symbols of cosmic phenomena. Evidence of this special nature of Chinese writing is apotropaic applications of special characters, called ‘talismans’ or ‘charms’ fu 符, used by Taoist priests even in the present day.10 Moreover, before printed texts became widespread after the eleventh century, mastery in writing meant also to be able to decipher and copy texts written in many scripts. For instance, the Six Codes of the Tang (Tang liu dian 唐六典), compiled by Li Linfu 李林甫 and others in 739 attests that an ability to work with different scripts (the ancient script [guwen 古文], the major zhuan [篆] and lesser zhuan, the clerical [li 隸], and the standard [kai 楷]) was also required for

|| 8 Yijing, 86: 古者，包犧氏之王天下也， 仰觀象於天， 俯則觀法於地， 觀鳥獸之文與地之宜。 近取諸身， 遠取諸物， 於是始作八卦， 以通神明之德， 以類萬物之情. Translated by Legge 1963, 382–383. 9 Shuowen jiezi, 15a.753–754: 於是作易八卦， 以垂憲象。 及神農氏， 結繩為治而統其事， 庶業其繁， 飾偽萌生 黃帝史館倉頡， 見鳥蹄迒之跡， 知分理之可相別異也， 初造書契 百工以乂， 萬品以察 … 10 Tseng 1993, 80–83.

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positions as editors (jiaoshu lang 校書郎) and proofreaders (zhengzi 正字) of the Palace Library (Bishusheng 秘書省).11 However, this does not mean that profound communicative dimensions were to be relegated to the written text only. Orality of course played a key role in the transmission of knowledge, and of religious and philosophical teachings. From the bibliographic treatise of the Book of the Han we have an epitomizing description of the most widely read text in Chinese literature, Confucius’ (551– 479 BCE) Analects (Lunyu 論語): As for the Analects, these are the words uttered by Confucius in reply to his disciples or his contemporaries, as well as those sayings pronounced among his disciples or directly heard by them from [the mouth] of the master.12

But orality was not crucial only for the debates of the philosophical schools (the so-called ‘hundreds of schools’ baijia 百家, in reality much fewer) run by ‘knights/literati’ (shi 士), such as that of Confucius. Poetry too, even in ancient times, as is shown by many popular songs included in the Classic of Poetry (Shijing 詩經, ca. 1000–600 BCE), had a function that was primarily oral, and gradually it even turned into a social practice. The same bibliographic treatise included in the Book of the Han has a section on poetry and rhapsodies (shi fu 詩賦), in which we find the earliest description of the traditional context where poetic creation arose: The commentaries report that ‘to recite without singing is what is called rhapsodies (fu, i.e. rhymed prose), and those who can recite rhapsodies once they have reached the top of a mountain can then serve as ‘grand masters’’. This is to say that those who can create [literary pieces] once they are moved in their hearts, if also endowed with wide and deep comprehension and ability in participating in the scheming issues [of government], can then become ‘grand masters’. In ancient times, when the various dignitaries and the high ministers visited other states tried to influence [the interlocutor] by using subtle and profound words, and during the welcoming ceremonies, it was expected that both host and hosted parties would cite the Classic of Poetry in order to express their intentions…13

However, in terms of the political and cultural context, the same bibliographic catalogue tells us another interesting fact which clearly describes the im-

|| 11 Tang liu dian, 10.300. 12 Hanshu, 30.1701: 論語者，孔子應答弟子時人及弟子相與言而接聞於夫子之語也. 13 Ibidem, 30.1755–1756: 傳曰： “不歌而誦謂之賦， 登高能賦可以為大夫” 言感物造耑， 材知深美， 可與圖事， 故可以為列大夫也 古者諸侯卿大夫交接鄰國， 以微言相感， 當揖讓之時， 必稱詩以諭其志 ...

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portance of the chronicle-historical dimension in the whole history of China, for which the written text did acquire the most authoritative role: During the age of the ancient kings, each act of the sovereign had to be accurately recorded, and by this means [he was compelled] to moderate his words and actions, which were made a model [of behaviour for the people]. The left archivist recorded his speeches, the right one his actions …14

In medieval China, proficiency in poetry was commonly expected from each learned man. Besides the writing abilities which the literati had to master in order to enter officialdom and which they even evolved into the unique artistic creation of calligraphy, poetry was a widespread means of communicating personal feelings, sentiments towards a friend, records of specific events, laudatory compositions at official banquets, etc.15 No wonder that the oral and written dimensions were so intricately intermingled. Many classical poems have come down to us in different versions, as a result of different transmissions probably due to varied oral reception. However, despite the hic et nunc nature of occasional poetry, the most widespread and thus lasting means of bringing it to fruition was surely the written text. In addition, a very important feature to be stressed here regards the actual intelligibility of oral texts. Many poems were just oral songs which were transmitted orally for many generations before they were written down. Many Tang poems are certainly very colloquial in style, and one could argue that everybody could understand them very easily, for example Li Bai’s 李白 (701–762 CE) famous Bring on the Wine (Qiang jinjiu 將進酒). But poetry was also full of literary and historical allusions (diangu 典故), which very likely all literati used and whose meaning they were all aware of. In a word, they were conscious of the shared lexicon and imagery of their ages, not to mention the stratified tradition of poetry and classical literature and scholarship they all had to master or at least be acquainted with. Still, the features of a highly monosyllabic language like Chinese could sometimes be an obstacle for the precise recognition of the word (that is the written character) that corresponded to the spoken sound. The Chinese language has always had many homophones, therefore it is very probable that in ancient times a syllable could easily be associated with the wrong character, and hence identified with the wrong word. This danger was already noted in the preface of a lexicon for recognizing vernacular words, the Thesaurus of Characters (Zibao 字寶) which was composed in the

|| 14 Ibidem, 30.1715: 古之王者世有史官， 君舉必書， 所以慎言行， 昭法式也 左史記言， 右史記事 ... 15 Chang and Owen 2010, vol. 1, 286.

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ninth century and was discovered in the Qianfo 千佛 caves in Dunhuang 敦煌 in the early 1900s in different manuscripts (P.2717, P.3906, P.2508, S.619, S.6204). In its preface we read: As for all the actions of men, for all of these there is a designation, [however when] the words are often on the mouths [of speakers], the charaters are difficult to grasp. For this reason, in terms of the actions of common people, one is often hindered in writing down [their denomination], and in compiling and composing [texts], one wastes [efforts] in browsing [the correct character]. Although [these words] are used in discussions, this usually leads to being in doubt of their [written graph]. Moreover, vulgar and obscene words are not present in classics and works of history. As for those words heard from the ten thousand people, their [written] characters are abstruse and removed [from the common written language], so they are pronounced orally but are not understood as [written words].16

The practice of writing and copying texts was therefore the real engine that could make literary texts last for ages. With the invention and diffusion of printing the written text became much cheaper and thus more easily available than during the manuscript period, so it gained wider circulation and exerted a much stronger influence over the cultural life of China.

2 The ‘submerged’ funerary inscriptions and their emergence in Chinese literature Due to the relatively weak role played by the oral tradition, the written text can be seen as the perfect means for the permanent recording of historical events, collective memories and personal feelings. The great bulk of Chinese literature has thus come to us through written transmission. Within this written tradition, however, there is a type of written text that occupies a peculiar position in the context of Chinese literary composition and which can be fully called ‘submerged literature’: this is the case of ‘epitaphs’ (muzhiming 墓誌銘, lit. ‘inscription and sepulchral biography’) and of ‘funerary elegies’ (jiwen 祭文, lit. ‘compositions for the funerary sacrifice’), which belonged to the secret world of the

|| 16 凡人之運[手]動足皆有名目， 言常在口， 字難得知 是以兆人之用， 每妨下筆，修撰著述， 費於尋檢， 雖以談吐， 常致疑之 又俗猥辭之字， 不在經典史籍之內 聞於萬人理論之言， 字多僻遠， 口則言之， 皆不之識.

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‘yellow source’, i.e. the netherworld (huangquan 黃泉).17 Epitaphs, today produced much less frequently than in Imperial China, are made up of two slabs of stone, normally quadrangular, usually measuring from 30 to over 100 cm per side. The lid (zhigai 誌蓋) is usually in the shape of a short low pyramid and bears the engraved title of the epitaph in the zhuan script in the form ‘epitaph of X from the X dynasty’, often mentioning also the official title of the deceased. The epitaph proper (zhishen 誌身, lit. ‘body of the epitaph’) is composed of a biographical preface in prose (zhi, called xu 序 after the 6th century) in the standard or clerical scripts, describing the main points in the life of the deceased, his/her date of death and place of burial, and of a laudatory inscription in verse (ming 銘) which generally reprises the content of the preface. The epitaphs usually contain from a few dozen to a few hundred characters, with the longest inscriptions amounting to more than three thousand characters. The funerary elegies, much shorter than the epitaphs, were composed on the occasion of funerary ceremonies during which offerings were made for the soul of the deceased; they retained many features of the epitaphs, although the tone was much more poignant. These compositions are not merely examples of biographical writings. In the case of epitaphs, they are part of the funerary object that was essential for the passage of the deceased to the netherworld and which was often produced on the occasion of a reburial (qianzang 遷葬, lit. ‘relocation of the burial’). The tomb thus functioned as a micro-representation of the universe and the stone with the epitaph inscribed thereon was placed at the entrance of the funerary room; from the early sixth century onwards it was covered by the lid on which the title of the epitaph and decorative carvings were carved. Since their appearance in the third century, epitaphs have played an essential role in Chinese funerary rituals. On the other hand, the funerary elegies served the function of mourning and sacrificing to the dead during the occasion of the burial or for a commemorative ritual. They are thus pieces of oral literature, which had to be declaimed on the spot for the sake of the mourning of the relatives and friends of the deceased. Epitaphs are studied not only by historians but also by palaeographers and art historians. As media entrusting a person to the netherworld, these stone inscriptions were held in the highest esteem by the relatives and friends of the deceased. According to the official rank of the dead, epitaphs varied in both dimension and carving quality. If the family could afford to honour the dead

|| 17 The best Western-language study on funerary inscriptions is De Groot 1892–1910, vol. 3, part 1, 1101–1164. The most authoritative sources on epitaphs and stone inscriptions in general are Zhao Chao 1997 and Zhao Chao 2003.

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richly, a good quality stone was bought from and carved by professional artiartisans, and friends or renowned literati would compose the epitaph and copy it in a calligraphic hand. The more famous the author or calligrapher, the higher respect was accorded to the deceased. If the family did not have any special social connections, the epitaph was directly commissioned to the ‘shop for omiominous [events]’ (xiongsi 凶肆), where both the inscribed text and the stone carvings were of much lower quality. As paper is an easily perishable material, most of the specimens of calligraphy dating before the tenth century are given by stone inscriptions, whose artistic beauty is usually appreciated through ink rubbings (tapian 拓片). A great number of these stone inscriptions are epitaphs from the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries, which are commonly used as copying models for the study of calligraphy. Archaeologists and art historians usually consider the period from the late fifth to the late ninth century as the apex of the production of epitaphs, both from a calligraphic and a decorative viewpoint. After this period very few changes occurred in the production of epitaphs, which become much less interesting for the art historian. In addition, the spread of printing and the wider diffusion of texts also diminished the importance of epitaphs as historical documentation. The burial of the dead has always concerned the Chinese. From the end of the second century BCE the Chinese have clearly expressed the intention of signalling the identity of the deceased through various burial objects. Specific funerary inscriptions appeared in the first century CE in order to mark the spot of the tomb, usually as ‘stele of the spirit-path’ (shendaobei 神道碑). During the second century, however, these inscriptions also acquired a prestigious function besides the ritual one. In this period many local officials and members of the gentry started vying to build greater and greater funerary monuments. Such was the diffusion of erecting these stelai that the famous literary figure Cai Yong 蔡邕 (132–192 CE) lamented once that he had composed too many, as we read in the Book of the Later Han [25–220 CE] (Hou Hanshu 後漢書) completed in 445 CE by Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445 CE): In the Spring of the following year (of the Jianning 建寧 reign period, 169 CE) he [Guo Tai 郭太, or 泰 (128–169 CE)] died at his home, aged forty-one. More than one thousand literati from each part [of China] attended his funeral. His companions then jointly got a stone carved and a stele erected, for which Cai Yong composed the text. After completing it he said to Lu Zhi (died 192 CE) of the Zhuo commandery [present day Hebei province]: ‘I have

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composed many funerary stelai and inscriptions, for all of which I feel ashamed. Only for that of Guo Youdao [i.e. Guo Tai] I feel no shame.’18

Officially to avoid waste of wealth, but probably out of fear that local officials might gain prestige by erecting luxurious funerary monuments, with the fall of the Later Han (9–220 CE) the central government time and again prohibited luxurious burials and the erection of stelai. This ban lasted until the end of the sixth century for southern China, whereas it was less strict in the north.19 Thus, from the early third century onwards, the whole scenario of funerary stelai changes dramatically, as these inscriptions move from standing on the ground into the tomb, most of the time in the middle, sometimes at the entrance of the burial room. In the first phase the buried epitaphs retain the general features of funerary stelai, with the difference that they are much smaller in scale. In the Epitaph (called bei 碑 in the inscription) of Cheng Huang 成晃 (buried on 291.8.27) (fig. 1), we notice that the base of the stone has no characters, very likely because it was still erected on the ground inside the tomb.20 Only from this time onwards can we talk about epitaphs proper, even though they have not yet reached the traditional format. Scholars commonly regard the Epitaph of Liu Huaimin 劉懷民 (buried in present day Xiangfan 襄樊 on 464.2.7) from the Southern Dynasty of Song as the first example of the modern epitaph, also because in its first column we read the word muzhiming.21 The earliest lid we are aware of is from the Epitaph of Yuan Shihe 元始和 (buried in Luoyang on 505.12.29), but it does not bear any characters.22 The idea of adding a lid onto the inscription of the epitaph was probably derived from the shi 式 (cosmograph), an object that is attested in tombs from the late first century BCE. The vault of the tomb being a small scale reproduction of the universe, the lid thus embodies its synthesized description, which was devised

|| 18 Hou Hanshu, 68.2227: 明年春， 卒於家， 時年四十二 四方之士千餘人， 皆來會葬 同志者乃共刻石立碑， 蔡邕為其文 既而謂涿郡盧植曰： “吾為碑銘多矣， 皆有慙德， 唯郭有道無愧色耳”. 19 In the ‘Monograph on Rites’ (Lizhi 禮志) of the Book of the Southern Dynasty Song [420–479 CE] (Song shu 宋書), completed in 493 CE by Shen Yue 沈約 (441–513 CE), we find a very detailed account of the prohibition. Songshu, 15.407. 20 Zhao Wanli 1986, 37. Rubbing reproduced in Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989–1991, vol. 2, 56, text recorded in Zhao Chao 2008, 5. 21 Zhao Wanli 1986, 42–43. Stone lost, rubbing reproduced in Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989–1991, vol. 2, 135, text recorded in Zhao Chao 2008, 22. 22 Rubbing reproduced in Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989–1991, vol. 3, 87.

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to help the deceased in their afterlife journey.23 The earliest known lid bearing characters is from the Epitaph of Kou Zhen 寇臻 (buried in Luoyang on 506.5.4) where the title in the standard script says, ‘Lid of the Epitaph of Kou, Governor of Youzhou and Yingzhou’ 幽郢二州寇使君墓誌蓋.24 Not all the lids were squared slabs, however. The famous Epitaph of Yuan Xianjun 元顯儁 (buried in Luoyang on 513.3.21) has the shape of a turtle and its lid stands for the carapace with the vertical title, ‘Epitaph of Lord Jun, Free from Official Posts’ 魏故處士元君墓誌 inscribed in the middle (see fig. 2a, b). However, Chinese researchers have shown that the turtle is not just a symbol of longevity, but, most importantly, also expresses the patterns of the cosmos.25 At least theoretically, the spirits of the netherworld, to which the ‘earthly’ (po 魄) soul of the deceased had been entrusted, were the main readers of these inscribed texts. In the epitaph of Cheng Huang we read, in fact: Therefore we have inscribed his personal and courtesy names on stone, establishing [hence] our efforts and cultivating virtue, in order to make it shown to the spirits of Heaven and Earth.26

This would mean that the texts of the epitaphs should have had a very restricted circulation, that is the author (a relative or a friend of the deceased, or a famous person from whom the text was commissioned), the calligrapher (anonymous or an important figure if the name is attested in the inscription), and the carver, besides the family of the deceased. This of course means that the production of a stone tablet did not concern just the family of the deceased, or his/her circle of acquaintances, but did have a certain social impact as well. As a matter of fact, epitaphs did not merely relate to the underworld, but had a strong social significance too. As De Groot explains, with respect to epitaphs produced in the late nineteenth century, but which can be related to some extent to medieval China too: The great care bestowed by the Chinese on these necrologies in stone indicates their belief in their importance to the dead. In fact, the reputation of their ancestors is dear to all, and devotion demands that the living should establish the fame thereof both in the realm of Death and in this world. Hence they place in their tombs an indelible record of their commendable and glorious feats, at the same time blazing abroad their fame by liberal distribution of copies on paper. By thus giving vent to their filial feelings they also greatly

|| 23 Zhao Chao 2003, 102–116. 24 Zhao Chao 2008, 48. 25 Zhao Chao 2003, 116. 26 Zhao Chao 2008, 5: 故銘勒名字，立身修行，以表之靈祇.

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benefit themselves, for the ancestors cannot do otherwise than reward them therefor by showering down blessings. These blessings may be shared by the composer of the document and the calligraphist, who have done their work so well. Hence, to direct the attention of the dead to their persons they take good care to place their names on the stone, with all their official titles, their boast and glory, either at the head of the ‘biography’, or at the end of the ‘inscription’. This adds much to the reputation of the family of the deceased, showing both in this world and the next how distinguished its members are, who count such noble men of rank among their kinsfolk, friends or acquaintance.27

In fact, the purpose of glorifying and perpetuating the memory of the deceased can be seen within the very text of many epitaphs. For instance, the Epitaph of Han Xianzong 韓顯宗 (buried in Luoyang on 500.2.11) says: ‘This funerary stone has then been carved in order to honour his unperishable fame’.28 The Epitaph of Yuan Xianjun goes: ‘Grieving for the premature demise of the bloomed orchid, lamenting for [his] music and calligraphy being buried forever, considering what the mourning has not chanted out yet, we have further recorded [his] resplendent [merits] on [this] funerary stone.’29 As already hinted, it was a common habit to cut inscriptions for important personages such as high officials and the imperial family. As a matter of fact, the compilation of epitaphs, funerary elegies and other commemorative texts related to influential or important personages was also part of the regular task of officials, as happened during the Tang with the two editorial directors (zhuzuolang 著作郎) and their four assistants (zuolang 佐郎) working in the Editorial Service (Zhuzuoju 著作局) of the Palace Library.30 Many of these inscriptions have a biographical counterpart in the standard histories, which often is much longer than the text of the relevant epitaph. This is the case of the Epitaph of Zhang Yue 張說 (667–731 CE) (buried in Luoyang on 731.4.24) composed by Zhang Jiuling 張九齡 (678–740 CE).31 The inscription is 417 characters long, whereas his official biography in the Old Book of the Tang (Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書) (completed in 945) is several thousand characters long, thus bearing much more information than the epitaph.32 In these cases, then, funerary inscriptions are significant because, on the one hand, they can corroborate official historical records and prove the historicity of certain events, and, on the other, they may show some kind of social relationships between the deceased (or his/her family) and the || 27 De Groot 1892–1910, vol. 3, part 1, 1110. 28 Zhao Chao 2008, 39: 迺鐫製幽石以旌不朽之令名. 29 Zhao Chao 2008, 68: 痛春蘭之早逝，傷琴書之永穸，以追吊之未磬，更載琭於玄石. 30 Tang liu dian, 10.302. 31 Li Xianqi 2000. 32 Jiu Tang shu, 97.3049–3057.

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author, the calligrapher and the engraver of the epitaph, who are all only partially attested in the historical sources.33 For the Epitaph of Zhang Yue we notice that the author, Zhang Jiuling, was a close friend of Zhang Yue’s, as is attested in his official biography,34 which reinforces the information recorded in the dynastic history; the calligrapher was the famous calligrapher of clerical script Liang Shengqing 梁昇卿 (fl. early 8th century), for whom, despite the dearth of historiographical accounts, we can presume some kind of relationship either with Zhang Yue or Zhang Jiuling himself; the carver, Wei Linghe 衛靈鶴 (dates unknown), is especially interesting because we have no other information about him, and here he is even mentioned with his official title, ‘aide to the magistrate (xiancheng 縣丞) in the Shanchuan 三川 county in Fuzhou 鄜州 (present day Shaanxi)᾿, thus showing the importance of the stone carvers in Tang inscriptions.35 Therefore, epitaphs and funerary elegies are of the utmost importance when they concern either the lower strata of society or figures who did have a certain social impact but of whom the historical records tell nothing. For instance, it is thanks to the epitaph and funerary elegy of the great Tang calligrapher Sun Guoting 孫過庭 (ca. 647–ca. 690 CE), written by his friend Chen Zi’ang 陳子昂 (661–702 CE), that we learn a very interesting account of the society of the time, which is otherwise unknown through official documentation. Only transmitted in the literary collection of the author, these two literary pieces are very important because they show how the upper and lower strata of officials may be linked by strong friendly ties that are very likely due to their common cultural interests.36 However, not all epitaphs and stelai are to be considered genuine descriptions of the lives or characters of the deceased. An excessively laudatory tone may well be expected from relatives or close friends writing in memory of the deceased, and all the more so when authors were asked to write epitaphs upon payment. This was attested very early, as we read in A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang (Luoyang qielanji 洛陽伽藍記) by Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之 (fl. 540s): ‘… Among contemporaries, the living are deemed stupid but the deceased wise. It is indeed very puzzling’. Asked why, [Zhao 趙 (dates unknown)] Yi said: ‘In a stele inscription or an epitaph on a grave for a man who was merely mediocre when alive, he is described as one who had in himself all the great virtues in heaven and on earth, and accomplished

|| 33 Li Xianqi 2000. 34 Jiu Tang shu, 99.3098–3099. 35 Cheng Zhangcan 2010, 72–73. 36 See De Laurentis 2011, 1–23.

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the best that any person might have hoped … Dishonest language is harmful to justice, while florid praise beclouds the truth’. Prose writers (gouwen zhi shi) who heard [Zhao] Yi’s remarks were ashamed of themselves.37

Nevertheless, being part of the ‘literary curriculum’, so to speak, of many literati either from friendship ties or for economic reasons, funerary writings have long received wide consideration. One of the most important sources for the study of medieval literature in China is the literary collection completed under imperial patronage in 987, the Anthology of the Literary Garden (Wenyuan yinghua 文苑英華) in one thousand volumes (juan 卷). Besides poetical writings, this huge compendium includes many memorials, dispatches, treatises, epistles, etc. to a total amount of approximately twenty thousand compositions. The last sixty-six volumes are entirely devoted to recording epitaphs and funerary elegies, the first divided into thirty-five sections (imperial family, ministers, officials, various, consorts), and the second with twenty-three (friends, relatives, spirit temples, ancient sages).38 But this attention to epitaphs and funerary elegies did not start with the late tenth century and the great encyclopaedic works compiled by Northern Song 宋 (960–1127 CE) court literati. In addition, already in the earliest literary anthology that has been preserved to our times, the Selections of Literature (Wenxuan 文選) compiled by the Prince Xiao Tong 蕭統 (501– 531 CE) of the Southern Dynasty of Liang 梁 (502–557 CE) in sixty volumes, we find one epitaph and three funerary elegies recorded in the last two volumes.39 According to the general survey by Endymion Wilkinson, the stone inscriptions including epitaphs produced from the Qin 秦 (221–206 BCE) to the Six Dynasties (220–589 CE) number ca. 1,700, ca. 10,000 from the Tang alone, ca. 3,000 from the Song, ca. 2,000 from the Liao 遼 (916–1125), Jin 金 (1115–1234), and Yuan 元 (1271–1368), and ca. 3,600 from the Ming 明 (1368–1644) and Qing 清 (1644– 1911).40 The manuscripts kept in Dunhuang and discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century are a very valuable source of documentation on medieval China. Among the ca. 50,000 manuscripts, including fragments, preserved in various collections around the world, there are also several epitaphs and funerary elegies, one of which is the epitaph of Li Mingzhen 李明振 (ca. 890 CE,

|| 37 Luoyang qielanji jiaozhu, 2.89–90: “⋯當今之人，亦生愚死智，惑已甚矣” 問其故，逸曰：“生時中庸之人耳，及其死也，碑文墓志，莫不窮天地之大德，盡生民之能事 妄言傷正，華辭損實” 當時構文之士，慚逸此言. Translated by Yi-T’ung Wang 1984, 80–81. 38 Wenyuan yinghua, 935–1000.4918–5253. 39 Wenxuan, 59.2568–2570, 60.2603–2610. 40 See Wilkinson 2013, 726, 748, 766, 784, 854.

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P.4615). Very interesting are a few formulas for funerary elegies that date from the years 894–897 CE (P.4043). These formulas concern funerary elegies for siblings (xiongdi zimei 兄弟姊妹) and Buddhist masters (shiseng 師僧). The funerary elegies normally involved sacrificial libations with exquisite food (shanxiu 膳羞) and alcoholic beverages (qingzhuo 清酌) specifically prepared for the occasion, as we find in the formulas for siblings, whereas the alcoholic beverages are substituted with beverages prepared with tea (chayao 茶藥) for Buddhist masters. As we can easily see, these texts were ‘submerged’ in a literal sense of the word, since they were buried inside the tomb. At the same, though, they ‘emerge’ as examples of wider literary practices, which, especially in the case of the lower strata of the population, reveal many aspects of daily life in medieval China that are not found elsewhere. Also from an artistic viewpoint, these inscriptions are the evidence of a much wider aesthetic context, now inevitably lost, which shows how epitaphs and stone inscriptions demanded the dignity of refined writing and thus overlap with calligraphic art.41 Early Chinese stone inscriptions very seldom bear any information on the author or calligrapher.42 In the epitaphs, the habit of writing the name of the authors or calligraphers starts in the first half of the sixth century and becomes commoner and commoner during the seventh and eighth centuries. Works bearing the names of personages who have little historical significance, or even works for which no author or calligrapher are known, represent works of fine art and thus represent a wider aesthetic world which would have been impossible to know without these ‘submerged’ compositions. This submerged world then emerges again and reflects a much richer world than we could imagine. Despite the immense patrimony of Chinese traditional literary documentation, whose bulk has been preserved in the printed editions produced from the tenth century onwards, those that have ‘emerged’ provide us with a different and more direct perspective when we approach the diverse cultural world of medieval China.43

|| 41 On the relationship between Chinese calligraphy and stone inscriptions in Tang China, see Gong Dazhong 2002 and De Laurentis 2014. 42 The earliest clear record of the name of the calligrapher in a stone inscription is found in the Ode to the Western Gorge (Xixia song 西峽頌), inscribed by a certain Qiu Jing 仇靖 in 171. See Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989–1991, vol. 1, 140–142. 43 After the final editing of the volume was completed, I learned that a monograph by Timothy Davis on early muzhiming was to be published by Brill in early 2016. Although unable to read its contents, I invite the reader to consult Davis’ book as well.

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Fig. 1: From Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989-1991, vol. 2, 56

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Fig. 2: From Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989-1991, vol. 4, 7

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Fig. 3: From Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 1989-1991, vol. 4, 8

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Reference List Beijing tushuguan jinshizu 北京圖書館金石組, ed., Beijing tushuguan cang Zhongguo lidai shike taben huibian 北京圖書館藏中國歷代石刻拓本彙編, 101 vols, Zhengzhou 1989– 1991 Bibliothèque nationale de France, ed., Catalogue des manuscrits chinois de Touen-houang, 6 vols, Paris 1991–2001 Chang, K. S., and Owen, S., eds, The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, 2 vols, Cambridge 2010 Cheng Zhangcan 程章燦, Shike kegong yanjiu 石刻刻工研究, Shanghai 2008 Davis, J. F., ‘Eugraphia Sinensis; or, the Art of Writing the Chinese Character with Correctness: Contained in Ninety-two Rules and Examples. To which are Prefixed, Some Observations on the Chinese Writing’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1.2, 1826, 304–312 Davis, T. M., Entombed Epigraphy and Commemorative Culture in Early Medieval China, Leiden 2016 De Groot, J. J. M., The Religious System of China, 6 vols, Leiden, 1892–1910 De Laurentis, P., The Manual of Calligraphy by Sun Guoting of the Tang. A Comprehensive Study on the Manuscript and Its Author, Naples 2011 De Laurentis, P., ‘Calligraphy and Bureaucratic Administration in Tang China (618–907)’, Annali dell’Università di Napoli “L’Orientale” – Sezione orientale 74, 2014, 137–159 Giles, L., Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Manuscripts from Tunhuang in the British Library, London 1957 Gong Dazhong 宮大中, Zhongguo shufa quanji di 30 juan: Sui Tang Wudai muzhi 中國書法全集第30卷：隋唐五代墓誌, Beijing 2002 Han shu 漢書, comp. Ban Gu 班固, 12 vols, Beijing 1964 Hou Hanshu 後漢書, comp. Fan Ye 范曄, 12 vols, Beijing 1973 Jiu Tangshu 舊唐書, comp. Liu Xu 劉昫 et al., 16 vols, Beijing 1975 Li Xianqi 李獻奇, ‘Tang Zhang Yue muzhi kaoshi’ 唐張說墓誌考釋, Wenwu 文物 533 2000.10, 91–96. Luoyang qielanji jiaozhu 洛陽伽藍記校注, written by Yang Xuanzhi 楊衒之, annotated by Fan Chengyong 范承雍, Shanghai 1978 (English transl. by Yi-t’ung Wang, A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, Princeton 1984) Ma Lijun 馬立軍, ‘Beichao muzhi zuozhe kaolun’ 北朝墓誌作者考論, Wenyi pinglun 文藝評論 158, 2011.2, 9–15 Owen, S., Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, Cambridge, MA 1992 Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭, Wenzixue gaiyao 文字學概要, Beijing 1988 (English transl. by G. Mattos and J. Norman, Chinese Writing, Berkeley 2000) Shuowen jiezi 說文解字, comp. Xu Shen 許慎, Shanghai 1981 Songshu 宋書, comp. Shen Yue 沈約, 8 vols, Beijing 1974 Tang liu dian 唐六典, comp. Li Linfu 李林甫 et al., Beijing 1992 Thern, K., Postface of the Shuo-wen Chieh-tzu, the First Comprehensive Chinese Dictionary, Madison, WI 1966 Tseng, Y., A History of Chinese Calligraphy, Hong Kong 1993 Wen xuan 文選, comp. Xiao Tong 蕭統, 6 vols, Shanghai 1986 (English transl. by D. R. Knetchges, Wen Xuan: Or Selections of Refined Literature, Princeton 1982–)

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Wenyuan yinghua 文苑英華, comp. Li Fang 李昉 et al., 6 vols, Beijing 1982 Wilkinson, E., Chinese History: A New Manual, Cambridge, MA 2013 Yijing 易經, in Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏, 2 vols, Beijing 1980, 5–97 (English transl. by J. Legge, The I Ching, New York 1963) Zhao Chao 趙超, Zhongguo gudai shike gailun 中國古代石刻概論, Beijing 1997 Zhao Chao, Gudai muzhi tonglun 古代墓誌通論, Beijing 2003 Zhao Chao, ed., Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi huibian 漢魏南北朝墓誌彙編, Tianjin 2008 Zhao Wanli, ed., 趙萬里, Han Wei Nanbeichao muzhi jishi 漢魏南北朝墓誌集釋 in Shike shiliao xinbian di san ji 石刻史料新編第三輯, 40 vols, Taibei 1986, vols 3–4

Roberta Denaro

Mapping Submerged Territories Preliminary Observations on the Category of ‘Submerged Literature’ in Arabic Literature ‘Of all the dividing lines set up between academic disciplines in the western intellectual tradition, the frontier between classical and Islamic studies has proved among the most durable and impenetrable’.1

After almost twenty years of scholarship this disciplinary boundary has become less impenetrable. Yet, there is still considerable room to foster the dialogue between two scholarly traditions that, though distinct in their methods and objects of study, are all but incomparable, and all the more so as the ArabicIslamic culture developed in territories in which late antique Hellenism was still very much alive and firmly connected to the Semitic bedrock.2 Thus, the Islamic culture, when placed into the cultural and religious horizon defined by late antiquity, becomes a more comprehensible object of study and should perhaps be seen as a reformulation, rather than an irreparable breach with respect to such horizon.3 The present essay aims at exploring whether the category of submerged literature – as it was outlined by Luigi Enrico Rossi4 and then further developed in the previous volume in this series, which fully explored its potential in the context of Greek culture5 – can be fruitfully applied to the Arabic-Islamic literary production. The goal is that of tracing a map, albeit a necessarily partial and provisional one, of the perspectives that this category can open up in a field other than the one for which it was originally elaborated. Behind this attempt is the belief that comparison can be an effective tool as long as it is not used to support any phenomenology, be it historical-religious or cultural. The effectiveness of a comparative approach lies in fact not so much in its capacity to highlight recurrent features that could be traced back to a shared

|| 1 Kennedy 1999, 219. 2 See Bowersock 1990 (esp. chapter VI), Fowden 1993, 138‒168 and Fowden 2004. 3 See Grünebaum 1976, Cameron 2013, and all the books in the series ʻStudies in Late Antiquity and Early Islamʼ edited by Averil Cameron and Lawrence I. Conrad (see esp. Cameron and Conrad 1992). For a view from the opposite angle, see Robinson 2003, 101‒134. 4 Rossi 2000, 170. 5 See Colesanti and Giordano 2014.

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character or uniqueness of the observed phenomena, but rather in its potential to bring out the peculiarities, the traits that cannot be explained by analogy. This line of investigation finds further motive in the awareness that ʻusing the Greeksʼ in the drawing of comparisons is of peculiar importance to the intellectual tradition in which many of the fathers of Italian and European Arabic studies were trained. The study of classics has had a deep impact in shaping the taste, the approach to texts, and the analytic tools used by many 20th-century Italian scholars, to the point that their writings often betray a nostalgia for Greek literature, which is assumed as a foundational literary landscape, the standard by which other literatures are measured and as an ideal model in whose name they set off on a vain quest for an Arab Homer or Archilochus.6 To some extent, therefore, deploying interpretive paradigms and questions arising from the study of classics constitutes a return to a once customary approach, yet starting from a different theoretical premise. In other words, comparison should be conceived not as a search for analogies legitimizing other texts and cultures insofar as they can be assimilated to the Greek model, but rather as a contrastive approach to texts and cultures aiming at ‘faire saillir un détail, un trait qui échappait à l’intelligence de l’interprète et de l’observateur’.7 The question thus lies in seeing whether and how the category of ‘submerged literature’ (SL), precisely because it is foreign to the hermeneutic instruments usually applied to Arabic-Islamic literatures, can be effective in revealing the elusive detail, those cultural dynamics that have not yet come entirely to the light. This is not the place to present a detailed analysis of the specific macroquestions that the category of SL could help bring into focus under a different light, above all that of the relationship between orality and writing, or that of the limits of the concept of literary genre.8 An attempt of that kind would, on the one hand, constitute a return to themes that have already received much attention from scholars, and, on the other, require competences in literary studies, anthropology and history of religion that are rather the expression of a research group than of a single researcher.

|| 6 See for example Gabrieli 1951, 28 and Gabrieli 1983, 1. On Francesco Gabrieli see Campanini 2013; Colella Tommasi 2002; Pagani and Ruocco 2012. 7 Detienne 2000, 42. 8 For an approach of this type in Greek literature see Palmisciano 2014, 19‒32. On the relation between orality and writing in Arabic literature see esp. Schoeler 2009 and Schoeler 2006, Adonis 1990, 13‒34; Zwettler 1978; Monroe 1972, 1‒53.

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However, it is possible to outline some questions raised by the definition of SL itself, beginning with a reflection on the object of study which should be categorized under the heading of submerged literature, or adab maġmūr, as it would be called in Arabic. The translation itself highlights, better than other considerations, some of the issues raised by the definition, beginning with that of adab as ʻliteratureʼ. The use of this term in the sense of ʻliteratureʼ or ʻlittératureʼ is, in fact, the outcome of a long process of definition that was completed only between the end of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century,9 a phenomenon involving also the related terminology (for example the expression al-naqd al-adabī for ʻliterary criticismʼ10). Before becoming established as the word that in the contemporary language refers to literature (in the sense of ʻbelles-lettresʼ and of related language and literary studies), the term adab went through a series of reformulations that begin from an original semantic nucleus associated not with texts but with an idea of ʻmoral conduct, practiceʼ. Broadly speaking, and without getting into the details of a very complex question, it can be said that the definition that comes closest to the mediaeval idea of adab is ʻsuitable things to know and to act uponʼ11 and that in this sense it refers to a body of texts conveying this art de vivre in the framework of values fixed by Islam.12 Rather than in terms of literature, adab can therefore be thought of as the Islamic remodelling of the paideia of late antiquity,13 as a key term in a cultural education in which culture and knowledge (and hence the texts that convey them) share a common goal that is primarily ethical and didactic in nature: … adab was not only a question of literature for its own sake, but for the sake of moral goals (ta’addub) of the community. Literary expression (adab) was the unique effective way to attain such didactic ends, and it is in that sense that this approach sought to harness all fields of inquiry to the values of a culture and, indeed, its formation.14

In other words, within the epistemological boundaries of mediaeval Islam there seem to be no room for an idea of literature as an autonomous and coherent ensemble of texts characterized by a language especially designed to achieve

|| 9 See Hallaq 2014. 10 See Wen-chin 1997, esp. 2‒21. 11 Hämeen-Hanttila 2014. On the concept of adab see also Enderwitz 2013; Bauer 2013; Bonebakker 1990, 16‒30; Metcalf 1984, 1‒20; Kraemer 1984. 12 On adab as part of the education of the good Muslim see Lapidus 1984. 13 See Brown 1984. 14 Heck 2002, 139.

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aesthetic effects, a situation that is not specific to Arabic-Islamic culture.15 It cannot be denied that much production in both verse and prose aimed for such an effect in a way that is absolutely conscious and deploying highly sophisticated techniques, yet the arts connected to language were valued for their propaedeutic function (in religious studies, good government, courtly education etc.). Quite paradoxically even poetry, which was, and still is down to the present day, the best loved among the arts, holds a position that is, all things considered, marginal within the hierarchy of different forms of knowledge that are useful to the community.16 This situation should be kept in mind when, as will be done here, literature is defined as adab. Similarly, the fact cannot be overlooked that many of the texts that are currently considered literature in the belletristic sense of the word were also, and especially, part of educational curricula reserved for members of the ruling class (the ḫāṣṣa). That is, they were texts written by (and for) highly specialized and socially prestigious professional groups (such as religious scholars, kuttāb or language scholars) who were specifically entrusted with the control and transmission of knowledge.17 It seems to me that it is precisely here, in the questions of who, in mediaeval Islamic society, controlled the text, and how, and why, that we find one of the issues that the category of SL may be able to bring into focus from a new perspective. In this regard, two aspects should be briefly pointed out as they are peculiar to the processes of control and/or protection of texts in Arabic-Islamic culture: 1. The first element is constituted by the diglossia that characterized Arabophone societies already in the mediaeval period.18 One of the many consequences of the enormous cultural prestige of the elevated variety of Arabic, called fuṣḥā,19 is that the latter was made a criterion in the selection and control of texts. That is to say, in a context marked by diglossia what divides the ʻsubmergedʼ texts from the ʻsavedʼ ones may be a mere linguistic assessment based on their adherence to the model established by the fuṣḥā. From the 9th

|| 15 See Ercolani 2014, 8‒10. 16 On the position of the Arabic language in the classification of mediaeval Islamic knowledge see Heck 2002a; on the role of poetry see Wen-chin 1997, 22‒54. 17 On the transmission of knowledge in the mediaeval Islamic world the standard reference work remains Rosenthal 1970; see also Heck 2002. 18 See Versteegh 1997, 46‒51 and 70‒71. 19 See Suleiman 2006.

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century onwards, the professional class of the kuttāb (or chancellery secretaries) exercised a monopoly on this non-colloquial/formal language, which was entrusted with the transmission of ʻun savoir littéraire exclusif et hautement ritualiséʼ.20 They controlled and directed the standardization of the Arabic language by modelling it on the Qur’an and the existing poetic tradition.21 Further strengthening the prestige of the fuṣḥā is a philosophical and linguistic notion which establishes an ontological correspondence between language and the world. Correctness in language is considered in ethical terms: language is a mirror of the world since ʻ… the universe of language both parallels and participates in the immutable rational structure of the universe of phenomena and ideasʼ.22 2. The second element that constitutes a trait peculiar to Arabic-Islamic literary culture is the system of isnād, that is, the chain of guarantors that precedes the text and guarantees its transmission and authentication for the community. This chain of guarantors which, more or less fictitiously, reproduces the oral transmission of the text, is typical of the ḥadīṯ, i.e. words, deeds and tacit approvals attributed to the Prophet.23 It guarantees the text’s authenticity, with the potential legal and religious implications that arise from that. The system of isnād, however, is also a model for the transmission of other texts that are part of adab, and represents a kind of legitimation ‒ by way of genealogy, so to speak ‒ of the text.24

The forms of the submerged Bearing these considerations in mind, it is now possible to go back to the various forms of ʻsubmersionʼ outlined by Rossi and examine the ways in which an adab maġmūr, i.e. a submerged literature, came to exist within the ArabicIslamic culture: By ‘submerged’ literature I mean … 1) texts mistreated from the very start of the transmission, or also 2) texts that were not transmitted at all. These texts were not subjected to any

|| 20 Soravia 2005, 433. 21 See Fischer 2006, 401‒403. 22 Grünebaum 1981, 331. Perfect command of the language could win admiration even for heterodox authors cf al-Tawḥīdī on Ibn al-Rāwandī (see Stroumsa 1999, 183). 23 Abdul Rauf 1983, 271. 24 See Šentürk 2005. For a survey of the function of isnād in ḥadīṯ literature see Shah 2010.

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control or protection, either because a) the various communities did not have any interest in preserving them, or because b) they actually had an interest in hiding them or c) even in suppressing them: the latter category is represented by whatever was connected to the mysteries.25 (numeration added by the present author).

The definition identifies various forms of submerged literature and, more importantly, it distinguishes among the differing intentions originating it. As a working hypothesis I shall limit my discussion to the first category, that of the ʻmistreatedʼ texts, leaving aside the group of texts that were not transmitted at all, which would be less fruitful for the purposes of the present analysis. Within this group, distinguishing between the intentionality or lack thereof determining the poor transmission of texts seems to me hermeneutically crucial (while constantly keeping in mind that ʻtextsʼ does not necessarily mean ʻbooksʼ and that the oral/aural transmission of texts often accompanies the written one).26 The definition of SL, formulated taking into account this difference in intention, draws a very broad map of Arab literature which shall be just sketched here, with no claim to exhaustiveness. We would thus have: a. the texts that the community did not transmit or transmitted without control or protection. These texts were not seen as part of the canon and were considered as non-functional to the ḫāṣṣa since they were not included in any of the educational curricula set up for kuttāb, fuqahā’, religious scholars, etc. and, above all, they were transmitted in a language that did not correspond to the canon as defined by fuṣḥā. Their transmission and circulation were not protected, that is, they were not guaranteed by processes of authentication typical of mediaeval Islamic knowledge, such as the abovementioned isnād or the iǧāza (i.e. the licence to transmit a text which the master gave to the pupil). These are texts that were circulated outside the sites traditionally entrusted with the preservation and protection of knowledge, such as the madrasa, the ruler’s court, the circle (ḥalqa or maǧlis) of literati, the chancellery, or the preacher’s minbar, and also outside such codified relationships as that between master and student, poet and rāwī (reciter and transmitter of poetry), etc. These texts proliferated, instead, in what could be called the undergrowth of mediaeval culture (Bosworth in his pivotal study spoke of it as an ʻunderworldʼ).27 Their transmission, which

|| 25 Rossi 2000, 170. 26 On the methods of teaching and transmitting texts see Schoeler 2006; Atiyeh 1995; Vajda 1983 and Makdisi 1981. 27 See Bosworth 1976.

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was however profuse, was entrusted to figures who could be defined as professionals of the ʻsubmergedʼ: quṣṣāṣ (storytellers), musāmirūn (professional narrators active during nightly entertainements), etc., who were the authors/conveyors of anonymous texts lacking both literary and religious prestige that were circulated, generally in oral form, in the central areas of urban spaces, such as markets or the areas around mosques, as well as in public and sometimes private spaces during festivals and ceremonies.28 These texts, which are not adab (but which sometimes share some materials with it), partly correspond to the so-called ʻpopular literatureʼ.29 They qualify as submerged literature due to the low social prestige of the public to which they were addressed and the places and modalities of their circulation, but it is their linguistic register in particular that turns them into ʻmistreatedʼ texts. The exemplary case of this type of text is the Kitāb Alf layla wa-layla (The Book of the Thousand and One Nights), which mediaeval (and in part also contemporary) Arabic culture30 has never considered as literature and has thus transmitted outside any need for protection or control. The Fihrist (the Catalogue) of Ibn al-Nadīm (d. ca 995), one of the first sources attesting the existence of a book that can be identified as the Nights, expresses a decidedly negative opinion on this text which, centuries later, the European public would regard as a masterpiece of Arabic literature. In the words of Ibn al-Nadīm: ʻI have seen it in its complete version several times and it is truly a coarse book (ġaṯṯ, rough, unrefined), cold in its exposition (wa-huwa bi ’l-ḥaqīqa kitāb ġaṯṯ bāridu ’lḥadīṯ)ʼ.31 Ibn al-Nadīm’s words reflect what was apparently a widely shared view concerning texts of the same genre as the Nights, such as those mentioned with disdain by the young Abbasid prince al-Rāḍī (r. 934‒940) when he reproaches the eunuchs charged with supervising his readings for the low level of their own: ʻYou have seen my books. They concern ḥadīṯ, law, poetry, philology, history. They are books for the learned … They are not the kind of books that

|| 28 For an outline of the various specializations in storytelling (in Cairo in the first half of the 19th century) see Lane 1908, 397‒431; see also Pinault 1998 and Canova 1998. Worthy of special note are the popular itinerant preachers (wu‘‘āẓ) who specialized in circulating pious narratives, in general on eschatological topics, in which the fantastic and hyperbolic traits were particularly emphasized. For a mediaeval treatise on these preachers cf Ibn al-Ğawzī 1986; on the preachers see also Pedersen 1948 and Jones 2012, 158‒168. 29 As noted by Marzolph 1998, 610‒611, the definition of what ʻpopular literatureʼ is in the case of Arabic-Islamic literature is still an open question; on this issue see also Reynolds 2006. 30 See for example Walther 2004. 31 Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, Beirut 2002, 475‒476.

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excite you, stuff like the Marvels of the Sea, the Story of Sindibad, the Mouse and the Cat! [wa-laysat min kutubi-kum allatī tubāliġūnā fī-hā miṯl ‘Aǧā’ib al-baḥr, wa-ḥadīṯ Sindibād wa ’l-Sinnawr wa ’l-Fa’r]ʼ.32 These are precisely the kind of titles appearing in the first section of the eighth chapter of the Fihrist, which is dedicated to the ʻaccountsʼ of those who converse in the evenings and tellers of fables (aḫbār al-musāmirīn wa ’lmuḫarrafīn).33 Here the Fihrist constitutes a fundamental source for defining this first type of SL, in the sense of ʻmistreatedʼ literature, and for specifying its limits and its problematic aspects with respect to the category of ʻpopular literatureʼ, which only partly overlaps with that of SL.34 One may, in sum, hypothesize, though perhaps somewhat schematically, that in mediaeval Arabic-Islamic literature the dialectic ʻprotected-mistreatedʼ is in large part modelled on the dialectic ʻfuṣḥā/‘āmmiyaʼ. Therefore, any text that does not meet the linguistic standard of the fuṣḥā is potentially part of this first type of SL. The corpus of texts included in this category is thus heterogeneous, the subaltern social condition of their authors and audience – which is clearly evidenced in their shared lack of mastery of the literary language – being the only trait they have in common.35 The boundary between the high and low varieties of the language, between having or not access to a high level of literacy, also echoes other divisions in mediaeval Islam, and more specifically: socioeconomic divisions, according to which this type of SL should include part of the popular literature; and divisions of gender, on account of the almost exclusively male connotations of fuṣḥā, which is a public, prestigious language ʻmore often used in male-associated than female-associated contextsʼ.36 From this point of view, with the exception of the limited literary production within the canon of adab, any other female literature (not necessarily circulated in written form) could be considered as part of SL. b. There is then the second category, that including texts which a community has an interest in hiding intentionally, which we could call the voluntarily submerged ones. Here, unlike in the first group, we are not dealing with texts mis-

|| 32 al-Ṣūlī (d. 947), Kitāb al-awrāq, Aḫbār al-Rāḍī bi-llāh wa ’l-Muttaqī li-llāh min kitāb alawrāq, (ed. J. Heyworth Dunne) Beirut 1983 (1st edn 1936), 6. 33 Cf Fihrist 481 (for the ‘Aǧā’ib al-baḥr) and 477 (Sindbaḏ al-Ḥakīm). 34 See Reynolds 2006, 249‒252. 35 This condition may also be the result of a conscious stylistic choice, i.e. an imitation of a non-standard spelling and grammar (see Reynolds 2006, 246). 36 Sadiqi 2007, 642.

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treated or unprotected in their transmission, but deliberately withdrawn from broad circulation. And, with an opposite or mirror-like attitude, the submersion of the text is the result of a high level of protection that is implemented by way of a sophisticated transmission (in which orality plays a crucial role), with the aim of guaranteeing the limited circulation of the text. SL of this type would thus correspond to a large class composed, roughly, of all the texts that a minority group within an ʻorthodoxʼ majority wishes to protect. This is the case, at certain historical moments, of Shi’ite texts (Imami, Ismaili, Zaidi, Alawi)37 within a Sunni context, but also of texts which, within the same community, are restricted to ʻinitiatesʼ, such as works carrying a mystical/esoteric knowledge which is the privilege of a selected circle that is allowed access to it. These are all texts with limited and secret circulation (suffice it to think of the private Ismaili libraries which even today cannot be accessed),38 or texts whose instructions are intended for a select or restricted group, as is the case with mystic (Sufi) literature or the alchemical tradition.39 In this second type of SL the ʻsubmerged/savedʼ dialectic would therefore tend to be mapped out onto the binary oppositions ʻShi’ite/Sunniʼ and/or ʻesoteric/exotericʼ (bāṭin-ẓāhir). The submerged literature thus outlined is based on the opposition between kitmān (dissimulation, veiling) and iḏā‘a (publication, revelation), and on the taqiyya40, that is, the dissimulation for defensive purposes that Shi’ism, in particular, has used in times of danger and which may also include self-censorship.41 There is then the question of whether or not the category of ʻvoluntarily submergedʼ should include also those texts protected by means of secret languages, that is, the ʻvarious stratagems to conceal from outsiders the content of what are intended as private or restricted exchangesʼ.42

|| 37 For an orientation in the various subdivisions of Islam, Sunni and otherwise, see Laoust 1965; on Shi’ism see Madelung 1985, esp. articles VII‒XIX; Straface 1998; Capezzone and Salati 2006; Daftary 2004; Daftary and Miskinzoda 2014. 38 I wish to thank Antonella Straface for drawing my attention to the issue. 39 For an introduction to the history of Arabic alchemy see Anawati 1996; on the techniques of concealment typical of alchemical language see Hill 1990, 331. On the language of the Corpus Jābirianum, a complex and original reformulation of the Greek tradition of alchemical science in the context of ʻextremeʼ Shi’ism in the 9th century, see Lory 1983, 21‒26. 40 See Strothmann and Djebli 2000. 41 See for example, Bar-Asher 1999, 39‒45. 42 Youssi 2009, 156. On the secret languages see also Bosworth 1976, 150‒179.

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The process of voluntary restricting the use of a text is clearly specifically functional to the life of minority communities, with respect both to the paradigm orthodoxy–heterodoxy and to the paradigm Muslims–non-Muslims. Cases in point are, for example, the Judaeo-Arabic varieties of secret languages,43 but also the literature produced by the Muslim communities that, at times when they constituted an oppressed minority, needed to hide their own texts in order to guarantee their transmission but not their immediate accessibility; one such example is the crypto-Muslims of Spain during the Reconquista. Thus, faced with the ban on Arabic as a language for the treatment of religious topics, the literature in aljamiado (that is, the corpus of texts written in Castilian, Portuguese, Aragonese etc. using Arabic characters) is a way of practising taqiyya and represents an enormous ʻcollective effort to preserve the community’s Islamic identity against the overwhelming difficulties of Inquisitorial Spainʼ.44 c. Finally, there is the third category, which comprises those texts that the community has an interest in suppressing deliberately. It seems to me that the definition of this category raises another extremely interesting perspective whose emergence is fostered by the use of SL as an analytical tool. The latter, in fact, allows bringing into focus the issue of who in mediaeval Islamic society not only exerted control over a text, but even decided on its suppression, and the related question of the values (political, religious, aesthetic, etc.) motivated the decision. An exemplary case is obviously that of the writings of the mystic al-Ḥallāǧ, executed at Baghdad in 922. In a fairly unusual provision, the sentence prescribed not only death by flagellation and crucifixion but also the destruction of his writings, so that the manuscripts of the mystic’s works became impossible to find, at least in Baghdad.45 Their presence in the Fihrist, a few decades later, however, seems to witness to the very limited efficacy of the provision.46 While the biography of al-Ḥallāǧ has been studied in depth and it is hence possible to reconstruct also the fortunes of his texts, the more general issue remains open, namely to what extent this episode can be considered typical and whether the destruction of texts was a common practice for political or religious

|| 43 Youssi 2009, 156‒157. 44 Lopez-Baralt 2000, 472, for a different view of the role of Arabic characters see Hegyi quoted in Lopez-Baralt 2000, 474; on the linguistic situation in al-Andalus see also Zwartjes 2006, on the literature in aljamiado see Bernabé Pons 1992, Wiegers 1994, and Barletta 2005. 45 See Massignon 1975, I, 332. 46 Cf Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist 328-329.

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powers.47 To this category a still entirely unexplored sub-group should then be added, comprising the texts suppressed at the wish of the author, as is the case with the early Abbasid poet Sa‘īd b. Wahb who, repenting of his dissolute life, became an ascetic and destroyed his poetry.48 In conclusion, to fully investigate this third type of SL would mean to examine more deeply the issue of the destruction of texts as a radical form of control. It is a theme that, together with research on various forms of censorship in mediaeval Islamic society, has emerged only recently49 and that, compared to the situation of studies on this topic in contemporary literature, seems to be still entirely unexplored territory.

Reference List Abdul Rauf, M., ‘Ḥaḏīṯ literature‒I: The Development of the science of Ḥaḏīṯ’, in Beeston, A. F. L., et al., eds, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Arabic Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 1983, 271‒288 Adonis [Adūnīs], An Introduction to Arab Poetics, transl. C. Cobham, London 1990, 13‒34 Anawati, G. C., ‘Arabic Alchemy’, in Rashed, R., ed., Encyclopedia of the History of Arabic Science, 3, London and New York 1996, 853‒885 Atiyeh, G. N., The Book in the Islamic World: the Written Word and Communication in the Middle East, Albany 1995 Bar-Asher, M. M., Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imami Shiism, Leiden, Boston and Köln 1999 Barletta, V., Covert Gestures: Crypto-Islamic Literature as Cultural Practice in Early Modern Spain, Minneapolis 2005 Bauer, T., ‘Adab c) and Islamic Scholarship after the “Sunnī revival” ’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill Online 2013 [Accessed 10 February 2015] Bernabé Pons, L., Bibliografía de la literatura aljamiado-morisca, Alicante 1992 Bonebakker, S. A., ‘Adab and the concept of belles-lettres ’, in Ashtiany, J., et al., eds, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Abbasid Belles-Lettres, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 1990, 16‒30 Bosworth, C. E., The Mediaeval Islamic Underworld: the Banū Sāsān in Arabic Society and Literature, Leiden 1976 Bowersock, G. W., Hellenism in Late Antiquity, Cambridge 1990

|| 47 On the theme of the destruction of books, which still lacks a systematic treatment, see Melchert 2014. 48 See Szombathy 2007, 7. Another case is that of the poet al-Buḥturī (d. 897), who is said to have ordered his son to burn all his satiric verses (see van Gelder 1988, 79‒80). 49 On this theme, beside the pivotal article by Szombathy 2007, note the panel ʻKnowledge under control. Religious and Political censorship in Islamic societiesʼ (WOCMES 2010, Barcelona) edited by M. Fierro in Al-Qantara 35.

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Brown, P., ‘Late Antiquity and Islam: Parallels and Contrasts’, in Metcalf, B. D., ed., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984, 23‒37 Cameron, A., and Conrad, L. I., eds, The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material, Princeton 1992 Cameron, A., ed., Late Antiquity on the Eve of Islam, Burlington 2013 Campanini, M., ‘Gabrieli, Francesco’, Il contributo italiano alla storia del pensiero – Politica, Treccani Online 2013 [Accessed 10 October 2015] Canova, G., ‘Sīra literature’, in Scott Meisami, J., and Starkey, P., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London and New York 1998, II 726‒727 Capezzone, L., and Salati, M., L'Islam sciita. Storia di una minoranza, Rome 2006 Colella Tommasi, U., Lo sguardo che unisce: Occidente e Oriente arabo-islamico nel pensiero di Francesco Gabrieli, Galatina 2002 Colesanti, G., and Giordano, M., eds, Submerged Literature in Ancient Greek Culture. An Introduction, Berlin and Boston 2014 Daftary, F., and Miskinzoda, G., eds, The Study of Shi‘i Islam. History, Theology and Law, London 2014 Daftary, F., Ismaili Literature: A Bibliography of Sources and Studies, London 2004. Detienne, M., Comparer l’incomparable, Paris 2000 Enderwitz, S., ‘Adab b) and Islamic Scholarship in the ‘Abbāsid Period’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill Online 2013 [Accessed 10 February 2015] Ercolani, A., ‘Defining the Indefinable: Greek Submerged Literature and some Problems of Terminology’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 7‒18 Fischer, W., ‘Classical Arabic’, in Versteegh, K., et al., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Leiden and Boston 2006, I 397‒405 Fowden, G., Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity, Princeton 1993 Fowden, G., Quṣayr ‘Amra. Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria, Berkeley and Los Angeles 2004 Gabrieli, F., Storia della letteratura araba, Milan 1951 Gabrieli, F., Cultura araba del Novecento, Rome and Bari 1983 Gelder, G. J. H. van, The Bad and the Ugly: Attitudes Towards Invective Poetry (Hijāʼ) in Classical Arabic Literature, Leiden 1988 Grünebaum, G. E. von, ‘The Aesthetic Foundation of Arabic Literature’, in Grünebaum, G. E. von, Themes in Medieval Arabic Literature, London 1981, 323‒340 (orig. edn 1952) Grünebaum, G. E. von, Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and Cultural Perspectives, London 1976 Hallaq, B., ‘Adab e) modern usage’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill Online 2014 [Accessed 10 February 2015] Hämeen-Hanttila, J., ‘Adab a) Arabic, early developments’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE, Brill Online 2014 [Accessed 10 February 2015] Heck, P. L., The Construction of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization. Qudāma b. Ja‘far and his Kitāb al-Kharāj wa-sinā‘at al-kitāba, Leiden 2002 Heck, P., ‘The Hierarchy of Knowledge in Islamic Civilization’, Arabica 49.1, 2002, 27‒54 Hill, D. R., ‘The Literature of Arabic alchemy’, in Young, M. J. L., Latham, J. D., and Serjeant, R. B., eds, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Religion, Learning and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 1990, 328-341

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Ibn al-Ğawzī, Kitāb al-quṣṣāṣ wa ’l-muḏakkirīn, (ed. M. L. Swartz) Beirut 1986 Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist, Beirut 2002 (2nd edn) Jones, L. G., The Power of Oratory in the Medieval Muslim World, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 2012 Kennedy, H., ‘Islam’, in Bowersock, G., Brown, P., and Grabar, O., eds, Late Antiquity. A Guide to the Postclassical World, Cambridge and London 1999, 219‒237 Kraemer, J. L., ‘Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam: A Preliminary Study’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 104, 1984, 135‒164 Lane, E. W., The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, London 1908 (orig. edn 1836) Laoust, H., Les Schismes dans l’Islam. Introduction à une étude de la religion musulmane, Paris 1965 Lapidus, I. M., ‘Knowledge, Virtue and Action: The Classical Muslim Conception of Adab and the Nature of Religious Fulfillment in Islam’, in Metcalf, B. D., ed., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984, 38‒61 Lopez-Baralt, L., ‘The Moriscos’, in Menocal, M. R., Scheindlin, R. P. and Sells, M., eds, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. The Literature of al-Andalus, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 2000, 472‒487 Lory, P., Dix Traités d'alchimie: les dix premiers traités du Livre des Soixante-dix, Paris 1983 Madelung, W., Religious Schools and Sects in Medieval Islam, London 1985 Makdisi, G., The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh 1981 Marzolph, U., ‘Popular literature’, in Scott Meisami, J., and Starkey, P., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London and New York 1998, II 610‒611 Massignon, L., La passion de Husayn Ibn Mansūr Hallāj, martyr mystique de l'Islam et exécuté à Bagdad le 26 mars 922: étude d'histoire religieuse, Paris 1975 Melchert, C., ‘The Destruction of Books by Traditionists’, Al-Qanṭara 35.1 (Sección Monogràfica. The Control of Knowledge in Islamic Societies), 2014, 213‒231 Metcalf, B. D., ‘Introduction’, in Ead., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1984, 1‒20 Monroe, J. T., ‘Oral Composition in pre-Islamic Poetry’, Journal of Arabic Literature 3, 1972, 1‒53 Pagani, S. G., and Ruocco, M., eds, L’Oriente di un umanista. Omaggio a Francesco Gabrieli a dieci anni dalla scomparsa, Roma 2012 Palmisciano, R., ‘Submerged Literature in an Oral Culture’, in Colesanti and Giordano 2014, 19‒32 Pedersen, J., ‘The Islamic Preacher’, in Lowinger, S., and Somogyi, J., eds, Ignace Goldziher Memorial, 1, Budapest 1948, 226‒251 Pinault, D., ‘Story-telling’, in Scott Meisami, J., and Starkey, P., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Literature, London and New York 1998, II 735‒737 Reynolds, D. F., ‘Popular prose in the post-classical period’, in Allen, R., and Richards, D. S., eds, The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Arabic Literature in the Post-Classical Period, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne 2006, 245‒269 Robinson, C. R., ‘Reconstructing Early Islam: Truth and Consequences’, in Berg, H., ed., Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, Leiden 2003, 101‒134 Rosenthal, F., Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam, Leiden 1970

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Rossi, L. E., ‘L’autore e il controllo del testo nel mondo antico’, Seminari Romani 3, 2000, 165‒181 Ruocco, M., and Pagani, S., eds, L’Oriente di un umanista. Omaggio a Francesco Gabrieli a dieci anni dalla scomparsa, Rome 2012 Sadiqi, F., ‘Language and gender’, in Versteegh, K., et al., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Leiden and Boston 2007, II 642‒650 Schoeler, G., The Genesis of Literature in Islam. From the Aural to the Read, rev. and trans. by S. Toorawa, Edinburgh 2009 Schoeler, G., The Oral and the Written in Early Islam, trans. U. Vagelpohl, Abingdon and New York 2006 Šentürk, R., Narrative Social Structure: Anatomy of the Hadith Transmission Network, 610‒1505, Stanford 2005 Shah, M., ed., The Ḥadīth. Isnāds: Transmission, Terminology, and the Issue of Dating, Abingdon 2010 Soravia, B., ‘Les manuels à l'usage des fonctionnaires de l'administration (ʻAdab al-Kātibʼ) dans l'Islam classique’, Arabica 52.3, 2005, 417‒436 Straface, A., Islam: ortodossia e dissenso, Rome 1998 Strothmann, R., (rev. Djebli, M.), ‘Taḳiyya’, The Encyclopaedia of Islam II, Leiden 2000, X 134‒136 Stroumsa, S., Freethinkers of Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Rāwandī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī, and Their Impact on Islamic Thought, Leiden, Boston and Köln 1999 Suleiman, Y., ‘ ‘Arabiyya’, in Versteegh, K., et al., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Leiden and Boston 2006, I 173‒178 al-Ṣūlī, Kitāb al-awrāq. Aḫbār al-Rāḍī bi-llāh wa ‘l-Muttaqī li-llāh min kitāb al-awrāq, (ed. J. Heyworth Dunne) Beirut 1983 (1st edn 1936) Szombathy, Z., ‘Freedom of Expression and Censorship in Medieval Arabic Literature’, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 7, 2007, 1‒24 Vajda, G., La transmission du savoir en Islam (VIIe‒XVIIIe siècle), London 1983 Versteegh, K., The Arabic Language, Edinburgh 1997 Walther, W., ‘Modern Arabic Literature and the Arabian Nights’, in Marzolph, U., and van Leeuwen, R., eds, The Arabian Nights Encyclopedia, Denver 2004, 54‒61 Wen-chin, O., Literary Criticism in Medieval Arabic-Islamic Culture. The Making of a Tradition, Edinburgh 1997 Wiegers, G. A., Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado: Yça of Segovia (fl. 1450), His Antecedents and Successors, Leiden 1994 Youssi, A., ‘Secret Languages’, in Versteegh, K., et al., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Leiden and Boston 2009, IV 156‒160 Zwartjes, O., ‘Andalus’, in Versteegh, K., et al., eds, Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Leiden and Boston 2006, I 96‒101 Zwettler, M., The Oral Tradition of Classical Arabic Poetry: Its Character and Implications, Columbus 1978

Vito Teti

Cultural Continuities Places, Cults, and Memories of Waters1 There are plausible analogies and cultural continuities between the traditional societies of Calabria and southern Italy and those of the Greco-Roman world. They are plausible because they take place in the same geographical area, in which there has certainly been continuity in environment and productive activities from antiquity down to recent years. It is hard not to imagine a cultural continuity, too, lying under the surface but emerging at different times through the continuous operation of inventions of traditions, brought out by the constant use/reuse of the classical by local elites, who have not necessarily been either peripheral or isolated. They are plausible too because the learned literary tradition that became established from the 16th century makes a clear link, sometimes an emphatic one, between landscapes of the present and places of the past. Then, since the 19th century, the traditions of local history and folklore studies have tended to trace in the traditions they observed resemblances and similarities to the ancient ones. Survivals? Hints? Traces? Reinventions? The dynamics and paths followed are complex, subtle, and of long duration: certainly, it is striking and fascinating to follow threads and lines that link worlds that are only apparently far apart.

1 The necessity and sacrality of water in the world of Calabria In Calabria the productive and alimentary equilibrium in both the countryside and the large centres, even in the modern period, has depended on the availability and control of water. Beneficial rains are mostly an exception. The norm is either excess or lack of water. The life, mentality, and presence of the populations are closely linked to the oddity of the climate, the stark extremes of only

|| 1 This paper reprises, with extensive reworkings and revisions, the essay V. Teti, Luoghi, culti, memorie dell’acqua, in Idem, ed., Storia dell’acqua. Mondi materiali e universi simbolici, Rome 2013, 3-34.

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two opposed seasons that alternate long periods of torrential rains with equally long periods of drought. In many parts of Calabria, rains might not fall from March to October at all. The fear that they might ruin the harvest would turn to worry that the drought might make sowing impossible. Animals and people would suffer in the extreme heat. The landscape would become arid, bare, dun-coloured. So the country people turned to the Lord and the Saints: Chiovi, Signuri meu, ca no’ l’accatti / La pigghi de lu Celu / E ni la jette (Make it rain / O my Lord / so there is no need to buy it [water] / Take it from the sky and throw it down). The prayer, collected in the Serre of Catanzaro, is one of many with which the country people would invoke the rain. Since the late 17th century many observers have dwelt on the rites for bringing rain. Vincenzo Padula recorded that in times of drought the inhabitants of San Giacomo (an Albanian colony) and those of Torano would would go in procession to the ruins of the old chapel of San Giacomo, at the foot of Monte Sant’Elia, and would return to their houses ‘bathed to the bone’.2 Vincenzo Dorsa3 observed that St Elia was invoked for rain at Cassano. At Seminara in times of drought, the relic of the area’s patron saint was borne in procession, and beseeched and implored as follows: Chiuva, chiuva Santa Lia / sinnò ’u ranu va di tria / e di tria almenu quattru / chiuva, chiuva Santu Marcu Make it rain, make it rain, Sant’Elia / if not, the grain goes to three / and from three at least to four / make it rain, San Marco.

When prayers and implorations were not enough, the country people would carry the saints in procession and punish them. When the rain was slow to come, the saint ‘was stripped of his vestments, bound with ropes and left thus in the middle of the church until the water came’.4 Even in the 1950s various forms of spite were still inflicted: ‘insults are hurled, a salty piece of food is placed at the saint’s lips so that, feeling its burning, he will make the rain come, or in maritime locations like Riace, Squillace, or Marina di Guardavalle the saint

|| 2 Padula 1977, 323: ‘bagnati fino alle ossa’. 3 Dorsa 1884, 70. 4 Ibidem: ‘era spogliato dai paramenti, legato con funi e lasciato così in mezzo alla chiesa fino a quando l’acqua non giungeva’.

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would even be given a punishment-bath for the lack of rain’.5 At Nicotera, San Giuseppe would be venerated and punished, at Caridà and Fagnano Castello it is San Sebastiano, at Cetraro San Benedetto, at Paradisoni San Pietro, at Rossano San Nilo, at Malvito San Michele. At Bova when the drought was raging the attempt was made to bring rain with a Triduum during which San Leo was venerated. If, however, ‘the heat continued, a procession was held that bore the statue on a four-hour long journey across a difficult route that went from this area in a steep descent to the sea. Participating in the procession were priests, confraternities, and local people who all along the way joined the procession, and the crowd, at first in invocation but then in ever more menacing tones, shouted: o n’abbagni o t’abbagnamu (‘either you bathe us or we bathe you’). When they reached the sea, as the sound of bells echoed through the valley and the cries of the countrypeople were raised to the skies, the threat was put into action: the relic of the saint was suspended over the water of the sea, by which he was then regarded as having been bathed by the splashes of water’.6 It should be recalled that in the cult of St Leo, venerated in Africo as well as in Bova (the two places contended for the title of his birthplace), water was present as a purificatory element in the rites of exorcism of demonic possession. In the course of rites like this people kneel on the ground, bathe in the water, pray, weep, shout, call down imprecations, and kiss the feet of the saint. The immersion of the saints in rivers and the sea is found in many European countries and is, for example, widely documented in France.7 Scholars of folklore have identified a relation and a kind of continuity with the rites of the past. Dorsa, speaking of the cult of Sant’Elia in the mountains and hills of the region, recalls that eastern peoples would sacrifice to the sun on the mountains and that, by a chance combination, the name Elias could have echoed the Greek helios ‘in the ignorance of the times, this particular type of cult of the

|| 5 Angarano 1973, 180–182: ‘si lanciano insulti, si pone alle labbra della statua del santo protettore un cibo salso in modo tale che egli, sentendo l’arsura, faccia venire la pioggia o addirittura in località marine come Riace, Squillace o Marina di Guardavalle si fa fare al santo un bagnocastigo per la mancata pioggia’. 6 Ibidem: ‘la calura continua si fa la processione, portando con quattro ore di cammino la statua per un faticoso percorso che dal paese va in ripida discesa al mare. Alla processione partecipano sacerdoti, confraternite e contadini che lungo la via si uniscono al corteo, e la folla prima invocante poi sempre più minacciosa urla: “o n’abbagni o t’abbagnamu” (o ci bagni o ti bagniamo). Giunti al mare, mentre il suono delle campane echeggia per la valle e si levano al cielo le grida dei contadini, la minaccia è posta in atto: la reliquia del Santo viene sospesa sulle acque del mare donde è poi tratta bagnata dagli spruzzi dell’acqua’. 7 Sébillot 1983, 198–209.

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sun must have been assimilated to that of the homonymous Elias’ who was invoked in times of drought.8 As regards the custom of binding the statues with ropes, from which the saint could free himself by pleading with God to send rains favourable to the harvest, Dorsa recalls that the Greeks of Chios would bind the statue of Liber Pater …, the Spartans those of Venus, the Romans those of Saturn. These are positions still held by many scholars, who tend to locate in antiquity the origin of cults and rites that exist in the modern and contemporary era. The formal similarites have often led them to see a sort of continuity between rites in antiquity and rites in traditional society. The latter would thus be none other than a remodelling and adaptation of religious and cult forms present in the ancient world. We know that things are not so simple, and that the similarities, analogies, and continuities of symbols and cults need to be read in a more problematized way. We shall have occasion to discuss this further below.

2 Water of life, water of death: from Orphic gold leaves to Easter rites To Mnemosyne this (formula) is sacred: (for the mystes), when on the point of dying. Go to the well-built halls of Hades: on the right there is a spring, beside it rises a white cypress; there the souls of the dead go down to be refreshed. Do not approach this spring; but further on you will find the cold water that runs out from the lake of Mnemosyne: the guardians stand around it, and they will ask, with sure discernment, why you should ever explore the shadows of dark Hades. Say: ‘(I am) son of the weighty and of the starry sky, I have burned from thirst and I am perishing: but give me at once drink of the cold water that comes from the lake of Mnemosyne.’ And they have pity by will of the king of the Shades, and they will give you (the water) of the lake of Mnemosyne to drink; and you, when you have drunk, will travel the sacred way on which also other glorious mystai and bacchoi proceed.9

|| 8 Dorsa 1884, 70: ‘nella ignoranza dei tempi questa specialità del culto del sole dovette assimilarsi con quello dell’omonimo Elia’. 9 Translation of the Orphic gold leaf from Hipponion, 5th–4th cent. BCE, after the Italian translation in Pugliese Carratelli 2001, 40 f.

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The gold leaf is dedicated to Mnemosyne, the Orphic divinity who promises the mystai and bacchoi, the initiates and consecrated persons, in virtue of their mystical experiences and the observation of doctrine, that they may withdraw forever from the cycle of rebirth, from the repetition of birth and death, the common destiny of other mortals. The text, a true instruction for the otherworld journey of the initiates, also reveals the centrality of water in the conceptions and cults of the ancients. Water (Ocean) appears as the primordial element of the universe in the oldest Greek cosmogonic doctrine (Homer in the Iliad, Hesiod in the Theogony, Plato). The water of Mnemosyne is the ‘well-spring of life’ (an analogous well-spring is found in Sumero-Akkadian eschatology), or, rather, of immortality, and around it crowd the souls of the thirsty dead. Life and immortality – the bacchoi, consecrated to Dionysus, become close, but not equal, to gods – signify for the Orphics consciousness of the self and of one’s own destiny, in antithesis to the conception of death understood as the annulment of consciousness. Counterposed to Mnemosyne, at the wellspring of life (the reference is to the sense of water as life-giving), usually to the right of the person entering Hades (though at other times to the left) is that of the spring of Lethe, of Forgetfulness, a stagnant pool that stills the non-initiates’ thirst for (corporeal) life only for a moment.10 The text, beyond the multiple readings that can be given of it, puts us in the presence of the ‘two waters’: cosmogonic, philosophical, and religious conceptions that affirm the presence and coexistence of a ‘good water’ and ‘a bad water,’ which in this case are figured as the water of memory and the water of forgetfulness, water of ‘life’ and water of ‘death.’ The ambivalence of the images and symbols that we encounter in magical practices, and in religious and ritual practices, returns in various forms (and the form is at times substance) in the tradition of Greece and Magna Graecia, but also among the Italian peoples who in prehistoric times founded their settlements in the interior, among the Brettians, and then in the Greco-Byzantine tradition – one may recall the life and miracles of the Italo-Greek saints – and it marks the traditional folk culture profoundly. The beliefs, turns of phrase, and legends seem to recall an archaic and pre-Christian cultural matrix. Vincenzo Padula recalled how at Acri the mistress would say the following to her servant who was going to fetch water: Va per l’acqua, e bada ad empire l’orciuolo al culo di Gnesa (‘go for water and be sure to fill the pot at Agnes’ arse’). This is the explanation that was given to him:

|| 10 Idem, 39–66.

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Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl called Agnes: her face a rose, her mouth a delight. When coming or going to the fields, she heard the sighs of every man who walked behind her, saying: ‘O Agnes, o Agnes, what an arse you’ve got!’ Agnes, hearing this call every day, felt a wish to see what it was that made all the people sigh. She went to Pombio; there was no one there; the basin was full; she lifted her skirt, got into the water and in its reflection she saw her arse. From then on, that basin acquired a special property; the water drawn there is fresher, clearer, and more healthy. Agnes left there the grace and beauty of her beautiful body.11

The culo di Gnesa is born of ignorance of the language and from mistaken etymologies, for it is no more than the Greek κοίλη ἀγνή, and is translated ‘pure pot’ or ‘clean pot’, ‘that from which one draws water for the sacrifices to Juppiter at Pombio, leaving the other for profane uses’; my ancestors, wrote Padula, ‘were not unworthy of descent from the Greeks’.12 The pot, the water, and the woman who goes to draw water or who carries the pot allude to purity, fertility, and rebirth. The eroticism and vitality of water which the writer Corrado Alvaro restored in literary and poetic form are encountered in anthropology, in folklore, in the reality of the world in its origins. The water from the ‘pure pot’ seems to be positioned on a scale not far from the water of the ‘ordeal pool’ used in rites of exorcism and purification.13 In the Easter rites that would take place in rural Calabria, which include the central one of drawing the ‘new water’ from the wells, Dorsa discerns a manifestation of the symbolism of ‘Indian cosmogony, of the origin of the world and of life, passed on to us from our Aryan fathers and from Orphic theology’. The symbolism of water and of the egg, in the period in which the sun of spring triumphs over winter, recalls the origin of the world, which is renewed ‘thanks to the restorative work of Christ’.14 The new water, filled by each family in a pot adorned with ribbons and flowers and with a piece of salt hung on a string to ward off bewitchments, would be sent to the priest to be blessed. The members || 11 Padula 1977, 399: ‘V’era una volta una bella giovinetta, chiamata Agnese: il volto una rosa, la bocca una manna. Andando o tornando dai campi, sentia dirsi sospirando da ogni uomo che le camminava dietro: “O Gnesa, o Gnesa, che culo che tieni!”. A Gnesa, a sentirsi ogni dì quella canzone, venne la voglia di vedersi ciò che facea sospirare la gente. Passò per Pombio; non vi era nessuno; la vasca era piena; si alza la gonnella, scende nell’acqua, e nel suo specchio si vide il culo. D’allora quella vasca acquistò una virtù speciale; l’acqua che vi si attinge è più fresca, è più limpida, è più salutare. Gnesa vi lasciò le grazie e la bellezza del suo bel corpo.’ 12 Ibidem: ‘quella onde attingeasi l’acqua pei sacrifici a Giove Pombio, rimanendo l’altra per usi profani’. 13 See Ceravolo 2003, 99–112. 14 Dorsa 1884, 47: ‘cosmogonia indiana, della origine del mondo e della vita, tramandataci dai nostri padri ariani e dall’orfica teologia’; ‘mercè l’opera riparatrice di Cristo’.

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of the family, beginning with the parents, would try a little of it and, when the bells rang out in celebration to announce the resurrection of Christ, they would sprinkle the house with water and say: esciti fora sùrici uorvi, esciti fora tentaziuni, esca u malu ed entri u bene (‘Get out, moles! Get out, temptations! Let the bad depart and the good come in’) and they would knock on the shutters of the doors and windows, on chests and other objects, in this way invoking abundance and good fortune. At Cetraro a person affected by scabies would go and bathe in the sea nearby, believing that it was possible to be healed by this purification rite. At S. Pietro in Guarano they would go and bathe in the river at night before dawn on the Sunday and without speaking a word. At Aprigliano at dawn on Easter the country people go down to the river Crati with the cùculo (a loaf of bread of circular shape) adorned with eggs, turn over stones that they find at the riverbank, sit at the water and eat the bread and eggs. The new water was stored as holy water and, since it was considered a remedy against bewitchments it was also sprinkled on the fire or the lamp if the wood or the wick sputtered, to ward off the ominous phenomenon of fire that talks.15 The water drawn from the fountain at midnight on Easter was considered effective in warding off ills and bringing wealth, health, and happiness. This water was called acqua muta because the women who went to draw it would at a critical moment walk in silence, covered by a black veil so that they would not be recognized. If they were recognized, they had to turn back at once without taking water, or dropping the water they had just drawn, which had now lost its magic powers.16 As well as the acqua nuova and the acqua muta, Dorsa records another kind of good water: acqua incantata (enchanted water). ‘Through this water, when it is put in a basin, one can see the image of the thief and the stolen object appear (Acri). As well as the basin, in Albidona they add two candles blessed on Holy Thursday’.17 Good water, wonderful water, miraculous water implies (and opposes) a bad water. In certain circumstances, it becomes ‘evil water’ (mala acqua), a water fraught with menace and danger. Fountains and rivers, bridges and ravines, especially at night, by the full moon, and in critical periods of the year, are the places where the dead gather. Fountains, like crossroads, ‘appear in the topography of folklore as places that are uncanny halting places of the spirits,

|| 15 Idem, 48 f. 16 Idem, 32 17 Idem, 113: ‘Mediante quest’acqua posta in un bacile si vede comparire la immagine del ladro e dell’oggetto rubato (Acri). Al bacile in Albidona aggiungono due candele benedette del giovedì santo …’.

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who can latch on to passers by’; their wanderings would halt at crossroads and fountains, as if they remained entangled in the spatial net that binds and protects the place.18 It was dangerous to approach fountains where the dead would return to quench their thirst. In the horizon of the traditional folk landscape, water is home to a folk-personification of death, the proneta or pianeta who takes on the appearance of a witch or a young girl and draws the living into the world of the dead.19 The evidence presented above, which could be extended further, is sufficient to attest to a perception, an awareness, of the ambivalence of water. It reveals the recognition of a good and a bad water, a wonderful water and a malign water, a water of purification and a water of perdition, a water of the saints and a water of the demons, a water of life and a water of death. The documentation presented here represents fragments and scraps of worlds that are far from each other in space and time (even if they often refer to the same geographical and anthropological place). Each single custom needs to be traced back to its context – the geographical and cultural context and the context in the history of religion – in which it arose and became established. However, it is clear that these materials, while relating to different contexts, nonetheless present undeniable similarities (at least formally), and these analogies are worth considering. Scholars of local cultures, folklorists, travellers, and historians of religion and of popular mentalities have often privileged the element of continuity in the rites and symbols, even in the presence of deep changes at the economic, cultural, and religious level in the various historical periods. Now, while it is true that symbols seem to possess a special tenacity and resistance even through major transformations in the contexts in which they are viewed, it is necessary to stress that often the similarity is merely formal, apparent, or yet to be demonstrated. To privilege the continuities has often meant to deny the inventions, reinventions, and continual reconstructions of traditions. Reference to the three or four centuries of Magna Graecia has pushed into second rank the cults and religions of the Italic populations that were present before the arrival of the Greeks and the long Byzantine period, but also the religious constructions that were established in the modern period, above all after the Council of Trent. Things that seem to be continuities can often turn out to be the result of later inventions, introduced from elsewhere, developed in other places, the result of

|| 18 Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana 1982, 70: ‘si pongono nella topografia folklorica come luoghi di irrequieto stazionamento degli spiriti, che possono attaccarsi ai passanti’. 19 Ibidem.

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continuous adaptations and superimpositions, of a sort of bricolage completed in different periods. Continuities and ruptures, permanences and inventions, survivals and reworkings need to be identified in each particular case. With that said, the undeniable analogies and similarities of the symbols and rites over the longue durée and in the same locations prompts us to ask if they are not the fruit of analogous lived experiences of the populations and if the continuity is not the result of a substantial stability in the contexts and setting within which the symbols operate and are encountered. Gaston Bachelard20 has recorded how many metaphors of water gain their raison d’être in a concrete material experience. It is true that the symbol of water, precisely because water is a primary element, is so strong, widespread, and recurrent that it has often been extrapolated out of the setting and culture in which it arose, becoming almost a material. In reality, even a symbol that records a primary, vital need nonetheless refers to the environmental, historical, and cultural conditions of the local places, knowledge, and techniques in which it arises. The image of the deluge, of the waters that undermine and destroy, which provoke the end of the world, is present in the great religions, in myths, cosmogonies, and in literary and artistic representations. But it is not the symbolism of the flood that constructs the reality of water as destruction, as ruin, as death. Where the images of the flood exist as religious, literary, and artistic treatments they appear to be linked to environmental, historical, and cultural experiences, which are often individual and personal. What is important is not to set up mechanical dependences and links – ones that are obvious and banal – between water and its metaphors, between water and its representations. The analogy of the symbols of water found in Calabria over the longue durée relates, then, to the persistence of living conditions based on a difficult relation with water. Certainly the climate, the economic structures, the organization of space, and the techniques of control and use of water change over time: it suffices to recall the different relation to the sea and to rivers on the part of the local populations in antiquity and in the modern period. However, notwithstanding the changes in structures, techniques, and knowledge, the ambivalence of water seems to derive from the great contrasts in climate, landscape, production, and culture that mark the history of the region. Running water is a metaphor of a migrant people, standing water is a metaphor of a settled people. Water is both the material and the symbol of the contrasts that we have been evoking here, both cause and result at the same time. Water is concretely, as

|| 20 Bachelard 1942.

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well as symbolically, an element of life and death. To collect these oppositions does not mean to subsume them in a sort of radical irreconcilability. Life and death – but it seems more apt to say life-death-life, privileging the work of linkage, of mediation, of continuity which water establishes between life and death. The ‘two waters’ are on the one hand the extremes between which a variety of waters lie, on the other hand they are nothing but the same element with opposed functions, with different meanings and manifestations. The contrasts mark the life of the peoples of the Mediterranean, but they constantly tend towards equilibrium. The contrasts in climate, geography, and production, but also in society and in dietary habits, must, however, tend to a sort of ‘balance,’ which, though precarious, would make life impossible were it absent.21 It is not without significance, then, that water appears as a kind of boundary, a limen between life and death. Water is the element that at the same time both confers a new status on the dead and calls them back to life. Dorsa reports ‘a variety of customs which attest that in Calabrian beliefs the dead, in setting off for the other life, need water and bread. From this, one may deduce that their journey is considered similar to that of the living: each group sets off in the same way as the other, with bread and a water flask’.22 When Calabrians go on pilgrimage, when they make short trips, when they emigrate, they travel with a loaf of bread and something to go with it and with a water flask, as if they were always travelling through an inhospitable land.23 This feeling about water accompanies them on their final journey. Thus the inhabitants of Celico would set close to the dead person a loaf of bread and a flagon of water, and took care to close the door carefully: if the deceased were to have been watched, he would not have touched the bread or drunk the water. The inhabitants of Trebisacce and of Acri would renew this ‘pious offering’ for three evenings in a row in the room where the death had occurred, and they believed that the shade of the dead, having left the tomb, would appear at midnight to taste the the water. Should it happen that the shade did not touch either the bread nor a drop of water, the soul would be unquiet and would hang around the house, needing rites of expiation in order to be at rest in the place of repose. At Albidona, when a person was in their death throes the family would put on the window of the stricken person’s room a cup of water, since the soul ‘when it has left the body, will drink from it as it passes’; at Castrovillari and at Nocara, to the contrary, the water jars are

|| 21 See also Braudel 1996, 27–30. 22 Dorsa 1884, 93: ‘Se ne deduce che il loro viaggio è considerato simile a quello dei vivi: partono quelli come partono questi, con pane e borraccia’. 23 Alvaro 1931; Alvaro 1958; Teti 1985-1986; Teti 1999.

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emptied so that the soul does not lodge in the water but leaves at once.24 Water is the element that accompanies people on their final journey, the good thing that they must renounce, or drink one last time, in order to depart from earthly life. And it is the element that marks and accompanies their benevolent return. It is the good water that accompanies the journey of the good dead who are expected and welcomed, in specific circumstances, by their family. At S. Pietro it was believed that the dying person was visited in their last night by deceased friends and relatives, who would then accompany him to their place of repose. For this situation, it was necessary to fill ‘all the jars in the house with water, so that those thirsty souls do not lack this refreshment’. And everywhere it is believed that the dead ask for the refreshment of food and water by appearing in dreams to their family. In many areas in the night of Christmas or New Year a plate of food and a cup of water is prepared for the returning family dead. And water, like food, was offered in support and in memory of the dead. Christ and the Apostles travel through the world and often ask for water to drink. The offering of water would refresh the thirsty soul of the deceased. Even the pitiable ‘vicarious figures’ (figure vicarie) of the dead who move around unquietly in search of food and water are offered water in memory of one’s own lost loved ones. The thirst of the dead yearns so strongly for water that it is best not to let them be captured or imprisoned by the water: they would wander as unquiet spirits. The entrance to the beyond, in their new state, occurs after they have crossed the bridge of San Giacomo, a bridge as thin as a hair.25 In archaic and folk cultures the bridge was charged with sacredness and was considered the boundary and threshold between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Water prefigures, signals, and characterizes also the return of the dead to the world of the living. Nostalgia for life is nostalgia for water. The thirst of the dead and dying, attested across a vast area of the Mediterranean and Eurasia, tells of the pain of parting and the desire to return.26 The return had to take place in a controlled way, on prescribed occasions and days. Water is the element that regulates this return, normalizing and placating, in prescribed cultural forms, the nostalgia for life, and preventing a contagious and dangerous return. The return of the dead can occur in a menacing way near springs, fountains, and rivers, and one must avoid meeting them. The paths of water were the paths of life. But like all places of passage and en-

|| 24 Dorsa 1884, 92 f. 25 Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana 1982. 26 Pugliese Carratelli 2001, 58 f.

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counter, the springs, almost like modern motels and service stations, could become the site of unwelcome apparitions, of danger and risk, as is appropriate to an element which in many situations can provoke death and destruction. In many areas, stories are told of persons who had been present at processions of the dead who came to the water and who had risked contagion and death themselves. It is water that represents an obstacle, an impediment, a limit to the return of the frightening dead. The dead who return, like the dying, risk becoming imprisoned in a spatial net characterized by the presence of water. European folklore in the Mediterreanean world and the Euroasiatic universe recalls how water forms a boundary between the world of the living and that of the dead, and fixes a prescribed return, barring the way to a threatening one.27 In the modern period in Europe the iudicium aquae made it possible to identify as witches, wizards, and vampires those who did not sink when they were immersed in water.28 Water was the material that hindered the return of the unquiet or threatening dead, but also the mirror which, by not reflecting an image – vampires have no reflection – would facilitate their recognition. As if someone who no longer has a body to be reflected could, perhaps, be lost and mislaid in the water. The popular beliefs, even in their ambivalent and fragmentary state which needs to be deciphered, remind us that water is a material, an element, which reflects an image now in a distorted way, now in an accurate way. Water is an imago mortis and at the same time an imago vitae, because it reflects and captures the image of whoever is reflected in it, voluntarily or involuntarily.29 Water is the element that marks the passage from life to death, which accompanies the dead to their new world, which rises up and prevents their return or desire to return. Water confirms a continuum between life and death. Archaic, primitive, and traditional cultures have identified in blood the element of life and death,30 but have also perceived water’s centrality to life, its status as a principle of life and death. Water is the fundamental substance of blood, lymph,

|| 27 See Sébillot 1883; Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana 1982; Teti 1994. 28 See Ceravolo 2003. 29 A point that should be reconsidered with much closer attention is that the surface of water is a mirror – long the only mirror available – that provides whoever looks into it the reflections of their own face and body. To the person who falls in love with his own reflection in the water, as recorded by the myth of Narcissus, we should perhaps link also the person who is frightened by looking into the water. Water in which we are reflected attracts and repels, disturbs, disquiets. It is through water that in a certain sense man perceived his own corporeal image, discovered himself, passing from fear to wonder, from pleasure to disturbance. 30 Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana 1982.

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and excretions. Blood, then, is a transformed water, a water enriched by other vital substances. In traditional cultures all the dead could return in an unplanned, contagious, dangerous way. They could be lost loved ones, to be welcomed and remembered kindly, or frightening vampires.31 While water is the element that attracts the dead who return in a benevolent way, according to planned norms, blood is the element that feeds the unquiet dead, the undead dead, the frightening vampires. There is a semantic inversion between the two liquids, but also an evident correspondence. Blood seems to belong to the level of being, its language makes it possible for the other languages to be spoken: it is not a language that is contingent, but one that is existential.32 The phrase sangue non è acqua (‘blood is not water’) almost underlines its power and its unique and foundational character. But the myths and folklore suggest also that in some way it is constituted out of water. And in fact blood calls – demands, one might say – and has a need for that water out of which we know it is constituted. The ritual flagellations with the spilling of blood, which are still practised today at Nocera Terinese and Guardia Sanfromondi, narrate the blood–rain connection, but suggest that blood is nothing but another form of water. The blood–rain connection is recalled by the rites at Montauro, where the blood of the patron saint San Pantaleone is preserved. In dry years the blood is brought out from its place of safekeeping.33 Blood spilled on the ground is the cause of miraculous births, and in this case too what is cast on the ground is a special water, to which is ascribed the virtue of making the land fertile, of guaranteeing the growth of crops and the harvest. In this cultural horizon is inscribed the motif of the fountains that gush from the blood of the martyrs34 or from the bodies of the saints post mortem, after they have been buried. From blood, from the body, from the relics of the saints, is born a beneficial and miraculous water. Folklore and popular cults seem to conserve the memory of the aquatic nature of the body. Water is the element in which we are born and in many cultures the element in which we are buried. Human life at base consists of nothing other than the progressive draining of the body. Death is the definitive loss of water. And nostalgia for life is nostalgia for water. Memory of life is memory of water. Water is the source of life and of memory. We may propose the hypothesis that the cults of water on which we have dwelt in this paper, their ambivalence, and the symbolism of water can be referred to a concrete history, to the

|| 31 Teti 1994. 32 Lombardi Satriani and Meligrana 1982, 325. 33 Idem, 320. 34 Sébillot 1983, 15–53.

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people’s life and daily experience of the vital function of water, to the great climatic and natural contrasts which can be traced, in historically mutable and shifting ways in a thousand cultural modes, to water as primary natural and biological principle. Perhaps the thirst of the dead is the subterranean memory that we are born from water, that water is life, and the end of water is death.

3 Concluding reflections The cultural practices and rites discussed here are revealed to be deeply rooted in the territory and communities which developed, renewed, and transmitted them over time. Ideas about survivals and reminiscences need to be set within this dynamic process: new historical, social, and cultural contexts, understood in a broad sense, significantly reconfigure the whole set of stories and symbols linked to water, in a continuous tension between conservation and innovation. This cultural framework, so meaningful at the territorial level, lived and lives as a dimension that is substantially autonomous from the dominant cultural codes, both those of the official Catholic religion and those of state cultural politics. In particular the dossier presented here, by adopting the categories of the submerged, makes it possible to evaluate this historical phenomenon from two different points of view: a synchronic one and a diachronic one. On the synchronic level (i.e. that of the different successive phases of time each considered in its own right) a tension may be noted between centre and periphery, in which the centre neglects (if it does not entirely ignore) and marginalizes that which, in contrast, is fully central in the context of the periphery: practices, symbols, and stories belonging to a traditional rural society that do not enter, either intentionally or not, into the cultural codes that are dominant at a given moment in the wider panorama of the state, and which are hence emerged or emerging.35 On the diachronic level, on the other hand, we have an alternating cycle of emergence/submersion of cultural and ritual elements and texts, which are found from Magna Graecia down to our own times without substantial breaks in continuity, but with refunctionalizations and resemantizations that

|| 35 It is in large part a dialectical dynamic wholly like that between the Panhellenic and epichoric dimensions demonstrated for the archaic Greek epic by Lulli 2014 and Sbardella 2014. As regards the relation between cultural practices and ‘submerged’ texts, see Bettini in the present volume.

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are determined by different historical contexts and, at times, through the impetus of specific ideological demands.

Reference List Alvaro, C., Calabria, Florence 1931 Alvaro, C., Un treno nel Sud, Milan 1958 Angarano, F. A., Vita tradizionale dei contadini e pastori calabresi, Florence 1973 Augé, M., Nonluoghi. Introduzione a una antropologia della surmodernità, Milan 1993 Bachelard, G., L’eau et les rêves. Essais sur l’imagination de la matière, Paris 1942 Braudel, F., Il Mediterraneo. Lo spazio la storia gli uomini e le tradizioni, Milan 1996 (orig. edn Paris 1977) Capatti, A., De Bernardi, A., and Varni, A., L’alimentazione, in Storia d’Italia, Annali 13, Turin 1998 Ceravolo, T, ‘Sacralità dell’acqua, possessione e culto dei santi’, in Teti, V., Storia dell’acqua. Mondi materiali e universi simbolici, Rome 2003, 99‒112 Dorsa, V., La tradizione greco-latina negli usi e nelle credenze popolari della Calabria Citeriore, Cosenza 1884 Ferrante, N., Santi italogreci. Il mondo bizantino in Calabria, Rome 1992 Ginzburg, C., Storia notturna. Una decifrazione del sabba, Turin 1989 Hémardinquer, J. J., ‘Les graisses de cuisine en France. Essai de cartes’, in Idem, ed., Pour une histoire de l’alimentation, Paris 1970, 254‒271 (Cahiers des Annales, 28) Laureano, P., Atlante d’acqua. Conoscenze tradizionali per la lotta alla desertificazione, Turin 2001 Libis, J., L’eau et la mort, Dijon 1996 Lombardi Satriani, L. M., and Meligrana, M., Il ponte di san Giacomo. L’ideologia della morte nelle società contadine del Sud, Milan 1982 Matvejevič, P., Mediterraneo. Un nuovo breviario, Milan 1991 Minuto, D., Profili di santi nella Calabria bizantina, Reggio Calabria 2002 Padula, V., and Marinari, A., eds, Calabria prima e dopo l’Unità, 1‒2, Rome and Bari 1977 Pugliese Carratelli, G., ed., Le lamine d’oro orfiche. Istruzioni per il viaggio oltremondano degli iniziati greci, Milan 2001 Sébillot, P., Les eaux douces, Paris 1983 Seppilli, A., Sacralità dell’acqua e sacrilegio dei ponti, Palermo 1977 Sorcinelli, P., Storia sociale dell’acqua. Riti e culture, Milan 1998 Teti, V., ‘Acque, paesi, uomini in viaggio: Appunti per un’antropologia dell’acqua in Calabria in epoca moderna e contemporanea’, Miscellanea di Studi storici V, 1985‒1986, 75‒118 Teti, V., ‘Il folklorista e il cuculo. Splendori e paradossi delle ricerche sulla poesia popolare. Il caso della Calabria’, in Teti, V., and Plastino, G., L’acqua di Gangà, II, Note sulla poesia e la musica tradizionale in Calabria, Vibo Valentia and Milan 1990a, 9‒274 Teti, V., ‘La teoria di uomini. Pellegrinaggio a Polsi e viaggio nelle opere di Corrado Alvaro, Fortunato Seminara, Francesco Perri’, in S. Maria di Polsi. Storia e pietà popolare, Reggio Calabria 1990b, 527‒601 Teti, V., La melanconia del vampiro, Rome 1994

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Teti, V., ‘Le culture alimentari del Mezzogiorno continentale in età contemporanea’, in Capatti, De Bernardi, and Varni 1998, 63–165 Teti, V., Il colore del cibo. Geografia, mito e realtà dell’alimentazione mediterranea, Rome 1999 Teti, V., ed., Storia dell’acqua. Mondi materiali e universi simbolici, Rome 2003

Index Nominum Modern Aarne, A.: 136 and n. 28 Abdul Rauf, M.: 225 n. 23 Abrahams, R. D.: 132 n. 3, 136 n. 30 Aloni, A.: 91 n. 71 Alvaro, C.: 240, 244 n. 23 Amandry, P.: 124–125 passim, 126 n. 39 Ampolo, C.: 115 n. 6 Anawati, G. C.: 229 n. 39 Anderson, G.: 2 n. 7 Angarano, F. A.: 237 n. 5–6 Angel, A.: 17 n. 32 Aravantinos, A.: 113 n. 1 Asheri, D.: 126 n. 39 Atiyeh, G. N.: 226 n. 26 Atkinson, T.: 186–187 n. 10–11, 196 n. 43 Avishur, Y.: 13 n. 18 Ayali-Darshan, N.: 11 n. 6 Bachelard, G.: 243 and n. 20 Ballabriga, A.: 39 n. 27–28 Bar-Asher, M. M.: 229 n. 41 Barker, M.: 193 n. 30 Barletta, V.: 230 n. 44 Battezzato, L.: 103 n. 37 Baudini, A.: 119 n. 19 Bauer, T.: 223 n. 11 Bauman, R.: 132 n. 3 Baumgarten, A. I.: 12 n. 15, 17 n. 33, 20 n. 46 Beattie, T.: 190 n. 20 Beaulieu, P. A.: 10 n. 4 Becking, B.: 16 n. 28 Beerden, K.: 134 n. 17 Bell, R. R.: 197 n. 47 Ben-Dov, J.: 4, 17 n. 35, 24 n. 60 Berger, M.: 179 n. 30 Berlinzani, F.: 119 n. 20 Bernabé Pons, L.: 230 n. 44 Bers, V.: 100 n. 23 Berti, I.: 105 n. 43 Beta, S.: 137 n. 36, 142 n. 52, 148 n. 75 Betegh, G.: 137 n. 35

Bethge, H.: 188 n. 15, 195 n. 39 Bettini, M.: 4, 6 n. 14, 86 n. 54, 133 n. 9, 134 n. 17, 143 n. 53, 145 n. 60, 151 n. 83, 156 n. 7, 159 n. 18, 161 n. 23, 162 n. 28, 163 n. 31, 164 n. 34, 248 n. 35 Bevilacqua, G.: 138 n. 37, 143 n. 53 Bhagvat, D.: 142 n. 50 Bhayro, S.: 172 n. 8 Blauner, D. G.: 135 n. 23 Boas, F.: 135 n. 25 Boegehold, A.: 99 and n. 15–16 and 22 Bohannan, P.: 100 n. 24 Bommelaer, J.-F.: 126 n. 41 Bonebakker, S. A.: 223 n. 11 Borghini, A.: 139 n. 40 Bosworth, C. E.: 226 and n. 27, 229 n. 42 Bowersock, G. W.: 221 n. 2 Bowie, A. M.: 89 n. 64 Bowie, E.: 137 n. 36 Boyarin, D.: 195 n. 40 Bradley, M.: 149 and n. 78 Brakke, D.: 184 n. 5 Braudel, F.: 244 n. 21 Brelich, A.: 79 n. 23 Bremmer, J. N.: 51 n. 26–27, 73 n. 7 Bremmer, J.: 170 n. 4 Broek, R. van den: 193 n. 31 Broggiato, M.: 67 n. 51 Brown, P.: 176 and n. 20, 223 n. 13 Brownmiller, S.: 187 and n. 13, 188 Buchanan, P. D.: 183 n. 2, 186 n. 10, 187 n. 13, 188 n. 16 Budelmann, F.: 49 n. 18 Buecheler, F.: 165 n. 40 Bultrighini, U.: 83 n. 47 Burgess, J. S.: 35 n. 10, 40 n. 30, 41 n. 33 Burkert, W.: 88 n. 58, 89 n. 64 Burns, T. A.: 136 n. 31 Burtt, J. O.: 100 Buxton, R. G. A.: 51 n. 26

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Cahana, J.: 2 n. 4 and 6, 5, 176 n. 21, 193 n. 31, 194 n. 35 Calame, C.: 64 n. 45, 76 n. 13, 77 n. 18 Calboli, G.: 142 n. 52, 146 n. 62 Calhoun, G. M.: 95 n. 1 Califia, P.: 192 and n. 29–30 Cameron, Alan: 43 n. 1, 142 and n. 55 Cameron, Averil: 221 n. 3 Camp II, J. McK.: 61 n. 33, 62 n. 39–40 Camp, C. V.: 190 n. 20 and 23 Campanini, M.: 222 n. 6 Campbell, J. G.: 17 n. 34 Canevaro, M.: 95 n. 2, 101 n. 27 Canova, G.: 227 n. 28 Capezzone, L.: 229 n. 37 Capps, E.: 115, n. 5 Carastro, M.: 101 n. 28, 175 n. 16 Carawan, E.: 99 n. 18 Carey, C.: 98 n. 12, 99 n. 16 Carrara, L.: 89 n. 64, 90 n. 67 and 69 Carter, D. M.: 2 n. 5, 55 n. 1 Cartledge, P.: 56 n. 7 Castriota, D.: 63 n. 41, 64 n. 44 Catling, H. W.: 117 n. 13 Ceravolo, T.: 240 n. 13, 246 n. 28 Chang, K. S.: 203 n. 5 and 7, 206 n. 15 Charlesworth, J. H.: 17 n. 33, 20 n. 46 Chazon, E.: 21 n. 47 Chiarini, G.: 139 n. 41 Christou, Ch.: 118 and n. 17, 120–123 passim Cogan, M.: 11 n. 6 Colella Tommasi, U.: 222 n. 6 Colesanti, G.: 1 n. 1–2, 3 n. 10, 9 n. 1, 47 n. 13, 55 n. 2, 67 n. 51, 97 n. 9, 169 n. 2, 179 n. 29, 221 n. 5 Collins, J. J.: 16 n. 27–28, 17 n. 30–32, 22 n. 52–53 Connor, W. R.: 56 n. 7 Conrad, L. I.: 221 n. 3 Cook, E.: 133 n. 11, 139 n. 43 Costa, G.: 138 n. 37, 147 n. 67 Coulton, J. J.: 126 n. 38 Crouch, C. L.: 11 n. 6 Crow, B. A.: 183 n. 2, 184 n. 3, 186 n. 11, 195 n. 41, 197 n. 47 Cucchiarelli, A.: 146 n. 62–63 Cusumano, N.: 81 n. 33

Daftary, F.: 229 n. 37 Danek, G.: 39 n. 27 and 29 Davis, J. F.: 202 and n. 2 Davis, J. L.: 115 n. 5, 116 Davis, T.: 215 n. 43 Davy, G.: 96 n. 7 Dawkins, R. M.: 117 n. 13 De Groot, J. J. M.: 208 n. 17, 211, 212 n. 27 De Laurentis, P.: 2 n. 3, 5, 6 n. 14, 213 n. 36, 215 n. 41 De Roguin, Cl.-Fr.: 80 n. 31 De Sanctis, G.: 144 n. 59 Debiasi, A.: 84 n. 51 Defradas, J.: 72 and n. 3, 76 and n. 13, 77 n. 19 Denaro, R.: 3, 5 Detienne, M.: 2 n. 7, 45 n. 8, 77 n. 17, 82 n. 37, 222 n. 7 Di Cesare, R.: 60 n. 25–26, 62 and n. 37–38, 122 n. 24 Di Donato, R.: 95 n. 3, 96 n. 7–8 Di Gregorio, L.: 132 n. 7 Di Napoli, V.: 121 n. 22 Dillery, J.: 106 n. 46 Dimant, D.: 17 n. 34, 19 n. 42 Djebli, M.: 229 n. 40 Dodds, E. R.: 172 and n. 7 Doering, L.: 18 n. 40 Dorjahn, A. P.: 99 n. 18 Dorsa, V.: 236 and n. 3, 237, 238 and n. 8, 240–241 passim, 244 and n. 22, 245 n. 24 Dorst, J. D.: 132 n. 3 Dover, K. J.: 99 n. 16 Duhaime, J.: 20 n. 45–46 Dundes, A.: 136 n. 30 Dunning, B.: 188 n. 15, 195 n. 38 Dupont, F.: 179 n. 30 Durkheim, E.: 73 n. 6 Dworkin, A.: 187–188 passim, 189, 196 and n. 42–44 Easterling, P. E.: 57 n. 15 Echols, A.: 183 and n. 2, 184 n. 3–4, 187 n. 13, 196 n. 42 Ehlers, J.: 135 n. 27 Eidinow, E.: 102 n. 32

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Emerton, J.: 16 n. 28 Emmel, S.: 185 n. 7, 186 n. 9 Enderwitz, S.: 223 n. 11 Epstein, S.: 95 n. 2 Ercolani, A.: 2 n. 4, 33–34, 35 n. 7, 41 n. 34, 49 n. 17, 52 n. 30, 97 n. 9, 135 n. 24, 183 n. 1, 224 n. 15 Erll, A.: 73 n. 5 Ernout, A.: 155 n. 2 Evans, E.: 194 n. 35 Faraguna, M.: 95 n. 2–3, 103 n. 36 Faraone, C.: 108 n. 55–56 Farnell, L. R.: 77 n. 16, 83 n. 44 Fehrle, E.: 163 n. 32, 164 n. 36, 163–164 n. passim, 165 n. 40 Ferro, L.: 151 n. 83 Fierro, M.: 231 n. 49 Finkelberg, M.: 3, 4 n. 11, 35 n. 7–8, 36 n. 12–13, 37 n. 18, 38 n. 23, 40 n. 31, 56 n. 9, 65 n. 48 Firestone, S.: 185, 186 and n. 10, 196 and n. 43–44 Fischer, W.: 225 n. 21 Fisher, N.: 106 n. 48 Flach, D.: 163 n. 33, 164 n. 38 Flint, P. W.: 18 n. 36 Flusser, D.: 25 n. 61 Fontenrose, J.: 80 n. 29 Ford, A.: 137 n. 34 Ford, J. N.: 172 n. 8 Förtsch, R.: 125 n. 31 Foucault, M.: 178 n. 27 Fowden, G.: 181 n. 32, 221 n. 2 Fowler, R. L.: 3, 43 n. 1, 44 n. 5, 45 n. 8–9, 46 n. 11, 47, 48 n. 15, 50 n. 19, 52 n. 28, 61 n. 30 Frame, D.: 41 and n. 32 Franco, C.: 160 n. 21 Frazer, J. G.: 78 n. 21, 83 n. 44, 122 and n. 23 Frye, N.: 131 n. 1, 133 n. 10 Funkenstein, A.: 27 n. 63 Gabrieli, F.: 22 n. 6 Gagarin, M.: 95 n. 4 Gantz, T.: 71 n. 2 Ganzel, T.: 10 n. 4

Garbugino G.: 139 n. 41 Gardner, P.: 80 n. 29, 83 n. 43 Gauer, W.: 125 n. 31 Geertz, C.: 2 and n. 4 Gelder, G. J. H. van: 231 n. 48 Gentili, B.: 96 n. 8 Georges, R. A.: 136 n. 30 Gernet, L.: 95–96 passim, 101 n. 29, 102 n. 33–34, 108 n. 52 Gilbert, S. M.: 190 n. 19 Gimbutas, Ž.: 133 n. 11 Ginsberg, H. L.: 14 n. 21 Giordano, M.: 1 n. 1, 2 n. 4, 3 n. 10, 4, 9 n. 1, 47 n. 13, 51 n. 24, 55 n. 2, 56 n. 5, 57 n. 15, 65 n. 46, 66 n. 49, 85 n. 53, 87 n. 56, 97 n. 9, 101 n. 30, 169 n. 2, 221 n. 5 Giorgieri, M.: 108 n. 56 Giuman, M.: 84 n. 50 Gluckmann, M.; 100 n. 24 Goldberg, Ch.: 132 n. 3, 139 n. 40 Goldstein, R.: 13 n. 20, 14 n. 23, 15 n. 24 Gong Dazhong: 215 n. 41 Goody, J.: 101 n. 28, 175 n. 16 Gostoli, A.: 52 n. 28 Graf, F.: 80 n. 30, 86 and n. 55 Graziosi, B.: 41 and n. 32 Greco, E.: 4, 60 n. 26 Green, T. A.: 132 n. 3 Green, W. C.: 140 n. 44 Greenstein, E. L.: 12 n. 16, 13 n. 19 Grimm Brothers (Grimm, J. L. K., and W. K.): 131, 145 Grote, G.: 115 n. 6 Grünebaum, G. E. von, 221 n. 3, 225 n. 22 Grypeou, E.: 193 n. 31 Gubar, S.: 190 n. 19 Guidorizzi, G.: 134 n. 17, 142 n. 52 Haar, S.: 191 n. 27 Halbwachs, M.: 73 and n. 5 Hall, E.: 57 n. 15, 99 n. 20, 100 n. 23, 104 n. 40 Hall, S.: 7 n. 17 Hallaq, B.: 223 n. 9 Halliday, W. R.: 76 n. 13 Hämeen-Hanttila, J.: 223 n. 11 Hamilakis, Y.: 116 and n. 8

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Hamilton, R.: 88 n. 58 Hammond, N. G. L.: 104 n. 42 Hantgan, A.: 149 Harder, R.: 80 n. 29 Harris, E.: 95 n. 2 Harris, W. V.: 175 n. 17 Hausen, O.: 125 n. 31 Havet, L.: 156 n. 9 Hebdike, D.: 7 n. 18 Heck, P.: 223 n. 14, 224 n. 16–17 Heim, R.: 159 n. 16, 164 n. 37, 165 n. 40 Hellmann, M. Ch.: 125 n. 31, 126 n. 37 Helmbold, W. C.: 97 Hempel, C.: 22 n. 53 Henrichs, A.: 51 n. 27 Heurgon, J.: 163–164 n. passim Hezser, C.: 175 n. 18 Hill, D. R.: 229 n. 39 Hobsbawn, E. J.: 61 n. 31, 73 n. 7 Hodkinson, S.: 116–117 passim Hoftijzer, J.: 12 n. 13 Holtz, S.: 10 n. 4 Imhoof-Blumer, F.: 80 n. 29, 83 n. 43 Immerwahr, H. R.: 125 n. 31 Jacoby, F.: 89–90 passim, 106 n. 46 Jacquemin, A.: 126 n. 40 Jaeger, M., 134 n. 16 Jameson, M. H.: 81 n. 35, 83 n. 41 Janko, R.: 56 n. 10 Jasper, A. E.: 191 n. 23 Jefferson, T.: 7 n. 17 Jensen, M. S.: 35 n. 10 Johnston, S. I.: 52 n. 28 Jolles, A.: 135 n. 22 Jonan, F.: 132 n. 7 Jonas, H.: 191 n. 27, 193 and n. 32 Jones, L. G.: 227 n. 28 Jones, W. H. S.: 63, 75, 78 n. 21 Jongeling, K.: 12 n. 13 Joosten, J.: 15 n. 24 Jung, M.: 125 n. 31 Kahn, C. H.: 47 n. 13 Kendrick Pritchett, W.: 125 n. 31 Kennedy, H.: 221 n. 1

Kern, M.: 203 n. 5 and 7 King, K. L.: 184 n. 5, 189, 196–197 Knoepfler, D.: 91 n. 71 Koch, K.: 23 n. 56 Köngäs Maranda, E.: 136 n. 30 Konstantakos, I. M.: 138 n. 38 Korsch, Th.: 165 n. 40 Kottsieper, I.: 12 n. 14 Kouremenos, T.: 137 n. 35 Kourinou Pikoula, E.: 122 n. 26 Kourinou, E.: 113 n. 2, 123 n. 27 Kraemer, J. L.: 223 n. 11 Krueger, D.: 176 and n. 24, 177 Kuhn, G.: 125 n. 31, 126 n. 38 Kullmann, W.: 36 n. 11–12 Kurke, L.: 52 n. 29 Kwapisz, J.: 143 n. 54 Kyriakou, P.: 89 n. 63 L’Heureux, C. E.: 11 n. 7 La Penna, A.: 146 n. 61 Laidlaw, J.:173 n. 11 Laks, A.: 137 n. 35 Lane, E. W.: 227 n. 28 Lange, A.: 23 n. 58 Lanni, A.: 99 n. 20–21 Laoust, H.: 229 n. 37 Lapidus, I. M.: 223 n. 12 Lavency, M.: 99 n. 17, 104 n. 38 Layton, B.: 187 n. 14, 188 n. 15, 191 and n. 24, 195 n. 39 Legge, J.: 204 n. 8 Lehmann-Nitsche, R.: 136 n. 31 Leo, Fr.: 165 and n. 40 Lesky, A.: 71 n. 2 Lethe: 239 Lewis, D. M.: 60 n. 28, 63 n. 42, 125 and n. 31 and 33 Lewis, D.: 125 and n. 31 and 33 Lightfoot, J. L.: 43 n. 1 Linden, R. R.: 192 n. 30 Loewenstamm, S. E.: 14 n. 23, 15 n. 24 Lombardi Satriani, L. M.: 242 n. 18–19, 245 n. 25, 246 n. 27 and 30, 247 n. 32–33 Lopez-Baralt, L.: 230 n. 44 Loraux, N.: 55 n. 1, 65 n. 47 Lory, P.: 229 n. 39

Index Nominum | 255

Luck, G.: 159 n. 19 Lulli, L.: 1 n. 1–2, 35 n. 9, 248 n. 35 Luraghi, N.: 51 n. 23 Luz, C.: 137 n. 33 MacDermot, V.: 193 n. 33, 194 n. 34 MacDowell, D. M.: 103, 139 n. 43 MacKendrick, K.: 197 and n. 48 MacKinnon, C. A.: 187 n. 13, 188, 189 MacRae, G. W.: 190 n. 21, 191 n. 26 Macrì, S.: 81 n. 32 Madelung, W.: 229 n. 37 Maggioni, G. P.: 148 n. 71 and 75 Makdisi, G.: 226 n. 26 Malinowski, B.: 73 n. 6 Malkin, I.: 39 n. 27 Marangoni, C.: 148 n. 74 Marchand, S. L. : 116 n. 9 Marchant, E. C.: 59 n. 23, 60 n. 29 Mariggiò, V. A.: 59 n. 21 Mariotti, S.: 146 n. 65 Marks, J.: 38 n. 21, 39 n. 27 Martin, R.: 61 n. 32 Marx, W.: 171 n. 6 Marzi, G.: 119 n. 20 Marzolph, U.: 227 n. 29 Massignon, L.: 230 n. 45 Mazzarino, A.: 158 n. 15 McDowell, J.: 134 n. 16, 139 n. 43 McGuire, A.: 189 n. 17, 190 and n. 22 Meiggs, R.: 125 and n. 31 and 33 Meillet, A.: 155 n. 2 Melchert, C.: 231 n. 47 Mele, A.: 77–79 passim, 80 n. 26, 81 n. 34, 83 n. 47 Meligrana, M.: 242 n. 18–19, 245 n. 25, 246 n. 27 and 30, 247 n. 32–33 Mercanti, D.:125 n. 31, 127 n. 42 Metcalf, B. D.: 223 n. 11 Meyer, E.: 81 n. 35 Miller, M. C.: 125 n. 31 Mirhady, D. C.: 102 n. 33, 104 n. 40 Miskinzoda, G.: 229 n. 37 Mizrahi, N.: 22 n. 51 Monda, S.: 5, 132 n. 7–8, 133 n. 13, 139 n. 41–42, 142 n. 49, 144 n. 57, 146 n. 63, 148 n. 72

Monroe, J. T.: 222 n. 8 Monteleone, M.: 151 n. 83 Montepaone, C.: 76, 77 n. 15 and 17 Morawski, F.: 135 n. 27 Morrison, J. S.:125 and n. 34 Most, G. W.: 137 n. 35 Mullen, E. T.: 9 n. 3, 11 n. 7, 12 n. 10 Müllenhoff, K.: 135 n. 26 Müller, K. O.: 86 and n. 55 Müller, L.: 165 n. 40 Münzer, F.: 163 n. 31 Musti, D.: 76 and n. 14, 77 n. 17 and 19, 78 and n. 20, 81 n. 34 Nag Hammadi: 184–185, 188 Naerebout, F. G.: 134 n. 17 Nafissi, M.: 121 n. 22 Nagy, G.: 35 n. 9–10, 36 n. 11, 41 and n. 32 Neale, W. C.: 2 n. 7 Newiger, H.-J.: 137 n. 34 Newsom, C.: 21 n. 48 and 50 Nicholson, F. W.: 164 n. 38 Nicolai, R.: 44 n. 4–5, 47 n. 13, 49 n. 17, 98 n. 10, 169 n. 2 Niehr, H.: 9 n. 3, 11 and n. 7, 12 Nightingale, A. W.: 83 n. 46 Norden, Ed.: 160 n. 22, 166 n. 42 Norton, F. J.: 132 n. 3 Nünning, A.: 73 n. 5 Ohlert, K.: 135 and n. 27 Olivieri, A.: 78 n. 21, 84 n. 52 Ormerod, H. A.: 63 Osborne, R.: 56 n. 6, 101 n. 26 Ostwald, M.: 55 n. 1 and 4, 57 n. 12, 58 n. 16 Owen, S.: 202 n. 1, 203 n. 5 and 7, 206 n. 15 Padula, V.: 236 and n. 2, 239–240 passim Pagani, S. G.: 222 n. 6 Pagels, E. H.: 185 Palmisciano, R.: 47 n. 14, 49 n. 17, 51 n. 24, 71 n. 1, 84 n. 50, 96 n. 8, 134 n. 21, 222 n. 8 Palumbo Stracca, B. M.: 119 n. 20 Parássoglou, G. M.: 137 n. 35 Paris, G.: 135 n. 26 Parker, R. B.: 11 n. 7, 13 n. 20

256 | Index Nominum

Parker, R.: 56 n. 6–7, 65 n. 48, 105 n. 43 Pearson, B. A.: 191 n. 26 Péborthe, C.: 95 n. 2 Pedersen, J.: 227 n. 28 Pepicello, W. J.: 132 n. 3 Peradotto, J.: 39 n. 27 Pernot, R.: 98 n. 10 Petsch, R.: 135 n. 26 Pfeijffer, I. L.: 83 n. 45 Picard, Ch.: 123 n. 28 Piérart, M.: 81 n. 34–35, 83 n. 42 Pinault, D.: 227 n. 28 Pitré, G.: 135 n. 26 Polak, F.: 27 and n. 64 Polara, G.: 148 n. 71 and 75 Pretagostini, R.: 132 n. 8 Pritchett, W. K.: 81 n. 32 Pucci, L.: 3, 58 n. 17 Pugliese Carratelli, G.: 238 n. 9, 245 n. 26 Qimron, E.: 19 n. 41 Rahmouni, A.: 11 n. 8–9, 16 n. 29 Ranger, T.: 61 n. 31, 73 n. 7 Rapp, C.: 176 and n. 23 Reed, A. Y.: 22 n. 54 Reeves, J. C.: 9 n. 2 Rehm, A.: 80 n. 29 Reitz, C.: 44 n. 6 Reitzenstein, R.: 141 n. 48 Reynolds, D. F.: 227 n. 29, 228 n. 34–35 Rhodes, P. J.: 58 n. 18, 59 n. 20 and 22, 101 n. 26 Ribichini, S.: 12 n. 15 Ricci, C.: 138 n. 37, 143 n. 53 Rich, A.: 189, 190 n. 19–20, 191 Ritchie, A.: 193 n. 30 Rizzo, S.: 76 n. 13, 78 n. 21 Robert, F.: 118 and n. 16, 119 n. 20 Roberts, M.: 191 n. 23 Robinson, C. R.: 221 n. 3 Roche, H.: 116 n. 9 Rofé, A.: 14 n. 21, a5 and n. 24–25, 23 n. 57 Rolland, E.: 135 n. 26 Rosenthal, F.: 224 n. 17 Rossi, L. E.: 9, 72 n. 4, 183 and n. 1, 221 n. 4, 225, 226 n. 25

Rubenson, S.: 175 and n. 19 Rubin, G.: 192 and n. 28 Ruhnken, D.: 98 n. 1 Ruocco, M.: 222 n. 6 Rutherford, I.: 83 n. 45–46 Sadiqi, F.: 228 n. 36 Sakka, N.: 115–117 passim Salati, M.: 229 n. 37 Sanders, G.: 128 n. 43 Sbardella, L.: 4 n. 11, 34 n. 3, 35 n. 10, 47 n. 12, 56 and n. 8, 248 n. 35 Scaliger, J.: 179 Schäfer, P.: 21 n. 49 Schmidt, C.: 193 n. 33, 194 n. 34 Schneider, R. M.: 123 n. 28 Schoeler, G.: 222 n. 8, 226 n. 26 Schuller, E. M.: 21 n. 47 Schultz, W.: 135 and n. 27 Scodel, R.: 37 n. 18, 55 n. 1, 56–57 passim Scott, J.: 191 n. 25 Scott, R.: 191 n. 25 Scullion, S.: 89 n. 63 Sébillot, P.: 237 n. 7, 246 n. 27, 247 n. 34 Šentürk, R.: 225 n. 24 Serafim, A.: 99 n. 20 Severi, C.: 180 n. 31 Sewell, W. H.: 7 n. 16 Shah, M.: 225 n. 24 Shaked, Sh.: 172 and n. 8 Shapiro, H. A.: 64 n. 45, 89 n. 63 Shear, T. L.: 61 n. 32, 62 n. 36 Shenkar, M.: 17 n. 31 Shinan, A.: 9 n. 2 Smith, M. S.: 11 n. 7, 14 n. 23, 16 n. 26, 18 n. 37. 19 n. 41, 20 and n. 43, 26 Smith, R. S.: 43 n. 1 Smith, W. C.: 170 and n. 3 Sonnino, M.: 6 n. 13, 51 and n. 24–25, 146 n. 64 Soravia, B.: 225 n. 20 Sourvinou-Inwood, C.: 56 n. 7, 64 n. 45 Spawforth, A. J. S.: 121 n. 22, 123 n. 29 Spina, L.: 86 n. 54 Spineto, N.: 88 n. 58–59, 89 n. 64 Stansbury-O’Donnell, M. D.: 63 n. 41–42 Starr Kreps, A.: 176 n. 22

Index Nominum | 257

Stegemann, H.: 21 n. 47, 24 n. 60 Steinhauer, G.: 123 n. 28 Sternbach, L.: 142 n. 50 Stewart, D. R.: 113 and n. 3 Stock, B.: 177 n. 25 Straface, A.: 229 n. 37–38 Strothmann, R.: 229 n. 40 Stroumsa, G. G.: 2 n. 6, 3 n. 9, 4–5, 7 n. 18, 169 n. 1, 171 n. 5, 178 n. 26 Stroumsa, S.: 225 n. 22 Struck, P. 137 n. 34–35 Stuckenbruck, L. T.: 22 n. 54 Suleiman, Y.: 224 n. 19 Szombathy, Z.: 231 n. 48–49 Taddei, A.: 3, 105 n. 44 Talmon, S.: 12 n. 17 Tandy, D. W.: 2 n. 7 Tanner, J.: 2 n. 7 Taplin, O.: 57 n. 14–15 Tartaglium, C.: 132 n. 8 Taussig, H.: 191 n. 25–26 Taylor, A.: 136 and n. 29 and 31 Teti, V.: 2 n. 4 and 6, 4, 235 n. 1, 244 n. 23, 246 n. 27, 247 n. 31 Thierfelder, A.: 142 n. 49 Thirlwall, C.: 115 n. 6 Thomas, R.: 51 n. 23 and 26, 95 n. 1–2, 96 and n. 6 Thomson, G.: 66 n. 50 Thulin, C.: 166 n. 41 Thür, G.: 102 n. 33, 103 n. 35 Todd, S. C.: 95 n. 5, 98 n. 12 and 14, 101 and n. 25, 102 n. 34, 104 n. 39 and 41 Torelli, M.: 76 and n. 14, 77 n. 17 and 19, 78 and n. 20, 81 n. 34 Tosti, V.: 113 n. 2 Tov, E.: 18 n. 40 Trotter, J.: 22 n. 53 Trzaskoma, S. M.: 43 n. 1 Tsagalis, Ch.: 39 n. 27 Tsantsanoglou, K.: 137 n. 35 Tupet, A. M.: 159 n. 16–17, 160 n. 20, 163 n. 32, 164 n. 38 Turner, J. D.: 193 n. 31

Umholtz, G.: 125 n. 31 Usener, H.: 164 n. 36 Vajda, G.: 226 n. 26 Valdés Guía, M.: 105 n. 43 Van der Kooij, A.: 24 n. 59 Van der Toorn, K.: 12 n. 11 and 13 van Groningen, B. A.: 164 n. 39 Van Koppen, F.: 12 n. 11 and 13 Van Looy, H.: 132 n. 7 Vanderhooft, D. S.: 10 n. 4 VanderKam, J. C.: 18 n. 36 Vasilogambrou, A.: 113 n. 1 Veach, K.: 189 n. 18 Verdier, R.: 100 n. 24 Versteegh, K.: 224 n. 18 Veyne, P.: 44 n. 7, 178 n. 27 Vogeikoff-Brogan, N.: 116 Wachsmuth, C.: 120 n. 21 Waldstein, C.: 118 and n. 15, 121–122 Walker, H. J.: 64 n. 45 Walsh, J.: 125 n. 31 Walter, A.: 44 n. 6 Walther, W.: 227 n. 30 Waywell, G. B.: 115 n. 4, 119 n. 18 Weber, M.: 1, 6 n. 12, 8, 172–174 Weigold, M.: 23 n. 58 Weinfeld, M.: 14 n. 22 Welter, G.: 76 and n. 12–13, 77 n. 19, 80 n. 28 Wen-chin, O.: 223 n. 10, 224 n. 16 Wendel, C.: 43 n. 1 West, M. L.: 34 n. 2 and 6, 36 n. 11, 38 n. 24, 41 n. 33, 50 n. 21, 84 n. 51 White Crawford, S.: 18 n. 39 Whitehouse, H.: 173 and n. 11, 174 Wide, S.: 76–77 passim, 80 n. 30, 83 n. 48 Wiegers, G. A.: 230 n. 44 Wilkes, J. J.: 115 n. 4, 119 n. 18 Wilkinson, E.: 202 n. 3–4, 214 and n. 40 Williams, B.: 45 and n. 10 Williams, M. A.: 184 n. 5, 193 n. 31, 196 and n. 45 Williams, R. T.: 125 and n. 34 Williams, R.: 7 n. 15 Williamson, C.: 136 n. 31

258 | Index Nominum

Wilson, N. G.: 34 n. 4 Wittig, M.: 184 n. 4, 194–195 passim, 196 n. 44 Woodward, A. M.: 121 n. 22 Worthington, I.: 98 n. 10 Wycherley, R. E.: 61 n. 33, 62 n. 34 Wyse, W.: 101

Xella, P.: 12 n. 11–12 Yarbro Collins, A.: 17 n. 32 Youssi, A.: 229 n. 42, 230 n. 43 Zakovitch, Y.: 9 n. 2 Zuntz, G.: 34 and n. 4 Zwartjes, O.: 230 n. 44 Zwettler, M.: 222 n. 8

Ancient Abraham: 178 Acamas: 89 n. 64 Adam: 178, 188, 191, 195 Adonis: 222 n. 8 Aelian: 79 n. 23, 160 and n. 21 Aeschines: 61 n. 33, 99 n. 21, 106 and n. 47, 108 n. 54 Aeschylus: 57–58, 65–66, 71, 76–78, 82 and n. 40, 125 Aesop: 52, 138 Agamemnon: 38, 84, 89 n. 64, 90 and n. 68 Agias of Troezen: 84 and n. 52, 91 Ajax: 63, 144 n. 62 al-Buḥturī: 231 n. 48 Alcaeus: 140 Alcman: 44 n. 3 Alcmeonids: 125 al-Ḥallāǧ: 230 al-Rāḍī (Abbasid prince): 227 al-Ṣūlī: 228 n. 32 Althepus: 91 n. 71 Anacreon: 47 Andocides: 98 and n. 13, 107, 108 n. 54 Anthologia Latina: 147 Anthony (St): 175 Antiphanes (comic poet): 138 and n. 39 Antoninus Liberalis: 44 n. 3 Aphrodite: 118–119 Apollo: 36 n. 15, 74–75, 76 n. 11, 77–80 passim, 82–83, 84 n. 52, 85, 125–126, 145, 146 n. 62 Apollodorus (logographer): 98 Apollodorus (of Athens): 38 n. 22, 39 and n. 26, 43–45 passim, 88 n. 61, 132 n. 5

Apollonius Rhodius: 44 n. 3 Apuleius: 148, 150, 163 n. 32 (Ps. Apuleius) Aratus: 34, 44 n. 3 Archilochus: 52, 140, 222 Aristarchus (of Samothrace): 36 n. 15 Aristophanes: 34, 65, 88 n. 59, 99 n. 22, 137 n. 34, 139–141 Aristotle: 58, 102 n. 33, 106, 107 n. 50, 138 n. 37, 142 and n. 52, 143, 38 n. 22 (Ps. Aristotle) Artemis: 74–81 passim, 84 and n. 52, 85, 89 n. 46, 113, 117 Athamas: 50 Athanasius: 171, 175–176 Athenaeus: 44 n. 3, 119 n. 20, 132 n. 5, 140 and n. 46, 141–142 Atta: 149 Augustine: 173 n. 10, 175 n. 12 Autoclides: 106 n. 46 Bacchylides: 56, 57 n. 12 Baoxi: 203 Beijing tushuguan jinshizu: 210 n. 20–22, 215 n. 42 Brasidas: 119 Brutus (Lucius Iunius Brutus): 145 Buddha: 170 Cabiri: 52 Caecilius of Calacte: 98 n. 12 Cai Yong: 209 Calchas: 38 and n. 24, 39–40, 138 Callias: 107 Callidice (queen of Thesprotia): 39

Index Nominum | 259

Callimachus: 44, 79, 141, 164 n. 39 Cang jie: 204 Cassandra: 63 Cato (Marcus Poscius): 158 and n. 15, 159 n. 19, 161–162, 164 and n. 35 Cercopes: 51, 52 n. 28 Charisius (grammarian): 142 n. 51, 149 Chen Zi’ang: 213 Cheng Huang: 210–211 Cheng Zhangcan: 213 n. 35 Choerilus of Samos: 57 Choeroboscus: 142 n. 51 Christ: see Jesus Christ Cicero (Marcus Tullius): 142 n. 51, 156 n. 5, 158 n. 14 Cimon of Athens: 50, 55–56, 59–62 passim, 64 n. 43, 65 n. 47, 66–67, 122, 126 Clearchus of Soli: 142 Cleisthenes: 115 n. 6 Clement of Alexandria: 187 Cleobuline: 142–143 Cleobulus of Lindus: 142 Clidemus: 106 n. 46 Cocondrius: 142 n. 51 Confucius: 205 Conon: 46 Constantine Cephalas: 143 Creophylei: 47 Cynegirus (brother of Aeschylus): 125 and n. 42 Cyprian: 175 and n. 14–15 Cytissorus: 50 Dactyls: 52 and n. 28 Daniel: 16–17 and n. 27 and 30, 22, 26–27 Demades: 98 Demetrius: 142 n. 51 Demophon: 88, 89 n. 62 and 64, 90 and n. 68 Demosthenes: 61 n. 33, 99 and n. 19, 102, 103 n. 36, 105 (Ps. Demosthenes), 107 n. 51, 108 Diogenes Laertius: 143 Diomedes (epic hero): 38 and n. 21–22; 89 n. 64 Diomedes (grammarian): 142 n. 51 Dionysius of Halicarnassus: 44 n. 3

Dionysius the Periegete: 44 n. 3 Dionysus: 88, 239 Donatus: 142 n. 51, 161 Draco: 105 Echetlus (hero): 63 Elagabalus: 122 n. 26 Empusa: 51, 52 n. 28 Ennius: 146–147 passim, 157 and n. 11, 164 n. 36 Epiphanius of Salamis: 191 and n. 26 Eratosthenes: 98 Erinnyes: 76 n. 10 Eumaeus: 39 Eumelus of Corinth: 50 Euphiletus: 98 Euripides: 34, 38 n. 22, 44 n. 3, 88, 89 and n. 64, 76 n. 10, 90 and n. 69, 132 and n. 5–6 Eurycleia: 131 Eve: 187–188, 199 and n. 20, 191, 195 Ezekiel: 10–11 Fan Ye: 209 Gallus, G. Cornelius: 46 Gelasius (Pope): 175 Gellius, Aulus: 133 n. 13, 142 n. 45, 144–146, 162 n. 29 Gorgias: 48 Gregory of Nyssa: 177 Guo Tai: 209–210 Hades: 238–239 Harpocration: 99 n. 20, 105 n. 45, 106 n. 48, 120 n. 21 Hecataeus: 47, 48 n. 16 Helen: 37 Hellanicus: 44 Heracles: 50, 63, 72 n. 3 Heraclitus: 138 n. 37 Herodes Atticus: 98 Herodotus: 44, 45 and n. 9, 46, 48–51 passim, 71, 125 n. 32 and 35, 126, 143 Hesiod: 36 n. 14–15, 37 and n. 19, 38, 40, 44 n. 3, 72 n. 3, 138, 239 Hieron of Syracuse: 57

260 | Index Nominum

Hippias of Elis: 51 and n. 26 Hippocrates: 82 n. 38 Hippodicus of Chalcis: 56 n. 11 Hippolytus: 75, 76 Homer: 34–41, 44 and n. 3, 46, 71, 85, 132, 137–138, 222, 239 Homeridae: 47, 56 Horace: 147 n. 69, 167 n. 45 Ibn al-Ğawzī: 227 n. 28 Ibn al-Nadīm: 227 and n. 31, 230 n. 46 Ibn al-Rāwandī: 225 n. 22 Ibycus: 47 Idomeneus: 38 and n. 21–22 Ion (rhapsode): 35 Iphigenia: 89 n. 64 Iraeneus of Lyon: 170, 191 and n. 26 Isaeus: 101, 104, 106 n. 49 Isidorus: 149 and n. 76, 155 and n. 1 Isocrates: 57 n. 12 Jesus Christ: 169–170, 176 n. 22, 180–181, 184–187, 191 n. 23, 193–194, 196, 240– 241, 245 Josephus (Flavius): 179 Julia Aquila Severa: 122 n. 26 Julia Domna: 122 n. 26 Kleidemos: 89 n. 64 Kou Zhen: 211 Lasus of Hermione: 56 Leonidas: 120, 121 n. 22 Li Bai: 206 Li Linfu: 204 Li Mingzhen: 214 Li Xianqi: 212 n. 31, 213 n. 33 Liang Shengqing: 213 Liber Pater: 238 Livy: 113, 145 Lu Zhi: 209 Lucan: 148 Lucilius: 147 n. 69 Lycophron: 34, 44 n. 3, 141 Lycurgus (of Athens): 44, 67, 98 and n. 13, 99, 101 n. 26 Lysias: 97–99 passim, 103–104, 108 n. 54

Macrobius: 44 n. 3 Mani: 170–171 Marcus Aurelius: 171 Margites: 51, 52 n. 28 Marius Plotius Sacerdos: 142 n. 51 Mary (mother of Jesus): 190 and n. 20, 191 n. 23 Mary Magdalene: 185–186, 191 n. 23 Maximus Planudes: 143 Meletus: 147 n. 68 Menelaus: 36 n. 15 Metrodorus of Byzantium: 143 Micon: 62, 64 Miltiades (Athenian general): 59, 63, 126 Mnemosyne: 238–239 Mopsus: 38, 138 Muhammad: 169–170 Nabis: 113 Narcissus: 246 n. 29 Neoptolemus: 38 and n. 21–22 Nestor: 38 and n. 21 Noah: 178 Nonius: 148 Norea: 187 Odysseus: 36, 39 and n. 28, 131 Oedipus: 131–134 passim, 138–139, 145 Orestes: 3, 58 n. 7, 71–91 Orus: 91 n. 71 Ovid: 144, 146 n. 62, 156 n. 5 Pan: 82 n. 36, 155 n. 4 Panaenus: 62, 126 n. 42 Pandion: 88 Parthenius of Nicaea: 46 Paul (St): 170 Pausanias: 57 n. 12, 62–64, 73–85 passim, 91 n. 71, 113–127 passim, 134 n. 14 Peisianax: 61 Penelope: 37, 39, 131 Pericles: 58, 59 n. 21, 116, 125 Petronius (Arbiter): 133 and n. 12 Phanodemus: 88 n. 61, 89 n. 62 and 64–65 Pheidon (king of Thesprotia): 39 Pherecrates (comic poet): 119 n. 20 Pherecydes of Athens: 44 and n. 3, 50, 76–77

Index Nominum | 261

Pherecydes of Syros: 48 Phidias: 126 and n. 42 Philemon (comic poet): 147 n. 68 Philo of Byblos: 12 and n. 15, 179 Philochorus: 106 n. 46 Philoctetes: 38 and n. 21–22 Philodemus: 44 n. 3, 142 n. 51 Philoponus (philosopher and grammarian): 33–34 Philostratus: 98 n. 11 Phormio (general): 124, 126 Photius: 120 n. 21 Phrixus: 50 Phrynichus: 65 Phrynis: 119 n. 20 Pindar: 38 n. 22, 44 n. 3, 50, 56, 57 n. 12, 83 and n. 45, 131 and n. 2 Pisistratus: 56–57, 67 Pittheus: 78 n. 20 Plato: 34 n. 5, 35 n. 10, 44 n. 3, 45, 51 n. 26, 134 n. 19, 137, 147 n. 68, 148, 171, 239 Plautus: 156 n. 5, 161 and n. 26, 167 and n. 43 Pliny: 126 n. 42, 158 n. 15, 163 n. 30, 164 n. 37 Plutarch: 44 n. 3, 60, 61 n. 32, 76 n. 13, 79 n. 25, 87, 88 n. 57, 91 and n. 70, 97, 99, 103, 119 n. 20, 120, 134 n. 16 Poliziano, A.: 144 n. 59 Pollux: 99 n. 20 Polygnotus: 62, 126 n. 42. n. 42 Pompeius (grammarian): 134 n. 16, 142 n. 51 Poseidon: 36 n. 15, 91 n. 71 Proclus: 34 n. 2, 39, 41, 84 Protagoras of Abdera: 57 Ps. Apollodorus: see Apollodorus Qiu Jing: 215 n. 42 Qiu Xigui: 202 n. 3 Quintilian: 142 n. 51, 167 and n. 45 Saʾīd b. Wahb: 231 Sappho: 138 Saturn: 238 ‘Second’ Isaiah: 14 and n. 22 Seth: 178 Shen Yue: 210 n. 19

Simon Magus: 191 and n. 26–27 Simonides: 47, 56 and n. 12 Socrates: 134 n. 17 Sophocles: 44 n. 3, 50, 80 and n. 31, 132 n. 5, 133 Soranus: 44 n. 3 Sphinx: 131–133, 138–139 Stesychorus: 47, 72 n. 3 Strabo: 44 n. 3 Suda (lexicon): 62 n. 35, 88, 89 n. 62, 120 n. 21, 141 Sun Guoting: 213 Symphosius: 139, 144, 147–148 Tarquenna: 163 and n. 31, 166 n 41 Tarquin the Proud: 145 Tarquitius Priscus (haruspex): 163 n. 31 Terence: 167 and n. 44 Terminus: 144 and n. 59 Terpander: 119 n. 20 Tertullian: 174–175 passim, 190 n. 20 Themistocles: 59, 65–66 Theocritus: 141 Theodoret of Cyrrhus: 177 Theodorus of Samos: 119, 122 Theodosius II: 171 Theognis: 137 Theopompus: 79 n. 23 Theseus: 60, 62–64 passim, 89 n. 64, 91 n. 71 Thetis: 36 n. 15 Thomas (disciple of Jesus): 193 Thucydides: 44 and n. 3, 45–46, 48, 60 n. 27, 120 Timotheus of Miletus: 119 and n. 20, 120, 122 Tiresias: 39 Titinius: 149 Trypho (Ps.): 142 n. 51 Tseng: 204 n. 10 Varro: 82 n. 38, 142 n. 49, 144, 159 n. 19, 162–165 passim, 166 n. 41 Venus: 238 Virgil: 38 n. 22, 13, 145–146, 155 n. 4 Vitruvius: 123 n. 28 Wei Linghe: 213 Wendi Cao Pi (emperor): 201

262 | Index Nominum

Xanthippus (father of Pericles): 125 and n. 32 Xanthus: 72 n. 3 Xerxes: 50, 125 Xiao Tong: 214 Xu Shen: 204 Yang Xuanzhi: 213 Yi-T’ung Wang: 214 n. 37

Zarathustra: 170 Zeus: 36 and n. 15, 50 (Z. Laphystius), 81 (Z. Kappotas), 118–119 Zhang Jiuling: 212 Zhang Jiuling: 213 Zhang Yue: 213 Zhao Chao: 208 n. 17, 211–212 n. passim Zhao Wanli: 210 n. 20–21

Index Locorum Arabic Works al-Ṣūlī, Kitāb al-awrāq, 6: 227–228 Book of the Thousand and One Nights, The (Kitāb Alf layla wa-layla): 227 Corpus Jābirianum: 229 n. 39 Ibn al-Nadīm, the Catalogue (Kitāb alFihrist), 328–329: 230 n. 46 475–476: 227 477: 228 n. 33

481: 228 n. 33 Ibn al-Ğawzī, Kitāb al-quṣṣāṣ wa ʾl-muḏakkirīn: 227 n. 28 Marvels of the Sea, the (ʿAǧāʾib al-baḥr): 228 and n. 33 Mouse and the Cat, the (al-Sinnawr wa ʾl-Faʾr): 228 Story of Sindibad, the (Sindbaḏ al-Ḥakīm): 228 and n. 33

Babylonian Talmud Bava Batra 12a: 178 n. 28 Menahot 29b: 180 n. 31

Bible and Near Eastern Texts Daniel: 16 n. 27, 22 n. 53, 26, 27 7: 16, 17 7. 9–10: 16, 17, 7. 13: 17 11. 36: 25 Deuteronomy 4.19: 16 5. 11: 18 n. 40 6. 4: 23 29. 25: 16 32: 12, 14–15, 18 and n. 38 and 40, 19, 20, 23, 27 32. 8: 15, 19 n. 41, 20, 24, 26 32. 8–9: 14 32. 43: 14, 26 Exodus 12–13: 18 Ezekiel 16. 13: 10

Isaiah 40. 13–15: 14 Jeremiah 14. 22: 15 Job 38. 7: 12, 13, 21 Proverbs 30. 2–3: 13 Psalms 29. 1–2: 12, 13, 14 47. 7: 13 74: 13 n. 18 82. 1: 12, 13, 22 89. 6–8: 12, 13 96. 7–8: 14 KAI5 4: 12 KAI5 14: 12 KAI5 27: 12 KAI 307: 12 n. 14

Chinese Works Fan Ye: 209 Hanshu 30.1701: 205 n. 12

30.1715: 206 n. 14 30.1719–1720: 203 n.6 30.1755–1756: 205 n. 13

264 | Index Locorum

Hou Hanshu 68.2227: 209 n. 18 Shuowen jiezi 15a.753–754: 204

Tang liu dian 10.300: 204 and n. 11 10.302: 212 n. 30

Christian Works Athanasius, Easter Letter: 171 Augustine Confessions 8. 7:173 The City of God 12. 11: 175 n. 12 Cyprian Letters 59. 4. 13: 175 n. 14 66. 8. 3: 175 n. 15 Ephesians 6. 12: 189 Epiphanius, Panarion 21. 2. 2‒4: 191 n. 26 Epistle of Jude: 23 n. 55 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 1. 10. 1– 16: 12 n. 15 Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina: 177 Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1. 23. 2: 191 n. 26

Isidorus Differentiae 1. 98: 155 n. 1 The Etymologies 6. 14. 7:149 n. 76 Life of Antony: 177 Romanus the Melodist, Hymns: 177 Tertullian Of Modesty 2. 10: 175 n. 12 Against Marcion 4. 12. 3: 175 n. 12 Against Praxeas 11. 9: 175 n. 12 Apology for the Christians 19. 1: 175 n. 12 On the Prescription of the Heretics 21. 4: 175 n. 13 Teaching of Addai: 177 Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Religious History: 177

Gnostic Works Apocalypse of Adam 64. 5‒64. 30: 194 n. 37 Apocryphon of John 22. 28‒23. 4: 194 n. 37 Dialogue of the Saviour 140. 59‒61: 185 n. 7, 186 144. 90‒94: 186 n. 9 Gospel of the Egyptians: 187 Gospel of Truth (CG I, 20: 10–21: 7): 176 Hypostasis of the Archons 89. 3–11: 194 n. 37 92. 19‒31: 187 and n. 14, 188 n. 15

134.1: 189 On the Origin of the World 116. 12‒20: 188 n. 15, 189 n. 18, 195 n. 39 Pistis Sophia 4. 147: 193 n. 33 Second Book of Jeu 43: 194 n. 34 Thunder: Perfect Mind: 190‒191 13. 14‒14. 9: 190 and n. 21 17. 35‒36: 190 and n. 21 1 Timothy 2.12: 186

Greek Works Aesop Romance:138 Aelian Historical Miscellany 3. 1: 79 n. 23 On the Characteristics of Animals 9. 54: 160 n. 21 Aeschines Against Ctesiphon 186: 61 n. 33

Against Timarchus 23: 106 n. 47 111: 108 n. 54 On the False Embassy 15: 99 n. 21 Aeschylus Eumenides 280‒283: 82 n. 40 Persians 238: 66 Seven against Thebes: 66‒67

Index Locorum | 265

Aethiopis, argument 4: 37 n. 19 Andocides On Mysteries: 98 n. 13, 108 n. 54 126–127: 107 Anonymus, On Poetic Tropes III 209. 12 ff. Spengel: 142 n. 51 Antiphanes fr. 194 Kassel-Austin (Sappho): 138 n. 39 Apollodorus 3. 5. 8: 132 n. 5 Epitome 6. 9‒10: 38 n. 22 6. 12‒13: 38 n. 22 6. 15b: 38 n. 22 7. 34: 39 n. 26 Aristophanes Acharnians 1000: 88 n. 59 Lysistrate 645: 89 n. 64 Wasps 15‒23: 139 532: 99 n. 22 830:99 n. 22 schol. in Eq. 95: 89 n. 65 schol. in Vesp. 21: 140 n. 44 Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 55: 107 n. 51 Poetics 1458a 28: 142 n. 52 fr. 8 Ross: 138 n. 37 Rhetoric 1. 15 (=1375a ff.): 102 n. 33, 107 n. 50 1405b 1 ff. 1412a 27 ff.: 142 n. 52 On Marvellous Things Heard 840a 15‒26: 38 n. 22 (Ps. Aristotle) Atheneus 10. 453b: 140 10. 437b‒e: 88 n. 60 10. 448c‒e: 142 10. 456b: 132 n. 5 14. 636e–f: 119, 20 Callimachus Test. 23 Pfeiffer: 141 Hymn to Demeter 5 f.: 164 n. 39 frr. 86‒89 Pfeiffer: 79 n. 24 Carmina popularia fr. 10 Diehl: 140 n. 41

Charisius, On Grammar 364. 10 ff. Barwick: 142 n. 51 Choeroboscus III 253. 7 ff. Spengel: 142 n. 51 Cocondrius III 235. 17 ff. Spengel: 142 n. 51 III 236. 20 ff. Spengel: 142 n. 51 Cypria fr. 1 West: 36 n. 14 frr. 10. 2, 11 West: 37 n. 17 Demetrius, On Style 102: 142 n. 51 Diomedes, On Grammar I 462. 18 ff. Keil: 142 n. 51 Demosthenes Against Aphobos III 31: 103 n. 36 Against Aristocrates 76, 207: 61 n. 33, 108 Against Conon 26: 107 n. 51 Against Evergus and Mnesibulus: 105 Against Meidias: 99 and n. 19 Against Pantaenetus 39–41: 102 Against Stephanus I 46: 103 n. 36 For Phormio 20: 103 n. 36 Euripides Andromache 1243‒1251: 38 n. 22 Iphigenia in Tauris: 88 947‒960: 89 n. 62 Orestes 1645:74 Phoenicians: 132 n. 5 fr. 83 Austin (Oedipus): 132 and n. 6 schol. in Eur. Phoen. 50 p. 243 f. Schwartz: 132 n. 5 Harpocration, Lexicon of the Ten Orators: 99 n. 20, 105 n. 45 Hecataeus, Genealogies fr. 1: 47 Hellanicus fr. 19b Fowler: 44 Heraclitus fr. 56 Diels-Kranz: 138 n. 37 Herodotus 2. 3. 2: 45 n. 9 2. 48: 51 n. 27 2. 51: 51 n. 27 2. 62: 51 n. 27 2. 81: 51 n. 2720 6. 114:125 n.35 7. 33: 125, n. 32 7. 36: 125, n. 32 7. 197: 50 8. 22: 126

266 | Index Locorum

9. 21: 125, n. 32 Hesiod Melampodia: 38 fr. 278 M.-W.: 38 n. 24, 138 fr. 279 M.-W.: 38 n. 24 Works and Days 159‒173: 36 n. 14 174‒178: 37 n. 16 167‒173: 37 n. 19 fr. 204. 95‒105 M.-W.: 36 n. 14 fr. 204. 102‒117 M.-W.: 37 n. 17 fr. 204. 99‒103: 37 n. 19 Hippias FGrHist 6 T 2, 6 T 3: 51 n. 26 IG IV 748. 15 f.: 83 n. 42 IG IV 755. 10‒12: 83 n. 42 IG IV 757. 20: 76 Homer Iliad 1. 5: 36 n. 15 12. 23: 36 n. 15 12. 14, 16: 36 n. 15 Odyssey 3. 180‒182: 38 n. 21 3. 188‒189: 38 n. 21 3. 190: 38 n. 21 3. 191: 38 n. 21 3. 305‒307: 90 4. 5‒9: 38 n. 21 4. 561‒565: 36 n. 15, 37 n. 19 11. 119‒137: 39 n. 26 14. 316‒335: 39 n. 25 19. 287‒302: 39 n. 25 23. 266‒284: 39 n. 26 Iliou persis, argumentum 21‒23 Bernabé: 89 n. 64 Isaeus On the Estate of Ciron 15: 106 n. 49 On the Estate of Dicaeogenes 20: 104 Lycophron, Alexandra: 141 Isocrates, Antidosis 166: 5 n. 12 Kleidemos FGrHist 323 F 20: 89 n. 64 Lycurgus Against Leocrates: 99, 100, 101 n. 26, 108 frr. 23–26 Conomis: 98 n. 13 Lysias Against Andocides: 98 n. 13 Against Diogeiton 13: 108 n. 54

Against Theomnestus I 11: 104 For Polystratus 34: 99 n. 21 In Defense of Mantitheus 8: 99 n. 17 On the Scrutiny of Evandros 10: 99 n. 17 Marmor Parium 46: 56 n. 11 Nostoi: 38 (see also Returns) argument 1 West: 38 n. 21, 38 n. 22 argument 2 West: 38 n. 24 argumentum 17 f. Bernabé: 84 n. 51 Palatine Anthology:143, 144 9. 448: 138 n. 37 14: 144 14. 64: 132 n. 5 14. 65: 138 n. 37 Planudean Anthology: 143 Pausanias 1. 8. 4: 57 n. 12 1. 15. 1–3: 62 1. 17: 64 n. 43 1. 22. 2: 91 n. 71 1. 28, 8‒9: 89 n. 64 2. 30. 5‒32: 73, 74, 91 n. 71 2. 31. 4: 84 2. 32. 6: 82 n. 36 2. 32. 9: 91 n. 71 3: 113 3. 11. 2: 114 3. 12. 10‒11: 118, 119 3. 14. 1: 120 8. 8. 3: 134 n. 14 10. 10. 1–2: 126 10. 11. 6: 124 10. 13. 9: 126 Phanodemus FGrHist 325 F 11: 88 n. 61, 89 n. 62 Philemon fr. 23 Kassel-Austin (The Claimant – Epidikazomenos): 147 n. 68 Philodemus, On Rhetoric I p. 181 Sudhaus: 142 n. 51 Philoponus (13. 3, p. 157. 11 CAG): 33–34 and n. 2 Philostratus, Life of the Sophists 564–565: 98 n. 11 Phrynichus, Phoenician Women: 65 Pindar Nemean 3. 70: 83 n. 45 Nemean 7: 38 n. 22

Index Locorum | 267

schol. ad Nem. 3. 122a‒b Drach.: 83 n. 45 fr. 177d Snell: 131 n. 2 Plato Apology 27a: 147 n. 68 Charmides 161c‒162b: 134 n. 19 Euthyphro: 104 Hippias Maior 285d: 51 n. 26 Hippias Minor 368b–d: 51 n. 26 368b‒f: 148 Ion 530ab: 35 n. 10 535b: 35 n. 10 537b: 35 n. 10 538cd: 35 n. 10 539a‒c: 35 n. 10 Republic 332b: 137 479b‒c: 134 n. 19 Plutarch Cimon 13. 8: 61 n. 32 The Greek Questions 301e‒f: 76, 8 n. 57 Morals 238c–d: 119, n. 20 504c 5–11: 97 1141f: 119, n.20 The Obsolescence of Oracles 418a: 79 n. 25 Table-Talk

643a: 91 n. 70 673a‒b: 134 n. 16 Pollux, Onomasticon 4. 122: 99 n. 20 Returns: see Nostoi Simonides Epigrammata Graeca 181–184 Page: 56 n. 12 185–190 Page:57 n. 12 Sophocles Electra: 80 n. 31 Oedipus the King: 132 n. 5 Telegonia argument 2 West: 39 n. 26 argument 4 West: 37 n. 19 Theocritus Idyll 21: 141 Syrinx: 141 Theognis, 681 f.: 137 Theopompus, FGrHist 115 F 80: 79 n. 23 Thucydides 1. 22. 4: 45 1. 134: 120 1. 97. 2: 59 n. 23 1. 98. 3: 60 n. 27 1. 99: 59 n. 24 2. 62. 3: 60 n. 29 TrGF 4. 99–100: 50 n. 22 Trypho (Ps.), On Tropes III 193. 13 ff. Spengel: 142 n. 51

Latin Works Aenigmata Aldhelmi 32 and 59 Glorie: 150 n. 81 Aenigmata Eusebii 7 Glorie: 138 n. 39 31 Glorie: 150 n. 81 Aenigmata Laureshamensia 9, p. 355 Glorie: 150 n. 81 Aenigmata Tatuini 6 Glorie: 150 n. 81 Apuleius Florida 9. 27‒29: 148 Golden Ass 9. 2: 150 9. 8 3‒5: 150 n. 81 De herbarum virtutibus (Ps. Apuleius): 163 n. 32

Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 1. 2. 4: 146 1. 7. 13: 146 12. 6: 133 n. 13, 142 n. 49 and n. 51, 142 n. 51, 144 18. 2. 7: 146 n. 65 18. 2. 9‒10: 147 n. 66‒67 Cato On Agriculture 41: 159 n. 19 160: 158 and n. 15, 159 Praecepta rustica et medica, frr. 1–4 Morel: 164 n. 35

268 | Index Locorum

Cicero Brutus 217: 158 and n. 14, 159 On the Nature of the Gods 2. 22: 156 n. 5 On the Orator 2. 338: 156 n. 5 3. 166 f.: 142 n. 51 Tusculan Disputations 1. 4: 156 n. 5 Comoedia togata fr. 14 f. Daviault (12 f. Ribbeck³): 149 fr. 157 Daviault (160 Ribbeck³): 149 Donatus Ars Maior 672. 10 ff. Holtz: 142 n. 51 Commentum in Terentii Phormionem 495, p. 460 Wessner: 161 n. 24 Ennius Annales 87 Skutsch: 164 n. 36 206–207 Skutsch: 157 and n. 11 Satires 59‒62 Vahlen²: 146 n. 65, 147 21‒58 Vahlen²: 147 n. 69 Historia Apollonii regis Tyri, 4: 139 n. 41 Horace, Satires 2. 1. 46: 167 n. 45 2. 6. 79‒117: 147 n. 69 Isidorus Differentiae 1. 98: 155 n. 1 The Etymologies 6. 9. 2: 149 6. 14. 7: 149 n. 76 Latin Anthology 1. 762: 156 n. 7 Livy 1. 56: 145 34. 27: 113 Lucan, Saturnalia: 148 Lucilius ll. 980‒989 Marx: 147 n. 69 Medicina Plini: 163 n. 32 Marius Plotius Sacerdos, On Grammar VI 462. 19 ff. Keil: 142 n. 51 Nonius, Ludicra: 148 Ovid Fasti 2. 639‒684: 144 6. 659: 156 n. 5

Metamorphoses 10. 207 f.: 146 n. 62 13. 394‒398: 146 n. 62 Petronius, Satyricon 118. 6: 133 n. 12 Plautus Epidicus 500: 156 n. 5 The Haunted House 934: 156 n. 5 Three Pieces of Money: 161 287a f : 167 n. 43 350 ff.: 161 n. 26 Pliny, The Natural History 17. 267: 158 n. 15 28. 21: 158 n. 15, 163 n. 30 30. 31: 164 n. 37 30. 57: 126 n. 42 Pompeius, On Grammar V 311, 5 ff. Keil: 134 n. 16 V 311. 6 ff. Keil: 142 n. 51 Porphyrio, Scholia ad Horatii Epistulas 1. 1. 59: 161 n. 25 Probus, Preface to Virg. Bucol. p. 326: 82, 38 Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory 8. 3. 76: 167 n. 45 8. 6. 52: 142 n. 51 Terence, The Self-tormenter 260: 167 n. 44 Varro On Agriculture 1. 2. 27: 163 n. 30 1. 40. 6: 159 n. 19 De sermone Latino ad Marcellum: 142 n. 51, 144 Veronese Riddle: 150 Versiculi populares et pueriles 5, p. 30 Morel: 162 n. 23 Virgil Aeneis 11. 243‒295: 38 n. 22 Eclogues 1. 56:155 n. 4 2. 31:155 n. 4 3. 104 f: 145 7. 5: 155 n. 4 Vitruvius 1. 1. 6: 121

Index Locorum | 269

Qumran Texts Book of Giants: 22, 26 Book of Watchers: 23 Damascus Covenant: 24 1Enoch: 26 1: 22 14: 22 89. 59–77: 19 n. 42 1Qapocryphon Genesis: 22, 23, 26

4QDeuteronomyj.q: 15, 17, 18 n. 38 and n.40, 19 1QHa: 19 n. 41, 21 4QInstructiond: 19 n. 41 4QPhylN: 18 n.39 1QM:19 n. 41, 20 and n. 44, 25 11QMelchizedek: 22 and n. 52 Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: 21, 22 and n. 51, 23

Index Rerum Notabilium Accuser: 95, 98, 105, 109 Adab (literature), concept of: 223–224 Addressee: 52, 136–137, 141 Aeschylus: 56, 58, 65, 66 Aesop, Aesopic tradition: 52 Agency: 2, 4–5, 23 Agon, agonistic: 88, 95, 101, 138–139, 145 Agora: 4, 51, 61, 74–75, 83, 85, 87, 113–120, 123, 125, 128, 140 Al-Buḥturī: 231 n. 48 Alexandria, Alexandrian: 44, 49, 141, 142 n. 49 Al-Ḥallāǧ: 230 Aljamiado: 230 Altar: 107, 120 and n. 21, Amazons, Amazonomachy: 62–64, 75, 91 n. 71 Angel, angelology: 19 n. 42, 20, 21 and n. 47, 22–25 Anonymity, anonymous: 3, 148, 179, 211, 227 Anthesteria: 76 n. 13, 88–89 Anthology: 143–144 Apocryphal: 5, 169, 171–173 Apollo: 75, 77–80, 82, 83–85, 124–125, 145; Lykeios 80; Thearios 74, 77 n. 15 Appended Words [to the Classic of Changes] (Xici): 203–204 Arabic: 5, 135 n. 23, 222–225, 227, 230 Arabic-Islamic: 221–222, 224–225, 228 Aramaean, Aramaeans, Aramaic: 10, 12–13, 16–18, 22–23, 25–27, 178–179 Archaeology: 1, 9, 99, 116–117, 124 Areopagus: 71, 76–78, 90 n. 69, 104, 108 Argos (city of): 38, 45, 71, 77 n. 18, 85, 91 Artemis: 74–81 passim, 84–85, 89 n. 66; Lykeia: 74, 80; Hiereia: 76 and n. 10; Soteira: 78 n. 20; Orthia: 89, 113 Assembly: 96, 99, 106, 120; see also ‘Divine assembly’ Assyria, Assyrian: 11 n. 6 Athens, Athenian: 4, 40–41, 44, 50, 55–61, 63–67, 71, 72–72, 76–78, 87–91, 95– 96, 98–99, 104, 107, 109, 115–118, 122– 128, 141, 146, 178

Attic: 67, 76–77, 80, 85, 87–88, 91, 95–96, 98, 101–102, 108 Auctoritas: 175; see also ‘Authority’ Audience: 39, 45, 48 n. 16, 49, 52, 141, 177, 228 Aural, aurality: 93, 100, 137, 226 Author, authorial, authorship: 1, 13, 17, 20, 26, 58, 99, 134, 138, 179–180, 189 n. 18 Authority, authoritative: 4–5, 7, 39–40, 48, 55–56, 65, 72 n. 4, 73, 81, 85, 87, 89, 169–175 passim, 177–181, 206 Babylon, Babylonia: 10, 16, 134 n. 16, 171; see also ‘Babylonian Talmud’ Belief: 23, 44, 47, 86, 194, 196, 211, 239, 244, 246 Bible: 172, 177–179 Book: 33, 44–45, 99 (book market), 170–171, 176–181 passim, 196 n. 42, 226–227, 231 n. 47; see also ‘Writing, written’ Canere, cantare (and cognate words): 155– 167 passim, 161–162 (cantilenae), 158– 160 (cantio) Canon, canonical, canonization: 4, 6–7, 9, 25, 33, 40, 44, 46, 49, 87, 90, 98, 108, 169–173, 226, 228; see also ‘Selection’ Charismatic: 4–5, 169–170, 172–175, 181 Chinese scripts: zhuan, clerical (li), standard (kai): 204–205 Christian, Christianity: 1, 3 n. 9, 5, 169–172, 175–181, 183–184, 190, 195 n. 40, 196– 197 Church, Church Fathers: 174–175, 180, 184, 236; see also ‘Patristic’ Circulation: 3, 5, 40, 53 n. 31, 55–57, 73, 173, 207, 211, 226–227, 229 Code: 2 (iconographic codes), 171 (Theodosian Code, Justinianic Code), 172, 248 (cultural codes) Codex: 43, 169 Community: 6, 17, 21, 23–24, 40, 49, 73, 86– 87, 135, 137, 145, 172, 174, 176, 183, 224–226, 228–230; see also ‘Group’

272 | Index Rerum Notabilium

Comparative, comparativism: 1, 2 and n. 7, 3–4, 135, 221 Contamination: 77 and n. 17, 85–86, 88, 101, 189 Context: 2, 9, 46, 49, 51 and n. 26, 55, 73– 74, 84, 86–87, 90, 95–97, 100, 115, 117 n. 14, 135 n. 24, 137, 139, 145–146, 148, 151, 162, 187 n. 13, 203, 205, 224, 228– 229, 242–243, 248 Continuity (cultural): 22 and n. 53, 23, 37, 39, 61, 64, 196, 235, 237–238, 242– 244, 248–249 Culture: 1–8, 10, 17, 25, 41, 43–44, 46–47, 52–53, 55–56 passim, 58, 60, 61 n. 30, 73, 87, 115–116, 134–135, 138, 146, 149, 155, 161, 169–170, 176–178, 180, 183– 184 passim, 191, 193–195, 197, 201– 205, 221–224, 227, 235, 239, 242–243, 245–249 Cycle (Trojan, epic): 33–41 passim; poems of: 36–37 (Cypria); 36 and n. 22 and 24, 38, 84 (Returns/Nostoi); 36 and 39 (Thelegony); 37 (Aethiopis); 39 (Thesprotys); 89 n. 64 (Iliou Persis) Damascus Document: 17 Daniel 7: 16–17, 22 Dead Sea scrolls: 17–18, 24 Defixio: 159; see also ‘Katadesmoi’ Delian League: 57–60 passim, 127 n. 42 Delphi, Delphic: 50, 72, 76–80, 83, 85, 117, 123–127, 145 Democracy: 7 n. 20, 58, 115–117 Diglossia: 5, 224 ‘Discourse on literature’ (Lunwen): 201–202 Divination, diviner: 38, 157–158; see also ‘Prophecy, prophet’ Divine assembly: 9–27 passim Drama, dramatic: 6 n. 13, 51, 65, 72, 104 n. 40, 133, 139, 141–142, 148 Earthly soul (po): 211 Editor, editorial: 101 n. 27 (modern editors), 143 (editors, jiaoshu lang), 212; see also ‘Publication’ Education, educational: 3, 34, 41, 173, 175, 178, 223–224, 226; see also ‘School’

El (= 'Ilu): 11–12, 16, 19–20, 24–26 Elites: 3, 50, 116, 169–170, 173, 235 Emergence, emerged: 3–5, 43, 49, 51–53, 55 and n. 9, 57–58, 59 n. 30, 109, 133, 172, 173 n.9, 183, 201, 207, 215, 230, 248 Enigma: see ‘Riddle’ 1 Enoch: 22, 23 n. 55 Epic (cycle, genre, poetry, poems, texts): 3, 27, 33–36, 40, 45, 47, 49–50, 56 and n. 9, 57, 133, 137–138, 141, 248 n. 35; see also ‘Cycle’, Iliad’, ‘Odyssey’ Epichoric: 72 n. 4, 74, 80, 84–85, 87, 248 n. 35; see also ‘Local’ Epigraphy: 101, 124, 126, 145; see also ‘Inscriptions’ Epitaphs (muzhiming, lit. ‘inscription and sepulchral biography’): 207–215 passim; Epitaph of Liu Huaimin: 210 Exegetai: 105–106 Feminism: 183–185, 188, 192–193, 195, 197 and n. 47 Festival: 35, 41, 46–47, 51, 56, 61, 88, 90– 92, 227 Folklore, Folk, Folk-song: 5, 135–136, 139, 145, 158, 163 n. 32, 237, 239, 240–242, 245–247 Funerary elegies (jiwen, lit. ‘compositions for the funerary sacrifice’): 213 Fuṣḥā: 225–226; fuṣḥā, as a male language: 228; fuṣḥā/ʿāmmiya dialectic: 228 Gender: 184, 191, 193–196; see also ‘Sex’ Genre: 6, 43, 45–49, 52, 57, 65, 133–135, 141–143, 148,151, 165, 188 n. 15, 222 Gnosis, Gnostic, Gnosticism: 2, 5, 7, 176, 183–197 passim Great Dionysia: 56, 60 Griphos: see ‘Riddle’ Group: 2–3, 5, 7, 83, 88, 104, 106, 137, 187 n. 13, 192–194, 224, 229, 244; see also ‘Community’ Hanzi (Chinese characters, lit. ‘characters of the Han people’): 202 Hebrew Bible: 9–10, 12, 16, 24, 27, 171

Index Rerum Notabilium | 273

Heresy, heretic: 7, 170–174 passim, 184, 191, 196–197 Hermeneutic, hermeneutics: 1–2, 5–6, 73, 85, 170, 172–173, 178, 180, 190, 222 Heroe, heroic: 36–40, 45–46, 64–66, 76, 83, 90, 125, 139, 145, 177–178 Hesiod, Hesiodic: 36 and n. 14–15, 37 and n. 18, 38–40, 44 n. 3, 72 n. 3, 138, 239. Historiography: 43, 45, 51 Hodayot: 19 n. 41, 20–21 Holy man: 174, 176–177, 181 Homer, Homeric, 34, 35 and n. 10, 36, 37 and n. 18, 38–40, 41 and n. 32, 44 and n. 3, 46, 71, 85, 132, 137–138, 222, 239; Homeric papyri: 34 and n. 6

Literacy, literate: 3, 5–6, 47, 95–96, 169– 170, 175–176, 180 n. 31, 181, 201, 204, 228 Literature, literary: 1–3, 5–8, 9–11 passim, 15–16, 19, 22, 25–27, 34, 43 and n. 2, 45–49, 51–53, 55, 66–67, 96, 98, 133– 136, 139, 141, 143–146, 148, 170, 175– 180, 183, 189, 201, 206–208, 214–115, 221–230 passim, 235, 243 Liturgy, liturgical: 18, 20–21 Local: 35 n. 9, 50, 57, 72–73, 76, 78, 80, 83– 85, 87, 91 n. 71, 235, 242; see also ‘Epichoric’ Logographos: 97 Longue durée: 4, 169, 246

Identity: 13, 20, 26, 39, 58, 60–61, 64–67, 73, 131, 133, 139, 230 Iǧāza (licence to transmit a text): 226 Iliad: 3, 34 n. 5, 35–38, 40–41, 46, 239 ʿIlu: see ‘El’ Incantation: 157–166 passim, 173 Inclusion: 108–109 Ink rubbings (tapian): 209 Inscriptions: 5, 96, 120, 201, 207–215; see also ‘Epigraphy’ Islamic: 221, 223–224, 226, 230–231; see also ‘Arabic-Islamic’ Isnād (chain of guarantors): 225

Magic, magician: 157–160, 163 n. 32, 164– 167, 239, 241 Marathon: 59, 63–64, 124–126 Masoretic (text): 15, 18, 24 Matricide: 71, 75, 81–84, 86, 88, 90 Mediterranean: 38, 135, 169, 176, 244–245 Memorization, memory: 41, 61, 73, 75, 81– 82, 87, 171, 179, 180, 202–203, 207, 239, 247-248 Metaphor, metaphorical: 9 n. 2, 17 and n. 34, 136, 142–143, 149–150, 172, 243 Mishna: 170–172, 180 Monotheism, monotheistic: 14–15, 20, 23, 25–26 Music, musical:120, 122, 155–158, 161, 166– 167 Myth, mythical, mythography, mythology: 3, 5, 9, 11, 15, 17–18, 22, 26, 43–53 passim, 58 n. 17, 63, 65–66 passim, 71–80 passim, 84–91 passim, 105 n. 45, 133 and n. 12, 134, 145, 151, 189, 193–194, 196 n. 44, 197, 243, 247

Jerusalem: 10, 27, 178 Jews, Jewish: 170–172, 175, 177–180 Jude (Epistle of): 23 n. 55 Judaism: 10, 17, 170, 177–181, 190, 195 n. 40 Juror: 97, 99, 108 Katadesmoi: 101–102; see also ‘Defixio’ Language: 46, 57, 66, 131, 133–134 passim, 159, 166, 171, 178, 189, 203–204, 207, 224–226, 228–230 passim, 240, 247 Law, law court: 52, 95–109 passim; 171, 175, 227; see also ‘Juror’, ‘Prosecutor’, ‘Trial’ Levant, Levantine: 4, 10–12, 17, 23, 25–27 Library: 18 (L. of Qumran); 205 and 212 (Palace Library, Bishusheng)

Narrative: 9, 36, 39, 48, 60, 61, 65–67, 138 Nazi, Nazi Germany: 116–118 Near East, Near Eastern: 9–10, 18, 169 New Testament: 23 n. 55, 170–172, 180, 185 Norm, normalize, normative: 26, 188, 197, 245, 247

274 | Index Rerum Notabilium

Occasion: 33, 35, 48–49, 52–53, 67, 86, 97, 135 n. 24, 208, 215 Odyssey: 3, 34–41 passim, 46, 84 n. 51, 90, 131 Old Testament: 5, 179–180 Omission: 108–109 Oracles: 39, 76, 134, 143, 145, 157 Oral, orality: 3–4, 27, 33–35, 47, 49–52, 86– 87, 95–97, 101–103, 106, 109, 134–135, 145, 169, 171–172, 174, 179, 181, 201, 203–208, 222, 225–227, 229 Orators, oratory: 45, 52, 95–109 passim Orestes (myth of): 3, 58 n. 7, 71–91 passim Orphic: 137, 238–240 Orthodoxy: 7, 172, 173 n. 9, 230 Panathenaea, Panathenaic: 35 and n. 10, 41 and n. 32, 56 Panhellenic: 35 and n. 9, 41, 47, 51, 56–58, 60, 65, 67, 248 n. 35 Patristic: 172, 175, 180; see also ‘Church fathers’ Pausanias: 73–85 passim, 113–127 passim Performance: 6, 21, 33, 35, 40–41, 47–51, 85–86, 96–97, 101, 104, 107–108, 120, 136 Perjury: 105 Persian wars: 56, 60 Philosophy: 45, 47 n. 13, 48 Phoenicia, Phoenician: 12–13, 25 Phylacteries: 18 n. 39, 23 Plataea, Plataean: 63, 120, 123, 126–127 Polytheism, polytheistic: 15, 18–20, 22–27 Popular: 134 and 145 (tradition), 135, 140– 141, 161 (singsong), 205 (song), 227– 228 (literature), 242, 246–247 (beliefs and cults) Pre-juridical: 96, 98, 105 Procedures: 95–96, 100–104 passim, 107– 108 passim, 160 Proofreader (zhengzi): 205 Prophecy, prophet: 10, 14, 32, 39 150, 155, 157–158, 170–174, 178; see also ‘Divination, diviner’ Prose: 43–53 passim, 143–144, 205, 214, 224 Prosecutor: 102, 105

Proverbs: 12, 135 and n. 25, 190–191 Publication: 169, 229 Purification: 71–92 passim, 78 (purifying rite), 85 (college of purifying men), 240–242 Purity: 82, 164, 190, 240 Qumran: 7, 15, 17–23, 27; see also ‘Yahad (community)’ Qurʾan: 225 Quṣṣāṣ (storytellers): 227 Rabbi, Rabbinic: 174, 176, 178–181 Rāwī (reciter of poetry): 226 Religion, religious: 4–5, 11–12, 17, 21–27 passim, 41, 44, 66, 74, 81, 105, 137, 164, 169–181 passim, 197, 205, 221– 222, 224–227, 230, 238–239, 242–243, 248 Religiosity (modes of): 173–174 Rhythm, rhythmic: 155–158, 161–162, 166 Riddle: 131–147 passim, 148 n. 71, 150–151 Rite, ritual: 4, 6 n. 13, 51, 72–75 passim, 77– 79 passim, 82–86 passim, 88–89 passim, 91, 96, 100, 104–109 passim, 132, 137, 158, 164–165, 193 n. 31, 194 n. 35, 208–209, 236–244, 247–248 Saʿīd b. Wahb: 231 Sacrifice, sacrificial: 50, 82, 100, 106 and n. 49, 108, 169, 207, 215, 237, 240 Salamis: 58, 61, 65, 123, 126 School: 34, 41, 141 (Peripatetic), 148 (schoolroom context), 172 (schoolmen), 180 n. 31, 205 Scriptures: 169–173, 176, 178, 181 Secret languages: 230 Selection: 67, 75, 85, 98, 108–109, 224; see also ‘Canon, canonical, canonization’ Septerion (Delphic rite of): 76–77, 79 and n. 23 Septuagint: 15, 18 and n. 37, 171 Sex, sexual: 150 n. 82, 183–184, 186, 188– 190, 192–197 passim; see also ‘Gender’ Shapes and forms (faxiang): 204 Shiʾite texts: 229 Shop for ominous [events] (xiongsi): 209

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Song: 6 n. 13, 14, 21–23 (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice), 46, 48, 141, 145, 155– 158 passim, 205–206 Sparta, Spartan: 4, 60 n. 28, 63–64, 113–128 passim Spell: 158–159, 163 n. 33, 164 n. 36, 165–166 ‘Statutes of Scribes’ (Shilü): 203 n. 5 Stele of the spirit-path (shendaobei): 209 Stoa: in Athens: 62 (Basileios); 60, 62 (of the Hermai); 61–65 (Poikile); in Sparta: 115– 118, 122, 123, 127–128; of the Athenians at Delphi: 123–127 Story-telling: 51–52 and n.1–26 Submersion, submerged: 1–8 passim, 9 and n. 1, 14, 25, 27, 33, 35, 43–53 passim, 55, 64 n. 45, 67, 71, 72 n. 4, 86–87, 96, 98, 108–109, 155, 157–158, 161–162, 169, 171–173 passim, 179, 183, 197, 201, 207, 215, 221–231 passim, 248 and n. 35 Taqiyya (dissimulation for defensive purposes): 229–230 Taxonomy: 6, 64 Text, textual, textualization: 1–8, 33–35, 40– 41, 43–44, 46–47, 49–53, 55–58, 61 n. 30, 64 n. 45, 67, 96, 98, 101, 134– 136, 139, 155, 157–159, 161–162, 166, 169 and n. 2, 171–174 passim, 176–180, 183, 197, 203, 205–207, 209, 211, 215, 222–231, 239, 248 and n. 35 Thearoi: 78 Theology, theological: 4, 9, 20, 22 n. 53, 23, 72, 180, 189, 191 n. 23, 193, 240 Thesaurus of Characters (Zibao): 206–207 Tholos: 61, 120 and n. 21, 122 Topography: 121 n. 22, 123, 128 n. 43, 241

Torah: 179, 180 n. 31 Tradition, traditional: 3, 5, 9–10, 11 n. 6, 14, 23, 25–27, 33–40, 45, 47–48, 50–52, 60–66 passim, 71–81 passim, 84–91, 104, 133–135 passim, 139–140, 144– 145, 151, 164, 172, 178–179, 181, 192, 196, 201–207, 215, 221–222, 225, 229, 235, 238–239, 242, 246–248 Tragedy: 45, 48, 50, 55, 57, 61, 65–66, 80, 88, 132, 141, 144 Transmission: 1, 4–5, 7, 14, 18, 72 n. 4, 86– 87, 91, 135,159, 172–173, 183, 185 n. 5, 205–207, 224–226, 229, 230 Trial: 76–78, 90, 95, 99–100, 102–104, 106, 109 Tribunal: 76, 84 n. 52, 90, 98, 104 Troezen, Troezenian: 73–92 passim Ugarit, Ugaritic: 4, 11–13, 16, 25 War Scroll (1QM): 20 n. 45, 25 Water (cultural value and ritual use of): 4, 75, 79 and n. 24, 82, 163 n. 32, 235–249 passim Weber, Weberian: 1, 6, 8, 172–174 West Semitic: 9, 12, 16, 20, 22, 25 Wisdom: 13, 22, 24, 134–135, 138, 145, 190 Writing, written: 3–5, 24, 35, 47–50, 52, 87, 95–97, 99, 101–106, 108, 135, 148–150, 170–172, 176–177, 179–180, 184, 201– 208, 213, 215, 222, 224, 226, 228, 230 Yahad (community): 7, 19, 20–26; see also ‘Qumran’ Zahlenrätsel: 132

Contributors Maurizio Bettini is Professor of Classical Philology at the Università degli Studi di Siena, Italy, and a regular Visiting Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of California, Berkeley; email: [email protected] Jonathan Ben-Dov is Senior Lecturer and the George and Florence Wise chair of Judaism in Antiquity at the Department of Jewish History and Bible, University of Haifa, Israel; email: [email protected] Jonathan Cahana is a postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Theology at Aarhus University, Denmark; email: [email protected] Pietro De Laurentis is Research Fellow and Lecturer of Chinese Philology at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”; email: [email protected] Roberta Denaro is Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale”; email: [email protected] Andrea Ercolani is Research Fellow at the Istituto di Studi sul Mediterraneo Antico (ISMA) of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR); email: andrea. [email protected] Margalit Finkelberg is Professor Emerita at the Department of Classics of Tel Aviv University, Israel; email: [email protected] Robert Fowler is Henry Overton Wills Professor of Greek in the University of Bristol; email: [email protected] Manuela Giordano is Research Fellow and Lecturer of Ancient Greek Literature at the Università della Calabria; email: [email protected] Emanuele Greco is Professor of Classical Archaeology at the Università di Napoli “L’Orientale” and Director of the Italian School of Archaeology at Athens; email: [email protected]; [email protected] Salvatore Monda is Associate Professor of Latin Language and Literature at the Università degli Studi del Molise (Italy); email: [email protected]

278 | Contributors

Luca Pucci is teacher of Greek and Latin at “Liceo Classico Internazionale – Istituto Sociale Torino”; email: [email protected] Guy Stroumsa is Martin Buber Professor Emeritus of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Professor Emeritus of the Study of the Abrahamic Religions at the University of Oxford; email: guy.stroumsa@mail. huji.ac.il Andrea Taddei is Research Fellow and Lecturer of Ancient Greek Literature at the Università di Pisa; email: [email protected] Vito Teti is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the Università della Calabria; email: [email protected]